It’s been a good year for women at the movies, at least where the arthouse is concerned. That impression is bolstered by the British Film Institute’s list of the top 20 best films of 2015, as decided by 168 critics from around the globe (including Women and Hollywood’s founder, Melissa Silverstein).
12 of the films to be recognized are women-centric, and five are from the U.S. (“Carol,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “It Follows,” “Inside Out” and “Tangerine.”) The genre-spanning list includes horror (“It Follows”), action (“Mad Max: Fury Road”) and animation (“Inside Out”).
A discouragingly small portion of the list is female-helmed — two out of twenty films: Chantal Akerman’s “No Home Movie,” a portrait of the late director’s mother, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz, and Celine Sciamma’s coming-of-age story “Girlhood.”
Here are the 12 women-centric films to make the BFI’s cut. How many have you caught?
1. The Assassin
2. Carol
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Cemetery of Splendour
6. No Home Movie
7. 45 Years
9. Amy
11. It Follows
13. Phoenix
14. Girlhood
14. Inside Out
14. Tangerine
[via BFI]
