It's never easy being a first, shoes many Academy Award nominees and winners have filled. Over the last decade, the Academy Awards have faced controversy in multiple facets as industry professionals and moviegoers have called out the institution for lack of diversity.
These Oscar winners may be the first in their respective categories, gender, or ethnicities, but they won't be the last as a new generation of filmmakers brings to life new and existing talent to the forefront. Whether it's behind the camera, in the writing room, in front of the camera, or beyond, these winners broke boundaries set before them, clearing a path for future performers and professionals to succeed.
Kobe Bryant
Breaking two boundaries in 2017, Kobe Bryant's Dear Basketball, an animated short, earned him his only Oscar nomination and win. Written and voiced by Bryant, the animated film is a retelling of his poem of the same name. Bryant shared the win with director Glen Keane, but his win would make him the first African American to win for Best Animated Short.
A basketball legend, Bryant also became the first former professional athlete to be nominated and win an Oscar in any category. After his tragic death in 2020, Bryant was included in the 92nd Oscars In Memoriam, his name the first to appear during Billie Eilish's performance.
Chloé Zhao
The second-ever woman to win Best Directing, Chloé Zhao is the first woman of color to win. She took home the Oscar in 2021 for the emotional masterpiece, Nomadland. Zhao's win comes over a decade after Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker, with 2022's Oscars awarding the directing award to a woman for the second-straight year to Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog.
In the same year, Zhao would also be the first woman to be nominated in four Oscar categories within the same year for Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture in addition to Best Director. Of its six total nominations, Nomadland took home three total awards for Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Picture. After her successful Oscar run, Zhao went on to add Marvel Director to her list of accolades with Eternals premiering later in 2021.
'Parasite'
An instant hit, Parasite took the cinematic world by storm in 2019, and the 2020 Oscars reflected that. The South Korean drama/thriller was the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture in the history of the awards. Nominated for six total awards, Parasite took home four: Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.
Before its Oscar win, the film took home the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. The film follows a poverty-stricken family trying to make ends meet by any means. One by one, each member manipulates their way into an elite family's household posing as various employees until it all comes crashing down.
Jordan Peele
When sketch-comedy legend Jordan Peele announced his directorial debut with a horror film, the moviegoers had no idea what was coming next. Get Out redefined the genre and what it means to make highly-acclaimed horror. Jaws went on to drop when the film was nominated for four Oscars in 2018. Peele would break two boundaries that year besides the genre-jumping career move.
Peele would be the first African American to win for Best Original Screenplay, also becoming the first African American to be nominated for producing, directing, and writing in the same year with the film's additional Best Director and Best Picture nominations. Peele's success in horror would continue with Us in 2019 and his third horror feature Nope premiering summer of 2022.
Hildur Guðnadóttir
The first woman to win since 1997, Hildur Guðnadóttir took home the Oscar in 2020 for Best Original Score for her compositions in Joker. Her win contributed to the film's two overall wins of its eleven nominations. While she is not the first woman to win the award, she's the first woman to win for a dramatic score. The category's previous winners were Rachel Portman for Emma and Anne Dudley for The Fully Monty won respectively in the 90s for composing for comedy, and Marilyn Bergman for a musical in 1983 with Yentl.
The splitting of Oscar scoring categories has gone back and forth over the 94-year history. While the category of Academy Award for Best Original Musical still exists, it has remained inactive due to a lack of submissions to cause the Music Branch Executive Committee of the Academy to enact it.
'CODA'
A dark horse, CODA won the 2022 Best Picture award, making history as the first film produced by a streaming service (Apple Original Films by Apple TV+) to win Best Picture. Following the tale of a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), the film centers are Ruby (Emilia Jones) as she struggles to decide her future to pursue college or stick around to help her family's troubled fishing business.
The film would also nab another historic win as Troy Kotsur would walk away with Best Supporting Actor, only the second deaf performer to win with his co-star Marlee Matlin the first winner in 1987. CODA took home wins for all three of its nominations, the third winner being Sian Heder for Best Adapted Screenplay. It may be the first streaming service film to win the final award of the night, but it won't be the last.
Alfonso Cuarón
No stranger to Oscar nominations, Alfonso Cuarón carries ten nominations throughout his career so far, with his first in 2003. He would break boundaries in 2014 with his win for Best Director with Gravity. His first nomination and win for the award would establish his place in history as the first man of Mexican descent to win.
Gravity would take home seven of its ten nominations that year. The space thriller earned Cuarón three nominations along with Best Picture and Best Film Editing (which Cuarón also won). He would go on to win again in 2019 for directing Roma, a black and white film paying homage to his childhood, produced by Netflix.
'Black Panther'
All Marvel movies have a special characteristic about them, but Black Panther tops them all by bringing authentic diversity to not just the superhero genre, but to the 2019 Oscars. Two women would make history with their work on the comic book film, securing two of the film's three wins with seven nominations overall.
Ruth E. Carter would take home the Oscar for Best Costume Design, her third overall nomination. Her win establishes her as the first African American woman to do so. She was previously nominated for Amistad and Malcolm X in the same category. The second historic win for the film landed in the hands of Hannah Beachler for Best Production Design. She is the first African American woman to be nominated for and win. It is her first and only nomination and win, which she shares with Jay Hart.
Anita from 'West Side Story'
Of its seven nominations, 2021's remake of West Side Story took home won Oscar. The award went home in the hands of Ariana DeBose for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Anita. Sixty years earlier, this category was awarded to the Rita Moreno, the original Anita in 1961.
Six decades apart, DeBose and Moreno are the only female duo to win the same Oscar for playing the same character. DeBose also made history with her 2022 win as the first openly queer woman of color to win an Oscar and be nominated. The win marks DeBose's first nomination and win, but her loyal fans are confident it won't be her last.
Rami Malek
Bringing iconic musicians to life is no easy task, one that Rami Malek didn't shy from. In 2018's biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, Malek embodied the mustache and masterful voice of Queen legend Freddie Mercury. The film would win four of its five nominations at the 91st Academy Awards.
Of those wins, Malek would walk away with Best Actor, making him the first actor of Arabic heritage to win that category. Born to Egyptian immigrants, Malek is best known for his role in the TV series, Mr. Robot for which he earned a 2016 Emmy. Since Malek's Oscar win, he's stepped opposite acting legends like Denzel Washington in The Little Things, and starred as a James Bond villain in the most recent franchise installment No Time to Die.