Greta Gerwig — Barbie ($1.4 Billion)

Gerwig went from mumblecore indie actress (Frances Ha, Mistress America) to directing Lady Bird (5 Oscar nominations), Little Women ($218 million worldwide), and then Barbie — which grossed $1.44 billion and became the highest-grossing film directed by a woman in history. She co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach and turned a plastic doll into a feminist treatise that made Warner Bros. over a billion dollars. Margot Robbie singing "Push" while existentially spiraling shouldn't work, but Gerwig made it work at a $1.4 billion scale. The most commercially successful artistic pivot in modern cinema.