Our Favorite Movies Directed By Women Streaming Now
With a little help from TWO guest contributors!
March is Women’s History Month so it seemed like the perfect time to shine a light exclusively on female filmmakers. However, this isn’t just any old DYLA. This week we have TWO guest contributors, film critics Katie Carter and Taylor Blake!
Katie and Taylor were kind enough to join us as we recommend movies directed by women that you can find streaming right now. Make sure you check out the long list of films near the bottom too. We hope you find something new to watch!
Katie recommends…
The Love Witch (streaming on Amazon Prime)
If there is such a thing as a quintuple threat, then Anna Biller - who wrote, directed, edited, produced, and scored her 2016 film The Love Witch - is it. Part horror, part dark comedy, all told through a distinctly feminine viewpoint, The Love Witch is Biller’s own unique vision through and through. Samantha Robinson leads the cast with her wicked performance as Elaine, a witch who moves to a small California town after the death of her husband (who she might have killed, I don’t know), desperately seeking a new man to love her. Visually, The Love Witch is a sumptuous 60s throwback shot on 35mm film that utilizes some of the most gorgeous production design you’ve ever seen in a modern movie. But there's a nightmare lingering just underneath the Technicolor dream we see on the surface, as Elaine murders her way through a series of men, giving them what they want while simultaneously trying to get them to see that she’s more than an object of pleasure. Biller and her cast really commit to the film’s weird vibe, and with its witchy potions, Satanic rituals, and gruesome murders, The Love Witch has become a staple in my annual Halloween viewings, but also a film that I love to obsess over any time of the year.
You can find Katie’s work at katieatthemovies.com and on Instagram @katieatthemovies.
Taylor recommends…
Love & Basketball (streaming on HBO Max)
If you’re someone subscribing to a weekly newsletter about movies, you know finding a film directed by a woman can feel like discovering a unicorn, even though the percent of highest-grossing films directed by women went up to 16% in 2020. (Yes, up.) Also rare: Sports movies about female characters, especially ones who aren’t cheerleaders, dancers, gymnasts, or ice skaters. You couldn’t tell from the movies, but women do participate in sports outside of high school stadiums and Olympic arenas. So a female-directed movie about a girl who plays basketball? Yep, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball may as well be a unicorn.
Love & Basketball follows Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) as they fall in and out of love with each other and with the game. The movie tells their story in four quarters, starting when Monica and Quincy bond over hoops as kids. In high school, they become competitive, and Quincy—whose dad (Dennis Haysbert) is an NBA star—has plenty of doors open for him. Meanwhile, Monica fights her unsupportive mother (Alfre Woodard) and has limited opportunities just to get on the court. It seems they’re the only ones who understand just how much they both love the game, but will that keep them together or drive them apart?
All of my knowledge of the NBA comes from Space Jam and The Last Dance so I have no idea if this movie is true to basketball culture. (If it ain’t the 1990s Chicago Bulls, I don’t know a thing.) But I do know movie romances, and this is one of the sweetest and most familiar of the last few decades. Better still, writer/director Prince-Bythewood creates two fully developed characters with more on their minds than just each other. They’re everyday people with ambition, family drama, and tempers that collide on the court. We become invested in them as individuals, and what makes this movie special is you actually believe these two will get through life better together than apart. I guarantee Love & Basketball will make you laugh, cheer, and fall in love in four quarters or less—double or nothing.
You can find Taylor’s work on ZekeFilm and her own blog, Crowd vs. Critic. She also co-hosts SO IT'S A SHOW?, a podcast about pop culture references on Gilmore Girls (created by female director Amy Sherman-Palladino). Follow her on Twitter @tblake24.
Billy recommends…
The Beguiled (streaming on HBO Max)
The Beguiled tells a story of a Union soldier who is found badly injured and the group that finds him is a repressed girls school. While caring for the suave, yet manipulative soldier (Colin Farrell) these women of all ages begin to have a sexual awakening of sorts. An awakening that leads to confusion, jealousy, and betrayal. This movie is shown from the perspective of the women in this school and for that a movie that should have been cliché and off-putting is given new life. That is always welcome.
