Whether you braved movie theaters or stayed at home and enjoyed viewing experiences from the comfort of your couch, there were plenty of films by and about women to check out this year, including a number of awards contenders. We were especially pleased to see women directors working across such a wide variety of genres — our favorite pics this year include a sci-fi, a Western psychodrama, and teen comedy, just to name a few. It’s also a big year for actresses stepping behind the camera. Three of our highlights hail from on-screen talent making their feature directorial debuts: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” Rebecca Hall’s “Passing,” and Natalie Morales’ “Plan B.”
Here are Women and Hollywood’s favorite films of the year.
“The Souvenir Part II” – Written and Directed by Joanna Hogg
As painful as grief can be, it’s often creatively fruitful; sometimes there’s nothing to do with all the sadness besides channel it into work. That’s what Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) does in “The Souvenir Part II,” the second half of Joanna Hogg’s autobiographical saga about a film student’s toxic relationship and its aftermath. At the beginning of “Part II,” Julie is struggling to find a way forward in the wake of her boyfriend’s death (which marked the conclusion of 2019’s “The Souvenir”). By the end, she’s still in mourning but also embarking on a career in music video directing.
Along the way, Julie makes her graduation film, a short that symbolically excavates her relationship with Anthony (Tom Burke) and how she changed as a result — it is, of course, called “The Souvenir.” As much as “The Souvenir Part II” recounts its own creation and is Hogg’s portrayal of her own memories, it’s mainly interested in a young woman’s coming-of-age, as a person and as a filmmaker. By the end of “The Souvenir” — “Part II” as well as the overarching story — Julie has emerged triumphant. She’s an artist making a name for herself, one who has been shaped by loss but not defined by it. (Rachel Montpelier)
“The Souvenir Part II” had a theatrical run earlier this year, and is awaiting a digital release.
“Zola” – Directed by Janicza Bravo; Written by Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris
“Zola”
Like the viral Twitter thread it’s inspired by, “Zola” begins with an invitation: “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me and this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.” With #TheStory, A’ziah “Zola” King delivered on her promise, and so does Janicza Bravo’s adaptation. The dark comedy sees Zola (Taylour Paige), a Detroit waitress, lured to Florida by a customer she meets at work. Promising big money for dancing at a club, Stefani (Riley Keough) convinces Zola to come along for a road trip.
The pair’s blossoming friendship turns acrid long before they even reach their destination. Stefani, Zola quickly realizes, is insufferable. And racist. It doesn’t help that Stefani comes with a lot of baggage. She’s brought along a mysterious, imposing “roommate” (Colman Domingo) — who turns out to be her pimp — and her boyfriend (Nicholas Braun), a dude who is both hopelessly in love and just hopeless in general. Zola gets way more than she bargained for. She came to strip at a club only to find her services offered on Backpage. She wants no part of what’s going on, telling Stefani, “This is messy. You are messy. Your brain is broke.”
“Zola” is the first, though unlikely to be the last, of its kind: a feature film based on a Twitter thread. It’s also, in part, about social media. The Sundance pic playfully nods to its source material with sound notifications, but it also channels the chaotic energy of King’s epic Twitter tale and grapples with the divide between online and offline relationships and personas. “Zola” is indeed messy, but its brain is certainly not broke. (Laura Berger)
“Zola” is available for digital rent or purchase.
“The Lost Daughter” – Written and Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal
“The Lost Daughter”: Yannis Drakoulidis/Netflix 2021
“The Lost Daughter” challenges us to see motherhood in a very different and profound way. Mothers onscreen have either been good or bad, leaving little room for nuance. In reality, it’s never black and white, but always gray. Maggie Gyllenhaal has given us a film that finally digs deeper into the incredible sacrifices involved in mothering, something society always glosses over. Olivia Colman, at the top of her game yet again, plays Leda, a professor who is in Greece on a working holiday. As she observes a family, and specifically a struggling young mother played by Dakota Johnson, she returns to her own struggles as a young mother. She is peeling away layers of the onion until all is revealed. The beauty of the film, and the directing by Gyllenhaal, is that there is no judgment for Leda. Instead, “The Lost Daughter” simply explores why she makes the decisions she does.
This is the beginning of what’s hopefully a wonderful writing and directing career for Gyllenhaal, who has used her decades of experience as an actor and as a mother to make one of the best movies of the year. (Melissa Silverstein)
“The Lost Daughter” is now in select theaters. It will be available on Netflix December 31.
