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Weekly Directed By Women Viewing Guide
NB: This newsletter is too long for email, so it’s probably best to read on the web or the app.
Per tradition, my final Directed By Women Viewing Guide of the year features new releases that I’ve recommended throughout the year that are now available on streaming or to rent in case you missed them during their theatrical release. This was such a great year that I’ve got twice as many picks than in the previous two years (I’m highlighting 73 in total!), plus I’ve mentioned a few streaming only releases that I think bear repeating. There’s so much good stuff this year I know you’ll find a few new favorites among this diverse selection of films.
Bye Bye Tiberias, French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker Lina Soualem’s intimate and fiercely political new documentary, traces four generations of her family from their expulsion from the city of Tiberias in 1948 to their settling in both the village of Deir Hanna in occupied Palestine and refugee camps in Lebanon to her mother’s choice to leave in order to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress and finally to her own return to the land of her ancestors. The film didn’t have much of a release in the U.S. and still isn’t streaming or rentable, but readers in the U.K. can rent it via the BFI Player. You can also read my interview with Soualem over at Reverse Shot.
Origin, Ava DuVernay’s ambitious telling of author Isabel Wilkerson’s research while writing her watershed book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, features a stirring performance from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as the author and some DuVernay’s most innovative work to date. You can stream the film now on Hulu and read my interview with DuVernay at RogerEbert.com.
Daisy Ridley gives her best performance to date as socially awkward office worker Fran Rachel Lambert’s romantic dramedy Sometimes I Think About Dying, one of the best film’s I’ve ever seen about the singular feeling of rural loneliness. I’ll be writing a bit more about this film for my Favorite Fifteen Films post later in the week. You can stream the film now on Mubi and read my review over at IGN.
With her first foray into fiction filmmaker Mambar Pierrette, Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam’s uses her documentarian eye to present a finely detailed, if slightly fictionalized, account of the every day life of a seamstress (Mbakam’s cousin, Pierrette Aboheu) who lives in rain-soaked Douala as she struggles to make ends meet for her and her children. You can stream the film on Criterion Channel and read a great interview with Mbakam by Robert Daniels over on OkayAfrica.
Jade Halley Bartlett’s southern gothic erotic thriller Miller’s Girl follows aspiring teenage writer Cairo Sweet (Jenna Ortega), a precocious and melancholic 18-year-old high school senior whose favorite author is Henry Miller. Things get twisted when she forms an unethical relationship with her lit teacher, and failed author, Jonathan Albert Miller (Martin Freeman) during her search for a good story to include in her college application. You can stream the film now on Netflix.
It’s a crime that it took two years for Tunisian filmmaker Erige Sehiri’s sumptuous film Under The Fig Trees, which follows a group of workers in a fig grove over the course of one day, to make it to U.S. screens — and only on streaming; it didn’t get a proper theatrical release — but it is absolutely worth seeking out. You can stream the film now on Hoopla and read my interview with Sehiri over on RogerEbert.com
The Mexican entry for last year’s Oscars, Lila Avilés’ tender familial fable Tótem follows curious seven-year-old girl Sol (Naíma Sentíes) as she observes her family in a moment of both celebration and crisis. You can stream the film now on Criterion Channel.
I had a truly visceral reaction to Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex, which follows a trio of British girls Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake), and Em (Enva Lewis) on holiday in Crete, when I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023. The drama, which was inspired in part by Walker’s own sexual assault as a teenager, taps into feelings that seem to be, unfortunately, universal for a lot of young women. You can stream the film now on Mubi and read my interview with Walker here.
Based on the writer-director’s own experience after being diagnosed with the rare reproductive condition MRKH syndrome, Molly McGlynn’s coming-of-age film Fitting In stars Maddie Ziegler as 16-year-old Lindy who is navigating her relationship with her body and her sexuality after receiving her own diagnosis. You can stream the film now on Hoopla.
