Originally published in Left Voice | March 21, 2025
Women’s History Month is a great time to catch up on some lesser-known movies by women filmmakers. As a follow-up to these eleven films by women directors, here are four more movies directed by women to check out.
Losing Ground (United States, 1982)
About a decade before Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Kathleen Collins became the first African American woman to direct a feature-length film with Losing Ground.[1] Unfortunately, Losing Ground never got a theatrical release, so it remained relatively unknown until Collins’s daughter restored and reissued it in 2015.[2] The story follows Sara, a philosophy professor who is researching “the ecstatic experience.”[3] The problem, though, is that Sara has an analytical personality that prevents her from fully grasping the concept on an intuitive level. This is made worse by the fact that ecstatic experience comes naturally to her artist husband Victor, whose temperament is the opposite of hers. Sara’s frustrations are paralleled by the dissatisfaction Victor feels as he realizes his abstract paintings can never be “pure” since they contain echoes of the landscapes he sees on a regular basis. These intellectual tensions accentuate the couple’s marital struggles, but even Victor’s philandering does not seem to bother Sara as much as his ability to have sensory encounters does. “Why can’t I just go, lose control?” she asks her actress mother, “How does someone like you produce a child who thinks so very, very much?”
Losing Ground also comments on the way society tokenizes Black artists and intellectuals by subtly poking fun at simplistic racial characterizations. “I’m a genuine success!” Victor exclaims after a museum purchases his work, “A genuine Black success!” The emphasis causes them both to erupt in laughter. In a similar scene, Sara’s mother describes performing in a “thoroughly colored” stage play and expresses her desire to play “a real, 60-year-old Negro lady who thinks more about men than God.” But the racial commentary does not overshadow the main theme of the film, which is the age-old battle between logic and art, the cerebral versus the aesthetic, the Apollonian versus the Dionysian. Sara frames her understanding of the world in logical terms, which is evident in how she approaches her research and her teaching methods. “The whole existential movement is a reaction to the consequences of war,” Sara explains to her students, “Human existence must be without rhyme, without reason, that in the face of sustained horror, the argument for an absurd universe becomes the only rational argument.” Sara approaches her internal conflicts in a similar way, reading dense literature on religious ecstasy to try to rationalize these experiences. But this academic route fails her, as even the theological books inform her that ecstatic experiences are “undefinable in words.” She tries to vary her methods for understanding by visiting a church and even consulting a fortune teller, but these encounters leave her unfulfilled. “I want magic, real magic,” she sighs, to which Victor facetiously replies, “What’s the matter, Hegel and the boys let you down?” Ultimately, Sara’s catharsis would stem not from keeping her head in library books but from acting in a student film that allows her to work through these intellectual conflicts in the artistic sphere.
Working Girls (United States, 1986)
In this low-budget feature, radical feminist filmmaker Lizzie Borden explores a day in the life of sex workers in a somewhat upscale Manhattan brothel. What makes this movie stand out against other portrayals of the subject matter is that Borden neither valorizes nor vilifies sex work but instead presents it in a very matter-of-fact way. Having sexual relations with clients is just one part of their work day, as the women spend much of their day answering the phone, restocking supplies, managing their schedule, and doing other mundane tasks that are similar to the regular duties of most jobs in the service industry.[4] While fictional, the film’s social realism makes it feel like a documentary, which is likely intentional considering how Borden cast Richard Leacock, one of the pioneers of cinéma verité, as one of the johns. Borden’s movie is less about sex and more about labor under capitalism, and it is appropriately set during the period of Wall Street’s peak.
The story mainly focuses on Molly, a graduate of Yale University who wants a career in photography. By making the main character a college graduate from a respected institution, Borden challenges the common stereotypes that surround prostitution. None of the women depicted in the film are drug-addicted streetwalkers. In fact, outside of the brothel, most of them seem to live relatively “normal” lives: Molly is in a committed lesbian relationship, Gina plans to open her own boutique, and Dawn is in college and intends to go to law school. The women’s day is punctuated by periodic visits from Lucy, the madam, who sees herself as an evolved “girl boss” figure, not as an exploiter as her employees see her. “I wish she’d just admit she’s a pimp,” Gina says at one point. Lucy constantly nitpicks and micromanages them, causing the women to generate a kind of worker comradery, such as when they only log visitors for a half hour rather than a full hour. Emphasis on this transactional nature of sex work permeates the movie. Molly is frequently shown tabulating each visit in her notebook, and the framing of the women’s bodies when a client is around zooms in on their midriff and cuts off their head, quite similar to Chantal Akerman’s framing of the body as a transactional medium in her masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Even the sex scenes are drained of any ounce of eroticism, and instead viewers see ordinary pre- and post-coitus routines, like inserting diaphragms and cleaning up menstrual blood.
