This Is What A Female Director Looks Like

Chicks make chick flicks, right?

When they want to, sure; then we end up with classics like Amy Heckerling's unparalleled 90's adaptation 'Clueless' but female directors are not a monolith. And they are not making moves into filmmaking, they've always been there. From the earliest days of a burgeoning industry, with women like Alice Guy-Blache making what is regarded the first female directed film 'La Fee au Choux' (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896 (which is arguably the first fiction narrative film also), women have been pioneers since the beginning.

Women went on to have a huge role in the silent era, taking on prominent roles such as directors, writers and editors before seeing these opportunities diminish under the studio system. Since those more balanced years, the fight has been on to even the playing field with only 13% of the top 250 grossing films in 2019 being directed by women.

To highlight the work that is happening, we've put together some picks of some of the best modern films directed by women across pretty much every genre - titles and links at the bottom of the page!

Row 1: Shirkers - Sandi Tan (2018), Selma - Ava DuVernay (2015)

Row 2: Queen & Slim - Melina Matsoukas (2020), American Psycho - Mary Harron (2000)

Row 3: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - Ana Lily Amirpour (2014)

Row 4: The Farewell - Lulu Wang (2019), The Matrix - Lana and Lilly Wachowski (1999)

Row 5: You Were Never Really Here - Lynne Ramsey (2017), The Love Witch - Anna Biller (2017)

Row 6: Booksmart - Olivia Wilde (2019)

Row 7: Wonder Woman - Patty Jenkins (2017), Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig (2017)

Row 8: Raw - Julia Ducournau (2016)