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125 items
Happy Hour
ハッピーアワーOver five hours and seventeen minutes, Ryusuke Hamaguchi follows four women approaching forty in Kobe as friendship, marriage, work and departure test what it takes to speak honestly and truly hear one another.
- Female Friendship
- Marriage Critique
- Emotional Labor
3000 Nights
3000 LaylaMai Masri’s prison drama follows a Palestinian teacher who gives birth in Israeli custody, locating motherhood, collective resistance, and political imprisonment within the same carceral space.
- Arab Feminism
- Carceral Feminism
- War and Peace
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Bel Powley is a breakout as 15-year-old Minnie, a budding cartoonist and soon-to-be harlot (her word, not ours). Marielle Heller's exuberant journey through the teenage psyche has more penis drawings than a Seth Rogen comedy, and the best part? It doesn't judge.
- Female Desire
- Sexual Liberation
- Bodily Autonomy
Mustang
Early summer. In a village in northern Turkey, Lale and her four sisters are walking home from school, playing innocently with some boys. The immorality of their play sets off a scandal that has unexpected consequences. The family home is progressively transformed into a prison; instruction in homemaking substitutes for school, and marriages begin to be arranged. The five sisters who share a common passion for freedom, find ways of getting around the constraints imposed on them.
- Family Liberation
- Patriarchy Critique
- Female Friendship
Mad Max: Fury Road
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Imperator Furiosa leads a group of women escaping the tyrannical rule of Immortan Joe in search of a promised land of freedom. This action film places female resistance and sisterhood at the heart of a traditionally male-dominated genre.
- Radical Feminism
- Bodily Autonomy
- Patriarchy Critique
The Second Mother
Que Horas Ela Volta?This Brazilian drama uses the conflict between a live-in housekeeper, her daughter, and an employer's family to expose domestic labor, separated motherhood, class boundaries, and women's dignity.
- Domestic Labor
- Care Economy
- Class and Gender
Wild
A biographical drama adapted from Cheryl Strayed's memoir, starring Reese Witherspoon as a woman who hikes the Pacific Crest Trail alone. This 2014 film deeply explores themes of female self-redemption, identity reconstruction, and independent survival in a male-dominated world.
- Family Liberation
- Bodily Autonomy
- Anti-Sexual Violence
The Keeping Room
At the end of the American Civil War, three women living alone on a desolate Southern farm must fight to defend themselves against two rogue soldiers who have broken off from the Union Army. This revisionist feminist western reexamines the brutality of war from a female perspective, exploring complex themes of women's self-defense rights, racial relations, and survival instincts.
- Anti-Sexual Violence
- Race and Gender
- Historical Context
The Babadook
A widowed single mother Amelia and her young son confront the mysterious terror creature Babadook in their home. This Australian psychological horror film breaks traditional gender stereotypes in horror cinema, exploring profound themes of loss, grief, maternal stress, and women's inner darkness from a mother's perspective.
- Motherhood Critique
- Mental Health
- Family Liberation
Belle
Based on the true story of 18th-century historical figure Dido Elizabeth Belle, this costume drama follows a mixed-race aristocratic woman navigating her place in British high society while fighting for justice amid intersecting racism and sexism. The film explores complex themes of race, class, gender intersectionality, and female agency.
- Race and Gender
- Intersectional Feminism
- Historical Context
In a World...
Written, directed, produced, and starred in by Lake Bell, In a World... charts the efforts of a talented vocal coach with a husky cadence to break into the male-dominated world of movie trailer voice-overs.
- Workplace Equality
- Glass Ceiling
- Media Representation Critique
Wadjda
10-year-old Saudi girl Wadjda dreams of owning a green bicycle to race with her male friend Abdullah. This groundbreaking work is the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia and the first directed by a Saudi woman, exploring complex themes of female freedom, social constraints, and cultural transformation through a girl's desire for a bicycle.
- Gender Norms
- Cultural Identity
- Family Liberation
Soongava: Dance of the Orchids
Nepal’s pioneering lesbian feature follows a dancer and her lover confronting arranged marriage, family authority, and the scarcity of social space in which queer intimacy can become ordinary life.