Most of the clients who frequent the brothel are wealthy businessmen, and there is often background chatter about economic shifts happening in the 1980s, especially as the city was becoming rapidly gentrified. “I sold this building I’ve had for two years on the lower eastside and tripled my money,” said Miles, Lucy’s main squeeze. “Oh, a lot of that’s been happening lately,” Molly observed. At one point, Molly asks April why she has not shopped the jewelry she designs to department stores so that she does not have to do sex work. Rather annoyed by the condescension from a “college girl,” April snaps back, “If you’ve got so many choices, what are you doing here?” When Lucy tries to console a stressed-out Molly after making her work late by pointing out how much money she made, Molly facetiously asks her, “Have you ever heard of surplus value?” to which Lucy coldly responds, “Don’t be patronizing—I went to a good school too.” Essentially, Working Girls gives a better representation of sex work than the standard Hollywood telling by dealing with what it actually is—work.
Real Women Have Curves (United States, 2002)
Based on Josefina López’s play of the same name, Patricia Cardoso’s Real Women Have Curves eschews the typical Hollywood coming-of-age narrative and instead concentrates on the lives of Mexican American women living and working in East Los Angeles. The story’s main character is Ana, who has just graduated high school and wishes to go to college. However, her culturally traditional mother Carmen wants her to work until she can find a husband and have children. Her older sister Estela operates a textile factory that makes fancy dresses for department stores. Carmen insists that Ana work in the factory to ensure Estela can meet the deadline for a valuable order, but Ana is annoyed that she is reduced to ironing in a sweaty factory rather than being allowed to pursue her own life goals. Like similar stories of this type, Ana’s brattiness decreases as the film moves on, and eventually she does go to college, despite her mother’s disapproval.
What makes Real Women Have Curves special is the way that it gives an honest portrayal of immigrant life, cultural clashes, class relations, and gender issues within the Mexican American community. López wrote the play based on her own experiences growing up as an undocumented resident in the United States. While the movie version leaves out some important historical context, such as the characters’ fears about La Migra (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the class dynamics are evident throughout the entire film.[5] In one instance, Ana learns from Estela that department stores pay $18 per dress but sell each one for $600. “Does this seem right to you?” Ana asks her, only for Estela to explain that that is the way it is. In another scene, Ana accompanies Estela to try to get an advance from the owner of a company that orders dresses from her factory. The boss declines the advance, and condescendingly explains that “a woman like me should help a woman like you, but you have to help yourself.” When Ana insults her in Spanish, the boss snaps back in Spanish as well, demonstrating that just because they are both Latina women, the real gulf between them is class.[6]
Gender expectations comprise another main theme in the film. A good deal of Latin American literature addresses patriarchal issues, but in Real Women Have Curves, it is not the father who hinders Ana’s dreams, but the mother. Carmen represents a matriarchal figure that unfortunately many people will recognize: she overdramatizes her aches and pains, she manipulates her children with guilt, she obsesses over her daughters’ weight. When Carmen tries to convince Ana to maintain her virginity, Ana stands up for women everywhere: “Why is a woman’s virginity the only thing that matters? A woman has thoughts, ideas, a mind of her own.” When the factory becomes too hot to work, Ana and the other women shed their clothes and engage in an unexpected body positivity session embracing their cellulite and stretch marks. When Ana has sex for the first time, she tells her lover, “Turn the lights on; I want you to see me.”