I was mixed on Lisa Frankenstein, from director Zelda Williams and screenwriter Diablo Cody, but I did love a lot of the aesthetics of the filmmaking, including the above homage to Man Ray’s iconic photograph “Larmes.” Set in 1989 the film follows the titular Lisa (Kathryn Newton), a near-catatonic teenager still reeling from witnessing the death of her mother at the hands of an ax-murderer a few years earlier, whose only friend is her stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano). After accidentally imbibing PCP and nearly being sexually assaulted at a rager, Lisa’s wish to be with the dead Victorian pianist (Cole Sprouse) whose neglected grave she often visits comes true when his corpse revives after a freak lightning incident. Chaos and a blood-soaked rampage ensues. You can stream it now on Prime.
As a die-hard Riverdale fan I’m always rooting for its erstwhile cast, including Camila Mendes who has finally been promoted to playing twenty-somethings. In Carlson Young’s romantic comedy Upgraded she plays Ana, a spunky, young working class woman in an art auction training program who is chosen by the director of the New York Office Claire (Marisa Tomei) to accompany her on a trip to London for an important auction. Things escalate for Ana when she’s upgraded to first class, meets the charming William (Archie Renaux), and is later mistaken for the auction house director by William’s rich and eccentric mother Catherine (Lena Olin). You can stream the film now on Prime.
Taking its title from a Robert Frost poem, writer-director Teresa Sutherland’s folk horror film Lovely, Dark, and Deep, follows new park ranger Lennon (Georgina Campbell) as she navigates the fictional Arvores National Park, effectively evokes the disorientation of getting lost in the forest, not just at night, but also on a blisteringly hot day. You can stream the film now on Tubi.
What happens to a life when the structure that's kept it ticking suddenly changes? That's the question Barbara Kulcsar’s bittersweet Swiss film Golden Years seeks to answer as it follows the rift that widens between married couple Alice (Esther Gemsch) and Peter (Stefan Kurt) as they head into retirement. You can stream the film now on Tubi.
Meredith Hama-Brown’s directorial debut Seagrass similarly explores a family unraveling, only during a much earlier stage in marriage. Vaguely set in the 1990s, the film follows two sisters, 11-year-old Stephanie (Nyha Breitkreuz) and six-year-old Emmy (Remy Marthaller), at coastal retreat for parents who need marriage counseling. As the sisters struggle with the possible implosion of their family, Judith (Ally Maki) and Steve (Luke Roberts) struggled to comprehend just how broken their connection actually is. You can rent the film from most digital services and read my take from the film’s world premiere at RogerEbert.com.
Set in 1999, Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Drive-Away Dolls follows Jaimie (Margaret Qualley), a sexed up serial cheater from Texas who in the wake of her break-up with her cop girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) joins her sexually repressed best friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) on a road trip to visit Marian’s aunt in Tallahassee. When they accidentally pick up a car meant for a nefarious set of goons they find themselves caught up in a violent situation. . .and also having lots of hot and heavy sex with a bevy of women on the road. You can stream the film now on Prime.
Inspired in part by the childhood of writer-director Noora Niasari and set during the two weeks leading up to Nowruz (Persian New Year), Shayda follows Iranian immigrant Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) who is living in a women’s shelter in Australia with her young daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia), as she attempts to divorce her abusive husband who wants the family to return to Iran. You can rent the film from most digital services and read my interview with Niasari over at RogerEbert.com.
In Rose Glass’ 80s-set fantasy-tinged neo-noir Love Lies Bleeding, Kristen Stewart plays a gym manager named Lou with a seedy past who falls hard for a bodybuilding drifter named Jackie (Katy O'Brian). The duo get in hot water when they try to help Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone) get out of an abusive relationship with her husband JJ (Dave Franco) and run afoul of Lou’s deranged father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). You can stream the film on Max and read my interview with Glass at RogerEbert.com.
In Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s deadpan wellness culture satire Club Zero, Mia Wasikowska stars as a deranged nutrition teacher who slowly convinces her vulnerable high school students to forgo eating altogether. You can stream the film now on Hoopla and Kanopy and read my take from the 2023 Chicago International Film Festival at RogerEbert.com.
Alison O’Daniel’s immersive documentary The Tuba Thieves uses the serial theft of tubas from high schools around Southern California to explore the roles of sound, power, and language in our conception of community. You can rent the film from most digital services or stream it on PBS.org.
You may not be familiar with trailblazing entertainer Carol Doda if you’re not from the Bay Area, but you should be, and Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker’s documentary Carol Doda Topless at the Condor does a great job of illuminating why. You can stream the film on Hoopla, Tubi, and Prime, read my full review at RogerEbert.com, and read my interview with McKenzie here.
