Top up your watchlist... 38 classics directed by women
See some of the best works by female filmmakers ahead of this weekend’s Woman with a Movie Camera Summit at BFI Southbank – all available with a free 14-day trial on BFI Player.
Daisies (1966)
Director: Vera Chytilová
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Two self-confessed hedonists wreak wanton havoc in this visually spectacular, neo-dadaist farce. Vera Chytilová’s best known film and a stone cold classic of the Czech New Wave.
Riddles of the Sphinx (1977)
Directors: Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen
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An experimental classic on the demands of motherhood from British filmmaker and theorist Laura Mulvey.
Germany, Pale Mother (1980)
Director: Helma Sanders-Brahms
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A key work of the New German Cinema, charting a relationship, and by extension a nation, between 1939 and 1950.
Before Stonewall (1984)
Directors: Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg
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Greta Schiller’s documentary examines the LGBTQ community at New York’s Stonewall Inn in the period leading up to the 1969 riot.
Heart of the Angel (1989)
Director: Molly Dineen
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One single day in the life of the London Underground’s Northern Line, from Canadian filmmaker Molly Dineen.
My 20th Century (1989)
Director: Ildikó Enyedi
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The sophomore feature from Hungary’s Ildikó Enyedi, who won the 2017 Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival for On Body and Soul.
Face (1997)
Director: Antonia Bird
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An ace British bank robbery flick from Antonia Bird. Starring Ray Winstone and Robert Carlyle, a close-knit gang of professional thieves plan an intricate heist but begin to turn on each other when things go wrong.
Under the Skin (1997)
Director: Carine Adler
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Samantha Morton’s Iris spins out of control following the death of her mother in one of the great British films of the 90s.
Me without You (2001)
Director: Sandra Goldbacher
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A coming-of-age tale set on the Isle of Wight and in Brighton in the 1970s and 80s, with a terrific pair of central performances from Michelle Williams and Anna Friel.
Somersault (2004)
Director: Cate Shortland
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The breakout film for Cate Shortland (soon to be directing Black Widow for Marvel) with a sensational lead turn from Abbie Cornish.
Red Road (2006)
Director: Andrea Arnold
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The film that brought Andrea Arnold international attention, Red Road is a magnificent study in voyeurism, confrontation and shame.
Brick Lane (2007)
Director: Sarah Gavron
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Adapted from the Monica Ali novel by Sarah Gavron, Brick Lane charts the arranged marriage of a young Bangladeshi woman in 1980s east London.
Unrelated (2007)
Director: Joanna Hogg
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With her latest film, The Souvenir, garnering raves from all directions, here’s Joanna Hogg’s debut feature, about a woman taking refuge from a broken relationship in Tuscany.
Frozen River (2008)
Director: Courtney Hunt
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Melissa Leo leads a thriller set at the border crossing between Quebec and New York State, where a smuggling ring threatens the local Mohawk community.
Helen (2008)
Directors: Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy
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Hitchcock would’ve liked this slippery, reflexive study in assumed identity, as a young girl takes on the persona of her missing classmate for a police reconstruction.
The Headless Woman (2008)
Director: Lucrecia Martel
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Lucrecia Martel’s psychological stunner charts the fallout from a road accident, as María Onetto’s Verónica comes to terms with her own guilt and paranoia.
She, a Chinese (2009)
Director: Xiaolu Guo
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British-Chinese director Xiaolu Guo explores the itinerant existence of Chinese arrivals to London through the story of Li Mei, a Chinese girl who drifts from affair to affair, finding herself in ever more suffocating situations in a city that supposedly offers untold freedoms.
In a Better World (2010)
Director: Susanne Bier
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Susanne Bier’s sumptuous, Oscar-winning drama explores the duality of a doctor working in a Sudanese refugee camp and his troubled family life in rural Denmark.
The Arbor (2010)
Director: Clio Barnard
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An inventive play on fact, fiction and reminiscence, Clio Barnard’s film about the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar is no ordinary documentary.
