100 great movies by female direc­tors – part 4

Boat Peo­ple was Ann Hui’s third film focussed on the post-1975 plight of Viet­nam and the mass-migra­tions which fol­lowed in the wake of the country’s tran­si­tion­al peri­od to reuni­fi­ca­tion. Now con­sid­ered one of the key texts of the Hong Kong New Wave, its con­fronta­tion­al stance towards the white­wash­ing of endem­ic human­i­tar­i­an crimes ensured con­tro­ver­sy both at home and abroad. Banned in Chi­na as ​‘anti-Com­mu­nist’, denied a com­pe­ti­tion slot in Cannes for fear of dam­ag­ing rela­tions between France and Viet­nam, and viewed State­side as a sim­plis­tic reduc­tion of a com­plex polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, it’s sur­pris­ing the film even got made in the first place. Yet there’s noth­ing sim­plis­tic about Hui’s approach, despite the film’s relent­less com­pound­ing of atroc­i­ties. A bold fusion of grim social real­ism and height­ened melo­dra­ma, the bald ironies of the Com­mu­nist government’s ​‘New Eco­nom­ic Zones’ are echoed in Hui’s for­mi­da­ble for­mal expres­sion, a com­mer­cial smoke­screen for an essen­tial recount­ing of per­son­al and polit­i­cal trau­ma. Matt Thrift

On a pri­ma­ry lev­el, Born in Flames is a piece of sar­cas­tic, fatal­is­tic gen­der rebel­lion show­ing women hav­ing to fight against unem­ploy­ment and rape cul­ture under any gov­ern­ment. It was made dur­ing the over­lap of Carter’s ​’70s and Reagan’s ​’80s but takes place in a fic­tion­al New York 10 years after the social demo­c­ra­t­ic ​‘War of Lib­er­a­tion.’ It fore­shad­ows our own Third Way dystopia, with its world of eco­nom­ic chaos and author­i­tar­i­an­ism anaes­thetised by friend­ly human­ist pro­pa­gan­da. Cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly, it bangs togeth­er as a series of 16mm snip­pets book­end­ed by a jan­g­ly Red Kray­ola theme song. On a basic lev­el it is mild­ly con­fus­ing, but in essence feels like doc­u­men­tary frag­ments that speak to a larg­er truth. Lizzie Bor­den – the direc­tor took her name from a real but myth­ic Amer­i­can mur­der­ess – made a film that cap­tures the punky ener­gy of its day, while satiris­ing ours and flip­ping the bird towards eter­ni­ty. Ian Mant­gani

What­ev­er hap­pened to Deb­o­rah Fore­man? Three years after land­ing her first major act­ing role in Martha Coolidge’s Val­ley Girl, the then 23-year-old was named Most Promis­ing New Star at the ShoW­est film con­ven­tion (no less!), only to spend her peak years slum­ming it in cheap-and-cheery girl-meets-boy come­dies like My Chauf­feur and naff teen hor­ror romps like April Fool’s Day and Wax­work. It wouldn’t be unrea­son­able to use the con­trast­ing career tra­jec­to­ries of Fore­man and her Val­ley Girl co-star, Nico­las Cage (a vir­tu­al unknown at the time), as evi­dence of Hollywood’s long-stand­ing gen­der inequal­i­ty. But now’s not the time to get stuck into indus­try pol­i­tics. We’re here to cel­e­brate a tripen­dic­u­lar ​’80s touch­stone. The mas­sive hair­styles, the killer sound­track, the cheesy dia­logue, the unde­ni­able chem­istry between its fresh-faced lead­ing pair… ignor­ing the obvi­ous nos­tal­gia val­ue, it’s tes­ta­ment to Coolidge’s assured direc­tion that Val­ley Girl holds up so well today. Every­thing just seems to fall into place. For our mon­ey, this unapolo­get­i­cal­ly feel-good prep­py meets punk love sto­ry is right up there with the best roman­tic come­dies of the decade. Like, total­ly. Adam Wood­ward

The very def­i­n­i­tion of boho ​’80s Amer­i­ca, Des­per­ate­ly Seek­ing Susan is a stu­pen­dous slice of span­gled friv­o­li­ty. Seem­ing­ly straight-laced, sex­u­al­ly repressed house­wife, Rober­ta (Rosan­na Arquette) has been fol­low­ing a spo­radic series of per­son­al ads, doc­u­ment­ing a stranger’s hook-ups with an insub­or­di­nate and spunky girl, Susan (Madon­na). When the two women unin­ten­tion­al­ly trade lives, their mis­tak­en iden­ti­ties lead to com­i­cal­ly com­pli­cat­ed escapades, even­tu­al­ly cli­max­ing to an uncom­fort­able encounter with a dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal. Walk­ing in the shoes of her off­beat hero, Rober­ta finds her own rhythm as she is intro­duced to a lifestyle of com­plete lib­er­a­tion. Get into the groove with this kitsch com­ic delight, which quirk­i­ly par­o­dies how lit­tle men real­ly know about the ​“objects” of their arousal. Tahlia McK­in­non

