Films Directed by and About Women Opening

Let’s Ruin It with Babies — Written, Directed, and Starring Kestrin Pantera

Channing has it all: a beautiful home, a rock-star lifestyle, and a loving husband intent on ruining it all by knocking her up. (IMDB)

Films About Women Opening

August: Osage County (Dec 27)

Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts star in Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer-winning play as a mother and daughter in crisis. “In Oklahoma, there’s a very strong history of powerful matriarchal societies because of how difficult the work was,” director John Wells explained in a Village Voice interview with me about his film adaptation. Streep and Roberts headline an amazing cast that explores why families need to stick together — and why they sometimes can’t. (Inkoo Kang)

All the Light in the Sky — Co-Written by Jane Adams

Jane Adams co-wrote and stars in this exploration of a middle-aged actress’s worries about her looks. A visit from the protagonist’s 25-year-old niece, also an actress, sparks greater contemplation of life as a fortysomething woman, especially one who has to depend on her physical attractiveness for work. “The best scenes occur during their hangouts, as they surf, drink smoothies, and compliment each other’s breasts,” I wrote in my Village Voice review. It’s quite possibly the most “LA” movie imaginable. (Inkoo Kang)

The Invisible Woman — Written by Abi Morgan (Dec 25)

Nelly (Felicity Jones), a happily married mother and schoolteacher, is haunted by her past. Her memories, provoked by remorse and guilt, take us back in time to follow the story of her relationship with Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes), with whom she discovered an exciting but fragile complicity. Dickens — famous, controlling and emotionally isolated within his success — falls for Nelly, who comes from a family of actors. The theatre is a vital arena for Dickens — a brilliant amateur actor — a man more emotionally coherent on the page or on stage than in life. As Nelly becomes the focus of Dickens’ passion and his muse, for both of them secrecy is the price, and for Nelly a life of invisibility. (IMDB)

Films Directed by Women Opening This Weekend

The Selfish Giant — Directed by Clio Barnard

One of Women and Hollywood’s picks for the Best Women-Directed Films of 2013, Clio Barnard’s narrative debut is a fully-realized work of cinema. We wrote of the film, “Set in Britain’s Midlands region, an area of decades-long economic decline, The Selfish Giant is a portrait of two ne’er-do-well middle-schoolers whose obvious entrepreneurial talents are wasted and unrecognized at school. Above all, the film is lamentation of the boyhoods Arbor and Swifty (played by riveting first-time actors Conner Chapman and Shaun Thomas) have lost to familial poverty and predatory adults. The Selfish Giant takes joy in the pleasures of wheeling and dealing (in scrap metal), but builds to a devastating climax that’ll break your heart and have you indignantly frustrated by the inevitability of it all.” (Inkoo Kang)

Films About Women Currently Playing

Saving Mr. Banks — Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith
Ms. 45
Trap for Cinderella
Street Journeys (doc) — Directed by Tracy Christian
Sweet Talk — Directed by Terri Hanauer
Caught in the Web
Expecting — Written and Directed by Jessie McCormack
Paradise Hope — Co-Written by Veronika Franz
Frozen — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Jennifer Lee
The Punk Singer (doc) — Directed by Sini Anderson
Catching Fire
The Book Thief
Blue is the Warmest Color
Gravity
Baggage Claim
Enough Said — Written and Directed by Nicole Holofcener
Wadjda — Written and Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour
Short Term 12
Austenland — Written and Directed by Jerusha Hess, Adapted for the Screen by Jerusha Hess and Shannon Hale
Blue Jasmine

Films Directed by Women Currently Playing

The Crash Reel (doc) — Co-Written and Directed by Lucy Walker

The New Rijksmuseum (Parts 1 and 2) (doc) — Directed by Oeke Hoogendijk

Breakfast with Curtis — Written and Directed by Laura Colella

Merry Christmas — Written and Directed by Anna Condo

Black Nativity — Co-Written and Directed by Kasi Lemmons

Films Written by Women Currently Playing

Tricked — Co-Written by Kim van Kooten

The Hobbit — The Desolation of Smaug — Co-Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens

Khumba — Co-Written by Raffaella Delle Donne

Dallas Buyers Club — Co-Written by Melissa Wallack

Films By and About Women on DVD/And Or On Demand

Last Love — Written and Directed by Sandra Nettelbeck (Dec 31)

Desert Runners (doc) — Directed by Jennifer Steinman