I wrote about Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera last year in my Favorite Fifteen Films post as it had an ill-fated Oscar-qualifying run last year, so I counted it as a 2023 release (I first saw it at KVIFF in 2023). The film stars Josh O’Connor as a British-Italian amateur archaeologist who makes a living illegally selling Etruscan artifacts while nursing a seriously broken heart. Like many of Rohrwacher’s films, she marries a fable-like tone to a deeply political films that examines Italy’s recent past with a critical eye in order to contextualize the country’s present. You can stream the film now on Hulu and read my interview with Rohrwacher at RogerEbert.com.
Vera Drew’s autobiographical phantasmagoric coming-of-age odyssey The People’s Joker spent several years playing film festivals and a prolonged legal battle with the keepers of I.P. before finally getting a proper release. Drew, in one of my favorite performances of the year, plays the titular Joker, a trans woman from Smallville who moves to Gotham to break into the world of stand-up comedy, finding herself along the way. You can stream the film now on Mubi.
Set in Rome in 1971 amid rampant political protests, Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen follows American novitiate Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free), who has come to Italy to take her vows. Little does she know that she will soon find herself caught up in a convoluted plot by church elders to bring devotees back to the Catholic church by bringing forth the Anti-Christ himself. You can stream the film now on Hulu.
Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s Chicken For Linda! uses beautiful hand-painted animation with a bright color-blocked style to bring to vibrant life the story of a single mother on quest to find a chicken for her daughter’s dinner in the midst of a general strike. It’s a wonderful film about the ways we deal with grief, and also features one of the year’s best cinematic cats. You can stream the film now on Criterion Channel.
Set in the 1990s, Minhal Baig’s We Grown Now centers on two boys, Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez), growing up in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing project. They’ve been friends as long as they can remember, and their adventures become threatened when Malik’s mother (Jurnee Smollett) applies for a higher paying job in another city, forces the boys to release their time together might soon come to an end. You can stream the film now on Netflix and read Robert’s in-depth interview with Baig at RogerEbert.com.
Set during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Theda Hammel’s Stress Positions follows stressed out Brooklynite Terry (John Early) as he hosts his Moroccan American nephew Bahlul (Qaher Harhash) who is recovering from a broken leg. Wacky neighbors and other disasters abound. You can stream the film now on Hulu.
Joanna Arnow’s The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is a hilarious, frank, and refreshingly sexually explicit deadpan comedy that follows thrity-something New Yorker Ann (Arnow), who attempts to balance the main things she has going on in her life: her difficult parents, her boring corporate job, and her sexual desires as a sub in various BDSM relationships (including with an older man played by Scott Cohen, probably best known from his role as Max Medina from Gilmore Girls). You can stream the film now on Hulu.
One of my favorite films of the year (I will be writing more for my Favorite Fifteen Film post before the year is out), Marija Kavtaradzė’s romantic drama Slow centers on the newfound romance between earthy dancer Elena (Greta Grinevičiūtė) and asexual sign language interpreter Dovyda (Kęstutis Cicėnas) as they attempt to build a life together build on a different kind of intimacy. The film is available to rent on Amazon and you can read my interview with Kavtaradzė at RogerEbert.com.
On the surface Jane Schoenbrun1’s I Saw the TV Glow follows isolated teenagers Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) who bond over a young adult TV show called The Pink Opaque. But the film is a deeply layered allegory for the “egg crack” moment for trans people, and what happens if you deny your true self. I recommend reading Willow Catelyn Maclay’s piece on 2024 as an era of trans-authored cinema. You can stream the film now on Max.
Another of my favorite films of the year that I will be writing about in more depth in my Favorite Fifteen Films post is Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, which follows an earthy 48-year-old named Etero (Eka Chavleishvili) who cherishes her independence above all else, but whose life is upended when she falls head over heels in love for the first time in her life. The film never got a proper release in the U.S., although in the U.K. I got quoted on the poster! You can stream the film now on Mubi and read my full review over at The Playlist.