In 2017, Lady Bird, directed by Greta Gerwig, received a ton of praise and attention from Hollywood tastemakers.[7] But upon watching it, López was saddened by the similarities between her screenplay and Gerwig’s, essentially calling Lady Bird a “whitewashed” version of Real Women Have Curves. Others also noticed these resemblances, going so far as to call it plagiarism.[8] Whether or not Gerwig made a middle-class white version of López’s story is surely debatable, but if it is indeed a rip-off, it is not a very insightful one. On the surface, they both tell stories of teenagers at odds with their mothers and conflicts about college. The differences between them, though, say more about how class issues are portrayed in popular media and perceived by the public. The main character in Lady Bird is Christine, who is a mediocre student but insufferably entitled. She has the ability to go to a state university but desires to go to an East Coast school so she can be around the cultural elites. However, her parents cannot afford more than her local state college, especially since her father lost his job and is dealing with depression, but that does not stop Christine from relentlessly badgering her parents into taking a second mortgage just so she can attend an elite school. This is a wildly different scenario than what Ana experiences. Ana is not mediocre—she is such an amazing student that she got accepted with a full scholarship to Columbia University. She cannot go because of her mother’s outmoded notions of gender roles. Before she knew about the scholarship, Ana’s reason for not applying to college was because her family could not afford it at all, not that she wanted to go somewhere outside her means. The tensions between Christine and her mom stem from Christine’s undeserved entitlement and lack of respect for how hard her mother works to support her whims. Ana’s tensions with her mom, however, stem from deep-seated Old World values clashing with her more modern worldview. The amount of Catholic iconography scattered throughout the film emphasizes that. Christine also does not have to work. Ana does. Despite these core distinctions, movies like Lady Bird get excessive praise and awards, while movies like Real Women Have Curves get pushed aside. Regardless, Cardoso’s film paved the way for future women directors by bravely grappling with issues surrounding ethnicity, gender, class, and culture in a way that defied the cinematic norm.
Fish Tank (United Kingdom, 2009)
British cinema is known for its social realism, and Andrea Arnold’s films are no exception. However, Arnold moves beyond this kitchen sink-style convention to a kind of poetic naturalism that puts the viewer in touch with the sensory experiences of her main characters. This style can be seen all her films from American Honey, that tracks kids who travel in shady magazine sales crews, to Cow, a documentary about the life of a dairy cow.[9] Fish Tank follows Mia, a temperamental 15-year-old who lives in London public housing, similar to the environment in which Arnold also grew up. Mia has no friends, and her mother, who clearly had her at a young age, resents her presence. “Did I tell you I nearly had you aborted?” her mom coldly admits to her at one point, “I even made an appointment.”[10] Mia’s main and perhaps only interest is hip hop dance, which she practices alone in abandoned buildings where no one can disturb her. One day she sees a sad-looking horse chained inside a Traveller encampment and tries to free it, only to be chased off by the inhabitants. Other times in the film show Mia sympathizing with animals in unfortunate situations, such as watching a fish gasping for air. When she finds out the Travellers shot the horse because it was old and sick, her tough exterior is cracked, and she breaks down in tears.