A Simple Life (2011)
Director: Ann Hui
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Ann Hui, one of the great humanists of the Hong Kong New Wave, brings a captivating story of a film executive reconnecting with the nanny who raised him.
Tomboy (2011)
Director: Céline Sciamma
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A 10-year-old girl, settling into her new neighbourhood outside Paris, is mistaken for a boy and has to live up to this new identity since it’s too late for the mistake to be clarified.
From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012)
Director: Penny Woolcock
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Award-winning filmmaker Penny Woolcock’s beautiful film is drawn from the BFI National Archive. A collage portrait of Britain’s coastline with a score by British Sea Power.
My Brother the Devil (2012)
Director: Sally El Hosaini
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Sally El Hosaini’s acclaimed feature debut focuses on two teenage British-Egyptian brothers living in Hackney; their love for each other is threatened when gang life, drugs and sex come between them.
When I Saw You (2012)
Director: Annemarie Jacir
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Palestine’s entry for the 2013 Academy Awards follows a young boy’s attempts to be reunited with his father following the 1967 Six-Day War.
Night Moves (2013)
Director: Kelly Reichardt
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This taut political thriller from American master Kelly Reichardt follows a trio of radical environmental activists planning an act of terrorism.
Amour Fou (2014)
Director: Jessica Hausner
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Jessica Hausner’s long-awaited follow-up to Lourdes is a mischievous satire on the conceits of Romantic-era fiction, in which a German poet seeks mates for a suicide pact.
Fidelio: Alice’s Journey (2014)
Director: Lucie Borleteau
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When Alice takes a job as a ship’s engineer her fidelity towards her shore-bound fiancé is tested when she discovers a former lover is the ship’s captain.
Second Coming (2014)
Director: Debbie Tucker Green
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Debbie Tucker Green stages an immaculate conception in south London for one of the most original British films of recent years.
Brand: A Second Coming (2015)
Director: Ondi Timoner
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Russell Brand ponders his political awakening and messianic tendencies in Ondi Timoner’s perceptive and very funny documentary.
Evolution (2015)
Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
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The long-awaited second feature from Lucile Hadzihalilović is a gorgeously surreal coming-of-age tale laced with bizarre body-horror.
Power in Our Hands (2016)
Director: Angela Spielsinger
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A groundbreaking documentary that uses archive film to tell the story of the British Deaf community’s fight for civil rights.
Sweet Bean (2015)
Director: Naomi Kawase
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Naomi Kawase followed her acclaimed drama Still the Water with this charming, small-town drama of culinary redemption, which opened the prestigious Un Certain Regard strain of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
The Incident (2015)
Director: Jane Linfoot
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Jane Linfoot’s clinically constructed study of guilt, betrayal and responsibility concerns a comfortable family whose seemingly perfect lives are suddenly thrown into turmoil.
By the Time it Gets Dark (2016)
Director: Anocha Suwichakornpong
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Anocha Suwichakornpong’s mesmerising and innovative treatise on memory, politics and cinema is a formally breathtaking piece of work. Essential viewing.
Letters from Baghdad (2016)
Director: Sabine Krayenbühl
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Tilda Swinton narrates the extraordinary journey of Gertrude Bell, a singular woman who played a significant – often unrecognised – role in British imperial policy-making in Iraq.
Almost Heaven (2017)
Director: Carol Salter
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Awarded Best Documentary at the 2017 British Independent Film Awards, Carol Salter’s film is a tender portrait of a young woman training to become a mortician at one of China’s largest funeral homes.
Gholam (2017)
Director: Mitra Tabrizian
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This mesmerising slow-burn thriller sees a man with no past, no future and no convictions get involved in the conflict of a total stranger, carrying it through to the very end.
Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018)
Director: Gabrielle Brady
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A therapist helps traumatised refugees detained on a remote island where powerful natural and tribal rituals prevail, in this extraordinary mix of fact and fiction.