With the notional 'year' element that came with the #52FilmsByWomen pledge out the window, this is now my 12th batch of 52 films since starting in 2016. This blog covers films and TV watched between March - May 2022 directed/co-directed by women.
Read about films: 1 – 52, 53 - 104, 105 - 156, 157 - 208, 209 - 260, 261 - 312, 313 - 365, 366 - 417, 418 - 469, 470 - 521 and 522 - 573.
In this swathe of #52FilmsDirectedbyWomen, 11 were re-visits, the remaining 41 new to me. The re-watches of the cluster of Bigelows and Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (pic: right) were in preparation of a course of women behind the camera: from Hollywood and beyond for the City Lit that I give every May.
From the 41 new-to-me two were the animated TV series, Centaurworld (great fun), one was an in-concert, two were experimental shorts, one was a silent comedy short and 10 (601 – 610) were documentary shorts, which along with the feature length documentary, Independent Miss Craigie, about the British documentarian Jill Cragie (pic: top left) make up the recent BFI DVD release, The Camera is Ours: Britain's Women Documentary Makers. The other feature length documentary in this selection was Lana Wilson’s documentary on Taylor Swift.
From the 25 feature length documentaries and films which were new to me, my top 10 were:
Blue Black Permanent (1992, Margaret Tait)
The Farewell (2019, Lulu Wang)
The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020, Radha Blank)
Hellbender (2021, John Adams, Zelda Adams & Toby Poser)
Independent Miss Craigie (2020, Lizzie Thynne)
Mixtape (2021, Valerie Weiss)
The Roads Not Taken (2020, Sally Potter)
Take this Waltz (2011, Sarah Polley)
Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (2020, Lana Wilson)
Turning Red (2022, Domee Shi)
You can read reviews of all these films on my letterboxd.
Films 574 - 625
574. Miss Stevens (2016, Julia Hart)
575. Blue Black Permanent (1992, Margaret Tait)
576. True Love (1989, Nancy Savoca)
577. Blood Bath (1966, Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman)
578. Harriet (2019, Kasi Lemmons)
579. Slums of Beverly Hills (1998, Tamara Jenkins)
580. Pet Sematary (1989, Mary Lambert)
581. Take this Waltz (2011, Sarah Polley)
582. Skyscraper (1960, Shirley Clarke, D. A. Pennebaker et al)
583. Witch’s Cradle (1944, Maya Deren)
584. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001, Sharon Maguire)
585. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (2019, Caroline Link)
586. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004, Beeban Kidron)
587. Bridget Jones's Baby (2016, Sharon Maguire)
588. The Falcon Takes Over (1942, Irving Reis/Ruby Rosenberg)
589. American Psycho (2000, Mary Harron)
590. The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel (2020, Christine Swanson)
591. Guncrazy (1992, Tamra Davis)
592. The Power of the Dog (2021, Jane Campion)
593. The Farewell (2019, Lulu Wang)
594. The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020, Radha Blank)
595. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020, Cathy Yan)
596. The Roads Not Taken (2020, Sally Potter)
597. Independent Miss Craigie (2020, Lizzie Thynne)
598. Centaurworld s1 (2021, created/directed by Megan Nicole Dong)
599. Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (2020, Lana Wilson)
600. An Audience with Adele (2021, Liz Clare)
601. Beside the Seaside (Marion Grierson, 1935)
602. Behind the Scenes (Evelyn Spice, 1938)
603. They Also Serve (Ruby Grierson, 1940)
604. 4 and 20 Fit Girls (Mary Field, 1940)
605. English Inn (Muriel Box, 1941)
606. Birth-day (Brigid ‘Budge’ Cooper & Mary Beales, 1945)
607. Homes for the People (Kay Mander, 1945)
608. Children of the Ruins (Jill Craigie, 1948)
609. Troubled Mind (Margaret Thomson, 1954)
610. Something Nice to Eat (Sarah Erulkar, 1967)
611. Centaurworld s2 (2021, created/directed by Megan Nicole Dong)
612. A Million Little Pieces (2018, Sam Taylor-Johnson)
613. Turning Red (2022, Domee Shi)
614. Eternals (2021, Chloé Zhao)
615. Mixtape (2021, Valerie Weiss)
616. Hellbender (2021, John Adams, Zelda Adams & Toby Poser)
617. Romantic Comedy (2019, Elizabeth Sankey)
618. Mabel's Blunder (1914, Mack Sennett & Mabel Normand)
619. Set It Up (2018, Claire Scanlon)
620. Keep the Change (2017, Rachel Israel)
621. Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Kathryn Bigelow)
622. Near Dark (1987, Kathryn Bigelow)
623. Blue Steel (1990, Kathryn Bigelow)
624. Point Break (1991, Kathryn Bigelow)
625. The Watermelon Woman (1996, Cheryl Dunye)
A round of applause for another Fantabulous 52 films!