FemaleDirectors.com is a website for female-directed movies: you can find, play, and add them to your Netflix queue, and buy them on Amazon.com. Browse within our genres to find movies from the female perspective.
Documentary
Return with Honor: American Experience
rating:3.8.png

Return with Honor: American Experience

1999
Oscar-winning filmmakers Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders present the stories of the brave American fighter pilots who were shot down over North Vietnam and survived torture, solitary confinement and other harrowing experiences as prisoners of war. Among other honored veterans, the documentary features Everett Alvarez, the first American pilot captured by the Vietnamese, who was held captive for eight-and-a-half years.

Directed by:

  • Terry Sanders
  • Freida Lee Mock
    • rating:3.8.png 3.8 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    The Decline of Western Civilization Part III
    rating:4.1.png

    The Decline of Western Civilization Part III

    1998
    Director Penelope Spheeris completes her trilogy documenting the Los Angeles music scene with this look at the homeless teens who roamed the streets in the late 1990s and professed to live a punk lifestyle of music, drugs and authority flouting. Spheeris maintains a tender attitude toward her young subjects, who often don't truly understand the culture that began before they were born. Songs by Final Conflict and Naked Aggression are featured.

    Directed by:

  • Penelope Spheeris
    • rating:4.1.png 4.1 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Coal Country
    rating:3.3.png

    Coal Country

    2009
    Increasingly, Big Coal is spelling big trouble for Appalachian communities whose members have worked the mines for generations. This documentary reveals why with its explanation of the effects of mountaintop-removal mining on the region. Miners, coal company officials and area residents weigh in on the high price of "cheap energy" -- especially when it involves blowing off mountain summits to expose seams. Journalist Michael Shnayerson narrates.

    Directed by:

  • Mari-Lynn Evans
  • Phylis Geller
    • rating:3.3.png 3.3 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Through Deaf Eyes
    rating:3.8.png

    Through Deaf Eyes

    2007
    Emmy-winning actress Stockard Channing narrates this documentary that chronicles the history of deaf culture in America from the 19th century to the present day. Interviews with actress Marlee Matlin, community leaders and other deaf Americans provide an up-front and diverse perspective of this segment of society. Short films created by deaf artists are interspersed throughout the in-depth program.

    Directed by:

  • Diane Garey
    • rating:3.8.png 3.8 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Comedy
    The Mirror Has Two Faces
    rating:3.5.png

    The Mirror Has Two Faces

    1996
    Middle-aged professor Rose Morgan (Barbra Streisand) is tired of being single and living with her mother (Lauren Bacall). Thus, when a colleague (Jeff Bridges), proposes, Morgan accepts. But Morgan's colleague is in love with her mind, and the marriage he proposed is a platonic one. Not surprisingly, more discontentment follows. Streisand directed this romantic comedy, which earned a Golden Globe for Bacall and an Oscar nomination for Best Song.

    Directed by:

  • Barbra Streisand
    • rating:3.5.png 3.5 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Life Begins: Series 1
    rating:3.3.png

    Life Begins: Series 1

    2004
    Life is good for Maggie Mee (Caroline Quentin) -- until her husband abruptly dumps her for a younger woman, leaving her with no job, no money and two kids. Suddenly, she's thrust back into the workforce and the dating scene in this British comedy series. And though she struggles to get back on her feet, Maggie soon finds that she's having more fun starting her life over than she ever had as a dull, married woman.

    Directed by:

  • Catherine Morshead
    • rating:3.3.png 3.3 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
    rating:3.7.png

    Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

    2008
    Georgia Nicolson (Georgia Groome) has two goals in life: Get a gorgeous boyfriend, and throw the best 15th birthday party … ever. No. 1 looks within reach when hottie Robbie (Aaron Johnson) arrives in school. That is, until Georgia's archnemesis is spotted with him. Adding to Georgia's troubles are some serious family problems back home. Luckily, she's got her cat Angus and her best mates in the Ace Gang in this winning British teen comedy.

    Directed by:

  • Gurinder Chadha
    • rating:3.7.png 3.7 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Lost in Translation
    rating:3.2.png

    Lost in Translation

    2003
    Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

    Directed by:

  • Sofia Coppola
    • rating:3.2.png 3.2 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Foreign
    The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
    rating:3.5.png

    The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

    1975
    A night spent with a suspected terrorist is the catalyst for a smear campaign against the otherwise unimportant Katharina Blum (Angelina Winkler). Katharina's life unravels as both the police and the news media strip her of all her dignity and sanity in this shocking attack on power abuse and yellow journalism. Directed by Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta, this 1975 German film is based on an equally menacing novel by Heinrich Boll.

    Directed by:

  • Volker Schlondorff
  • Margarethe von Trotta
    • rating:3.5.png 3.5 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Ciao, Professore!
    rating:3.6.png

    Ciao, Professore!

