your favorite american films of the past 50 years with female protagonists

I liked all of these to varying degrees, IIRC:

The Birds
Rosemary's Baby
A Woman Under the Influence
Carrie
Another Woman
Silence of the Lambs
The Man in the Moon (1991)
Reality Bites
To Die For
Clueless
Safe
Welcome to the Dollhouse
I Shot Andy Warhol
Bound
Contact
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
Jackie Brown
High Art
The Last Days of Disco
Slums of Beverly Hills
Boys Don't Cry
Dick
Erin Brockovich
Nurse Betty
Ghost World
The Good Girl
Far from Heaven
Monster
The Company
Kill Bill v. 1 and 2
Mean Girls
Million Dollar Baby
Juno
Rachel Getting Married
Wendy and Lucy
Frozen River
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Winter's Bone
Whip It
Black Swan
Please Give
Bridesmaids
Margaret
Martha Marcy May Marlene

Yes on Looking for Mr. Goodbar. I thought about Jackie Brown, but it seems to be as much or more about Sam Jackson and Robert Forster. But you could probably say the same of Broadcast News.

Freeway
Election

thanks for reminding me about High Art and Please Give, jaymc.

KJB's list is super OH YEAH time
nice work!

Also if they haven't been mentioned yet

Valley of the Dolls
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Satisfaction
Little Darlings
Foxes

Where the Boys Are (is that 50 years ago or not?)

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Gas Food Lodging

I should just slow down and make a list like a normal person.

Badlands
Out Of The Blue
Carnival Of Souls

Have there been any westerns yet?

Meek's Cutoff, not having seen Raquel Welch in Hannie Caulder

The Quick and the Dead is super entertaining but is still pretty bad. xp

Woody Allen's best femalecentric films (ie, w/out him in the cast) might be The Purple Rose of Cairo and Another Woman.

Glitter

oh duh -- Sayles' Passion Fish w/ a pair of great performances by Alfre Woodard and Mary McDonnell, virtually in every scene together.

(guess which one got an Oscar nomination)

Sisters

I know it's not the same thing, but I think the lead females in Nashville--Blakely, Tomlin, Baxley, Gwen Wells, etc.--are among the most interesting in any American film ever.

Passion Fish is the only Sayles I like...

yeah, passion fish is great. i should rewatch that.

Working Girls
Working Girl

The Bridges o' Madison County

Heartland
The Trip to Bountiful

lol you like old lady movies!

killing people movies, but

ginger snaps
the descent

liquid sky

I would always walk into the video store, ask "Where the old lady movies? Passage to India? Naw, naw, seen that one already."

nine to five

all of me

Married to the Mob

crimes of passion

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

is michelle pfeiffer really the protagonist of married to the mob?

yes

Riding in Cars With Boys

Drew Barrymore is kind of amazing in it (as is Steve Zahn, but it's not about him).

http://images.moviepostershop.com/how-to-beat-the-high-cost-of-living-movie-poster-1980-1020233786.jpg

OK, here we go listing every piece of shit w/ female protagonists

I thought it was about favorites. Satisfaction is a total piece of shit, but I LOVE IT.

I just couldn't resist a three-women-in-a-barrel poster.

feel like Tarantino has been really conscientious about this:

Jackie Brown
Kill Bill
Inglorious Basterds

Fargo, obviously

Ward OTM re: 3 Women and Carrie, two of my favorites

The Sterile Cuckoo's good, though slight; also, Rachel, Rachel.

Cabaret
I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can
They Shoot Horses, Don't They

I'm kind of feeling like the exclusion criteria should be extended... Solely female protagonists (no male/female romance, no mixed ensemble), no 'girls about to be killed', nothing solely based on their psychological damage (that one's more tricky, but I look at a load of these and I just see 'women as victims' as strongly as you do with the about-to-die horror girl). And I'm certainly not saying that male protagonists never get these roles, they just get other roles too...

And I'm not saying those roles are always bad roles, or in bad films, or anything. I mean, most of my favourite films are about psychologically damaged protagonists... argh, I don't know. Whatever.

oh duh -- Sayles' Passion Fish w/ a pair of great performances by Alfre Woodard and Mary McDonnell, virtually in every scene together.

I almost mentioned this before realizing that I remember virtually nothing about it.

I guess part of my problem is that I sometimes forget that there is a man there because all I remember about the movie is related to the women (Sisters, for example). I think Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt are the stars of that movie. In fact, I don't remember the first thing about the man in Sisters aside from the fact that he was creepy.

tank girl

Solely female's tough for an American film (unlike, say, Bergman); even obvious choices like Wanda, or An Unmarried Woman, or Fargo prominently involve men.

havent seen them but the protagonists are female pants i hear

so where are all the Bridesmaids knockoffs btw

Bridesmaids was retrograde and shallow too so no worries

But it had an Irish leading male!

It's not so much a crystal ball as simply thinking "people like Julia Roberts/Cameron Diaz/Kate Hudson/Anne Hathaway etc., so let's develop stuff for them."

Not so much, seemingly: http://jezebel.com/5907744/the-truth-about-women-and-hollywood-these-actresses-theyre-fucked-good-luck-to-kate-and-reese