Ena Sendijarević’s Sweet Dreams is an interesting, if sometimes shallow, rumination on the lingering scars of colonialism. Set in Dutch East Indies at the turn of the century, it follows the chaos that ensues after plantation owner Jan (Hans Dagelet) dies and leaves his estate to the son her fathered with his Indonesian housemaid Siti (Hayati Azis), rather than to his wife Agathe (Renée Soutendijk) or their son Cornelis (Florian Myjer). You can stream the film now on Tubi.
Tayarisha Poe’s bold and visually ambitious The Young Wife, shot by rising DP Jomo Fray, is set in the not-too-distant but definitely slightly dystopian future that dips its toes in Afrofuturism. The film follows a young woman named Celestina (Kiersey Clemons) on the day of her wedding as chaotic exes, friends, family, and one nosy co-worker battle for her attention while she awaits the return of her betrothed River (Leon Bridges). You can rent the film from most digital services.
Thea Hvistendahl’s somber zombie drama Handling The Undead centers on a group of people who have recently lost family members and are overcome with grief. When they are given a mysterious second chance with their loved ones it comes with a grave cost. [I want to note there is a disturbing animal death]. You can stream the film now on Hulu.
I really loved Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne’s late coming-of-age film Am I OK? when I saw it at Sundance two years ago. I’m so glad it’s finally available for everyone to watch. The film stars Dakota Johnson as thirty-something Los Angeleno Lucy (who hangs out at the diner in my old neighborhood) in a co-dependent relationship with her best friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno). When Jane announces a promotion at works means she’s moving to London, the fissure forces Lucy to come out of her shell — and come out of the closet. Still a virgin, Lucy’s exploration on dating apps leads to the realization that she may actually be a lesbian. You can stream the film now on Max and read my full review from the film’s world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival at The Playlist.
Bathed in sublime light by cinematographer Amine Berrada, Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s film Banel e Adama follows passionate and rebellious Banel (Khady Mane) as she attempts to build a life with her lover Adama (Mamadou Diallo), who must decide between her and his birthright as the village’s leader. You can stream the film now on Kino Film Collection and read Robert’s interview with Sy at RogerEbert.com.
Rachel Sennott continues to be just such an intriguing performer. In Ally Pankiw’s cleverly non-linear drama I Used to Be Funny she stars as Sam, a stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD, who gets drawn back into the source of her trauma when Brooke (Olga Petsa), the girl she used to nanny, suddenly goes missing. You can stream the film now on Netflix.
Ghostlight, from Chicago-based co-directors Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson, is the kind of solid family drama that just doesn’t seem to get made that much anymore. The film follows a family struggling with an unimaginable grief when rough and tumble construction worker Dan (Keith Kupferer) finds himself drawn to a community theater run by the eccentric Rita (Dolly de Leon), which befuddles his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen) and teenage daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer). You can stream the film now on AMC+ or rent it on most digital services.
Daina Oniunas-Pusić’s Tuesday is probably the most unique film you’ll see this year about the pain of loss and coming to terms mortality. Lola Petticrew stars as the titular Tuesday, a terminally ill young woman who is visited by Death in the form of a giant macaw. This, of course, sends her and her mother Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) for a loop. You can stream the film now on Max.
A looming fog of violence and fear threatens to suffocate Jennifer Esposito’s Staten Island-set crime saga Fresh Kills, which follows the Larusso sisters Connie (Odessa A'zion) and Rose (Emily Bader) as they come of age in a crime family in the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the tension in the film comes from the vast interior terrain of these women as they buck against, and then come to defend the gilt cage in which they’ve found themselves. You can stream the film now on Hoopla.
Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance stars Lily Gladstone as Jax, a woman making her life on the Seneca–Cayuga reservation. When her sister Tawi disappears, she begins taking care of her 13-year-old niece Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), while attempting to find the truth about her sister and hold on to their way of life as her father Frank (Shea Whigham) attempts to get custody of his only granddaughter. You can stream the film now on AppleTV+ and read my full review from the film’s world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival over at The Playlist and my interview with Lily Gladstone at RogerEbert.com.
Ariane Louis-Seize’s dark comedy Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person stars Sara Montpetit as Sasha, a “teenage” vampire who, rather than being compelled towards bloodsucking violence, has a brain is wired for empathy. Ready to end her own life, she finds a buoy in Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a despondent teenager willing to sacrifice his life for hers. You can stream the film now on Mubi and read my take from the Toronto International Film Festival at RogerEbert.com.