As you may have noticed, we’ve lim­it­ed this list to one film per direc­tor, and let me tell you it was damn hard to set­tle on a sin­gle cut by the tena­cious, auda­cious and always whim­si­cal Agnés Var­da. We could’ve opt­ed for her clas­sic 1962 fea­ture, Cleo from 5 to 7, which many clas­si­fy as her first great work. Or maybe her bit­ter­ly iron­ic take on Hol­ly­wood melo­dra­ma in 1965’s Le Bon­heur. Or her fab­u­lous, free­wheel­ing trip to Cal­i­for­nia to hang out with Fac­to­ry alum­ni and Shirley Clarke in Lion Love… (And Lies) from 1969. Or wait, what about Jacquot de Nantes, the heart­felt 1991 docu-fic­tion about her revered hus­band, Jacques Demy? Or her rag-and-bone paean to life’s out­siders in The Glean­ers and I from 2000? All great, but the one we’ve put all our mon­ey down on sits right at the mid­point of her career, com­bin­ing the clas­si­cal for­mal assur­ance of her ear­ly films and the testy inquis­i­tive­ness of her lat­er work. Vagabond cap­i­talis­es on the stel­lar per­for­mance deliv­ered by San­drine Bon­naire in 1983’s A Nos Amours, here pre­sent­ing the actress as a nomadic and mys­te­ri­ous teenag­er tra­vers­ing the French coun­try­side and attempt­ing to retain some sem­blance of per­son­al free­dom. The film opens on her death and flash­es back to the weeks lead­ing up to that fate­ful moment. Varda’s films are often thought of for their buoy­an­cy and wicked sense of irony. Not this one. David Jenk­ins

“If all of the peo­ple who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today.” Elaine May’s quip to her for­mer spar­ring part­ner Mike Nichols dur­ing a post-screen­ing Q&A in 2006 is the per­fect sum­ma­tion of the absur­di­ty of Ishtar’s rep­u­ta­tion. Her fourth film as direc­tor, Ishtar is a sharp-wit­ted take on the futil­i­ty of Rea­gan­ite for­eign pol­i­cy. Its crit­i­cal drub­bing over the years is sad­ly emblem­at­ic of the lot of the female auteur in film cul­ture; a male direc­tor who exerts con­trol over his work is a ​“mav­er­ick”, where­as a woman in the same posi­tion is ​“dif­fi­cult”. May’s bat­ting aver­age is unri­valled – she only direct­ed four films, but all are arguable mas­ter­pieces. Ishtar marks the cul­mi­na­tion of May’s decon­struc­tion of male ego­tism by allow­ing the focus to shift from the van­i­ties and neu­roses of her pro­tag­o­nists to those of the estab­lish­ment itself. She may have lost the bat­tle, but her lega­cy will win the war. Craig Williams

Fact: if your heart doesn’t swell with joy at the thought of the piano scene in Big you don’t qual­i­fy as human. Yes it’s been par­o­died to death, but the most icon­ic moment from Pen­ny Marshall’s 1988 age-swap com­e­dy hasn’t lost a sin­gle mol­e­cule of its mag­ic. The sight of Tom Han­ks in his crisp white Air Force IIs danc­ing an impromp­tu duet with Robert Log­gia across a giant floor key­board in FAO Schwartz is one of those rare instances of pure, unadul­ter­at­ed view­ing plea­sure. It’s a scene you know prob­a­bly took hours of prac­tice to get right, yet in the moment you ful­ly believe it was achieved in sin­gle, spon­ta­neous take. And when was the last time a pub­lic ren­di­tion of ​‘Chop­sticks’ raised a smile with­out first requir­ing you to throt­tle the per­son respon­si­ble? Han­ks’ (and Loggia’s) fan­cy foot­work aside, Big hard­ly puts a step out of place. Mar­shall and Han­ks only worked on one more film togeth­er, the 1992 base­ball com­e­dy A League of Their Own. Cinema’s loss. AW

