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

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.

Stillman's new one Damsels in Distress probably passes the Bedchel test.

eXistenZ

wait no one's said Alien yet? lol

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

was gonna say Heavenly Creatures but I guess that isn't American :(

Freeway

Election (more of an ensemble thing I guess but Witherspoon and the other female lead whose name escapes me get as much screentime as the male protagonists)

no one likes Thelma and Louise anymore? :(

I should watch it again. Haven't seen it in probably ten years.

Can't stand Thelma and Louise, I must say...

Palindromes - more leads than I can remember, but all female

we're seeing taste overlap

more leads than I can remember, but all female

One of those was a willowy boy.

d'oh! allright well 7 out of 8 were female

Go Fish

Oh, someone was talking about that recently - sounds good (or at least, it sounded good when I established in my head it wasn't terrible '90s Brit-flick Shooting Fish).

would you guys consider jeff daniels to be the clear protagonist of something wild? i would say yes, esp. because melanie griffith is such a proto-M.P.D.G.

awesome lists here, though i must cavil that bonjour tristesse is 1959 and some of the other movies listed are objectively awful ("monster"?!).

i guess i'd add some interesting exploitation items by stephanie rothman: the student nurses and the velvet vampire (particularly the latter).

poltergeist maybe fits in here too? maybe?

Little Darlings

^^^love this movie so much

Going with what emil.y's reply earlier, I do have a problem with a lot of these films' failure to pass the Bechdel test. And while I love A Woman Under the Influence & etc., they are films all about how bitches be crazy.

I'm seriously blanking on my favorite American titles though. All I can think of right now are European films--they tend to play with the limits of female protagonists more broadly. The Dutch film A Question of Silence, for example, tackles the intense emotional reactions of three women but further explores how this may be a reaction to systematic oppression vs. inherent craziness.

Monster is the Aileen Wuornos bio, rather than any other film of the same name (or Monster's Ball, for that matter). I haven't seen it, but a lot of people seemed to like it.

they are films all about how bitches be crazy

To be fair, most of the movies not listed itt are about how men be idiots.

Monster is so ridiculously terrible, the original Broomfield docs are infinitely superior

I'm assuming from it's not being mentioned yet that To Kill A Mockingbird must have turned 50 recently...

You Can Count On Me

Um, ILX I know you hate Death Proof but DEATH PROOF

and it passes the Bechdel with flying colors

so there

:D

that one has so many protagonists it's a bit of a grey area altho yeah it passes the Bechdel test...

My favorites would def be Death Proof, and True Grit, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Oh, and Beetlejuice.

True Grit apparently passes the Bechdel on a technicality bcs of the Boarding House lady which seems kinda weird, but for me the richness of Mattie's character outweighs my need for more than one female protagonist, (also given the period setting etc)

and I secretly love the Wynona "Little Women" movie.

I secretly love the Wynona "Little Women" movie.

I don't even secretly love this movie, I just love it. I still hate Bhaer though.

this isn't factually true, but i felt like penelope spheeris was an underlying presence in the jackass movies.

Angela (Rebecca Miller's first film)
May

May! Good one.

add No Such Thing even though part of the Sarah Polley character was a little bit meek and dull, the other part was not.

some of the other movies listed are objectively awful ("monster"?!)

The way I approached this was to consult my .xls of every movie I've seen since 1992 and jot down all the ones that met the requirements. After doing so, I deleted the ones I disliked or didn't remember enough about to say one way or another. I'm in no position to defend Monster, but I recall not hating it.

rambling rose

outrage & not wanted, both by ida lupino

I secretly love the Wynona "Little Women" movie.

I don't even secretly love this movie, I just love it. I still hate Bhaer though.

― Respectfully, Tyrese Gibson (Nicole), Thursday, May 3, 2012 12:35 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love this one too

everyone just seemed so perfectly cast

no shame in loving that movie -- it's good! Susan Sarandon was the only one who looked too modern (and portended sexless roles).

would you guys consider jeff daniels to be the clear protagonist of something wild?

Yes; the most interesting character, not at all. It's like American Graffiti: Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, and Cindy Williams are so much more interesting than almost all the male characters.

Alien's an even worse fit than Aliens - Ripley is just one of the big cast, she doesn't become the most interesting until she's the only one left.

she is, however, the protagonist when all is said and done. the movie just takes its time making that clear. i'd say it counts.

xspost Alfred, yeah that's true...I'll give her a pass though because even her regular speaking voice is just so perfectly Marmee, at least to me. It's totally how she sounded in my head all those years!

times square