Dou­ble Threat: A his­to­ry of actress­es directing

In light of think­ing about Zoë Kravitz’s extra­or­di­nary direc­to­r­i­al debut, Blink Twice, we noticed that there’s a secret his­to­ry of female actors who have tak­en up the man­tle of direc­tor that stretch­es back to the medium’s for­ma­tive days. This is not a qual­i­ta­tive sur­vey, more a pot­ted his­to­ry of female screen per­form­ers who have been able shift to the oth­er side of the cam­era, and hope­ful­ly these 50 cap­sule reviews, when tak­en togeth­er, gives a sense of the sweep, the evolv­ing styles and the even­tu­al sur­feit of oppor­tu­ni­ty in an indus­try that, for its first cen­tu­ry, seemed to frame direct­ing as a male-only sport. Please note: in the instances we detail below, we do not see the move from actor to direc­tor as being hier­ar­chi­cal in any way – they are two dis­tinct roles which require a unique set of phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al tools to do them well.

1. Assun­ta Spina (1915)
Direct­ed by Francesca Bertini

There are film his­to­ri­ans who claim that this Ital­ian melo­dra­ma from 1915, co-direct­ed by Gus­ta­vo Ser­e­na and silent era diva, Francesca Berti­ni, offers the blue­print for a mode of film­mak­ing lat­er referred to as neo­re­al­ism. And it’s easy to see why. It is the sto­ry of jeal­ousy, male rage and rigid con­ser­vatism in the streets of Napoli, as the lus­trous hero­ine of the tile (played by Berti­ni) has her face slashed with a knife by her hus­band when she dares to dance with the local fish­mon­ger at a wed­ding par­ty. The first half of the film details Assunta’s flighty whims and fem­i­nine charms, not so much a femme fatale as a lib­er­at­ed woman dur­ing a time and in a place where such free­doms were frowned upon. The sec­ond half moves into the court­room, and the shock rev­e­la­tion that Assun­ta choses to defend the actions of her bar­barous beau, much to the con­ster­na­tion of her friends and fam­i­ly. And yes, the ker­nel of neo­re­al­ism is there to see, in its raw depic­tion of the polit­i­cal degra­da­tions of the era. David Jenk­ins

2. The Dream Lady (1918)
Direct­ed by Alice Guy/​Elsie Jane Wilson

One of the surest ways to direct a movie as a woman in ear­ly Hol­ly­wood was to work with your hus­band – such mar­ried duos includ­ed Lois Weber and Phillips Smal­l­ey, Helen Holmes and JP McGowan, and Elsie Jane Wil­son and Rupert Julian. That final pair­ing set sail for the Unit­ed States from Aus­tralia after years of act­ing, land­ing in Hol­ly­wood in 1914. After star­ring in films along­side Lon Chaney, Wil­son was called upon by Uni­ver­sal Pic­tures to direct sev­er­al ​“women’s pic­tures”, often cen­tring on chil­dren. Her sur­viv­ing fea­ture, The Dream Lady (1918), is much more intrigu­ing than such dis­mis­sive brand­ing sug­gests. It fits into a curi­ous cat­e­go­ry of gen­der-play movies made in Hol­ly­wood in the ear­ly silent era, with the title char­ac­ter played by Carmel Myers grant­i­ng a young woman’s wish to become male, with bisex­u­al roman­tic antics ensu­ing. A great shame then that Wilson’s film career came to an abrupt end short­ly after. Lil­lian Crawford

3. The Girl in Tails (1926)
Direct­ed by Karin Swanström

The Girl in Tails is one of two sur­viv­ing films (from a total of four) direct­ed by actress and long­time thes­pi­an Karin Swanström, and it’s for that rea­son that her name is not so well known when it comes to the clas­sic era of Swedish cin­e­ma. Swanström’s name is etched into the annals of film his­to­ry for being the per­son who dis­cov­ered Ingrid Bergman while work­ing as a stu­dio tal­ent scout. Yet this film demon­strates an easy knack for com­ic lev­i­ty and spry social satire, as it fol­lows young Kat­ja (Mag­da Holm) as she heads to her exam­i­na­tion ball in a man’s coat and tails because her wid­ow­er father refus­es to shell out for a dress. In her new gen­der-twist­ing guise, she smokes cig­ars and quaffs whiskey, and gen­er­al­ly socks it to the con­ser­v­a­tive hoi poloi. DJ

4. The Red Mead­ows (1945)
Direct­ed by Bödil Ipsen, Lau Lau­ritzen Jr.

This flinty doc­u­ment of wartime der­ring-do net­ted the Palme d’Or for its mak­ers in 1945, and it’s not dif­fi­cult to see why. Direct­ed by Bödil Ipsen, who had act­ed through much of the silent era, The Red Mead­ows trains its focus on dou­ble- hard Dan­ish resis­tance fight­er Michael (Poul Reich­hardt) who under­takes a grandiose fac­to­ry bomb­ing dur­ing the Nazi occu­pa­tion despite believ­ing that there’s a trai­tor in the midst of his close-knit crew. Ibsen and co-direc­tor Lau Lau­ritzen Jr bring a feel­ing of luxe Hol­ly­wood crafts­man­ship to a hard-nosed thriller with a gen­uine­ly com­plex moral core. Ipsen kept direct­ing into the ear­ly 1950s, before she capped off her career by return­ing to act­ing, receiv­ing a Bod­il Award for her turn as a grand­ma in Eric Balling’s Faith, Hope and Witch­craft from 1960. DJ

5. Death is a Caress (1949)
Direct­ed by Edith Calmar

Norway’s answer to Ing­mar Bergman was a woman; Edith Carl­mar to be exact. Though she worked more reg­u­lar­ly as an actor, her 10-year direc­to­r­i­al career prof­fered a boun­ty of excit­ing and pas­sion­ate works which merged Hol­ly­wood stan­dards such as noir and melo­dra­ma with a more solemn, Scan­di­na­vian sense of depres­sive fatal­ism. Her debut fea­ture, Death is a Caress from 1949, sug­gests itself as a clas­sic tale of mur­der, dames, liquor and hard love. Son­ja (Bjørg Riis­er-Larsen) swings her car into a local mechan­ics, only to have one of the more dash­ing grease mon­keys, Eric (Claus Wiese), throw aside his whale sausage (!) and go in for the roman­tic kill. Yet this is a flash­back, as the film’s open­ing scene sees Eric con­fess­ing to the mur­der of his wife. It’s an emo­tion­al­ly tor­tu­ous ride, with the pair falling in and out of love with one anoth­er depend­ing on where they are, what they’re doing and how much they’ve drunk. DJ

6. The Bigamist (1953)
Direct­ed by Ida Lupino

If there was a Mount Rush­more of female Hol­ly­wood film­mak­ers, Ida Lupino would be the first face carved on it. While bet­ter known in her day as an actor, Lupino’s crown­ing achieve­ments – for which she remains crim­i­nal­ly over­looked – came behind the cam­era. In the ear­ly 1950s, she helmed a string of pic­tures for RKO includ­ing the social­ly con­scious noir, Out­rage, and the ten­nis romance, Hard, Fast and Beau­ti­ful! (the OG Chal­lengers!). After part­ing ways with RKO, Lupino and then-hus­band Col­lier Young went ful­ly inde­pen­dent, self-financ­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing The Bigamist at great per­son­al expense. Cre­ative­ly speak­ing, it was worth it. This styl­ish, superbly act­ed film fol­lows Har­ry Gra­ham (Edmond O’Brien), a trav­el­ling sales­man con­stant­ly yo-yoing between two wives (played by Joan Fontaine and Lupino her­self ). Harry’s dou­ble life quick­ly unrav­els after an adop­tion agency looks into his back­ground, with Lupino treat­ing this moral­ly com­plex taboo sub­ject with great empa­thy and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence. Adam Wood­ward

