Her career is a reminder that being a movie star can mean more than opening weekend numbers. She won an Oscar for Girl, Interrupted, then became a global box-office fixture through Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and later Maleficent, balancing blockbuster visibility with riskier choices. Behind the camera, she moved into directing with films like Unbroken and First They Killed My Father, expanding her influence beyond acting. And her long humanitarian work with the UN refugee agency – first as a Goodwill Ambassador, later as a Special Envoy – changed how Hollywood talks about activism when it’s treated as a sustained commitment, not a red-carpet cause. | © Columbia Pictures
Network TV looks different because she proved audiences would show up – weekly, obsessively – for smart, messy, character-first drama led by women and anchored by diverse casts. With Grey’s Anatomy as the cornerstone, she turned primetime into appointment viewing again, then expanded the brand through Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. Moving that same engine to streaming with Shondaland projects like Bridgerton didn’t just follow the industry shift; it helped define it. | © Shonda Rhimes
She didn’t just glide through Hollywood’s Golden Age – she fought it when it tried to keep her in a box. After becoming a household name with swashbucklers like The Adventures of Robin Hood and prestige classics like Gone with the Wind, she pushed for better roles and helped change how studios treated contracted stars. The result was a second act built on real complexity, including Oscar-winning turns in To Each His Own and The Heiress. | © Olivia de Havilland
If Hollywood ever had a patron saint of stubborn independence, it’s her – sharp-tongued, unapologetic, and famously uninterested in being “likable” on command. She rewrote the rules for what a leading woman could be, playing ambitious equals rather than decorative love interests, and she did it across decades in films like The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The Academy didn’t just reward her once: she remains the record-holder with four Best Actress Oscars, an achievement that still reads like a dare to everyone else. | © Katharine Hepburn
Long before “representation” became a marketing line, she was already dealing with its harsh reality: being famous, talented, and still treated as “other” by an industry built on stereotypes. She broke through in the silent era with The Toll of the Sea and The Thief of Bagdad, then made a mark in sound films like Shanghai Express – all while being denied the kind of leading roles routinely handed to white actresses. Her career, including time working in Europe, exposed Hollywood’s blind spots in real time and forced the conversation forward. | © Netflix
She made a choice that shaped everything: no cheapened portrayals, no easy stereotypes, no roles that asked her to shrink. That insistence mattered, especially when opportunities for Black actresses were routinely limited, and it’s why projects like Sounder and the landmark TV film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman hit with such force. Her performances carried dignity without sanding off anger, and they helped open space for more nuanced stories on screen – not as exceptions, but as expectations. | © Island Pictures
Her impact is partly about range – and partly about refusing to be sorted into a single lane. She could shatter hearts in The Color Purple, steal scenes (and win an Oscar) in Ghost, and then turn around and anchor a pop-culture juggernaut like Sister Act without blinking. Off-screen, she became a rare entertainment institution: a performer with true cross-medium power, including EGOT status and a long-running presence on The View. That kind of career forces Hollywood to widen its definition of “movie star.” | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Her 2002 Best Actress win for Monster’s Ball is still one of the clearest “before and after” moments in modern awards history – the first time a Black woman took that particular Oscar home. She’d already proven blockbuster heat with X-Men and Die Another Day, but that award made a bigger point about who Hollywood is willing to center when the material turns serious. The uncomfortable part is what came next: even that milestone didn’t magically fix the industry, and she remains the only Black Best Actress winner – a fact that turns her breakthrough into both celebration and indictment. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Action cinema has plenty of icons, but very few who changed the global conversation the way she did – first by proving physical skill and charisma could carry a movie, then by showing that stardom doesn’t have an expiration date. After becoming synonymous with Hong Kong action and crossing into Hollywood through films like Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, she kept expanding the idea of what leading roles could look like. Her historic Best Actress Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once wasn’t a “moment”; it was a verdict on decades of work. | © Majestic Film
