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Feminist Cinema

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Chantal Akerman · 258 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
A lonely young widow lives with her son following an immutable order: while the boy is in school, she cares for their apartment, does chores, and receives clients in the afternoon.
Beau Travail (1999)
Claire Denis · 133 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Foreign Legion officer Galoup recalls his once glorious life, training troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, until the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind.
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Agnès Varda · 92 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Maya Deren, Alexandr Hackenschmied · 89 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel
A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.
Daisies (1966)
Věra Chytilová, Rudolf Jaroš · 65 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Two teenage girls embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world around them.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Céline Sciamma · 65 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, HBO Max
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
The Piano (1993)
Jane Campion · 58 critic votes
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
Wanda (1970)
Barbara Loden · 56 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
After a string of abusive relationships, Wanda abandons her family and seeks solace in the company of a petty criminal.
News from Home (1976)
Chantal Akerman · 55 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Impersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.
Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Julie Dash · 45 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel
In 1902, an African-American family living on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina prepares to move to the North.
The Gleaners and I (2000)
Agnès Varda · 44 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.
Vagabond (1985)
Agnès Varda · 42 critic votes
Mona Bergeron is dead, her frozen body found in a ditch in the French countryside. From this, the film flashes back to the weeks leading up to her death. Through these flashbacks, Mona gradually declines as she travels from place to place, taking odd jobs and staying with whomever will offer her a place to sleep. Mona is fiercely independent, craving freedom over comfort, but it is this desire to be free that will eventually lead to her demise.
The Ascent (1977)
Larisa Shepitko · 34 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
During a freezing WWII winter, two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the temperature, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.
India Song (1975)
Marguerite Duras · 26 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Anne-Marie Stretter, the wife of a French diplomat in 1930s India, takes many lovers to relieve the boredom in her life.
Sambizanga (1972)
Sarah Maldoror · 23 critic votes
Domingos is a member of an African liberation movement, arrested by the Portuguese secret police, after bloody events in Angola. His wife goes from a prison station to another, trying in vain to find out where he is.
Le Bonheur (1965)
Agnès Varda · 21 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Though married to the good-natured, beautiful Thérèse, young husband and father François finds himself falling unquestioningly into an affair with an attractive postal worker. One of Agnès Varda's most provocative films, 'Le bonheur' examines, with a deceptively cheery palette and the spirited strains of Mozart, the ideas of fidelity and happiness in a modern, self-centered world.
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Cheryl Dunye · 21 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.
Orlando (1992)
Sally Potter · 19 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free
England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.
Je Tu Il Elle (1974)
Chantal Akerman · 18 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max
A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup.
Morvern Callar (2002)
Lynne Ramsay · 18 critic votes
Free on The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video Free with Ads, Amazon MX Player · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
After her boyfriend commits suicide, a young woman attempts to use the unpublished manuscript of a novel and a sum of money he left behind to reinvent her life.
An Angel at My Table (1990)
Jane Campion · 15 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.
Petite Maman (2021)
Céline Sciamma · 15 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
After the death of her beloved grandmother, eight-year-old Nelly meets a strangely familiar girl her own age in the woods. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a fantastical journey of discovery which helps her come to terms with this newfound loss.
Losing Ground (1982)
Kathleen Collins · 14 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
Sara, a cold college professor, and her husband, an ecstatic painter, spend a summer away from the city, straining their rocky relationship.
Born in Flames (1983)
Lizzie Borden · 13 critic votes
Streaming on OVID
In near-future New York, ten years after the “social-democratic war of liberation,” diverse groups of women organize a feminist uprising as equality remains unfulfilled.
Ratcatcher (1999)
Lynne Ramsay · 13 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
Lotte Reiniger, Carl Koch · 11 critic votes
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, Cultpix
Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.
Wings (1966)
Larisa Shepitko · 11 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Former fighter pilot turned provincial schoolmistress Nadezhda Petrovna struggles to adapt to peacetime, having internalised military ideals of service and obedience.
Toute une nuit (1982)
Chantal Akerman · 11 critic votes
Following over two dozen different individuals in the almost wordless atmosphere of a dark night in a Brussels town, acceptance and rejection in the realm of romance is examined.
D'Est (1993)
Chantal Akerman · 11 critic votes
Streaming on Hoopla, OVID
In this incisive dispatch from the newly collapsed Soviet empire, bullet holes from WWII still pockmark the old stone buildings. Akerman journeys from East Germany to Moscow between the late summer and winter of 1993 ('while there’s still time'), chronicling in deliberate tracking shots, circular pans, and domestic tableaux yet another moment of radical upheaval in the 20th-century, the faces and bodies of Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and Russians weighed down with obedient resignation and uncertainty.
Safe (1995)
Todd Haynes · 10 critic votes
Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.