- South Asian Feminism
- Lesbian Feminism
- Queer Theory
Circumstance
Director Maryam Keshavarz's coming-of-age drama focuses on a wealthy Iranian family, particularly headstrong teenager Atafeh whose relationship with her friend Shireen evolves from friendship into romance and even eroticism, alongside her brother's journey from recovering drug addict to religious extremist. This vibrant exploration of sexual rebellion showcases high school protagonists confronting patriarchal oppression, culminating in a penetrating examination of women's treatment under Iranian theocracy.
- Queer Theory
- Anti-Feminism Studies
- Religious Patriarchy Critique
I Will Follow
If you can't get something done, do it yourself. Ava DuVernay took this adage to heart and wrote, directed, produced, and financed this family drama about a woman grieving the death of a loved one. It made just a blip on the box office radar, but her debut feature offers a peek at the woman behind the camera.
- Black Feminism
- Economic Empowerment
- Feminist Art
Jennifer's Body
High school cheerleader Jennifer becomes possessed by a demon after being sacrificed by a male band seeking fame, then begins hunting the town's men. This initially misunderstood horror-comedy gained critical reappraisal during the MeToo era, recognized as a feminist horror film ahead of its time that explores toxic masculinity, complex female friendship, and gender violence under patriarchy.
- Anti-Sexual Violence
- Female Friendship
- Queer Feminism
The Milk of Sorrow
La teta asustadaThrough an Indigenous Peruvian woman living with inherited fear, the film examines how wartime sexual violence survives in bodies, households, music, and unequal relations of service.
- Latin American Feminism
- Indigenous Feminism
- Trauma and Healing
Wendy and Lucy
Director Kelly Reichardt recruits Michelle Williams for her character study mapping out the evolution of homelessness and destitution. With nothing but her pup Lucy, Williams's Wendy fights to survive in a recession-era landscape. Like all of Reichardt's characters, she is flawed, willful, and above all, strong.
- Economic Empowerment
- Mental Resilience
- Feminist Art
Persepolis
Based on Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel, this black-and-white animated film tells the story of an Iranian girl's coming-of-age before and after the Islamic Revolution, profoundly exploring women's survival and resistance under religious totalitarianism.
- Decolonial Feminism
- Religious Patriarchy Critique
- Bodily Autonomy
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zileIn 1987 Romania under Ceaușescu's dictatorship, college roommate Otilia helps pregnant Găbița seek an illegal abortion. This harsh and brutal realist masterpiece reveals the state's control over women's bodies and women's brave resistance for reproductive autonomy within the span of one night.
- Abortion Rights
- Reproductive Autonomy
- Historical Context
Moolaadé
Four girls threatened with cutting seek sanctuary from Collé, turning one courtyard into a conflict over women’s authority, collective resistance, and the power to redefine tradition.
- African Feminism
- Anti-Sexual Violence
- Bodily Autonomy
Iron Jawed Angels
Katja von Garnier made this Golden Globe winner, about the women who risked their lives for the suffrage movement. It stars Hilary Swank, Anjelica Huston, and Vera Farmiga.
- First Wave Feminism
- Political Participation
- Women's Rights
Frida
Frida Kahlo's famous self-portrait, with that thick unibrow and unwaxed upper lip, has become an iconic symbol of feminism. Julie Taymor's biopic takes us behind the canvas to reveal the artist, the activist, the revolutionary. And knowing what we do now about lead actor Salma Hayek's off-screen experience, this film proves an even greater victory.
- Cultural Identity
- Feminist Art
- Bodily Autonomy
Real Women Have Curves
18-year-old Mexican-American Ana García struggles between her college dreams and traditional family expectations. This groundbreaking independent film explores themes of body autonomy, cultural identity, class mobility, and intergenerational conflict through a Latina lens, becoming a milestone in the body positivity movement and Latina feminist cinema.
- Intersectional Feminism
- Bodily Autonomy
- Media Representation Critique