7. For­ev­er a Woman (1955)
Direct­ed by Kin­uyo Tanaka

Kin­uyo Tana­ka is one of Japan’s defin­ing screen icons. Among the most pop­u­lar stars of pre-war Japan­ese films, she con­tin­ued to have a pro­lif­ic act­ing career in the post-war land­scape, work­ing with such direct­ing titans as Yasu­jirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Ken­ji Mizoguchi. In 1953, Tana­ka became the sec­ond Japan­ese woman to direct a fea­ture, after Tazuko Sakane. Each broad­ly con­cerned with dif­fer­ent notions of fem­i­nin­i­ty, her six films as direc­tor include some of the most exquis­ite dra­mas of Japan­ese cinema’s his­to­ry. For­ev­er a Woman – also known as The Eter­nal Breasts – may be her mas­ter­piece. Writ­ten by out­spo­ken fem­i­nist Sum­ie Tana­ka, the film adapts the biog­ra­phy of poet Fumiko Naka­jō, who died young of breast can­cer. Offer­ing a dar­ing depic­tion of female desire endur­ing in defi­ance of soci­etal expec­ta­tions, this is a deeply mov­ing sto­ry of secur­ing self-expres­sion and auton­o­my in spite of all man­ner of hard­ships. Josh Slater-Williams

8. El Camino (1964)
Direct­ed by Ana Mariscal

A glam­orous screen icon of Gen­er­al Franco’s Spain, Ana Mariscal was a main­stay of local cin­e­ma screens dur­ing the 1940s. That is until 1953 when she sud­den­ly tried her hand at writ­ing, pro­duc­ing and direct­ing, along with act­ing, in her debut fea­ture, the rip-roar­ing Segun­do López, Urban Adven­tur­er. She remained pri­mar­i­ly an actor while occa­sion­al­ly cross­ing over to the dark side, and her best film arrived in 1964 called El Camino, telling of a young coun­try boy and the hijinx that he and his friends get up to ahead of his depar­ture to the city for more schol­ar­ly pur­suits. Though the film and Mariscal’s work in gen­er­al are lit­tle-known out­side of her home coun­try, El Camino was recent­ly the sub­ject of a new restora­tion which pre­miered at the 2021 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. DJ

9. The Girls (1968)
Direct­ed by Mai Zetterling

Mai Zetter­ling should be more famous out­side of her native Swe­den than she cur­rent­ly is. The tide may be turn­ing, how­ev­er, as in a bizarre algo­rith­mic anom­aly, her aston­ish­ing 1968 film The Girls (among many oth­er canon­i­cal clas­sics of Swedish cin­e­ma not direct­ed by Ing­mar Bergman) can be found lan­guish­ing in their own dig­i­tal cul-de-sac on Net­flix of all places. She was a child star with her career kick-start­ed by an icon­ic role in Bergman’s 1944 film Tor­ment. 20 years and count­less roles lat­er, she made the hard tran­si­tion to direct­ing and gave up her work in front of the cam­era. Fol­low­ing her erot­ic cause célèbre, Lov­ing Cou­ples, which blazed an ear­ly trail for screen nudi­ty, she returned with her wild fem­i­nist mas­ter­piece, The Girls, in which the all-female cast of a pro­duc­tion of Aristophanes’s Lysis­tra­ta must con­tend with the domes­tic expec­ta­tions that come as part and par­cel of the gen­der. DJ

10. Wan­da (1970)
Direct­ed by Bar­bara Loden

Accord­ing to the 2022 Sight & Sound poll of the great­est films of all time, Bar­bara Loden’s sole direc­to­r­i­al effort, Wan­da, is more beloved than any­thing made by her more famous hus­band, Elia Kazan, none of whose work man­aged to place with­in the top 250. She came up as a the­atre actress, and worked in var­i­ous sup­port­ing roles for film and TV, most notably her turn as the chaot­ic lush Gin­ny in Kazan’s Splen­dor in the Grass. For many decades, Wan­da was the small indie film that nobody loved – so much so that its orig­i­nal neg­a­tive was neat­ly thrown out as trash before some plucky restora­tion experts saved it. The film sees Loden play­ing a dis­com­bob­u­lat­ed, down-and-out nomad who aban­dons her child and hits the road. Instead, she finds winos, abusers and pet­ty crim­i­nals who use her as they would a soiled rag. Its dis­mal sub­ject mat­ter belies a core of tran­scen­dent truth about what it real­ly means to be a woman. DJ

11. A New Leaf (1971)
Direct­ed by Elaine May

There’s a very fine new biog­ra­phy of Elaine May on the shelves now called ​’Miss May Does Not Exist’ by Car­rie Couro­gen which details the grand sweep of her tur­bu­lent career in much more detail that we have space for here. Rather than film act­ing, Ms May earned her spurs in the field of impro­vi­sa­tion­al com­e­dy (head to page 74 for more details on that), and she soon went on to direct and star in the macabre, self-lac­er­at­ing com­e­dy, A New Leaf, along­side Water Matthau. The ques­tion one might ask of this film is not whether it is one of the fun­ni­est debut films of all time, but whether it’s one of the fun­ni­est screen come­dies peri­od, as the action details one man’s sor­did quest to mur­der his wife for mon­ey. In this instance it’s the crim­i­nal­ly-shy (and fab­u­lous­ly wealthy) botanist Hen­ri­et­ta Low­ell (May). The set-up may be sim­ple, but every frame is wrung dry for com­ic nuance. DJ

12. 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)
Direct­ed by Aparna Sen

Aparna Sen was cred­it­ed with redefin­ing Ben­gali cin­e­ma in 1981 with the release of her dev­as­tat­ing melo­dra­ma about the crush­ing lone­li­ness and fad­ing spir­it of an Anglo- Indi­an teacher played by Jen­nifer Kendall. An actress who began her career in Satya­jit Ray’s anthol­o­gy film Three Daugh­ters, and worked with him on three fur­ther films, went on to cre­ate cin­e­ma full of sim­i­lar social com­men­tary on con­tem­po­rary India. Her father was film­mak­er and crit­ic Chi­danan­da Das Gup­ta who, along with Ray, found­ed the Cal­cut­ta Film Soci­ety. She first decid­ed to turn to writ­ing and direct­ing when sit­ting bored in her dress­ing room on the set of a main­stream Bom­bay film and work­ing in the kind of cin­e­ma she ​“did not believe in.” 36 Chowringhee Lane works on mul­ti­ple lev­els in its themes of exclu­sion, soli­tude and the place of the Anglo-Indi­an in soci­ety while also being exquis­ite­ly craft­ed, espe­cial­ly the haunt­ing Bergmanesque night­mare sequence. Kat McLaugh­lin

