Sight & Sound's "The female gaze: 100 overlooked films directed by women"

100 movies  

Movie

Will It Snow for Christmas? (1996)
Y' aura t'il de la neige a Noel? WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
other title: 圣诞节会下雪吗? / Y' aura t'il de la neige a Noel? …
A woman and her seven children live on a farm in Southern France. In spite of the hard work and the mediocre accommodation, their life would be a happy one, but for one person: the owner of the farm, an egotistic and authoritarian individual who is also the lover of the woman and the father of all her children. The farmer handles them as his property, uses them as cheap labour to work in the fields, and denies them the right to leave the farm. It is only the love of the woman for her children that allows them to endure their situation; but even for her, disenchantment has set in.

Movie

Out of Phoenix Bridge (1998)
回到凤凰桥 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
other title: 回到凤凰桥
Li Hong spends several months in a tiny room no bigger than a closet with four girls from a remote village in Hunan province who have come to Beijing to work as domestics.

Movie

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)
But I'm a Cheerleader
★ 7.7 63 ratings
other title: 啦啦队长 / 恋恋模范生 …
Megan is an all-American girl. A cheerleader. She has a boyfriend. But Megan doesn't like kissing her boyfriend very much. And she's pretty touchy with her cheerleader friends. Her conservative parents worry that she must be a lesbian and send her off to "sexual redirection" school, where she must, with other lesbians and gays learn how to be straight.

Movie

The Day I Became a Woman (2000)
روزی که زن شدم WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 8.2 15 ratings
other title: 女人三部曲 / روزی که زن شدم …
A girl reaches the age of nine and is supposed to act as a grown woman according to her family. A girl participates in a bike race against the will of her husband. An elderly woman decides she wants to buy all the things she always wanted but could never get.

Movie

Happy Man (2000)
Szczęśliwy człowiek WikiData IMDb TMDB
other title: Szczęśliwy człowiek / 행복한 남자
The story of three people and their complicated emotional relationship. A mother and her 30-year-old son live in a poor neighborhood in a big city. She is having trouble finding a job, he is having trouble finding his way in modern realities. The mother's sudden illness shatters the son's previous life. The new situation requires from him maturity, which he unfortunately lacks. A woman appears in his life, whom he uses in his game with his mother.

Movie

I-San Special (2002)
คืนพระจันทร์เต็มดวง WikiData IMDb TMDB
other title: คืนพระจันทร์เต็มดวง
The soundtrack to a radio soap opera set in a luxury hotel is acted out by characters who are riding a ramshackle bus from Bangkok to a small town in Thailand’s Northeast.

Movie

She's One of Us (2003)
Elle est des Notres WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
other title: 我们的女人 / Elle est des Notres …
At the start, Christine Blanc is a temp, her boyfriend has gone. Near the story's end, she's been offered a steady job, she has a fiancé, other men seem interested in her, she's passed her driving test, and, after she wins 1000 Euros in a scratch-off, her colleagues sing that she's a jolly good fellow ("one of us"). But something's askew: her gaze is too direct, her eyes open too widely; conversational gambits hit odd notes; she parrots others' words; she cooks too much food when she invites a supervisor to dinner. When the supervisor takes Christine on a spontaneous outing that disorients her, her oddities become something else. Can things ever be normal?

Movie

Day Night Day Night (2006)
Day Night Day Night WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 6.0 7 ratings
朱丽娅·罗克铁夫 actor: 露易莎·威廉姆斯 / Josh Phillip Weinstein …
other title: 日日夜夜 / 炸弹女的日与夜 …
A 19-year-old girl prepares to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with a nondescript American accent, and it’s impossible to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision—she has made it already.

Movie

German Plus Ame (2007)
ジャーマン+雨 IMDb TMDB Douban
横浜聪子 actor: 野崎好美 / 藤岡涼音 …
other title: 德国人和雨 / ジャーマン+雨 …
This wild and outrageous Japanese film by Satoko Yokohama tells the story of a 16 year old girl named Yoshiko, who lives all alone since her mother died and father entered the hospital. There isn't much opportunity in a small town for a teenage girl to make a living, so Yoshiko gives recorder lessons to the neighborhood kids - but when she learns that some of her pupils have caught the eye of a local pedophile, she takes up a part-time job as a vigilante! Her plans to do right by her odd array of students include brutal emasculation, but at the end of the day, the sweet young thing never forgets to reward her precious tykes with treats.

Movie

Behind the Rainbow (2008)
Behind the Rainbow WikiData IMDb TMDB
Behind the Rainbow explores the transition of the African National Congress (ANC) from its role as a liberation organization to its position as South Africa's ruling party, by means of the evolution of the relationship between two of its most prominent leaders, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Exiled under Apartheid, brothers in arms following Mandela's leadership, they loyally labored to build a non-racial state. Now they are bitter rivals. Their confrontation threatens to tear apart the ANC and the country, mean while the poor desperately seek hope in change and the elite fight for the spoils of victory.

Movie

Middle of Nowhere (2012)
Middle of Nowhere WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
艾娃·德约列 actor: 伊梅雅格特伊·科伦尼伊乐迪 / 欧玛瑞·哈德威克 …
other title: 不知所踪 / 无人知晓 …
When her husband is sentenced to eight years in prison, Ruby drops out of medical school in order to focus on her husband's well-being while he's incarcerated - leading her on a journey of self-discovery in the process.
Reply Quote Sept. 25, 2026