Without the shift in perspective we could have had a movie where the Union soldier is thinking, “bitches be crazy” the whole time or it would have just turned into the doctor's scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Instead we get a sincere look at these women’s’ repressed sexual desire and luckily for them the temptation has come in the form of the ever so handsome Colin Farrell. Director Sofia Coppola does a fantastic job differentiating each main character’s reason for wanting to act on their lustful desires. Our three main characters are Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman), Edwina (Kirsten Dunst), and Alicia (Elle Fanning). All of which range in different ages and roles within this girls school. Miss Martha is the head mistress who must set a “good example” for these girls and quickly turns down any interactions her students may have with Farrell's Corporal McBurney. So when presented with her own opportunities to fall for this mysterious man it feels much more of a turn than our other two characters. Edwina and Alicia have similar motivations for their desires. Edwina is a young teacher in the school who is allowing her mind to wander outside of the school with the Civil War’s impending end. Corporal McBurney is a clear out for her current situation and her infatuation with him is less about lust and more about her using her beauty to catch the eye of the injured Corporal McBurney. These attempts turn into love and she falls into jealousy more than any other character. Alicia is one of the older students in the girls school and her desire is the most raw. Early on we see her rolling her eyes at her schoolwork and it shows her boredom in the environment she lives in. She is young, changing, and seeing the vulnerable, attractive soldier wakes up a side of her that has gone unacknowledged her whole life.
Sofia Coppola has always been known for creating boisterous movies that have a great story at the center, but masterful needle drops and an attractive aesthetic do a lot of the carrying. The Beguiled showcases a skill that I did not know Coppola had: being subtle. So much of this movie is reading the subtext from characters' interactions as jealousy and betrayal fill the room. If you watch the trailer before watching The Beguiled, know that this is not as much of a thriller as you might expect. Give the slow parts your attention because when Coppola turns this up to 11 you will realize how effective the movie has been throughout.
Drew recommends…
Wendy and Lucy (streaming on Amazon Prime)
Sometimes the simplest stories can hold the most power to move us. Wendy and Lucy, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, is a pretty straightforward 80-minute film: Wendy (Michelle Williams) is broke and drifting through the Pacific Northwest on her way to find work in Alaska. Her only companion is her dog Lucy, who goes missing. We follow Wendy as she searches for Lucy and tries to figure out how she’s ever going to make it to Alaska. That’s pretty much the movie. But it’s the way Reichardt and Williams present this story that makes it so quietly heart-wrenching.
Released in 2008 amid the Great Recession, Wendy and Lucy told a very relevant and realistic story of harsh economic circumstances. It’s melancholy and often bleak, but also brimming with empathy for its struggling and imperfect main character. Reichardt films Wendy’s life without a Hollywood sheen, despite the star actress at the center. This unfiltered and deglamorized portrait lets the viewer truly connect with Wendy and Lucy. And Michelle Williams matches this energy by underplaying the film’s drama. She’s admirably not trying to win awards here, just subtly develop Wendy as a character.
I can just about promise dog lovers will click emotionally with Wendy and Lucy. I started this movie expecting a modest drama and finished it wiping away tears. It captures that special bond between pet and owner, but doesn’t overplay this hand with gooey sentiment. What’s so impressive is that much of Wendy and Lucy feels mundane and ordinary, until it starts to feel extraordinary as we begin to care deeply about the fate of this down-and-out woman and her faithful dog.
More female-directed films streaming now
Kathryn Bigelow: The Hurt Locker (Crackle, Tubi)
Sofia Coppola: The Bling Ring (Kanopy) and Lost in Translation (Peacock)
Penny Marshall: Big (Disney+) and A League of Their Own (Roku Channel)
Agnès Varda: Cléo from 5 to 7 (HBO Max, Kanopy)
Lulu Wang: The Farewell (Amazon Prime, Kanopy)
Nora Ephron: Julie & Julia (Netflix) and You’ve Got Mail (HBO Max)
Autumn de Wilde: EMMA. (HBO Max)
Anne Fletcher: 27 Dresses (HBO Max)
Nisha Ganatra: The High Note (HBO Max) and Late Night (Amazon Prime)
Nancy Meyers: Baby Boom (Pluto TV, Roku Channel), The Parent Trap (Disney+), and What Women Want (Amazon Prime)
Jocelyn Moorhouse: The Dressmaker (Amazon Prime)
Jehane Noujaim: The Square (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Tubi)
Patty Jenkins: Wonder Woman (HBO Max)
Dee Rees: Mudbound (Netflix)
Lorene Scafaria: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Peacock)
Links
Fargo celebrated its 25th anniversary this week. Read Adam Nayman at The Ringer on the legacy of the Coen brothers masterpiece.
Maybe the most popular photos on social media this week were from the set of House of Gucci, the upcoming crime movie starring Adam Driver and Lady Gaga. The hype level for this one just took off.