13. Be Pret­ty and Shut Up! (1981)
Direct­ed by Del­phine Seyrig

Sev­er­al years before the ​“Bechdel Test” – where­in two female char­ac­ters must talk about any­thing oth­er than a man – appeared, Del­phine Seyrig posed a sim­i­lar ques­tion to a group of 22 actress­es. Among them were Jen­ny Agut­ter, Jane Fon­da, Maria Schnei­der, Shirley MacLaine, and oth­er stars from Hol­ly­wood and Europe, none of whom could say that they had ever played a woman who had a warm rela­tion­ship with anoth­er woman. Seyrig her­self tra­versed both sides of the Atlantic in her act­ing career, com­ing to promi­nence in 1961’s Last Year at Marien­bad, and became ener­gised by parts in films direct­ed by women, includ­ing Mar­guerite Duras and Chan­tal Aker­man. Seyrig ​’s brief direc­to­r­i­al turn was more rad­i­cal, more ciné­ma vérité in style, form­ing the col­lec­tive Les Insoumus­es in 1975 with Car­ole Rous­sopou­los and Iona Wieder to tear down patri­ar­chal cin­e­ma. Be Pret­ty and Shut Up! is the mas­ter­piece of that peri­od, giv­ing voice to the real women behind the fake ones. LC

14. Yentl 1983
Direct­ed by Bar­bra Streisand

This one’s a bit of a cheat, as Streisand obvi­ous­ly made the lion share of her scratch from her work as a beloved musi­cal artist. But, like many in that game, the siren call of cin­e­ma was too much to resist, and she built up a rather tasty act­ing port­fo­lio in the six­ties, with films like Fun­ny Girl, What’s Up, Doc? and mega weepie, The Way We Were. Her 1983 direc­to­r­i­al debut, Yentl, remains a stag­ger­ing achieve­ment, not mere­ly for her cen­tral dual per­for­mance as a cross- dress­ing waif attempt­ing to climb the all-male rungs of the local rab­bini­cal school, but down to the incred­i­ble assur­ance of her direc­tion and the film’s immer­sive peri­od pro­duc­tion design. It’s a film which allows Streisand to trade punch­es with the best pres­tige tal­ent of the 1980s, and she went on to become the first woman to win a Best Direc­tor gong at the Gold­en Globe Awards. DJ

15. Rat­boy (1986)
Direct­ed by Son­dra Locke

It is one of the great sor­rows in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma that Son­dra Locke’s life and career have become so inex­tri­ca­bly tan­gled with the one of Clint East­wood, her co-star in clas­sics such as Bron­co Bil­ly and The Out­law Josey Wales and the man with whom she shared a noto­ri­ous­ly tox­ic rela­tion­ship. After long want­i­ng to direct, Locke final­ly got her chance with Rat­boy, pro­duced by East­wood and telling the sto­ry of a, well, rat boy. A com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal fias­co, this eccen­tric love sto­ry between an unusu­al boy and an old­er woman who explores him for finan­cial gain found its right­ful place with­in the gen­er­ous bosom of cult cinephil­ia over time. It is strange and whim­si­cal and often inco­her­ent but a blast nonethe­less and, in a painful­ly iron­ic twist, now stands as a reminder of what could have been had Locke not bumped into a few rats of her own. Rafa Sales Ross

16. Down and Out in Amer­i­ca (1986)
Direct­ed by Lee Grant

Three years before Michael Moore coined the block­buster doc­u­men­tary with Roger & Me, clas­sic-era actress Lee Grant took her own sting­ing side­swipe at the scourge of Reaganomics with her dev­as­tat­ing, hour-long reportage piece, Down and Out in Amer­i­ca. Grant speaks to inde­pen­dent farm­ers being stiffed and left des­ti­tute by local banks in Min­neso­ta; the denizens of a park­ing lot shan­ty town in Los Ange­les; and a des­per­ate fam­i­ly who have been cor­ralled into a fes­ter­ing hell­trap known as a ​“wel­fare hotel” in New York. Grant was prob­a­bly best known as one of the main­stays of the icon­ic soap opera Pey­ton Place, but is known now pri­mar­i­ly for her doc­u­men­tary work, which was placed on a pedestal ear­ly in the Covid pan­dem­ic when she became one of the first sub­jects to receive an online ret­ro­spec­tive which includ­ed all-new restora­tions of her vital work. DJ

17. Stripped to Kill (1987)
Direct­ed by Katt Shea

Katt Shea was cast in a fair share of tawdry exploita­tion flicks through­out her act­ing career, rack­ing up small roles in clas­sics such as Scar­face, Bar­bar­ian Queen and Psy­cho III, where she end­ed up meet­ing B‑movie stal­wart Roger Cor­man. With aspi­ra­tions to one day make her own films, Shea pre­sent­ed Cor­man with the premise that would launch her direc­to­r­i­al career: a sleazy slash­er set large­ly in a strip club. A detec­tive (Kay Lenz) goes under­cov­er as a strip­per in order to find the killer, all while the bod­ies con­tin­ue to pile up. The result was 1987’s Stripped to Kill, an enter­tain­ing, straight to video sex­ploita­tion flick that announced Shea as some­one who can con­fi­dent­ly nav­i­gate her way around the styl­ish yet trashy genre film. Shea is also clear­ly well-inten­tioned in the way she depicts the strip­pers as peo­ple with lives and per­son­al­i­ties, treat­ing the artistry behind their rou­tines with the sense of spec­ta­cle that slash­ers more com­mon­ly tend to lend to their kills. Mari­na Ashioti

18. Lit­tle Man Tate (1991)
Direct­ed by Jodie Foster

The year 1991 was some­thing of an annus mirabilis for Jodie Fos­ter. Feb­ru­ary saw the release of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, the film that would earn Fos­ter her sec­ond Oscar and for which she is prob­a­bly still best known. Six months lat­er, she rolled out with her direc­to­r­i­al debut, Lit­tle Man Tate, the sto­ry of a boy genius who strug­gles under the weight of his intel­lec­tu­al bur­den. Being a for­mer child star her­self, it’s not hard to see why Scott Frank’s screen­play appealed to Fos­ter – and in play­ing the title character’s hard- work­ing sin­gle par­ent, she deliv­ers one of the most sen­si­tive and mov­ing per­for­mances of her career. Fos­ter returned to the big chair four years lat­er for the frothy Thanks­giv­ing fam­i­ly com­e­dy Home for the Hol­i­days, since then has con­tin­ued to dab­ble behind the cam­era (The Beaver, Mon­ey Mon­ster). ​“This is not a busi­ness that is kind to women, but it needs them,” she told TIME in 1991. Truer words have rarely been spo­ken. AW

19. Unstrung Heroes (1995)
Direct­ed by Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton famous­ly made the deci­sion to pre­vent being type­cast as a lov­able ditz fol­low­ing her Oscar win for Annie Hall by star­ring in more ​“adult-ori­ent­ed” films such as Look­ing for Mr Good­bar and Inte­ri­ors. Her spo­radic side hus­tle as a direc­tor, which began in 1995 with the win­some Unstrung Heroes, sug­gest­ed that she was done with the dark­ness, as the film offers a rose-tint­ed ren­der­ing of Franz Lidz’ best­selling mem­oir which detailed his youth­ful inter­ac­tions with two eccen­tric uncles. Keaton takes a leaf out of the Woody Allen book of peri­od recre­ation, offer­ing a larg­er-than-life, Rock­well-esque depic­tion of work­ing-mid­dle class life 1960s Los Ange­les. It’s a film of com­ic plat­i­tudes and goofy set-pieces, with Sein­feld star Michael Richards as the dan­ger­ous­ly impul­sive MVP, play­ing para­noiac extro­vert, Dan­ny. Pri­or to this fea­ture, Keaton had earned her spurs direct­ing music videos, var­i­ous episodes of Twin Peaks sea­son two, and even a 1987 doc­u­men­tary on the con­cept of the after­life (enti­tled Heav­en). Yet any and all eccen­tric­i­ty had been watered down by the time of the charm­ing but emi­nent­ly for­get­table Unstrung Heroes. DJ