Her stardom came with a cruel catch: Hollywood wanted the glamour, but it didn’t want to fully make room for her. Dorothy Dandridge became a sensation with Carmen Jones, and the industry had to acknowledge what it couldn’t ignore – she became the first Black woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. That single fact still echoes because it arrived so early and was followed by so much resistance to change. With films like Island in the Sun and Porgy and Bess, she exposed the gap between talent and opportunity in a way Hollywood couldn’t keep quiet forever. | © Prime Video
Not many actors can make a pause feel louder than a monologue, but that’s been her signature from the start. Viola Davis broke through in films like Doubt and The Help, then delivered a career-defining gut punch in Fences, which earned her the Oscar. On TV, How to Get Away with Murder changed the look of prestige network drama by putting a dark, complicated Black woman at the center and trusting audiences to follow. She’s also an EGOT winner, a rare kind of proof that her impact isn’t tied to one lane. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Hollywood has always loved imported glamour, but Sophia Loren arrived with something sharper than sheen: authority. Her work with directors like Vittorio De Sica made it obvious she wasn’t a “crossover” curiosity – she was the main event, especially in Two Women, which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress for an Italian-language performance (a historic first). Films like Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and Marriage Italian Style showed how easily she could switch from comedy to devastation without changing her temperature. She helped force the idea that international stardom wasn’t separate from serious acting – it could be the same thing. | © Universal Pictures
If reinvention were a competitive sport, she’d have a dynasty. Jane Fonda went from early stardom to heavyweight dramatic credibility, winning Best Actress Oscars for Klute and Coming Home while choosing projects that felt plugged into the world outside the studio gates. The China Syndrome is the kind of tense, adult mainstream film Hollywood makes less often now, and she helped prove it could be commercially vital. Then she pivoted again – fitness tapes became a cultural earthquake, and later she returned to the spotlight with Grace and Frankie. She changed Hollywood by refusing to stay in one version of herself. | © Universal Studios
Modern romantic comedy owes a lot to people who could make chaos look effortless, and Carole Lombard was a master of that trick. In screwball classics like My Man Godfrey, her timing was the weapon – sharp, unpredictable, and never sweet in a boring way. She also helped prove that a leading woman could drive comedy without being the “prize” at the end of it. Then her story took a different turn: she died at 33 in a 1942 plane crash while returning from a war bond tour, and Hollywood turned her into a symbol of both stardom and sacrifice. Even in absence, she shaped the era’s mythology. | © Carole Lombard
At some point, she stopped being “the best of her generation” and became the yardstick Hollywood keeps reaching for. The wins alone tell a story – Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, The Iron Lady – but the real shift is how she made range feel normal rather than exceptional. One year she’s playing power with a whisper, the next she’s going full comedic precision in something like The Devil Wears Prada, and it all still feels grounded. She also holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, which quietly explains her influence: she didn’t just raise the bar, she lived up there. | © Universal Pictures
Some careers fade when the industry moves on; hers fought back. Joan Crawford built herself into a major MGM star, then pulled off one of Hollywood’s great comebacks by leaving that comfort zone and winning the Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce. What mattered wasn’t only the trophy – it was the message: a leading woman could reshape her image on her own terms, even after the system tried to file her away. Later films like Johnny Guitar and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? leaned into sharper edges, and she stayed culturally loud long after her peers went quiet. Even her visibility in corporate America through Pepsi was unusual for a classic-era actress, widening the idea of where “Hollywood power” could sit. | © Warner Bros.