Set in the summer of 1991, acclaimed playwright Annie Baker’s directorial debut Janet Planet follows the relationship highs and lows between the titular Janet (Julianne Nicholson), an acupuncturist hippie who works out of her rural Massachusetts home, and her melancholic 11-year-old daughter Lacy (Zoe Ziegler). Their close-knit life is disrupted by a series of people Janet brings into their orbit (Elias Koteas, Will Patton, Sophie Okonedo). You can stream the film now on Max.
Inspired by Kathy Stuart’s book Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation, as well as the criminal trial records for two women: Agnes Catherina Schickin (Württemberg, Germany, 1704) and Eva Lizlfellnerin (Puchheim, Austria, 1761-62), Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s deeply unsettling drama The Devil’s Bath follows the slow unraveling of Agnes (Anja Plaschg), a deeply religious newlywed living in a remote village in the Austrian mountains during the 18th century. You can stream the film now on Shudder.
Lagueria Davis’ expansive, informative, and thought-provoking documentary Black Barbie is part cultural anthropology, part corporate history, part sociological study, and part playful experimental art film (she has the titular Barbies come to life in stunning stop motion sequences.) You can stream the film now on Netflix.
Largely inspired by true events, Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border asks us all to take a cold, hard look at our capacity for empathy and to resist those who would dehumanize our fellow human beings. I’ll be writing more about this film for my Favorite Fifteen Films post later this year. You can stream the film now Kino Film Collection and read my interview with Holland at RogerEbert.com.
Most of Family Portrait, Lucy Kerr’s COVID-set drama about a family reunion gone awry, unfolds as a series of static shots, like posed photos, as the large family talks about nothing—but says everything about who they are. You can stream the film now on Tubi and read my take on the film from the 2023 Chicago International Film Festival at RogerEbert.com.
Controversial French director Catherine Breillat’s latest film Last Summer follows the destructive relationship between fifty-something Anne (Léa Drucker) and her seventeen-year-old stepson Théo (Olivier Rabourdin). I’ll admit I still haven’t seen this one, but I plan to catch up big time on Breillat’s filmography next year. You can stream the film now on Criterion Channel.
With her musical romance Dandelion Nicole Riegel crafts a perfect vehicle for her multi-talented star KiKi Layne, who stars as a musician working in a wine bar and supporting her mother, who impulsively heads to an open mic opportunity at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota where she meets a jaded guitarist named Casey (Thomas Doherty) and begins to find her voice. You can stream the film now on AMCTV+ and rent it from most digital services.
India Donaldson’s Good One stars new-comer Lily Collias as Sam, a queer teenager who finds herself on a camping trip with her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy) up in the Catskills. Donaldson’s crafts an insightful film about what it’s like to finally see your parents for the messy humans they really are. You can rent the film from most digital services.
Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat’s Sugarcane is a beautiful film about overcoming generational trauma and finding the strength in both embracing your culture and facing your demons. The harrowing, deeply empathetic documentary explores the dark legacy of an Indian residential schools run by the Catholic Church in Canada, in this case specifically St. Joseph’s Mission in Williams Lake, which was closed in 1981. You can stream the film on both Hulu and Disney+.
Through the story of four girls participating in a program called Date With Dad Weekend, Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s documentary Daughters illuminates the rot that is the U.S.'s prison industrial complex and the way that many of its ill-advised policies do more harm than good. You can stream the film now on Netflix and read my interview with Rae and Patton over at RogerEbert.com.
Taking its name from the Haitian proverb, “Behind mountains, there are more mountains,” Monica Sorelle’s film Mountains features tremendous performances from Sheila Anozier and Atibon Nazaire as a couple living in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami whose American Dream begins to shift as the realities of gentrification begin to set in. You can rent the film from most digital services and read Robert’s expansive interview with Sorelle at RogerEbert.com.
Jazmin Jones’ creative and playful investigative documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon follows self-described e-girls, director Jazmin Jones and researcher and associate producer Olivia McKayla Ross, as they set up shop in an art space and begin their search for the eponymous Mavis Beacon, the Black woman who was the avatar for Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, a software program originally launched in the 1980s. You can rent the film now on most digital services.