    1993
    In director Lina Wertmüller's upbeat comedy, Marco Sperelli (Paolo Villaggio) -- a priggish upper-class teacher from northern Italy -- is mistakenly assigned to a tumbledown school in an impoverished village near Naples. But upon arriving, he finds most of his students hustling on the streets to earn money for their families -- and before you can say "school of hard knocks," Sperelli becomes the pupil as the kids tutor him about life's realities.

    Directed by:

  • Lina Wertmuller
    • rating:3.6.png 3.6 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Late Bloomers
    rating:3.1.png

    Late Bloomers

    2011
    After 30 years together, a married couple confronts the unpalatable realities of getting older and concludes that emotional absence is the easiest way to cope. But at what point does distance become divorce?

    Directed by:

  • Julie Gavras
    • rating:3.1.png 3.1 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Unveiled
    rating:3.4.png

    Unveiled

    2005
    After the Iranian authorities threaten to prosecute her for loving a woman, Fariba (Jasmin Tabatabai) assumes a dead man's identity in order to survive. Denied asylum in Germany, Fariba is locked in a detainment center, where her male cellmate commits suicide -- and she spies a window of opportunity. Assuming his identity, she takes a job in a small country village, where she struggles to keep her secret from a well-meaning female friend.

    Directed by:

  • Angelina Maccarone
    • rating:3.4.png 3.4 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Gay & Lesbian
    Sister My Sister
    rating:3.1.png

    Sister My Sister

    1994
    This darkly engaging film dramatizes real-life events that scandalized French society in the 1930s, when Christine (Joely Richardson) and Lea Papin (Jodhi May), sisters who worked as maids, murdered their overbearing bourgeois mistress and her daughter. Their lives stifled by their employer, the sisters also formed an incestuous sexual relationship. Nancy Meckler directs this tale of rage and twisted love that also features Julie Walters.

    Directed by:

  • Nancy Meckler
    • rating:3.1.png 3.1 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Foxfire
    rating:3.3.png

    Foxfire

    1996
    In this adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates's controversial novel, four high school girls' have their lives changed forever when a defiant, charismatic drifter (Angelina Jolie) unites them and inspires them to exact revenge on their sexually abusive biology teacher. The quintet then spirals toward anarchy as they abduct and blackmail the father of one of the girls -- an act they come to rue when they find themselves on the lam and battling for survival.

    Directed by:

  • Annette Haywood Carter
    • rating:3.3.png 3.3 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    But I'm a Cheerleader
    rating:3.4.png

    But I'm a Cheerleader

    1999
    In this hilarious satire, Megan Bloomfield (Natasha Lyonne) lives a "normal" teen life as a cheerleader dating the captain of the football team. But her parents and friends suspect Megan is gay because of "clues," such as her distaste for kissing her boyfriend. Shipped off to True Directions -- a camp designed to shove her back in the closet -- Bloomfield meets tomboy Graham Eaton (Clea DuVall), who helps her recognize her sexual orientation.

    Directed by:

  • Jamie Babbit
    • rating:3.4.png 3.4 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Hannah Free
    rating:3.5.png

    Hannah Free

    2009
    One of them is a free-thinking butch lesbian, the other a married homemaker -- together, they've managed to sustain a decades-long love affair that's transcended time and place in this drama from helmer Wendy Jo Carlton. Sharon Gless -- a gay icon since her "Cagney & Lacey" days -- plays the "out" partner, Hannah, and Maureen Gallagher plays her married and now-comatose best friend and lover, Rachel, in this film based on a play by Claudia Allen.

    Directed by:

  • Wendy Jo Carlton
    • rating:3.5.png 3.5 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Now and Then
    rating:3.8.png

    Now and Then

    1995
    Waxing nostalgic about the bittersweet passage from childhood to puberty in this tender coming-of-age tale, four childhood girlfriends -- Teeny, Chrissy, Samantha and Roberta -- recall the magical summer of 1970. During their walk down memory lane, they reconcile experiences with boys, secrets, bullies and more. Lesli Linka Glatter directs; Gaby Hoffmann, Ashleigh Aston Moore, Cloris Leachman, Thora Birch and Christina Ricci co-star.

    Directed by:

  • Lesli Linka Glatter
    • rating:3.8.png 3.8 Average Rating


    Find On Amazon
    Now and Then (1995)
    A heartwarming movie about four childhood girlfriends who, in adulthood reunion, relive their experience of the life-changing summer of 1970, including a mystery death, divorce, standing up to the boys, first kiss, and the meaning of true friendship. Each explores her unique identity amidst family and friends. Beautifully directed by Lesli Linka Glatter.
    - Frances   
    We periodically update our movie database by adding new female directors and their movies. If you would like to receive notice of these new additions when they happen, please email us at:
    frances 'at' femaledirectors.com