“Passing” – Written and Directed by Rebecca Hall
For her directorial debut, Rebecca Hall takes on the loaded concept of “passing,” and dares to question what race is, exactly. Based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, “Passing” is the story of two light-skinned Black women who are both able to physically pass as white, yet live in completely different worlds. The charming, chameleonic Clare Kendry (Ruth Negga) lives as white and is married to a racist white man. The repressed Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) is a leader of what we now call the Harlem Renaissance; she is married to a successful Black doctor. Both are passing: Clare for a white woman, Irene for someone satisfied in her role as a wife, mother, and socialite. Close friends as children, Irene and Clare reunite as adults — and the more enmeshed their lives become, the more precarious their social positions are.
Filmed in sumptuous black and white, using a 4:3 aspect ratio, every shot of “Passing” is carefully composed to underline the dialectics of Irene and Clare’s lives, as well as the complexities. (It’s fitting that a story that delves into the gray areas of race would be completely devoid of color.) Hall, who was drawn to Larsen’s novel while struggling to reckon with her own family’s complicated racial history, has crafted a beautiful film — that’s somehow both intimate and grand in scope — about two very different women, foils really, who nonetheless understand each other better than anyone. (RM)
“Passing” is available on Netflix.
“The Power of the Dog” – Written and Directed by Jane Campion
For her first feature in over a decade, Jane Campion takes the macho cowboy figure so often seen in Westerns, cracks him wide open, and exposes him for who he really is: a miserable prick who makes everyone around him miserable too.
Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) sees his dominion over his brother George (Jesse Plemons) and their Montana ranch threatened when George brings home his new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). So Phil doubles down on his usual behavior of verbal abuse, mockery, and sullenness, driving Rose to drink and further ostracizing the already awkward Peter. Eventually, much to Rose’s dismay, Phil and Peter forge a tentative connection. Is it possible Peter will soften Phil, or will Phil just bring out the worst in Peter? And, after so many years of living and breathing toxic masculinity, is Phil even capable of human tenderness, of resisting “the power of the dog”?
A gorgeous, poetic deconstruction of the Western genre, and the toxic masculinity inherent to it, “The Power of the Dog” deftly demonstrates how machismo eats away at the self. Phil is a loathsome character who terrorizes people for the hell of it, yet it’s obvious that he’s also in tremendous pain and sick of this game he plays. Whether he’s calling his brother “fatso” or waging psychological warfare on his sister-in-law, Phil carries misery everywhere he goes. But the true tragedy of the film might be that, when he decides he’s ready to change, it’s simply too late. (RM)
“The Power of the Dog” is available on Netflix.
“CODA” – Written and Directed by Sian Heder
From start to finish, “CODA” is a delight. Siân Heder’s second feature is heartfelt, laugh-out-loud funny, and everything I’d hoped it would be after reading about its ecstatic reception out of Sundance.
“There are plenty of pretty voices with nothing to say. Do you have something to say?” 17-year-old Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is asked toward the beginning of the film. The coming-of-age drama sees the highschooler figuring out what she wants to say and how she wants to say it. The only hearing member of a Deaf family, Ruby has spent her entire life acting as an interpreter for her mother (Marlee Matlin), father (Troy Kotsur), and older brother (Daniel Durant). When she joins her high school’s choir club and discovers a passion for singing, she begins to reevaluate her identity, and question her decision to orient her life around her family and their fishing business. Torn between the overwhelming sense of obligation she feels towards her family and her own dreams, Ruby finds herself at a crossroads.
“CODA” tells a familiar underdog story and hits all the beats you’d expect, but it never feels tired or stale, thanks in part to its heavy use of sign language and the ways it encourages audiences to view the world through the Rossi family’s eyes. It’s a radically inclusive story that illustrates, painfully and viscerally, just how uninviting and inhospitable society is to members of the Deaf community. Jones’ star-making turn and a standout performance from Kotsur also set the film apart. (LB)
“CODA” is available on Apple TV+.
“Plan B” – Directed by Natalie Morales; Written by Prathiksha Srinivasan and Joshua Levy
“Plan B”
A comedy that sees two best friends who go on a wild goose chase of a road trip, Natalie Morales’ “Plan B” earns its place in the teen movie canon not just because of the laughs it brings, but also its thoughtful inclusivity and exploration of young women’s access (or lack thereof) to reproductive healthcare in Middle America.
Sunny (Kuhoo Verma), who is Indian-American, is a straight-laced overachiever terrified of disappointing her single mother. Her best friend Lupe (Victoria Moroles), who is Latina, is a vaping free spirit who constantly clashes with her pastor father. It’s suggested, but never explicitly stated, that these two and their families are among the only people of color in their rural South Dakota community. After a mishap with a condom, Sunny enlists Lupe to help her get Plan B.
