31 Movies Featuring Remarkable Women in Cinema
I know you are probably wondering where our A League of Their Own (1992, dir. Penny Marshall) reviews are and why we, the Team at The Film Rewind, have been so quiet and hardly posting at all this month… It is simply because we are very busy, grappling with tech issues, and extremely tired. But not just any tired, we are very much pandemic and winter tired. March has always been a long month, what with the weather being fickle and not deciding whether to snow, rain, or throw in a few rays of sunshine, but to add insult to injury, this month also happens to feature that sneaky little tiredness inducing culprit, aka ‘daylight savings time,’ that absolutely wreaks havoc on one’s internal clock and messes with everybody’s sleep schedule. (In all honesty, I still do not feel like I have adjusted to the time change yet this year… just saying.)
That being said, we hope that the female centric flicks we rounded up below will help tide you over until we get our A League of Their Owns reviews finished. Several of these films were contenders for our Film Club Pick this month, but all of these movies feature super strong, powerful, and at times downright badass, female characters, both historical and fictional, which we would feel remiss not to mention during Women’s History Month. Whether you have seen a few of these films, none, or all of them several times over, we hope that this list will inspire you to revisit some of the most memorable performances and storylines featuring strong, fearless, and resilient female characters in film! Enjoy!
9 to 5 (1980, dir. Colin Higgins)
Adam's Rib (1949, dir. George Cukor)
All I Wanna Do (aka The Hairy Bird, 1998, dir. Sarah Kernochan)
Bend it like Beckham (2002, dir. Gurinder Chadha)
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017, dir. Alexandra Dean)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992, dir. Fran Rubel Kuzul)
Burlesque (2010, dir. Steven Antin)
Calendar Girls (2003, dir. Nigel Cole)
Erin Brockovich (2000, dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Fargo (1996, dir. Joel Coen)
Hidden Figures (2016, dir. Theodore Melfi)
His Girl Friday (1940, dir. Howard Hawks)
Juno (2007, dir. Jason Reitman)
Legally Blonde (2001, dir. Robert Luketic)
Mona Lisa Smile (2003, dir. Mike Newell)
Mulan (1998, dir. Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft)
Norma Rae (1979, dir. Martin Ritt)
On the Basis of Sex (2018, dir. Mimi Leder)
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017, dir. Angela Robinson)
Real Women Have Curves (2002, dir. Patricia Cardoso)
Saved! (2004, dir. Brian Dannelly)
Silence of the Lambs (1991, dir. Jonathan Demme)
Suffragette (2015, dir. Sarah Gavron)
The Blind Side (2009, dir. John Lee Hancock)
The Color Purple (1985, dir. Steven Spielberg)
The Help (2011, dir. Tate Taylor)
The Joy Luck Club (1993, dir. Wayne Wang)
Thelma & Louise (1991, dir. Ridley Scott)
The Women (1939, dir. George Cukor)
Waitress (2007, dir. Adrienne Shelly)
Working Girl (1988, dir. Mike Nichols)
How many of these films have you seen? In what ways have you celebrated Women’s History Month? Share your thoughts in the comments below and check back very soon for our reviews of A League of Their Own!
Copyright © 2022 Sarah Crane