20. Pri­vate Parts (1997)
Direct­ed by Bet­ty Thomas

A mem­ber of The Sec­ond City improv troupe (along­side Bill Mur­ray), Bet­ty Thomas’ screen break­through came via dra­ma rather than com­e­dy. A main cast mem­ber on influ­en­tial police pro­ce­dur­al Hill Street Blues (1981−87), Thomas won an Emmy and received six fur­ther nom­i­na­tions for best sup­port­ing actress across the show’s run. She prac­ti­cal­ly retired from act­ing after the series end­ed, switch­ing to direct­ing TV and then movies. Most­ly direct­ing come­dies, her fil­mog­ra­phy includes sev­er­al mod­ern updates of pre-exist­ing prop­er­ties, such as The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and Doc­tor Dolit­tle (1998). Her most styl­is­ti­cal­ly bold movie is Pri­vate Parts (1997), a com­ic biopic of con­tro­ver­sial media per­son­al­i­ty Howard Stern, in which Stern plays him­self, repeat­ed­ly break­ing the fourth wall. Pro­found­ly unfun­ny, the film nonethe­less endures as a fas­ci­nat­ing cul­tur­al arte­fact con­cern­ing a main­stream hit stem­ming from a shock jock’s self-mythol­o­gis­ing. JSW

21. Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998)
Direct­ed by Joan Chen

Like many, I per­son­al­ly dis­cov­ered Joan Chen’s direc­to­r­i­al debut through Jamie Stew­art, who, tonal­ly influ­enced by the film’s emo­tion­al­ly dis­tress­ing core, named their exper­i­men­tal rock band Xiu Xiu. Anoth­er fun triv­ia fact is that Chen is best known for her role as Josie Packard in Twin Peaks, and in 2016, Xiu Xiu would release a haunt­ing trib­ute album com­posed of cov­er songs from the Twin Peaks sound­track, but I digress. Chen’s debut is at once a beau­ti­ful, deeply dev­as­tat­ing and dif­fi­cult to stom­ach pic­ture, made as a response to a bru­tal gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in ​’70s cul­tur­al rev­o­lu­tion-era Chi­na that relo­cat­ed mil­lions of Chi­nese youth to the coun­try­side for a life of forced labour. It’s a har­row­ing indict­ment of the vio­lence, greed and cor­rup­tion that would rob the hopes, dreams and futures of an entire gen­er­a­tion in the name of ​“progress”, and espe­cial­ly of the hor­ri­ble treat­ment faced by the young girls who would be sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies and forcibly robbed of their bod­i­ly auton­o­my. MA

22. Faith­less (2000)
Direct­ed by Liv Ullmann

By com­par­i­son to Ing­mar Bergman’s six-hour 1973 minis­eries Scenes from a Mar­riage, the 154-minute Faith­less is short. Both films exist in famil­iar Bergman ter­ri­to­ry of infi­deli­ty and divorce, with the key dis­tinc­tion that the director’s for­mer part­ner Liv Ull­mann is present in front of the cam­era in the for­mer and behind it in the lat­ter. Ull­mann had pre­vi­ous­ly direct­ed one oth­er film, Sofie in 1992, before turn­ing to the script Bergman wrote about a woman reflect­ing on the affair which destroyed her mar­riage. At no point can Faith­less be described as an ​“Ull­mann film” rather than a Bergman one. If any­thing, it is Bergman pas­tiche — there’s a music box which plays an excerpt from Mozart’s ​‘The Mag­ic Flute’, sump­tu­ous reds and des­o­late rooms, even an elder­ly film­mak­er liv­ing on Farö called Bergman. It is the film of an old lover car­ry­ing out Bergman’s vision at the end of his life. LC

23. In My Skin (2002)
Direct­ed by Mari­na De Van

In films such as François Ozon’s Sit­com and his ear­ly short, See the Sea, French actress Mari­na de Van cut a com­pelling­ly unsta­ble and oth­er­world­ly fig­ure on the screen. The log­ic of her move to direct­ing seems sound, as is the fact that with her debut fea­ture In My Skin she made what is – for this writer – one of the most uncom­fort­able and gru­elling explo­rations of the uneasy rela­tion­ships between body and mind that’s ever been etched to cel­lu­loid. It’s a gore flick with a twist, once which presents bod­i­ly muti­la­tion with a rare med­ical mat­ter- of-fact­ness and sen­su­al­i­ty, with de Van play­ing a woman who becomes obsessed with a fes­ter­ing gash on her legs that she receives while at a par­ty. The film was inspired by de Van’s own com­plex rela­tion­ship with her body, and is cur­rent­ly await­ing a plush Blu-ray release and its due accep­tance as a sin­gu­lar mod­ern clas­sic. DJ

24. Slap her… She’s French (2002)
Direct­ed by Melanie Mayron

Any­one who thinks the verb ​“to stan” derived from the Eminem song of the same name about one of Slim Shady’s obses­sive fans is dead wrong. The real­i­ty, if fact, is that it’s a diminu­tive of Stan­ley Kubrick, who fan­boyed all over Clau­dia Weill’s 1978 film Girl­friends, which starred Melanie May­ron as an unlucky-in-love New York­er just try­ing to get through the day with­out being humil­i­at­ed. It’s a great film which revolves around an incred­i­ble cen­tral per­for­mance, yet May­ron moved to direct­ing short­ly after her stints on cam­era and has nev­er looked back. In 2002, she was air­lift­ed into the shoot of the evoca­tive­ly titled Slap Her… She’s French when the orig­i­nal direc­tor dropped out, and end­ed up mak­ing an extreme­ly weird and light­ly sub­ver­sive high school com­e­dy about a nar­cis­sis­tic queen bee (Jane McGregor’s Star­la Grady) and her self-serv­ing deci­sion to take in a French exchange stu­dent (Piper Perabo’s Genevieve LeP­louff ). It’s very rough around the edges, but it has some inter­est­ing visu­al motifs, and May­ron def­i­nite­ly has the type of dry sense of humour that can enhance wacky mate­r­i­al such as this. DJ

