A Full Timeline Of Women’s First Oscars Wins By Category

Sinners cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw made Oscars history last night. She’s the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and on receiving the accolade, she invited women in the audience to stand with her.

Of course, plenty of other women have won in non-gendered Oscars categories (ie, not “best actress,” which, of course, women have always won).

Cassandra Kulukundis, for instance, just won the new Best Casting Oscar category for One Battle After Another; Kate Hawley snagged the Costume Design win for Frankenstein, too.

But given that the Oscars have been running for almost a hundred years, a woman winning in this specific category may seem a little, well, late.

In fact, the first woman to even be nominated for best cinematography – Rachel Morrison, whom Arkapaw shouted out in her speech – reached the coveted status in 2018.

The American Society of Cinematographers didn’t accept its first woman member until 1979, 60 years after it was founded.

Women made up 7% of cinematographers working in the top 100 films in 2025, compared to 28% of producers, 20% of writers, and 10% of directors. In the same year, 75% of the top-grossing 250 films employed 10 or more men in “pivotal behind-the-scenes roles”, while only 7% did the same for women.

With that in mind, it might not be so shocking to learn that many other non-gendered categories were later to award women than you might realise.

In order of oldest to most recent, here are the first years in which a woman won a non-gendered Oscars category:

• Best Original Screenplay (1930) – Frances Marion – The Big House

• Best Adapted Screenplay (1933) – Sarah Y Mason – Little Women

• Best Original Song (1936) – Dorothy Fields – The Way You Look Tonight’s ‘Swing Time’

• Best Film Editing (1940) – Anne Bauchens – North West Mounted Police

• Best Costume Design (1948) – Dorothy Jeakins Karinska – Joan of Arc

• Best Production Design (1948) – Carmen Dillon – Hamlet

• Best Documentary Feature (1955) – Nancy Hamilton – Helen Keller in Her Story

• Best Short Film (Animated) (1962) – Faith Hubley – The Hole

• Best Short Film (Live Action) (1969) – Joan Keller Stern – The Magic Machines

• Best Documentary Short Subject (1972) – Martina Huguenot van der Linden – This Tiny World

• Best Picture (1973) – Julia Philips – The Sting

• Best Makeup and Hairstyling (1982) – Sarah Monzani and Michèle Burke – Quest for Fire

• Best Original Score (1983) – Marilyn Bergman – Yentl

• Best Sound Editing (1984) – Kay Rose – The River

• Best Visual Effects (1986) – Suzanne M. Benson – Aliens

• Best International Feature Film (1995) – Marleen Gorris – Antonia’s Line

• Best Director (2008) – Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker

• Best Sound (2010) – Lora Hirschberg – Inception

• Best Animated Feature (2012) – Brenda Chapman – Brave

• Best Cinematography (2026) – Autumn Durald Arkapaw – Sinners.