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The 25 Best Movies Directed by Women in 2019

From ‘Booksmart’ to ‘Portrait of A Lady on Fire,’ here are 25 great new films with women at the helm.
Rewind Movies Directed By Women
By  · Published on December 17th, 2019

Honey Boy

Honey Boy

An unadulterated moviegoing experience that plays out like therapy on-screen, Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy includes some of the best performances of the year. Shia LaBeouf wrote the urgently cathartic screenplay about his childhood while in court-ordered rehab, and Har’el adapted it into an emotive take on trauma, addiction, fatherhood, and the inherent weirdness that comes with being a child actor. LaBeouf, boldly, plays his own troubled father, while Noah Jupe lights up the screen as a young Shia (here named Otis) and Lucas Hedges rounds out the cast as an older version of the actor, himself in rehab. There’s brutal honesty in art, and then there’s Honey Boy.


Hustlers

Hustlers

Lorene Scafaria’s stripper Robin Hood saga is a triumph of the female gaze, a true story about friendship and the slippery slope of greed that just so happens to take place on club stages and in shady bars. Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu star as a pair of dancers who, while not evenly matched in the spotlight, find themselves perfect partners for a scam involving stealing copious amounts of dough from Wall Street types. Lopez’s dance introduction, set to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”, deserves a place in the film scenes hall of fame, while the story itself is the definitive lady-led take on the gangster epic, or as critic Courtney Howard memorably called it, “Scorsese in stilettos.”


Late Night

Late Night

A throwback in all the best ways, Nisha Ganatra’s feel-good comedy stars and was written by multi-talented Mindy Kaling. Kaling’s character, Molly, is an earnest and hard-working woman (pleasantly against type for Kaling, who usually plays sarcastic and selfish just as well) who finds her way into the writer’s room of an acclaimed yet floundering long-running late show. The show’s host is Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson), a strong yet traditional woman who’s more comfortable yelling at her writer’s room than she is actually trying anything new onscreen. Thompson is incredible as Newbury, a character whose surprising depth elevates Late Night beyond knockoff Devil Wears Prada territory. Late Night exists in the beloved niche of idealistic workplace comedy comfort viewing, and could easily be thrown into rewatch rotation alongside a show like Parks and Recreation.


Little Women

Little Women
Sony Pictures Releasing

Greta Gerwig’s sophomore feature is an inventive, enrapturing take on a classic children’s book that wasn’t exactly begging for reinvention. Gerwig effortlessly finds new spaces within Louisa May Alcott’s narrative in which to add her own pathos and humor, most notably in a meta-textual turn that sees Jo (Saoirse Ronan) taking on Alcott’s role in the novel’s creation. Alcott’s themes — sisterhood, generosity, the turns of fate life often takes — shine through, but so does Gerwig’s vibrant spirit. It’s tough to choose favorites among the perfectly-cast ensemble, but Florence Pugh takes the difficult character of Amy and turns her into a feisty, hilarious, and self-possessed yet insecure woman who can steal a scene with little more than a facial expression.


Little Woods

Little Woods

A bleak landscape sets the stage for a slice of dark Americana that gives Winter’s Bone a run for its money in Little Woods. Candyman reboot director Nia DaCosta’s breakout film stars Tessa Thompson and Lily James as two sisters threatened by problems beyond their circumstances. Instead of caving under the pressure of an unexpected pregnancy, an impending foreclosure, and a town that’ll make a convict or an addict out of anyone who works there without a second glance, the two decide to face these seemingly insurmountable obstacles head-on. With world-weary lead performances and a strong directorial voice that transforms a small-town story into a searing social thriller with all of America in its crosshairs, Little Woods is a neo-Western for the ages.


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Valerie Ettenhofer is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, TV-lover, and mac and cheese enthusiast. As a Senior Contributor at Film School Rejects, she covers television through regular reviews and her recurring column, Episodes. She is also a voting member of the Critics Choice Association's television and documentary branches. Twitter: @aandeandval (She/her)