From her early role as a child assassin in The Professional to her real-life stint at Harvard to her Oscar-winning performance in Black Swan, Natalie Portman has actively sought out professional challenges.

Nan Goldin has used her photography to honor both the courage and the gritty reality of subjects ranging from drag queens to new parents.

With her blockbuster hits Private Benjamin and Baby Boom, Nancy Meyers defied the conventional wisdom that a movie centered on a woman’s story wouldn’t draw audiences.

Jill Soloway’s mixture of curiosity and empathy for unusual characters, from funeral directors to people suffering from multiple personality disorder, earned her multiple Emmy awards for her creation of Transparent.

A folklorist by training, Susan Levitas has used documentary and feature films to capture unexpected facets of the cultural history of the American South, from blues musicians in Washington to Jewish boxers in Savannah.

A Jewish writer exploring her outsider identity in largely Catholic Mexico, Sabina Berman was the first writer to win the Mexican Theater Prize four times.

Michal Bat-Adam, the first Israeli woman director of feature films, has been hailed for her sensitive and nuanced portrayals of mental illness and women’s inner lives.

Gila Almagor earned acclaim as a writer, actress, and filmmaker for her autobiographical Summer of Aviya in 1988, but when critics questioned details of her story, she embraced the criticism and went on to create a sequel, 1995’s Under the Domim Tree.

Julie Taymor’s bold, experimental style in directing plays and films has led to two Tonys (including the first Best Director Tony won by a woman) and an Emmy.