25. The Dead Girl (2006)
Direct­ed by Karen Moncrieff

There’s a pat­tern of actress­es attain­ing a lev­el of fame and cre­ative free­dom before mak­ing the move to direct­ing, but some­times the switch can occur with­in a more low-key con­text. Karen Mon­crieff worked as a suc­cess­ful TV actor through­out the ​’90s, bid­ing her time per­haps before she put a full stop on that career and start­ed a new one as a writer/​direc­tor, some­thing she’s been doing since her 2002 debut, Blue Car. Today we’re focus­ing on her sec­ond fea­ture, the grim, bifur­cat­ed and weird­ly rad­i­cal dra­ma, The Dead Girl from 2006, which brings togeth­er a star-stud­ded cast (Toni Col­lette, Brit­tany Mur­phy, Rose Byrne, Mar­cia Gay Hard­en, Mary Beth Hurt) to offer five dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on the trag­ic and vio­lent death of a sex work­er. This under­rat­ed, Carv­er-esque tale places a local ser­i­al killer in the back­drop and explores inti­mate and occa­sion­al­ly incom­pre­hen­si­ble human reac­tions to sit­u­a­tions such as these. DJ

26. Wait­ress (2007)
Direct­ed by Adri­enne Shelly

This is a film not to be viewed on an emp­ty stom­ach. Writ­ten and direct­ed by Adri­enne Shelly, who also appears in a small sup­port­ing role, Wait­ress is the sto­ry of small-town South­ern gal Jen­na (a sparkling Keri Rus­sell), who finds solace from her abu­sive mar­riage in the sim­ple act of bak­ing. Specif­i­cal­ly, Jen­na loves to make pies – pies of every con­ceiv­able shape, size and flavour. There’s the Naughty Pump­kin Pie, the Jenna’s First Kiss Pie, the I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie (a blue-plate spe­cial) and, of course, the I Can’t Have No Affair Because It’s Wrong And I Don’t Want Earl To Kill Me Pie. Inven­tive and wit­ty, sweet yet unsen­ti­men­tal, it’s the kind of roman­tic com­e­dy that Amer­i­can cin­e­ma seems to have for­got­ten how to make. Trag­i­cal­ly, Shelly’s promis­ing direc­to­r­i­al career was cut short – she was mur­dered just a few months before the film made its pre­mière at Sun­dance – but Wait­ress remains a charm­ing, sug­ar-coat­ed tes­ta­ment to her tal­ent both as a film­mak­er and a per­former. AW

27. Two Days in Paris (2007)
Direct­ed by Julie Delpy

Julie Delpy is unfor­get­table as the hilar­i­ous­ly frank and deeply thought­ful Celine in Richard Linklater’s Before Tril­o­gy. Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of Before Sun­set and after strug­gling to get fund­ing for mul­ti­ple screen­plays, Delpy pitched an idea for a sim­i­lar rom-com fea­tur­ing her­self play­ing a French woman in a rela­tion­ship with an Amer­i­can. Delpy was born into an act­ing fam­i­ly and cast at the age of 14 in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1984 Detec­tive. She then stud­ied film at NYU and shift­ed pre­dom­i­nant­ly between Euro­pean and US art­house work­ing with Krzysztof Kies­lows­ki, Jim Jar­musch and Agniesz­ka Hol­land. The tor­tu­ous nature of love has been a theme in many of her roles and she con­tin­ued that with Two Days in Paris; a ver­bose tour around var­i­ous exes and a frus­trat­ing rela­tion­ship with a neu­rot­ic boyfriend. It’s a sharply observed, if occa­sion­al­ly obvi­ous, cul­ture clash com­e­dy where Delpy plays a sat­is­fy­ing­ly hot-mess of a woman. KM

28. Whip It (2009)
Direct­ed by Drew Barrymore

From the small girl in Spielberg’s E.T. to one of Charlie’s Angels and Adam Sandler’s great­est recur­ring screen part­ner, Drew Bar­ry­more is one of the most suc­cess­ful sweet­hearts in the his­to­ry of America’s sweet­hearts. After pro­duc­ing for 15 years, the actress fell in love with Shau­na Cross’ book about a group of roller der­by play­ers, first acquir­ing the rights for her pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny and even­tu­al­ly mak­ing it her direc­to­r­i­al debut. The result is a live­ly and all-around great time tale of female cama­raderie that only ever fal­ters when it steps away from the women and intro­duces a wannabe rock­star as the love inter­est to Elliot Page’s delight­ful­ly named Bliss Caven­dar. Still, there is much fun to be had with this clas­sic sports com­e­dy fea­tur­ing an all-timer 2000s cast in Kris­ten Wiig, Alia Shawkat, Mar­cia Gay Hard­en and Bar­ry­more her­self. RSR

29. High­er Ground (2011)
Direct­ed by Vera Farmiga

Best known for her Acad­e­my Award-nom­i­nat­ed per­for­mance in the film Up in The Air, Vera Farmi­ga made her direc­to­r­i­al debut with the 2011 film High­er Ground, a nar­ra­tive of one woman’s life­long strug­gle with faith. Farmi­ga ini­tial­ly intend­ed only to act in the film, but when financ­ing fell through, Tim Met­calfe, one of the screen­writ­ers, pro­posed that she take on the role of direc­tor. Farmi­ga was drawn to the story’s twists and strong female friend­ships, say­ing it ​‘pumped air’ into her spir­i­tu­al life. Pre­mier­ing at Sun­dance in 2011, it received good reviews and was nom­i­nat­ed for the Grand Jury prize. How­ev­er, with only a lim­it­ed release in the US, it wasn’t a huge suc­cess at the box office – a dis­ap­point­ing out­come, as the film’s agnos­tic approach makes for a sin­cere and thought-pro­vok­ing pic­ture. Since then, Farmi­ga has pro­duced 40 episodes of the thriller series Bates Motel, but is yet to direct again. Madeleine Wil­son

30. The Adopt­ed (2011)
Direct­ed by Mélanie Laurent

The Anglo­phone world knows Mélanie Lau­rent best for her Nazi-bash­ing turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglou­ri­ous Bas­ter­ds (2009), but the French actress has had a rich career in her home coun­try. Born in Paris in 1983 to a bal­le­ri­na and the man who voic­es Ned Flan­ders in the French ver­sion of The Simp­sons, Lau­rent got her break aged 16 from Gérard Depar­dieu. In 2011, she made her fea­ture direc­to­r­i­al debut with The Adopt­ed, a film which begins with a cou­ple reen­act­ing Humphrey Bog­a­rt and Dorothy Malone’s book­shop encounter in The Big Sleep. It sets the twee tone, focus­ing on two sis­ters, Lisa (Lau­rent) and Marine (Marie Denar­naud), and their rela­tion­ship with Marine’s boyfriend Alex, a for­mi­da­ble role for Laurent’s Inglou­ri­ous Bas­ter­ds co-star Denis Méno­chet. The bit­ter­sweet­ness often leans too far into the sac­cha­rine, albeit reveal­ing a direc­to­r­i­al tal­ent which led Lau­rent on to make sev­er­al more fea­tures includ­ing Breathe (2014) and the César-win­ning doc­u­men­tary Tomor­row (2015). LC

31. Sto­ries We Tell (2012)
Direct­ed by Sarah Polley

As crit­ics, we are often guilty of overus­ing the phrase ​“per­son­al movie” to describe a project which bears the unmis­tak­able fin­ger­prints of its author – aren’t all films, by their very nature, per­son­al to some degree, their themes and emo­tion­al truths fil­tered through the lens of indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences and per­spec­tives? Well, if that is the case, then it’s hard to think of any­thing more per­son­al than Sto­ries We Tell, Sarah Polley’s unique cine-mem­oir of her par­ents and extend­ed fam­i­ly. This is a film I have watched maybe half a dozen times since it was first released, and one I have thought about per­haps more than any oth­er over that same peri­od. The sim­ple rea­son is that it is beau­ti­ful­ly made and brim­ming with com­pas­sion and humour. But more than that, it’s a film that gen­tly forces you to con­front your own pre­con­cep­tions of what fam­i­ly is, and to what extent we allow our shared his­to­ries to shape our iden­ti­ties and rela­tion­ships. AW

