245 Films by Female Directors You Can Stream Right Now on Netflix

Sad­ly, despite great strides since the 1970s, Hol­ly­wood (and film­mak­ing in gen­er­al) is still a boys’ club, espe­cial­ly when it comes to those behind the cam­era. Until Kathryn Bigelow won her 2010 Oscar for The Hurt Lock­er, no female direc­tor had claimed the prize. And not a sin­gle woman has even been nom­i­nat­ed for Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy.

Direc­tor Sal­ly Pot­ter calls it the cast-iron ceil­ing, and says it’s still very dif­fi­cult to get a film made, even for a direc­tor with her pedi­gree.

But as some­body on this Metafil­ter thread sug­gests, if we want to sup­port female direc­tors, we need to watch more films by female direc­tors. This Google Doc lists 245 films direct­ed by women that are cur­rent­ly avail­able on Net­flix. It’s a mix of art house and pop­corn fare, and all worth check­ing out…and no doubt many Open Cul­ture read­ers have seen quite a few already. Here’s our Top Ten sug­ges­tions from that list, with four more thrown in for good mea­sure. And yes, we know that Net­flix is a paid ser­vice, but, not to wor­ry, you can sign up for a month-long free tri­al.

• The Punk Singer direct­ed by Sini Ander­son
• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night direct­ed by Ana Lily Amir­pour
• Bride and Prej­u­dice direct­ed by Gurinder Chad­ha
• Fish Tank direct­ed by Andrea Arnold
• Har­ry Dean Stan­ton: Part­ly Fic­tion direct­ed by Sophie Huber
• Holy Smoke direct­ed by Jane Cam­pi­on
• Me and You and Every­one We Know direct­ed by Miran­da July
• Rav­en­ous direct­ed by Anto­nia Bird
• The Babadook direct­ed by Jen­nifer Kent
• The Incred­i­bly True Adven­ture of 2 Girls in Love direct­ed by Maria Maggen­ti
• The Pervert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy direct­ed by Sophie Fiennes
• The Queen of Ver­sailles direct­ed by Lau­ren Green­field
• The Wolf­pack direct­ed by Crys­tal Moselle
• 30 for 30: The Price of Gold direct­ed by Nanette Burstein

There’s so many more choic­es at the link, from doc­u­men­tary to dra­ma and hor­ror to romance.

And while we’re at it, that oth­er stream­ing ser­vice, Hulu, has the full Cri­te­ri­on col­lec­tion, where many more female direc­tors can be found: Agnes Var­da, Cather­ine Breil­lat, Chan­tal Ack­er­man, Bar­bara Kop­pel, and more. Hulu offers a one-week free tri­al when you sign up.

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed con­tent:

85 Com­pelling Films Star­ring and/or Direct­ed By Women of Col­or: A List Cre­at­ed by Direc­tor Ava DuVer­nay & Friends on Twit­ter

100 Over­looked Films Direct­ed by Women: See Selec­tions from Sight & Sound Magazine’s New List

An Ambi­tious List of 1400 Films Made by Female Film­mak­ers

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.