(link) Sequel list with more films
For moving towards a decolonial, anticapitalist, emancipated-from-heteronormativity transfeminist future.
This is a list capped at 100 films threading a counter history to cinema. This is not a "ra-ra girl power" collection, or even a list of women's influences on a cinematic canon, but a collection of cinema that is unique in its willingness to show and to radicalize the female experience. Early films on here that may be less overt in their feminist messaging are included either because they show women's place in revolutionary causes, are a first to depict an experience, or have been key in the discussion surrounding this alternate text.
All films are briefly annotated explaining why they're here. Discussion is…
(link) Sequel list with more films
For moving towards a decolonial, anticapitalist, emancipated-from-heteronormativity transfeminist future.
This is a list capped at 100 films threading a counter history to cinema. This is not a "ra-ra girl power" collection, or even a list of women's influences on a cinematic canon, but a collection of cinema that is unique in its willingness to show and to radicalize the female experience. Early films on here that may be less overt in their feminist messaging are included either because they show women's place in revolutionary causes, are a first to depict an experience, or have been key in the discussion surrounding this alternate text.
All films are briefly annotated explaining why they're here. Discussion is welcome, but please understand that this is made with an awareness of an intrinsically misogynist studio system, a desire for avant-garde and worldwide productions. Therefore, this will not be including the newest wide-release intended to pander to "women's issues".
In regards to the lack of so-called "genre films" here, with the exception of a couple art-horrors some exploitation cinema, and one work of speculative fiction, this list has ended up largely documentary centered, as this is what nearly all earlier entries are. The prevalence of documentary may be that the personal is political, and it is far easier to document reality than to work the truth of the world into fiction.
Some useful links (will continue to be updated)
While incredibly influential, Laura Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema is largely outdated in how it centralizes a white male heterosexual gaze as the only lens of influence on women's bodies. Bell Hooks in the Oppositional Gaze critiques the mainstream cinema representation of race, and asserts the Black female spectator in resistance to a mainstream cinema. While currently only available in French, Le Regard Feminin (translation sample linked) discusses the idea of female gaze, putting the camera in the place and equality of women's perspectives. Mulvey's Afterimages is a great continuation of her pioneering essay. In The Address of the Eye, Vivian Sobchack provides a connection between phenomenology and film viewership, and the adoption of sensory spectatorship.
B Ruby Rich's In the Name of Feminist Film Criticism argues for a line of criticism that is also centric upon th reception. Also authoring New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut, she defined a movement of radical, genre defining liberators cinema. J Hamberstam's In a Queer Time and Place studies trans representations onscreen at length.
Another Screen, and its host site, Another Gaze (and corresponding journal), is an irregular streaming platform that hosts screenings of films by women that have often gone underprogrammed, as well as corresponding essays and interviews with each lineup. Their journal, as well as the former Cleo Journal are great resources.
For more screenings, Club Des Femmes is a self-described UK-based queer feminist film collective and culture club. A few years back, Metrograph's Tell Me: Women Filmmakers series, programmed by Nellie Killian, is a history of women telling eachothers stories through documentary, and a large portion of the series now streams via Criterion Channel. Women Make Movies also stream and offer educational licenses for many of the films listed.
Listed films streaming for free, either via distributor, public domain, or uploaded due to lack of US rights agreements
Les Résultats du féminisme
Madame a des envies
Shoes
The Smiling Mme Beudet
Mädchen in Uniform
Working Girls*
Witch's Cradle
Outrage
The Eternal Breasts
L'Opéra-Mouffe
Meat Joy
Essere Donne
Bad Girls Go To Hell
Daisies
Saute Ma Ville
The Girls
I Am Somebody*
I Don't Know
Wanda
Growing Up Female
Janie's Janie*
Joyce at 34
Sambizanga
Betty Tells Her Story*
The Other Side of Underneath
Solidarity
Dyketactics
The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived
Je, Tu, Il, Elle
Semiotics of the Kitchen
Always Love Your Man
The Kitchen
Chris and Bernie*
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels
Scum Manifesto
Eva's Man
Not a Pretty Picture
Riddles of the Sphinx
One Way or Another
Hidden Memories
Union Maids
Invisible Adversaries
One Sings the Other Doesn't*
Baxter, Vera Baxter
Madame X: An Absolute Ruler
Guerillere Talks*
Inside Women Inside*
Your Children Come Back To You
A Scream From Silence
Soft Fiction
Simone Barbes or Virtue
Daughter Rite
Audience*
Sois-belle et tais-toi
Marianne and Juliane
Suzanne, Suzanne*
Illusions*
A Man, When He Is a Man
Clotheslines*
A Question of Silence
Losing Ground*
The Gold Diggers
Sheer Madness
Variety
Born in Flames
Navelfable
Topos
Measures of Distance
Dreaming Rivers
Virgin Machine
A Preponderance of Evidence
Surname Viet Given Name Nam**
The Juniper Tree
Song of the Exile
I, The Worst of All
Privelege**
The Salt Mines*
Strangers in Good Company**
The Body Beautiful*
The Amazonian Angel
Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too
I Was a Teenage Serial Killer
My Name is Kahentiiosta
The Transformation*
Portrait of a Lady
MURDER and murder**
Baise-Moi
Compensation*
The Day I Became a Woman
Frontiers of Dreams and Fears**
Women Without Men
Apparition*
Wadjda
Have You Ever Killed a Bear? Or Becoming Jamila
Mustang*
Ouvrir la voix
A Trans With a Movie Camera
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
Portrait of a Lady On Fire
The Giverny Document (Single Channel)
*US streaming rights held by Criterion Channel
**Available via Kanopy
***also streaming via Another Screen
Recommended lists (will continue to be updated)
Another Screen
Directed by women
Experimental Films By Black Women
Feminist (Sally Jane Black)
Feminismo
Female Gaze
Powerful Women IRL
Tell Me: Criterion Channel
Tell Me: Metrograph