Hoard is a wild and singular take on teen girldom from writer-director Luna Carmoon. The extremely personal film is an uncompromising portrait of a destructive relationship between a young mother named Cynthia (a fiery Hayley Squires) and the impact it has her daughter Maria (played at different ages by Lily-Beau Leach and (Saura Lightfoot Leon) as she comes of age in 1980s and 1990s London. You can rent the film from most digital services.
Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls follows straight-laced teenage Mina (Preeti Panigrahi), the first-ever female head prefect at her elite high school in the Himalayas, as she navigates falling in lust for the first time with suave classmate Sri (Kesav Binoy). The film co-stars Kani Kusruti, who is so wonderful in Payal Kapadia All We Imagine As Light, which is still playing in theaters, as Mina’s empatheic mother Anila. You can rent the film from Amazon and read my take from the film’s world premiere at Sundance at RogerEbert.com.
My Old Ass, Megan Park’s rueful meditation on the age old question, “If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?”, stars Maisy Stella as Elliott, a queer teenager living on her parents' cranberry farm in Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, who gets thrown for a loop when a night imbibing mushroom tea leads to her communing with her older self (Plaza), who warns her not fall for a boy named Chad (Percy Hynes White). You can stream the film now on Prime.
Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s grooming drama Good Girl Jane has had a long journey since it’s premiere at the 2022 Tribeca film festival. The film stars Rain Spencer, who is a raw nerve in what should have been a breakout performance, as the titular Jane, a mousy girl struggling to find her footing in a new school who falls in with a bad crowd led by the charming Jamie (Patrick Gibson), who draws her into his small drug operation. You can rent the film from Fandango At Home.
One of my favorite theatrical experiences of the year was seeing Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror satire The Substance at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival where by the end the woman sitting a few seats down from me was literally shaking and crying. The film centers on Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore in a fearless performance), a once famous actress who now makes a living hosting a daytime fitness show, who is given the boot by a network exec (a truly grotesque Dennis Quaid) on her 50th birthday. Desperate, Elisabeth takes the titular substance, a miracle elixir that promises to create a younger, better version of herself. The catch? Elisabeth and the new her, Sue (a committed Margaret Qualley), must share the same body, switching every seven days. Chaos, of course, ensues. You can stream the film now on Mubi and read my interview with Fargeat over at RogerEbert.com.
Alessandra Lacorazza’s semi-autobiographical film In The Summers follows siblings Violeta (Dreya Castillo, Kimaya Thais, and Lio Mehiel) and Eva (Luciana Elisa Quinonez, Allison Salinas, and Sasha Calle) over the course of a four summers — split over a decade — as they spend the months between school with their father Vicente (René “Residente” Pérez Joglar) in Las Cruces, New Mexico. You can rent the film on most digital services.
Stephen Maing and Brett Story’s searing documentary Union follows the trials and tribulations of workers trying to form the first Amazon union at a fulfillment center in Staten Island. The cinéma vérité style documentary shows just how grueling this process is and how fragile workers rights are here in supposedly the most powerful country in the world. You can rent the film now on Gathr.
Cinematographer Ellen Kuras’ directorial debut Lee, stars Kate Winslet as the model-turned-war photographer Lee Miller as she documents life on the front lines in Europe during World War II. You can stream the film now on Hulu and read my take out of the film’s premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival at RogerEbert.com.
Sue Kim’s ruminative documentary The Last of the Sea Women follows a group of women who live on Jeju Island in South Korea, where they work as haenyeo, traditional fisherwomen who dive unaided by oxygen tanks, or as they say, “with their own breath.” You can stream the film now on AppleTV+ and read my full review from the film’s premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival at RogerEbert.com.
I’ll write more about Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour, which is inspired by the true story of how serial rapist and killer Rodney Alcala appeared on "The Dating Game" in 1978, in my Favorite Fifteen Films post later this week, but I will say the film haunted me deeply after I saw it at its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and my esteem for the film grew when I re-watched it earlier this year. You can stream the film now on Netflix and read my full review over at RogerEbert.com
Based on her own short film, which was in turn inspired by a bad breakup she went through during a battle with cancer, Caroline Lindy’s horror-tinged rom-com Your Monster stars Melissa Barrera as an aspiring actress named Laura who has just beat cancer. Reeling from a breakup with her playwright boyfriend, she finds her voice — a power she never knew she had — after befriending the friendly Monster (Tommy Dewey) who has inhabited her mother’s brownstone since she was a little girl. You can rent the film now on most digital services.