32. In a World… (2013)
Direct­ed by Lake Bell

Often a high­light of dra­mas and come­dies where she’s usu­al­ly a sup­port­ing play­er, Amer­i­can actress Lake Bell has proven par­tic­u­lar­ly adept at voice per­for­mances, with her recent TV work as Poi­son Ivy in the anar­chic ani­mat­ed sit­com Harley Quinn (2019 to present) being con­sis­tent­ly excel­lent. Bell’s fea­ture debut as writer, direc­tor and pro­duc­er, In a World… leans heav­i­ly on her vocal tal­ents and the nuances of dialects and speech pat­terns. Star­ring as a voice coach com­pet­ing in the movie trail­er voiceover pro­fes­sion, the film was inspired by an arti­cle sur­vey­ing the scant num­ber of female voic­es in movie mar­ket­ing. A some­what scat­ter­shot com­e­dy, In a World… is full of endear­ing per­for­mances from the assem­bled ensem­ble, includ­ing Fred Melamed as Bell’s character’s father, who’s a king of the voiceover world his daugh­ter is try­ing to crack. JSW

33. A Tale of Love and Dark­ness (2015)
Direct­ed by Natal­ie Portman

After mak­ing her act­ing debut at the age of 13 in Léon, Port­man rose to fame with her role in the Star Wars pre­quels before gain­ing wide­spread crit­i­cal acclaim with her award-win­ning Black Swan (2010) per­for­mance. In 2015, she made the leap into her sole direc­to­r­i­al project to date, A Tale of Love and Dark­ness, to tell the sto­ry of Israeli-Jew­ish author Amos Oz. Port­man has spo­ken about how she felt per­son­al­ly con­nect­ed to and inspired by Oz’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy about grow­ing up dur­ing Israel’s estab­lish­ment, giv­en her Israeli-Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, and starred as Oz’s trou­bled moth­er in the film. Though Port­man also dis­cussed the dif­fi­cul­ty she faced as a woman when tak­ing con­trol dur­ing the direct­ing process, the film is undoubt­ed­ly reflec­tive of her cre­ative vision. In some ways, she has engaged with the com­pli­ca­tions of the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict but ulti­mate­ly, she has pre­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant­ly one-sided explo­ration of Jew­ish lives by neglect­ing the Pales­tin­ian peo­ples’ expe­ri­ences. Maes Kerr

34. Scot­tish Mus­sel (2015)
Direct­ed by Talu­lah Riley

Mak­ing her film debut in Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride & Prej­u­dice, Eng­lish actress Talu­lah Riley built up a respectable screen resume in the years that fol­lowed. She proved a reli­able ensem­ble play­er in the likes of Richard Cur­tis’ The Boat That Rocked (2009) and Christo­pher Nolan’s Incep­tion (2010), though she per­haps remains best known for mar­ry­ing Elon Musk twice. Before the sec­ond divorce came Scot­tish Mus­sel, a film that Riley wrote, direct­ed and co-starred in, based on a sto­ry idea devel­oped by her father. It’s a rom­com in which a Glaswe­gian chancer (Mar­tin Comp­ston) tries out ille­gal pearl fish­ing in the Scot­tish High­lands, only to fall for an Eng­lish con­ser­va­tion­ist (Riley) who’s try­ing to pro­tect endan­gered mus­sels. Stag­ger­ing­ly inept in writ­ing and exe­cu­tion, the woe­ful, patro­n­is­ing film plays out like Riley and her pro­duc­ers had nev­er even met a Scot­tish per­son before her cast arrived on set. JSW

35. By the Sea (2015)
Direct­ed by Angeli­na Jolie

As a direc­tor, Angeli­na Jolie’s remit has been to tack­le social jus­tice issues in var­i­ous unsub­tle ways, with a repeat­ed inter­est in the sub­ject of sur­vival in war­zones (In the Land of Blood and Hon­ey, Unbro­ken, First They Killed My Father). 2015’s maligned mas­ter­work, By the Sea, is anoth­er sur­vival sto­ry, but an out­lier in her direc­to­r­i­al cor­pus, due main­ly to its inti­mate­ly con­fes­sion­al mode and uncom­fort­able sense of verisimil­i­tude. The film depicts the break­down of a glam­orous couple’s mar­riage, with Jolie (cred­it­ed as Jolie-Pitt) play­ing a woman on the verge of a ner­vous break­down, and Pitt play­ing her emo­tion­al­ly manip­u­la­tive author hus­band. When the film was ini­tial­ly revealed, the pub­lic had their col­lec­tive loins gird­ed for a van­i­ty-flecked mega-flop. Yet the film was dis­missed because of its utter bleak­ness and seri­ous­ness of intent, a glossy Hol­ly­wood icon’s howl into the void and a ​‘Who’s Afraid of Vir­ginia Woolf ?’ de nos jours. DJ

36. Pitch Per­fect 2 (2015)
Direct­ed by Eliz­a­beth Banks

It is remark­able that Eliz­a­beth Banks came to direct the sequel to a capel­la smash com­e­dy Pitch Per­fect giv­en her first direc­to­r­i­al turn came with a seg­ment of Movie 43 (2013) fea­tur­ing a Tam­pax com­mer­cial in which a girl is eat­en by a shark thanks to her men­stru­al blood. Her fea­ture debut revealed a more capa­ble filmic hand, work­ing on a larg­er scale than her pre­de­ces­sor Jason Moore had in the first film. Banks’s intu­ition for humour has been honed through her act­ing career, start­ing with the 1998 inde­pen­dent film Sur­ren­der Dorothy, and as a pro­duc­er with her com­pa­ny Brown­stone Pro­duc­tions. Despite the sig­nif­i­cant box-office suc­cess of Pitch Per­fect 2, Banks did not return to direct the third film, mov­ing on instead to take the reins of the 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot and Cocaine Bear in 2023. Banks clear­ly has a flair for bring­ing off-kil­ter com­e­dy to the Hol­ly­wood main­stream. LC

37. Paint it Black (2016)
Direct­ed by Amber Tamblyn

If Amber Tamblyn’s per­for­mance in Sis­ter­hood of the Trav­el­ling Pants charmed audi­ences in 2005, her direc­to­r­i­al debut of the 2016 film Paint it Black undoubt­ed­ly casts her in a new light. While she does not act in the film, her direc­to­r­i­al choic­es of spin­ning cam­eras, flash­ing lights and haunt­ing piano pieces make for a com­pelling sto­ry that fol­lows two women con­fronting the reper­cus­sions of a sui­cide. The film homes in on the real­i­sa­tion of change, and the effects of grow­ing up, via a dark yet hon­est route. While Tam­blyn described the move from actor to direc­tor as an easy change, she has touched on the fact that she spent years giv­ing her­self per­mis­sion to make the switch, show­ing the indus­try has a long way to go in accept­ing the change as more women go from actor to direc­tor. MW

