The beautiful and colorful world of cinema is gender-blind and recognizes no boundaries. The likes of Chloe Zhao, Katheryn Bigelow, and Marry Harron have proved that male filmmakers will face fierce competition in the race to dominate the film Industry. Here are the five best movies directed by women directors that will make you fall in love with cinema.
The Babadook (2014) By Jennifer Kent
Sam’s dad perished in a vehicle accident on the way to the clinic to see his new baby, leaving Caroline, a widow, with a troublesome boy to nurture alone. Caroline’s sadness at the loss of her child is evident, and the sorrow has a profound effect on the tiny household. After Sam started having dreams involving demons in his bed, she became depressed and couldn’t concentrate. Sam discovers a curious book one evening and requests Caroline to recite it to him instead of her usual library of stories. The manuscript is titled The Babadook. It’s a terrifying volume that sounds like something a prolific murderer would play as a tease prior to actually killing you in a gruesome fashion. Sam’s anxiety increases, and with it, Caroline has a harder time sleeping because of his recurring visions. Here is when the weirdness starts to unfold.
Lost In Translation (2003) By Sofia Coppola
As a film, Lost in Translation provokes serious thought about the world at large. Do the norms of a society’s speech and tradition frequently get in the way of genuine conversation? The narrative is set in Japan, where the majority of the population is Eastern, yet it has a highly Western-centric cast of characters. Bob Harris, the protagonist, is a middle-aged, once-famous actor who, for the sum of $2 million, travels to Tokyo to film a liquor advertisement. Therein, he encounters a lovely couple, Charlotte, as well as her spouse. They happened to be staying at the same resort and bumped into one another there. Charlotte and Bob had an unspoken empathic attachment, regardless of their age gap. The picture has a sweet conclusion, notwithstanding the sad theme of separation. The clock was ticking, and Bob was getting ready to depart. He hurried over to Charlotte, muttered his feelings, embraced her, and then withdrew.
Nomadland (2021) By Chloe Zhao
In reality, the majority of the memories we gather during our lives go unsaid. Scenes captured in time while gazing out a balcony. These are the tales that everyone has an underlying familiarity with. However, they don’t connect the dots until they’ve grown into tales themselves. Tales about being alone and discovering how empty the world really is, accounts of resigned acceptance of our eternal fragility. Personal accounts of coming to terms with the reality of being human—a lonely individual in a vast and noisy universe Nomad Land is one such movie. The story introduces the audience to Fern, a lonely woman who has nothing to go back to. While travelling around America’s rural fringes, homeless and hunkered down inside a van come rain or shine, she discovers a different aspect of her personality. This is not a movie about coming to terms with your identity for the first time, but instead about whether or not one can change someone so that they can go on after a painful loss.
Selma (2014) By Ava DuVernay
The movie is the brainchild of Ava DuVernay, an African-American woman hailing from the United States who fights for equality in politics. She is well-versed in the ethics and history of the oppression of African-Americans in the United States. The movie’s core contention is that, despite the end of legalised separation, African-Americans were nonetheless treated unequally in matters of state, including the selection of government officials and the creation and enforcement of laws. The narrative takes you back to 1965 when the city of Alabama became ground zero in the struggle for equal voting rights. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters faced fierce resistance on their way to Montgomery, Alabama, but they persisted and eventually succeeded in getting President Lyndon Johnson to approve the 1965 Voting Act.
American Psycho (2000) By Mary Harron
The movie is, hands down, one of the best movies to ever grace movie theatres. This Mary Harron masterpiece chronicles the exploits of Patrick Bateman, a brilliant Wall Street broker who oscillates his time between listening to 80s music and making sure no one outwits him. Through the protagonist, the audience is offered an inside look at the drug-addict high-rollers in the banking sector. Patrick is someone who’s so preoccupied with maintaining his social status and one-upping his colleagues that he develops an insatiable need for bloodshed. Even in our first encounter with Batemen, we can tell he is patronising the listener since he is so well cognizant of his own as well as his friends’ egotistical natures.
Bale delivers a fantastic performance. Everything that happens revolves around him, and he is the centre of attention in every scenario. In a really remarkable discourse, he admits his heinous deeds to his attorney’s voicemail, revealing in every detail how completely unbalanced and obsessive he has become.