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

it occurs to me that there nearly aren't enough great american films with female protagonists -- or maybe i am just not good at thinking of them. so i hand it over to you.

iron man 2

You're right, it's pretty hard to think of really good American movies with female protagonists, especially if you exclude ones which have female and male protagonists that are given equal emphasis. In fact I can't think of any such American movie that I really love. I wanted to say Mary Poppins, but you could easily argue Dick van Dyke and the family dad are also protagonists in that one. Maybe also Lilo & Stitch? It has three protagonists: a little girl, her grown-up sister, and an alien, though the alien is clearly coded as male, even if we don't find out its technical gender (or if it even has one).

Oh, I forgot about Clueless and Legally Blonde. Those are great movies!

the last seduction
3 women
carrie
gloria
daughter rite
romy and michele's high school reunion

especially if you exclude ones which have female and male protagonists that are given equal emphasis

yeah, a problem is that plenty of romantic movies have twin protagonists, like before sunrise or while you were sleeping etc.

or valley girl!

I remember really liking The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, but I haven't seen it since it came out.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/VIWarshawskiKathleenTurnerFrenchDVDCover.jpg

kill bill

Fargo, Broadcast News, Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, Heart Like a Wheel...I'm sure others will occur to me throughout the day.

opening night

ALIENS

silence of the lambs

kill bill 2

Angel, Angel, Down We Go
The Birds
Boom!
Bound
Bunny Lake is Missing
Bye Bye Birdie
A Chronicle of Corpses
Crazy in Alabama
Dead Ringer
Desperate Living
Down With Love
Far From Heaven
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Hairspray (John Waters 1988)
The Honeymoon Killers
Housekeeping
Illusions (Julie Dash 1980)
Inland Empire
Klute
The Legend of Lylah Clare
Love Streams
Marnie
Mary (Abel Ferrara 2005)
Mildred Pierce (Todd Haynes 2011)
Mulholland Drive
The Naked Kiss
Petulia
Queen of Diamonds
Red Line 7000
Roof (Betsy Kalin 1998)
Ruby in Paradise
'R Xmas
7 Women
Safe
Secret Ceremony
Sextette
Showgirls
Sleepwalk
S.O.B.
Such Good Friends
The Tamarind Seed
Wanda
When Pigs Fly
White Dog
Women of the Night (Zalman King 2000)
Xanadu
You Are Not I

Oh and duh Mommie Dearest

All my favourites are high school mean girl flicks: Heathers, Jawbreaker, Saved!, Easy A, and of course, Mean Girls.

is this gonna be the next poll?

also -- a woman under the influence, hannah and her sisters and gloria

KJB otm.

Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady

The Company

margaret

bridesmaids

Thelma & Louise
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Josie & The Pussycats
Charlie's Angels
Sucker Punch

Contact
Salt
The Others

Following are not actually my favourites:
Erin Brockivich
Steel Magnolias
Mystic Pizza
GI Jane
Blue Steel
Monster
Girl, Interrupted
Stepmom
Private Benjamin
The Devil Wears Prada
The Hours
Sister Act

seconding KJB on Housekeeping

Thirded.

Technically, thirded and fourthed. I seconded the list en masse.

Bonjour Tristesse
Erin Brockovich
3 Women

An Unmarried Woman and (combination '70s sap/Neil Young fan--pretty iffy otherwise) Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Resident Evil

Terminator
Alien
Aliens
Halloween
Ms. 45

Ms. 45

Yes + Serial Mom.

And Jackie Brown.

But, yeah, among recent movies in which female protagonists don't kill people or narrowly avoid being killed by people, I definitely enjoy The Company, Ghost World and The Bridges of Madison County.

the private lives of pippa lee isnt my fav or anything @ all, it's ok, but i do remember thinking @ the time i saw it that it was a dream, meaty role for an adult woman

also, ones i like

looking for mr. goodbar
the runaways
carrie

>S.O.B.

i watched this like last week. don't mean to nitpick but julie andrews def has less screentime than prob like 4 other characters

Ladies and Gentleman, the Fabulous Stains (on the female protagonists not killing or avoiding being killed tip)

Heavenly Creatures

Although I guess that's New Zealand so nevermind

the alien is clearly coded as male, even if we don't find out its technical gender

i was skimming and i assumed tuomas was talking about a very different movie to the one he was talking about

Ghost World

Oh gawd yeah. How could I forget that one?

More: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Vixen, Viva, Marci X, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, Daughters of the Dust, The Swap, [/i]Sin in the Suburbs[/i], Moonlighting Wives, The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!, Seeds of Sin, Fleshpot on 42nd Street, Bad Girls Go to Hell, etc.

I left out films in which strong female protagonists are played by men (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Dinah East, maybe She-Man) and vice versa (I'm Not There, a stretch anyway and I'm blanking on others...does She-Man fit in here?).