35 Shots of Rum (2008)
Claire Denis · 10 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Metrograph
A widower and his daughter witness the retirement of a colleague of his and the closing of her department at her university.
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
Leontine Sagan · 9 critic votes
Streaming on Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers.
Fish Tank (2009)
Andrea Arnold · 8 critic votes
Free on Plex, Xumo Play, Plex Channel · Streaming on Kanopy, fuboTV, Philo
Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family and the world around her. When she meets her party-girl mother’s charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find he returns her attention, and believes he might help her start to make sense of her life.
American Honey (2016)
Andrea Arnold · 8 critic votes
Free on Plex Channel
A restless teenager escapes her troubled home and joins a traveling crew of young drifters selling magazines across the American Midwest. Immersed in a world of reckless partying, risky hustles, and fleeting romances, she searches for freedom and belonging on the open road.
At Land (1944)
Maya Deren · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
A woman washes up on a beach and embarks on a surreal journey, encountering others and fragmented versions of herself in a quest for identity.
Girl Friends (1978)
Claudia Weill · 7 critic votes
A photographer and her best friend are roommates. She is stuck with small-change shooting jobs and dreams of success. When her roommate decides to get married and leave, she feels hurt and has to learn how to deal with living alone.
Variety (1983)
Bette Gordon · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection
A repressed young woman becomes obsessed with pornography and the mysterious rich patrons of the Times Square porn theater where she works selling tickets.
Girlhood (2014)
Céline Sciamma · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Strand Releasing Amazon Channel
Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.
You Were Never Really Here (2018)
Lynne Ramsay · 7 critic votes
Free on Amazon Prime Video Free with Ads, Amazon MX Player · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A traumatized veteran, unafraid of violence, tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, Joe's nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered—leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening.
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Dorothy Arzner · 6 critic votes
Judy O'Brien is an aspiring ballerina in a dance troupe. Also in the company is Bubbles, a brash mantrap who leaves the struggling troupe for a career in burlesque. When the company disbands, Bubbles gives Judy a thankless job as her stooge. The two eventually clash when both fall for the same man.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977)
Agnès Varda · 6 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
The intertwined lives of two women in 1970s France, set against the progress of the women's movement in which Agnes Varda was involved. Pomme and Suzanne meet when Pomme helps Suzanne obtain an abortion after a third pregnancy which she cannot afford. They lose contact but meet again ten years later. Pomme has become an unconventional singer, Suzanne a serious community worker - despite the contrast they remain friends and share in the various dramas of each others' lives, in the process affirming their different female identities.
La Pointe Courte (1955)
Agnès Varda · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, DocAlliance Films, HBO Max Amazon Channel
A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.
Reassemblage (1983)
Trinh T. Minh-ha · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
A complex visual study of the women of rural Senegal. Through a complicity of interaction between film and spectator, Reassemblage reflects on documentary filmmaking and the ethnographic representation of cultures.
The Beaches of Agnès (2008)
Agnès Varda · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, DocAlliance Films
Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.
The Hitch-hiker (1953)
Ida Lupino · 4 critic votes
Free on Public Domain Movies, FlixHouse, JustWatch TV · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Hoopla
Roy and Gilbert's fishing trip takes a terrifying turn when the hitchhiker they pick up turns out to be a sociopath on the run from the law. He's killed before, and he lets the two know that as soon as they're no longer useful, he'll kill again. The two friends plot an escape, but the hitchhiker's peculiar physical affliction, an eye that never closes even when he sleeps, makes it impossible for them to tell when they can make a break for it.
Something Different (1963)
Věra Chytilová · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In her first feature, Věra Chytilová uses a combination of documentary and fiction film techniques to tell two stories in counterpoint. The first follows Olympic champion gymnast Eva Bosáková, who contemplates retirement as she undergoes a gruelling training schedule; the second, a housewife who is unappreciated and ignored by her husband.
Daguerréotypes (1975)
Agnès Varda · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, DocAlliance Films
An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.
Riddles of the Sphinx (1977)
Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, BFI Player Amazon Channel, OVID
In this avant-garde classic, protagonist Louise deals with a change in her lifestyle in which she must learn to negotiate domestic life and motherhood.
Faces Places (2017)
Agnès Varda, JR · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Cohen Media Amazon Channel
Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.
The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928)
Germaine Dulac · 3 critic votes
Obsessed with a general's wife, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.
Blow Up My Town (1968)
Chantal Akerman · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A young girl shuts herself away in her apartment and goes about her business in a strange way, as she wastes the night in the kitchen – humming all along.
Fruit of Paradise (1970)
Věra Chytilová · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
An experimental retelling of the story of Adam and Eve which then progresses into an allegorical depiction of the loss of innocence.
Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)
Jonas Mekas · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, DocAlliance Films
Drawn from footage shot between 1949 and 1963, Jonas Mekas’s autobiographical diary film chronicles his early years in exile, capturing the struggle to build a new life in New York and his gradual discovery of a vibrant artistic community.