Mati Diop’s complex documentary Dahomey traces the journey of 26 artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey that were looted during French colonial time (roughly 1872–1960) as they are returned to their homeland in Benin, while questioning whether repatriation of culture and history is ever truly possible. You can stream the film now on Mubi.
Celine Held and Logan George’s Caddo Lake, a time-bending thriller inspired by the eponymous lake that straddles the border between Texas and Louisiana, follows teenager Ellie ( Eliza Scanlen) who has a dysfunctional relationship with her mother Celeste (Lauren Ambrose) and her step-father Daniel (Eric Lange). When her step-sister Anna (Caroline Falk) goes missing on the lake, the family unravels as they try to locate her. Their story is contrasted with that of Paris (Dylan O’Brien), a young man still mourning the mysterious death of his mother years earlier. I’ve watched the film twice and found it even more enriching and entertaining once you know its various twists and turns. You can stream the film now on Max.
Andrea Arnold fantastical coming-of-age drama Bird follows a young girl named Bailey (Nykiya Adams) living with her dad (Barry Keoghan) and older brother (Jason Buda) in a London squat who befriends a mysterious man named Bird (Franz Rogowski). While the film covers similar themes found throughout Arnold’s body of work, it’s also her boldest swing yet. You can stream the film now on Mubi.
Alexis Spraic’s colorful and informative documentary The World According to Allee Willis shines a light on multi-hyphenate creative Willis, who had a hand in crafting some of the most beloved bits of pop culture of the last fifty years. Even though her name and legacy has been largely forgotten, after watching the doc its clear that her impact is still deeply felt. The film is available to rent on most digital services.
I wrote a lot about Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Youniss’ sci-fi documentary Lyd a few weeks ago. Narrated from the point of view of the city in the film tells the story of the city's 5,000 years of history, while also reimagining an alternate universe in which the Sykes-Picot agreement that divided the Levant (Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon) between European colonial powers never happened. This essential and though-provoking film is available to stream on Ovid and Hoopla.
In her most recent work Night is Not Eternal tirelessly political documentarian Nanfu Wang traces the similarities—and pointed differences—between her cinematic activism after leaving China and that of Cuban activist Rosa María Payá Acevedo. You can stream the film now on Max and read my full review over at RogerEbert.com.
2022 Directed by Marie Clements’ Bones of Crows is a deeply felt examination of generational trauma, cultural genocide, and indigenous resilience. The film centers on Cree matriarch Aline Spears (played at different ages by Summer Testawich, Grace Dove, and Carla-Rae), who, along with her siblings, is forcibly removed from her parents and forced to attend one of Canada’s infamously abusive residential schools. We then see her as she becomes a Cree code-talker during WWII, and later confronts the Pope for the Catholic Church’s part in running the residential schools. You can stream the film now on Hulu and read my full review out of its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival over at The Playlist.
Elizabeth Sankey’s deeply personal filmic essay Witches explores her own experience with postpartum depression through an examination of the real history witches and witch hunts— including pouring over hundreds of “confessions” from women accused of being witches, as well as the depiction of witches, and other “mad” women, in cinema. You can stream the film now on Mubi.
Honestly, I can’t believe Marielle Heller’s body-horror tinged comedy Nightbitch is already available on streaming since it just hit theaters three weeks ago, but this is the bleak times we live in. Adapted from Rachel Yoder’s nearly unclassifiable breakout novel of the same name, the film follows an unnamed Mother (Amy Adams) who gave up her life as an artist and curator to raise her son and struggles with parenting the toddler while her Husband (Scoot McNairy) is off on work trips every week. You can stream the film now on Hulu and read my interview with Heller at RogerEbert.com. You can also pre-order my book Cinema Her Way, which features a career-spanning interview with Heller.
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Jane Schoenbrun uses they/them pronouns
Great list, saved a bunch to watch. Is there a LB list of these?
Thank you for this!!! I've added SO MANY to my to watch list