There’s a reason her image still feels like shorthand for classic Hollywood – it’s not just beauty, it’s a very specific kind of intelligence on camera. She won Best Actress for Roman Holiday and followed it with films that practically defined sophisticated studio-era romance: Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady. But she also changed the industry’s idea of what “iconic” could mean by what she did off-screen later. Her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador became a major part of her legacy, and it helped normalize the idea that a movie star could turn global attention into real-world advocacy without it feeling like a side hobby. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Nobody did defiance like she did, and the industry felt it in real time. She forced studios to take sharper, less flattering roles seriously – whether it was the fury of Jezebel, the bruised pride of Now, Voyager, or the deliciously poisonous ambition of All About Eve. Davis won two Best Actress Oscars (Dangerous and Jezebel) and stacked up nominations at a pace that turned “women’s pictures” into awards heavyweights. Even her battles with the system mattered: she pushed back on weak material, became the first female president of the Academy (briefly), and made “difficult” a badge of power. | © Bette Davis
Hollywood rarely forgave scandal back then, yet she managed to outlast it – and then some. After becoming a symbol of classic screen romance in Casablanca, she proved her range with suspense and psychological drama in Notorious and Gaslight, winning her first Oscar for the latter. Her decision to work (and fall in love) with Roberto Rossellini detonated her “perfect star” image, but it also helped normalize a bolder, more artist-driven career path. Two more Oscars followed, sealing a legacy built on talent, not approval. | © 20th Century Studios
It’s hard to explain modern celebrity without going back to the silent era and finding her fingerprints everywhere. As “America’s Sweetheart,” she wasn’t simply popular – she was powerful, turning her screen persona into a brand before Hollywood had the language for it. The business move that changed everything came in 1919, when she co-founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith, giving artists a way to control their work and profits. She also won an Oscar for Coquette, proving she could transition with the times while reshaping the rules. | © Mary Pickford
Before Hollywood loved the phrase “multi-hyphenate,” she was already doing the job of several people at once – and doing it loudly. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Funny Girl, then kept building a film career that could swing from screwball charm (What’s Up, Doc?) to aching romance (The Way We Were). The real industry jolt came with Yentl, where she wrote, produced, directed, and starred – a level of control women were rarely given on major studio projects. She didn’t just succeed inside the machine; she showed she could operate it. | © Columbia Pictures
The blueprint for the modern female action hero doesn’t make sense without her. When Alien introduced Ellen Ripley, it quietly rewired what audiences would accept as “tough” and “lead” in the same character, and Aliens turned that into full-on mythmaking. She then proved it wasn’t a one-note legacy with radically different showcases like Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl – performances that earned her Oscar nominations and, in the same year, two Golden Globes. Add Ghostbusters to the résumé and you get a career that expanded what women were allowed to do in mainstream genres without apology. | © 20th Century Studios
Mystique can be manufactured, but hers felt elemental – and the industry chased that magic for decades. She became an MGM phenomenon in silent films, then survived the sound transition with Anna Christie, sold with the now-legendary “Garbo talks” hype. Titles like Grand Hotel, Camille, and Ninotchka turned her into an international idea of stardom: untouchable, modern, slightly tragic. By stepping away early and refusing the usual Hollywood access, she helped invent a new kind of fame – one built as much on absence as presence – later honored with an Academy Honorary Award. | © TCM
Few careers show Hollywood’s appetite for spectacle – and its respect for raw talent – quite like hers. She started as a child star, grew into a box-office titan, and then delivered the kind of adult performances that demanded serious recognition, winning Best Actress Oscars for BUtterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Cleopatra made her the face of lavish studio excess and the center of relentless tabloid attention, but she never let the noise erase the work. Later, she redirected her fame toward HIV/AIDS activism, helping launch major fundraising and support efforts when public stigma was still brutal, and that changed what celebrity influence could look like. | © Touchstone Pictures
The world remembers the image – the dress, the blonde, the flashbulbs – but her real impact comes from how she fought to be taken seriously inside that image. She could turn comedy into something electric in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot (which won her a Golden Globe), then pivot into more grounded work like Bus Stop and The Misfits. The power move was business: she founded Marilyn Monroe Productions in the mid-1950s, challenging the studio system that tried to keep her in disposable roles. Even her vulnerabilities became part of the conversation Hollywood still has about fame, control, and what it costs to be “the symbol.” | © United Artists
Hollywood didn’t become what it is by accident – it was shaped, challenged, and repeatedly reinvented by women who refused to play the parts they were handed. Some changed the screen; others changed the rules behind it.
These are the names and careers that left permanent fingerprints on the film industry – across acting, directing, writing, producing, and everything in between. If you’re searching for the women who changed Hollywood forever, start here.