Gently Down the Stream (1981)
Su Friedrich · 3 critic votes
GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM is constructed from fourteen dreams taken from eight years' worth of my journals. The text is scratched directly on to the film so that you hear your own voice as you read. The accompanying images of women, water, animals and saints were chosen for their indirect but potent correspondence to the text.
Chocolat (1988)
Claire Denis · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
On her way to visit her childhood home in a colonial outpost in Northern Cameroon, a young French woman recalls her childhood, her memories concentrating on her family's houseboy.
Wasp (2003)
Andrea Arnold · 3 critic votes
Zoë is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her old flame drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. This will be her first date in years.
Red Road (2006)
Andrea Arnold · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Jackie is a CCTV operator. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor, a man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.
Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)
Maya Deren · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
A social event choreographed in the manner of a dance, illuminated by concepts drawn from Greek legend; one of filmmaker Maya Deren's most intriguing works.
Meditation on Violence (1949)
Maya Deren · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Chao-Li Chi shadow boxes indoors and practices with a sword outdoors. Theoretically, the film describes in a single continuous movement three degrees of traditional Chinese boxing, Wu-tang, Shao-lin, and Shao-lin with a sword. A long sequence of the ballet-like, sinuous Wu-tang becomes the more erratic Shao-lin; in the middle, there is an abrupt change to leaping sword movements, in the center of which, at the apogee of the leap, there is a long held freeze-frame.
Salt of the Earth (1954)
Herbert Biberman · 2 critic votes
Free on JustWatch TV, Tubi TV, Pluto TV · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, MGM Plus, Kanopy
At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.
Documenteur (1981)
Agnès Varda · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, DocAlliance Films
After separating from the father of her son, a young French woman tries to find lodging and a fresh start in L.A. for herself and her son.
Illusions (1982)
Julie Dash · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
A woman in a Hollywood dubbing studio struggles with race and preconceptions. The short film depicts the life of an African American woman passing as a white woman working in the film industry during the 1940s. It calls attention to the lack of African Americans in the film industry during that era.
Sweetie (1989)
Jane Campion · 2 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
The buttoned-down, superstitious Kay is attempting to lead a normal existence with her new boyfriend Louis. That’s until Sweetie, her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, returns home after an absence, exposing the rotten roots of their family and placing a strain on Kay and Louis’ relationship.
Sink or Swim (1990)
Su Friedrich · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play. As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior. Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.
Water Lilies (2007)
Céline Sciamma · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.
Tomboy (2011)
Céline Sciamma · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Ten-year-old Laure isn't like most girls. She prefers football to dolls and sweaters to dresses. When Laure and her family move to a new neighbourhood, local girl Lisa mistakes Laure for a boy. Indulging in this exciting new identity, Laure becomes Mickaël, and so begins a summer of long sunny afternoons, playground games and first kisses. Yet with the school term fast approaching, and with suspicions arising amongst friends and family, Laure must face up to an uncertain future.
Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1977)
Trinh T. Minh-ha · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, DocAlliance Films
The film evolves around questions of identity, popular memory and culture. While focusing on aspects of Vietnamese reality as seen through the lives and history of women resistance in Vietnam and in the U.S, it raises questions on the politics of interviewing and documenting.
Germany, Pale Mother (1980)
Helma Sanders-Brahms · 1 critic vote
Streaming on myfilmfriend
Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.
The Ties That Bind (1984)
Su Friedrich · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
The Ties That Bind is an experimental documentary about the filmmaker's mother, who was born and lived in southern Germany from 1920-1950. Through a mixture of personal anecdote and social history, she describes the rise of Nazism, the war years, and the Allied occupation, during which she met her future husband, an American soldier. The Ties That Bind breaks with the usual format of war documentaries, thus allowing a different portrait of the individual to emerge, while it reflects on the current political situation in America and the filmmaker's activities in relation to those issues.
Privilege (1990)
Yvonne Rainer · 1 critic vote
Free on Plex, Plex Channel · Streaming on Kanopy
Privilege is an intelligently conceived, boldly anarchic, and wickedly insightful exposition on the culturally ingrained and socially divisive malaise of isms that artificially define and characterize empowerment in contemporary society: ageism, sexism, economic elitism, and racism. Yvonne Rainer conveys texture through the intercutting of archival footage, video, and film - as well as compositional layering through the film-within-a-film structure, elliptical (and self-referential) fusion of past and present, and the filmmaker's idiosyncratic penchant for superimposed typed text.
Bend it Like Beckham (2002)
Gurinder Chadha · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Disney Plus, TNT, TBS
Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.
We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011)
Lynne Ramsay · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Philo · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel
After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Ana Lily Amirpour · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection
In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.

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