If you’re still on a filmgoing mood after this year’s Oscars, why not celebrate Women’s Month with a movie night of films directed by brilliant women storytellers?
Since the days of pioneers like Alice Guy-Blaché (widely considered by historians to be the first female filmmaker) and Lina Wertmüller (the first female director nominated for an Academy Award), many women have followed in their footsteps, taking up the helm as filmmakers and crafting incredible works of cinema. Here are a few women-led films we recommend you check out this Women’s Month—or any other time of the year, really.
READ ALSO: Her Story: Six Films Directed By Women You Don’t Want To Miss This Awards Season
Marie Antoinette (2006)
After Sofia Coppola became the third woman to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar for Lost in Translation (2003), she went on to direct the historical drama Marie Antoinette (2006). Retelling the story of the 18th century Queen of France, the film was based on the 2001 biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser.
The movie stars Kirsten Dunst as the titular queen, alongside Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne, Molly Shannon, and Jamie Dornan (in his feature film debut). At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Marie Antoinette competed for the Palme d’Or. The following year, it won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design at the 79th Academy Awards.
Despite winning a major industry award, Marie Antoinette was met with mixed critical reviews and poor box office receipts. Coppola also noted that making the film was difficult and it made her consider quitting directing. The film has since garnered a cult following and a more positive reputation in retrospect. “It was a flop. So the fact that it’s lived on and people talk about it has been really satisfying because so much work went into it. It makes me happy that now it’s kind of found its way and people enjoy it,” Coppola said.
Persepolis (2007)
Written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, Persepolis is a poignant coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The film is based on Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, first released between 2000 and 2003.
At the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the film co-won the Jury Prize, alongside Silent Light. It was then selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 80th Academy Awards, making Satrapi the first woman to be nominated in that category.
In an article titled “Why I Wrote Persepolis,” Satrapi said, “It’s so rewarding to see people at my book signings who never read graphic novels. They say that when they read mine, they became more interested in the subject. If Persepolis opens people’s eyes, I feel successful.”
Lingua Franca (2019)
Written, produced, and directed by Filipina filmmaker-actress Isabel Sandoval, Lingua Franca is her first feature film following her gender affirmation. “Halfway through writing the screenplay, Trump got elected, and just like any other minority living in the US at that time I was feeling really anxious and tense and vulnerable about my situation. I think those two things, me transitioning and being an immigrant in Trump’s America, really influenced the premise of Lingua Franca,” Sandoval said in an interview.
The story follows Olivia, an undocumented Filipina trans woman who works as a caregiver to Olga, an elderly Russian-Jewish woman in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. While living in fear of deportation and trying to secure legal status to work in the US, she gets into a romantic relationship with her client’s grandson, Alex.
After premiering at the Venice Days sidebar of the 76th Venice International Film Festival, the film received nominations for the John Cassavetes Award at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards and Outstanding Film – Limited Release at the 32nd GLAAD Media Awards.
Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (2019)
Directed by Kim Do-young, the 2019 film Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 is based on the popular novel of the same name by Cho Nam-joo. “It was a story that I wanted to tell so I was thankful that it was offered to me as my directorial debut,” Kim told Forbes. “The original novel talks about the life of a woman named Kim Ji-young from her childhood and about the anxious and unfair experiences she had throughout her life.”
Starring Jung Yu-mi and Gong Yoo, the film tells the story of Ji-young, a name shared by many South Koreans born in the same time period. While she initially had professional success, she is later pressured to become a stay-at-home mom, feeling trapped and unfulfilled while also suffering from postpartum depression. She later develops unusual symptoms, as if becoming briefly possessed by the personality of her mother or late grandmother.
The film then takes on an altered ending, with Kim wanting to give the audience a more hopeful message, as opposed to the bitterness she felt after reading the novel. In the same interview, she explains, “I thought it would be nice if the movie could provide the opportunity for people to look around themselves. What kind of air and environment are women in?”
The Half of It (2020)
Netflix’s The Half of It is a coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Alice Wu. The film follows three characters (played by Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, and Alexxis Lemire), who are entangled in a love triangle, when Lewis’s character Ellie Chu helps the school jock write love letters to the girl they’re both interested in.
The Half of It was released 15 years after Wu’s directorial debut, which also featured a queer Chinese American protagonist. The film went on to win the top prize at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival and was also nominated for Best Screenplay at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards and for Outstanding Film – Limited Release at the 32nd GLAAD Media Awards.
“I’m actually filled with fear this very second as the film is about to come out,” Wu told NPR ahead of her movie’s release. “I work out things in my life through my fiction. Fiction allows me to sort of hide a little bit behind my characters… Here’s these deeply flawed characters that have a lot of the flaws I do, but somehow they end up OK. Somehow, they end up growing. Maybe that’s a little bit of my desire to have that in my life and to figure out how to do that.”
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Before her recent viral film Saltburn (2023), Emerald Fennell was nominated for the Best Director Oscar for Promising Young Woman, starring Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Chris Lowell, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, and Connie Britton.
The film follows Cassie (Mulligan), who was known in college as a promising young woman, until a traumatic event throws her life off track. Now a medical school dropout living a double life, she’ll stop at nothing to exact her own flavor of vengeance.
At the 93rd Academy Awards, Promising Young Woman was nominated in five categories and won Best Original Screenplay. Fennell thanked the cast and crew who made the film in 23 days and “brought their complete genius and love and humor to it,” while she herself was seven months pregnant during the shoot.
Banner image via X @PromisingFilm.