38. Uni­corn Store (2017)
Direct­ed by Brie Larson

Two years after her 2015 Acad­e­my Award win for Room, Brie Larson’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, Uni­corn Store, pre­miered at the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. Although the actress report­ed­ly found sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al res­o­nance in the movie, in which she also stars, this was not actu­al­ly a long-ges­tat­ing pas­sion project. Lar­son audi­tioned for an aban­doned ver­sion of the film sev­er­al years pri­or, only for a direct­ing offer to lat­er come her way pre-Oscar win, based on shorts she’d helmed. Fol­low­ing the mis­ad­ven­tures of an art school dropout who’s still obsessed with child­ish things, Larson’s film – writ­ten by Saman­tha McIn­tyre – bowed to mixed notices, only final­ly secur­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion from Net­flix over a year lat­er in the run-up to Cap­tain Marvel’s 2019 release. While veer­ing dan­ger­ous­ly close to oppres­sive lev­els of whim­sy, Uni­corn Store proves a more nuanced explo­ration of cre­ativ­i­ty and mat­u­ra­tion than its glit­tery exte­ri­or may sug­gest. JSW

39. Lit­tle Women (2019)
Direct­ed by Gre­ta Gerwig

There was a time where you could claim to be a paragon of coun­ter­cul­ture cool if you knew the name Gre­ta Ger­wig. She spent much of the ​’00s as a muse and focal point for the so-called ​“mum­blecore” move­ment, and as an actress she cul­ti­vat­ed a rep­u­ta­tion as some­one will­ing to go all-in to get the per­for­mance. She was tak­en under the wing of the main­stream for a while, keep­ing time as the best thing in a string of tired stu­dio come­dies, until she even­tu­al­ly chose to strike out on her own as an extreme­ly suc­cess­ful writer/​director. Of the three films she’s made, we’ve stumped for her sump­tu­ous, scin­til­lat­ing adap­ta­tion of Louisa May Alcott’s peren­ni­al 1886 nov­el, ​‘Lit­tle Women’, over the impres­sive debut (Lady­bird) and the box office behe­moth (Bar­bie). Lit­tle Women, her François Truf­faut homage, still gives us the best mea­sure of Gerwig’s cre­ative­ly-unshack­led abil­i­ties as a direc­tor, as well as her gift for mak­ing cin­e­ma that’s as emo­tion­al and earnest as she is IRL. DJ

40. Atlantics (2019)
Direct­ed by Mati Diop

There’s an icon­ic sequence in Clair Denis’ 2008 film, 35 Shots of Rum, in which Mati Diop engages in an erot­i­cal­ly-charged bar-room dance to The Com­modores’ ​‘Night Shift’, cement­ing one of the great screen debuts of mod­ern times. One might haz­ard that she has since been high­ly selec­tive about her act­ing gigs since then, work­ing with Denis again in Both Sides of the Blade, and in a smat­ter­ing of TV shows, shorts and fea­tures. This is like­ly down to her side-hus­tle as a shorts direc­tor, which cul­mi­nat­ed in 2019’s extra­or­di­nary Atlantics, an adap­ta­tion and exten­sion of her own 2009 short doc­u­men­tary. The film is an emi­gra­tion sto­ry with a ghost­ly twist, mix­ing a slick­ly ren­dered and polit­i­cal­ly inclined form of social real­ism with an exper­i­men­tal, oth­er­world­ly edge. She returned in 2024 with the Gold­en Bear-win­ning Dahomey, which explores sim­i­lar themes of the polit­i­cal lega­cies of colo­nial­ism, and we can’t wait to see what she comes up with next. DJ

41. Black Christ­mas (2019)
Direct­ed by Sophia Takal

If you pay close atten­tion, Sophia Takal’s act­ing and direct­ing roles can be viewed as play­ing out in tan­dem. She’s por­trayed reck­less, sub­ver­sive and wild­ly out­spo­ken women in films by Joe Swan­berg and her hus­band Lawrence Michael Levine while also exam­in­ing tox­ic behav­iour, dual­i­ty and the patri­ar­chal struc­tures that feed on women’s inse­cu­ri­ties through her film­mak­ing. Part of the post-mum­blecore Brook­lyn scene, she has worked on microbud­gets to acclaim for her first two direc­to­r­i­al fea­tures, Green and Always Shine. Jason Blum, fol­low­ing crit­i­cism of nev­er financ­ing a hor­ror by a woman, asked Takal to helm a remake of pio­neer­ing slash­er Black Christ­mas. It was released close­ly fol­low­ing the #MeToo move­ment and Trump’s elec­tion, with Takal and co-writer April Wolfe explor­ing the cama­raderie of women when faced with hypocrisy, vio­lence and trau­ma. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the nuance of her pre­vi­ous fea­tures was replaced with blunt­ly didac­tic com­men­tary on the hor­rors of being a woman. KM

42. One Night in Mia­mi (2020)
Direct­ed by Regi­na King

Emmy and Oscar win­ner Regi­na King first broke into act­ing at the age of 14 with a recur­ring role in the Amer­i­can sit­com 227. Her career would most­ly steer towards TV work in the years after, although it was Boyz n the Hood direc­tor John Sin­gle­ton who would encour­age her to drop out of col­lege and pur­sue act­ing full-time, the two going on to col­lab­o­rate in three of his films. Fol­low­ing years of direct­ing for TV, King found in Kemp Pow­ers’ epony­mous play the per­fect sub­ject for her direc­to­r­i­al debut. Although adapt­ed from the stage and set most­ly in one room, King’s direc­tion grants One Night in Mia­mi a dynam­ic, com­pelling feel, made even more effec­tive by an inspired work of cast­ing. Many tipped King to become the first Black woman to be nom­i­nat­ed for a Best Direc­tor Oscar back then. That it didn’t hap­pen remains a great trav­es­ty. RSR

43. She Dies Tomor­row (2020)
Direct­ed by Amy Seimetz

Long before Gre­ta Ger­wig ​’s human Bar­bie asked ​“Do you guys ever think about dying?”, the ques­tion was on Amy Seimetz’s mind. Kate Lyn Sheil stars as a young woman (…named Amy) who is pre­oc­cu­pied by the feel­ing that she is going to die immi­nent­ly. What ini­tial­ly seems like para­noia turns into a pan­dem­ic when her friends also begin to expe­ri­ence the same strange symp­toms. Released at the height of the Covid pan­dem­ic, Seimetz’s film had a small release and as a result, is some­what under­seen. That’s a great shame, as it’s a haunt­ing, beau­ti­ful­ly unique psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller that cap­tures the unique pain of chron­ic anx­i­ety. What’s more, Seimetz financed the film using her pay from 2019’s Pet Semetary, mak­ing She Dies Tomor­row arguably the best thing to come out of that limp remake. Han­nah Strong

44. Bruised (2020)
Direct­ed by Halle Berry

To this day the only Black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar, Halle Berry amass­es a slew of icon­ic roles in pop­u­lar cin­e­ma, from play­ing the Bond girl to Pierce Brosnan’s 007 in Die Anoth­er Day to the tit­u­lar Cat­woman in the 2004 adap­ta­tion. The actress slipped into the director’s chair after read­ing the script for Bruised and believ­ing that the main char­ac­ter should not be a white woman in her twen­ties but a mid­dle- aged woman of colour. Berry went on to not only direct but star in this com­pe­tent if not a lit­tle too for­mu­la­ic dra­ma about Jack­ie Jus­tice, a down-on-her-luck fight­er offered a final chance at redemp­tion. If the film itself can’t escape the shack­les of the sub­genre, Berry at least turns in a com­pelling per­for­mance, espe­cial­ly when play­ing against the excel­lent Sheila Atim. RSR