Also, "protagonist" doesn't make much sense in the avant-garde but women directors sure do: Peggy Ahwesh, Stephanie Barber, Abigail Child, Leslie Thornton, Beth B, Su Friedrich, etc.

switchblade sisters
caged heat

S.O.B.

i watched this like last week. don't mean to nitpick but julie andrews def has less screentime than prob like 4 other characters

Yawn. I knew that would happen. Ok true. But her brazooms set everything in motion. And Bunny Lake is Missing was shot in England and co-stars Olivier. But Carol Lynley is American. And so is Preminger (but is he?). And so on.

Alan Rudolph's Mortal Thoughts (Demi Moore's career justified)

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.

A Question of Silence, for example, tackles the intense emotional reactions of three women

Nobody's mentioned "3 Women" yet! Where are the Altman stans?

it has been

Has anyone said Juno yet? Or Whip It?

I mentioned both.

haha I totally read Morbius: the Bechdel Test as the title of an imagined film.

xxxxxpost Ah, so it has. I knew it was unlikely to have been missed (except by me obv.)

the end result of this thread is gonna be another poll, amirite?!?

Nobody's mentioned "3 Women" yet! Where are the Altman stans?

― Race Against Rockism (Myonga Vön Bontee), Thursday, May 3, 2012 11:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's one of his worst movies, though (IMO).

Blue Car is really good.

It's interesting to note that many of these movies fail to pass the Bechdel test... I think one reason I had a hard time coming up with good examples was because I was unconsciously excluding movies that don't pass.

The thread premise is 'with female protagonists' tho, not 'which pass the Bechdel test'.

haha I totally read Morbius: the Bechdel Test as the title of an imagined film.

Call yr contacts at Marvel. I'll have my treatment ready by monday.

the Runaways! def passes the Bechdel test

I'd like the Runaways a whole lot more if it had nothing to do with the Runaways and was just a throwaway movie about a fictional girlband

Anyway, the Bechdel test is an interesting exercise to look at the state of women in movies in general, but isn't very useful in assessing individual movies, IMO.

yeah i agree with that.

otm

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, nor is the 'female protagonist' thing, without a list of criteria... Though asking for favourites does make it a slightly different exercise.

Where are the Altman stans?

The only movie I mentioned was an Altman! Even though most of his films featured ensembles where few individuals really stood out above the pack, he generally made good use of female protagonists. He was a very female-friendly director (in many senses).

No one likes Terms of Endearment?

prefer Steel Magnolias

love terms of endearment

I really like Nicole Holofcener's movies, Lovely & Amazing and Friends With Money. Both are largely populated by female protagonists and both pass the Bechdel test (according to bechdeltest.com).

Bring it On!

dug friends with money, haven't seen lovely & amazing. have meant to forever, just never got around to it.

Walking and Talking is my favorite of hers

walking and talking and please give are the best holofceners imo; walking and talking is my fave, too.

Anyway, the Bechdel test is an interesting exercise to look at the state of women in movies in general, but isn't very useful in assessing individual movies, IMO.

― MrDasher, Friday, 4 May 2012 16:57 (3 hours ago) Permalink

yeah, it's idiotic as some kind of litmus test for watching/appreciating individual films but thinking about it gives you a sense of hollywood's generally sexist orientation.

Nobody's mentioned "3 Women"

I mentioned it yesterday morning

disagree w/r/t hollywood -- hollywood's sexism is evidenced by gender disparity in high-power/high-pay jobs. the actual product is pretty much audience-driven.

thanks for making me Google the "Bechdel test"

disagree w/r/t hollywood -- hollywood's sexism is evidenced by gender disparity in high-power/high-pay jobs. the actual product is pretty much audience-driven.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, May 4, 2012 3:09 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which doesn't mean it's immune from dysfunctional attitudes on gender!

Nobody's mentioned "3 Women"

I mentioned it yesterday morning

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

And morbs mentioned that you mentioned it last night!

i'm gonna mention it again just in case: 3 women.

"which doesn't mean it's immune from dysfunctional attitudes on gender!"
it ... sort of is! having no principles w/r/t making money means that the only barrier is the audience's willingness to pay for it.

i mean, mel gibson got his foreign-language torture movies made because enough people wanted to see it, jesus!

"which doesn't mean it's immune from dysfunctional attitudes on gender!"
it ... sort of is! having no principles w/r/t making money means that the only barrier is the audience's willingness to pay for it.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, May 4, 2012 3:26 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but... i don't follow.

What, is this a poll or a listing?

1. Aliens
2. Alien
3. Heathers

"but... i don't follow."
what i mean is that the sexism in hollywood that puts a glass ceiling on, say, a woman wanting to become a director or producer wouldn't stop a movie with two or more female characters talking about stuff getting made, provided it could make a lot of money.

You're assuming that hollywood has a crystal ball that shows it what people want - the evidence here is shaky to say the least.

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."

the fact that hollywood doesn't have a crystal ball makes them that much more likely to embrace a non-sexist formula movie if one were shown to be highly profitable. like if elfquest starring naomi klein as capt. nologo made $200million, there'd be nothing but non-sexist, socially progressive elf movies forever.

dare to dream

so where are all the Bridesmaids knockoffs btw

aren't there like 2 or 3 already in the pipeline?

panic room

is carnival of souls too old to make the cutoff?

no ones mentioned the travelling pants movies fyi

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