Ava DuVernay
Filmmaker
DuVernay may be the most relevant director of 2020. Her body of work includes Selma, When They See Us—about the Central Park Five—and 13th, her 2016 documentary about mass incarceration. (Viewership of the Netflix doc skyrocketed in the three weeks following George Floyd’s murder.) This year she launched the online social justice course Array 101, as well as LEAP, a fund for artists whose work explores police violence.