45. Pass­ing (2021)
Direct­ed by Rebec­ca Hall

Four­teen years stood between Rebec­ca Hall’s first screen appear­ance aged 10 in one of her father’s TV shows and her break­through role in Christo­pher Nolan’s The Pres­tige. In the time since, the British actress worked in sev­er­al suc­cess­ful block­busters, includ­ing a short stint in the MCU, but it is her work in indie cin­e­ma and films such as Chris­tine and Res­ur­rec­tion that cement­ed her as one of the most refined actress­es work­ing today. It was Hall’s own fam­i­ly his­to­ry of pass­ing – one of her grand­fa­thers was a man of mixed African and Euro­pean her­itage who assim­i­lat­ed as white – that inspired the actress to adapt Nel­la Larsen’s book of the same name. The result­ing film is a work of great ten­der­ness but also deeply ingrained revolt, a styl­ish plat­form for career-best turns for both Ruth Neg­ga and Tes­sa Thomp­son, both incred­i­bly mov­ing in Hall’s poignant study of stark dichotomies. RSR

46. The Lost Daugh­ter (2021)
Direct­ed by Mag­gie Gyllenhaal

The way Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal has con­front­ed sex­u­al taboos and com­pli­cat­ed women in her act­ing career has gen­er­al­ly been excit­ing… let’s not think too much about her under­writ­ten role in The Dark Knight. From her dar­ing break­through per­for­mance in cult S&M romance Sec­re­tary to her role as a woman strug­gling with a lack of suc­cess in the dark­ly dis­turb­ing The Kinder­garten Teacher, her por­tray­al of con­flict­ing desires and destruc­tive behav­iour has always been intrigu­ing. Sure, Crazy Heart and even to an extent Sher­ry­ba­by could be seen as awards bait type resilient sin­gle mum roles, but they were also affect­ing and beau­ti­ful­ly per­formed. When Gyl­len­haal wrote to Ele­na Fer­rante to ask for the rights to adapt her nov­el, The Lost Daugh­ter, it was agreed on the con­di­tion that she would direct. Fol­low­ing Ferrante’s empow­er­ing request, Gyl­len­haal direct­ed a crush­ing­ly truth­ful dra­ma about the demands of moth­er­hood, des­per­ate yearn­ings for free­dom and incan­des­cent rage. KM

47. Don’t Wor­ry, Dar­ling (2022)
Direct­ed by Olivia Wilde

Fol­low­ing on from her crowd-pleas­ing direc­to­r­i­al debut, Books­mart, Olivia Wilde ven­tured into more chal­leng­ing nar­ra­tive ter­ri­to­ry with this sleek psy­cho­sex­u­al thriller star­ring Hot Young Things Har­ry Styles and Flo­rence Pugh as a 1950s cou­ple liv­ing a pic­ture-per­fect ver­sion of the Amer­i­can Dream that looks too good to be true. Which, of course, it is. Essen­tial­ly a mod­ern retelling of The Step­ford Wives with added oral sex, Don’t Wor­ry, Dar­ling is a film whose ambi­tion is to be admired, but also one whose bizarre dénoue­ment leaves you ques­tion­ing the jour­ney rather than savour­ing it. How­ev­er, for all its obvi­ous faults (and the less said about the TMI pub­lic­i­ty tour the bet­ter), there’s no short­age of enter­tain­ment here, with Wilde once again show­ing that she has a knack for direct­ing action and elic­it­ing strong per­for­mances. One for two and with an intrigu­ing slate of upcom­ing projects, there’s a sense with Wilde that her best is yet to come. AW

48. The Hap­pi­est Sea­son (2020)
Direct­ed by Clea DuVall

Clea DuVall became relat­able to all snarky goth girls and weirdo out­siders in the 1990s thanks to her roles in The Fac­ul­ty, Girl, Inter­rupt­ed and Can’t Hard­ly Wait but it was her icon­ic les­bian char­ac­ter in Jamie Babbit’s gay con­ver­sion com­e­dy But I’m a Cheer­leader that cement­ed her as a name to watch. Her sex­u­al­i­ty stopped her from grab­bing cer­tain oppor­tu­ni­ties at the time. Though her close friends and fam­i­ly have known she is gay since she was 16 it was some­thing she didn’t wish to share pub­licly until 2016 which also marked the blos­som­ing of her direc­to­r­i­al career with The Inter­ven­tion. For her fol­low-up, DuVall used her per­son­al expe­ri­ences to make one of the first gay Christ­mas rom-coms star­ring Kris­ten Stew­art. It’s a joy­ful­ly fun­ny cel­e­bra­tion of fam­i­ly dys­func­tion and poignant obser­va­tion on the mul­ti­tude of emo­tions involved in being clos­et­ed and how that can impact the ones you love. KM

49. Sep­tem­ber Says (2024)
Direct­ed by Ari­ane Labed

After first gain­ing recog­ni­tion for her role in Athi­na Rachel Tsangari’s Atten­berg, Greek-French actress Ari­ane Labed would go on to find acclaim work­ing with Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos (whom she would lat­er mar­ry) on Alps and The Lob­ster. Since then she’s worked with film­mak­ers includ­ing Peter Strick­land and Joan­na Hogg, and this year she made her direc­to­r­i­al debut with an adap­ta­tion of Daisy Johnson’s nov­el ​‘Sis­ters’. Sep­tem­ber (Pas­cale Kann) and July (Mia Tharia) are sis­ters with a close bond liv­ing with their artist moth­er and endur­ing almost con­stant bul­ly­ing from their class­mates. After a seri­ous inci­dent at the girls’ school, the fam­i­ly relo­cate to the rur­al Irish coast, but the rela­tion­ship between Sep­tem­ber and July becomes increas­ing­ly fraught as time goes on. It’s a strik­ing, often shock­ing and strange debut, but one that firm­ly estab­lish­es Labed as an intrigu­ing film­mak­ing voice. HS

50. The Bal­conettes (2024)
Direct­ed by Noémie Merlant

Although Noémie Mer­lant has been act­ing since 2008, her break­through came when she was cast in Celine Sciamma’s remark­able roman­tic dra­ma Por­trait of a Lady on Fire. Since then, Mer­lant has added a feath­er to her cap by launch­ing a direct­ing career, and for her sec­ond film, The Bal­conettes she co-wrote the script with Sci­amma, which fol­lows a trio of damsels in dis­tress swel­ter­ing in their Mar­seilles apart­ment on the hottest day of the year. But when ten­sions with the sexy pho­tog­ra­ph­er across the street boil over, the free-spir­it­ed, free-lov­ing cam­girl Ruby (Souheila Yacoub), neu­rot­ic writer Nicole (San­da Codreanu) and flighty actress Elise (Mer­lant on dou­ble-duty) find them­selves hav­ing to hide a body. It’s a cheeky, glee­ful­ly bloody affair that takes to task France’s endur­ing cul­ture of misog­y­ny and sex­u­al vio­lence – and con­fi­dent evi­dence that Mer­lant is a true mul­ti-hyphen­ate. HS