Ann Turner’s Celia is an extreme­ly bru­tal movie whose cen­tral strat­e­gy is to con­stant­ly lure the view­er into a false sense of secu­ri­ty – it’s like a plush rose whose petals hide razor-sharp thorns. It does this through its jan­gling Muzak score, its twin­kling soft-focus cin­e­matog­ra­phy, its appar­ent­ly idyl­lic set­tings of con­ser­v­a­tive small­town Aus­tralia, its men who wear belt and braces and shirts with the sleeves rolled up, its women who sport flow­ing flo­ral dress­es, its white pick­et fences, and the chil­dren who frol­ic freely across the land­scape. Broad­ly speak­ing, this is a hor­ror film, in the same way that Blue Vel­vet is a hor­ror film – about how soci­ety is for­mu­lat­ed to car­pet over rather than dif­fuse social prob­lems. The film opens with Celia (Rebec­ca Smart) hap­pen­ing across the corpse of her grand­moth­er, a woman she loved and who instilled in the young scamp a sense of inquiry, but also shaped her forth­right moral out­look on the world. Much of the film con­cerns Celia’s pet rab­bit, Mur­ga­troyd, and her nasty neighbour’s fix­a­tion on tak­ing it away due to laws imposed by the state regard­ing a harm­ful rab­bit infes­ta­tion. The small dra­mas in the film man­i­fest as a cacoph­o­nous broad­side against con­for­mi­ty, and Turn­er bril­liant­ly depicts the grim real­i­ties of gov­ern­ments who rule with no idea that com­pas­sion and inde­pen­dent thought are what sep­a­rate man from beast. DJ

For­get The Exor­cist, The Omen and The Shin­ing – Mary Lambert’s gory, gut-wrench­ing adap­ta­tion of Stephen King’s 1983 nov­el con­tains the sin­gle creepi­est child per­for­mance ever com­mit­ted to cel­lu­loid. Appar­ent­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ing the old show­biz adage ​‘nev­er work with chil­dren or ani­mals’ as a chal­lenge, Lambert’s super­nat­ur­al hor­ror also boasts some of the finest (and most hack­le-rais­ing) feline act­ing you’ll ever see. Admit­ted­ly, cer­tain aspects of the film haven’t aged all that well, but Pet Sematary still deliv­ers big where it counts. Scenes con­cern­ing an ancient indi­an bur­ial ground, a spinal menin­gi­tis vic­tim appari­tion and the sui­cide of the fam­i­ly maid are gen­uine­ly har­row­ing – Lam­bert faith­ful­ly pre­sent­ing the con­se­quences of try­ing to cheat death with unflinch­ing rel­ish. But it’s two-year-old Miko Hugh­es as res­ur­rect­ed tod­dler Gage Creed who steals the show, wreak­ing scalpel-based hav­oc on his par­ents and elder­ly neigh­bour, Jud Cran­dall (Fred Gwynne, aka Her­man Mun­ster). As the film’s adult pro­tag­o­nists learn the hard way, some­times death is bet­ter. AW

There are many women on this list – Joan Tewkes­bury, Ann Turn­er, Joan Mick­lin Sliv­er, to name three – who began their direc­to­r­i­al careers with expres­sive explo­sions of pas­sion and inge­nu­ity, only to be unof­fi­cial­ly black­balled from ever mak­ing ​“per­son­al” films again. It’s as if these works were mere call­ing cards, enough to jus­ti­fy a basic tech­ni­cal prowess behind the cam­era that can be chan­neled into more finan­cial­ly viable uses (most­ly TV). Fore­most in the ​“what the hell hap­pened there?” stakes is New York-born direc­tor Julie Dash whose extra­or­di­nary 1991 debut fea­ture Daugh­ters of the Dust comes across as America’s answer to Ter­ence Davies or Derek Jar­man. This is less a movie more than it is a right­eous con­gress, set on St Simons Island in South­ern Geor­gia cir­ci 1902, and explor­ing the post-bel­lum fork-in-the-road that south­ern black peo­ple found them­selves con­fronting at the time. What next? is the broad ques­tion. Should a cul­ture that has been forged in the fur­nace of Amer­i­can slav­ery be pre­served for future gen­er­a­tions? Should the sanc­tu­ary of this island be wel­comed, or is urgent re-inte­gra­tion into the main­land a neces­si­ty? The man­ner in which the dia­logue is spo­ken (either shout­ed or whis­pered, noth­ing in-between), the woozy edit­ing pat­terns, the nat­ur­al puri­ty of the land­scapes, all add up to a film which is more poet­ry than polemic. And it’s the women who are the cen­tral play­ers in build­ing this new world. DJ

Read more 100 great movies by female direc­tors: 1 – 10 | 11 – 20 | 21 – 30 | 41 – 50 | 51 – 60 | 61 – 70 | 71 – 80 | 81 – 90 | 91 – 100