The main dynamic explored in the film is between Mia and Connor, her mother’s new boyfriend. From the instant they first meet, there is a tangible, though inappropriate, sexual tension between them. Connor flirts with Mia in a way she does not quite know how to handle, as it is made clear that she has never had a boyfriend before, and he is her mother’s beau, after all. Her Electra complex can be seen in the way the camera often presents her voyeuristic point of view, especially in a scene where she jealously watches Connor and her mom having intercourse through a crack in the door. Eventually Mia and Connor consummate their flirtations while her mom is passed out drunk in the other room. Immediately regretting it, Connor leaves the next morning, but Mia tracks him down. As it turns out, Connor lives in a clean and orderly middle-class neighborhood that is a striking contrast to Mia’s rundown, lower-class neighborhood. She quickly figures out that he is also married with a young daughter. Upon realizing that Connor has been, as one writer put it, “on a safari of narcissistic sexual gratification among people of lesser socioeconomic means than himself,” Mia impulsively kidnaps his daughter in a scene that seems pulled directly from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror, with the camera following the dreamlike, labored running of the two girls through a grassy field.[11] Unlike Mirror, though, this scene is anxious and abusive, not transcendent. Mia has no plan—she is purely reacting to a situation beyond her control, like an animal. She eventually returns the daughter, only to be found by Connor, who proceeds to aggressively slap her then leave without a word. All the previous niceties went away the moment Mia threatened his stability. By the end of the movie, Mia decides to leave home, but there is an almost surreal moment of closure when she dances with her mother and sister to Nas’s classic song “Life’s a Bitch,” the lyrics of which seem to encapsulate the class themes in the film: “Visualizin’ the realism of life in actuality. Fuck who’s the baddest—a person’s status depends on salary.”[12]
Amendment:
Below are some more women-directed films that did not quite make the cut for this piece or the previous one but are still worth watching:
Wanda (United States, 1970)
Directed by Barbara Loden
Harlan County USA (United States, 1976)
Directed by Barbara Kopple
Asparagus (United States, 1979)
Directed by Suzan Pitt
The Decline of Western Civilization (United States, 1981)
Directed by Penelope Spheeris
Smithereens (United States, 1982)
Directed by Susan Seidelman
Old Enough (United States, 1984)
Directed by Marisa Silver
Cycles (United States, 1989)
Directed by Zeinabu Irene Davis
Paris Is Burning (United States, 1990)
Directed by Jennie Livingston
Alma’s Rainbow (United States, 1994)
Directed by Ayoka Chenzira
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (United States, 1995)
Directed by Maria Maggenti
The Watermelon Woman (United States, 1996)
Directed by Cheryl Dunye
The Gleaners and I (France, 2000)
Directed by Agnès Varda
Old Joy (United States, 2006)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Electrick Children (United States, 2012)
Directed by Rebecca Thomas
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Iran, 2014)
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
The Second Mother (Brazil, 2015)
Directed by Anna Muylaert
In Between (Palestine/Israel/France, 2016)
Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud
Hustlers (United States, 2019)
Directed by Lorene Scafaria
Shiva Baby (United States, 2020)
Directed by Emma Seligman
El Planeta (Spain, 2021)
Directed by Amalia Ulman
Aftersun (United States, 2022)
Directed by Charlotte Wells
Janet Planet (United States, 2023)
Directed by Annie Baker
Footnotes:
[1] Jacqueline Bobo, “Black Women’s Films: Genesis of a Tradition,” in Black Women Film and Video Artists, ed. Jacqueline Bobo (New York: Routledge, 1998), 8–9.
[2] A. O. Scott, “Peeling Back the Layers of Black Indie Film,” New York Times, February 6, 2015, C18.
[3] Losing Ground, dir. Kathleen Collins (New York: Milestone Films, 1982), film.
[4] Working Girls, dir. Lizzie Borden (New York: Alternate Current, 1986), film.
[5] Real Women Have Curves, wr. Josefina López (San Francisco: Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 1990), theater.
[6] Real Women Have Curves, dir. Patricia Cardoso (New York: HBO Films, 2002), film.
[7] Lady Bird, dir. Greta Gerwig (New York: IAC Inc., 2017), film. Ironically, America Ferrera, the actress who plays Ana, would later star as the character of Gloria in Gerwig’s 2023 movie Barbie.
[8] Monica Castillo, “Mothers, Daughters, and Differences,” New York Times, February 23, 2018, AR36.
[9] American Honey, dir. Andrea Arnold (London: Film4 Productions, 2016), film; Cow, dir. Andrea Arnold (London: Doc Society, 2021), film.
[10] Fish Tank, dir. Andrea Arnold (London: UK Film Council, 2009), film.
[11] Brian Michael Goss, “‘What’s Your Dream?’ The Films of Femme Auteur Andrea Arnold,” Studies in European Cinema 21, no. 1 (2024): 74; Mirror, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (Moscow: Mosfilm, 1975), film. Arnold has openly expressed Tarkovsky’s influence on her films, saying, “I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love him. I don’t know what it is he does, but I have really emotional responses to his films. They sort of hit at a deep level.” Kimber Myers, “Interview: Director Andrea Arnold Talks Fish Tank,” IndieWire, January 12, 2010, 3.
[12] Nas, “Life’s a Bitch,” Illmatic, prod. L.E.S. (New York: Columbia Records, 1994), song.
By Shalon van Tine