With the clock ticking — the morning after pill will only be effective for a certain window of time — Sunny and Lupe make the three-hour drive to the closest Planned Parenthood. Hijinks ensue, but so does the sobering reminder that women of color and women in rural communities, like Sunny and Lupe, are hit the hardest every time abortion access and reproductive healthcare are rolled back in this country — which is a lot. How refreshing that a film as funny and goofy as “Plan B” is also smart enough to acknowledge that. (RM)
“Plan B” is available on Hulu.
“I’m Your Man” – Directed by Maria Schrader; Written by Maria Schrader and Jan Schomburg
Maria Schrader tells the story of a researcher who finds herself serving as an unenthusiastic participant in someone else’s study in “I’m Your Man.” The sci-fi rom-com, which has been chosen to represent Germany in the International Feature Film category at the Oscars, follows Alma (Maren Eggert), an archeologist working in a Berlin Museum who is bribed to take part in study that will see her living with Tom (Dan Stevens), a robot tailor-made to suit her tastes. Alma couldn’t be less interested in meeting her so-called “dream partner.” The only reason she agrees to the arrangement is because she’s promised funding for her own project.
Eggert is perfectly cast as a cynical academic with carefully constructed walls intended to keep others out. You can feel Alma’s humiliation — and resentment — about being roped into the arrangement, an arrangement that she’s only eligible for because, unlike all of her colleagues, she’s single. Eggert plays Alma’s sharpness and softness perfectly, her initial discomfort with having Tom around and all of the awkwardness that cohabitating with him brings, and her eventual warming up to him and the company he provides.
While it grapples with themes of loneliness, technology, and humanity, “I’m Your Man” never feels particularly heavy, largely thanks to its laugh-out-loud moments and Schrader’s subtle touch. (LB)
“I’m Your Man” is available for digital rent or purchase.
“Night Raiders” – Written and Directed by Danis Goulet
“Night Raiders”: Berlinale
Weaving in allusions to events both past and present — such as Indigenous displacement, Native boarding schools, eugenics, immigrant detention, family separation, drone warfare, and the “purification” of national identity — “Night Raiders” is a dystopian sci-fi that, at its core, is about a woman fighting to save her daughter.
It’s a post-war North America in 2043. Niska (the actress and filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) has managed to raise her pre-teen daughter, Waseese (Brooklyn Letexier-Hart), on her own terms despite strict government rules about children and citizenship. Officially, all minors are to be turned over to the custody of the state. But Niska and Waseese have gone years using their Cree culture and traditions to live off the land, successfully evading the authorities, i.e. the “Jingos” — until Waseese is stolen from her mother and taken to a state institution that functions like an extreme military school. She is trained to fight, kill, pledge complete loyalty to the regime, and forget about her former life. Meanwhile, Niska meets a group of Indigenous resistors, and with their help, plans to get Waseese back.
This year, the Toronto International Film Festival presented Goulet with the Emerging Talent Award for “Night Raiders,” and it’s easy to see why. Its story reckons with Indigenous history, and the legacy of colonialist violence, in a way that resonates in the here and now. (RM)
“Night Raiders” is available for digital rent or purchase.
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” – Written and Directed by Jasmila Zbanic
Set in 1995 during the Bosnian War, Žbanić’s third feature tells the story of Aida (Jasna Đuričić), a translator working for the United Nations in the small town of Srebrenica in the days leading up to the Srebrenica massacre, which saw more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys slaughtered.
From its tense opening moments to its haunting final scene, “Quo Vadis, Aida?” rarely lets up. We know the story won’t end well, but the drama is as suspenseful as it is dread-inducing. The Serbian army is getting closer and closer to Srebrenica by the hour, and panic is rising. Aida and others are assured by higher-ups that a plan is in place and civilians will be protected in the U.N. camp. And then the fully-armed Serbian army gains entry to the camp. Aida’s husband and sons are among the thousands of civilians seeking safe shelter there, and she quickly realizes that they are in grave danger, and devises increasingly desperate plans to get them out.
Aida, a former teacher, is used to being the one issuing orders, and as the film progresses and the situation at the camp deteriorates, she finds herself increasingly powerless and at the mercy of her all-male superiors. Aida’s harrowing attempts to save her family are difficult to watch, and impossible to forget. (LB)
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” is available for digital rent or purchase.
Honorable Mentions
“Shiva Baby” – Written and Directed by Emma Seligman (Digital rent/purchase)
“Test Pattern” – Written and Directed by Shatara Michelle Ford (Digital rent/purchase)
“Beans” – Directed by Tracey Deer; Written by Tracey Deer and Meredith Vuchnich (Digital rent/purchase)
“The Fear Street Trilogy” – Directed by Leigh Janiak; Written by Leigh Janiak, Kate Trefry, Phil Graziadei, and Zak Olkewicz (Netflix)
“Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” – Written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo (Digital rent/purchase)
