For 6 years now, one of my favourite movie buffs Dell at Dell on Movies has hosted his Girl Week blogathon, celebrating females in the movie industry. Many bloggers have been posting this week and I’ve snuck in at the last minute with a post of my own. If you want to find out more check out Dell’s announcement post and give him a follow if you haven’t already.
In 2019 and 2018 I posted about the female directors of that year so far, and it feels right to carry on with that theme. At this point in November in 2018 I had watched 47 new releases, and just 4 of them were directed by woman, which shocked me. In 2019, I’d seen 70 new releases, and only 8 were directed by women. That’s still really bad, isn’t it? I told myself after that I would make a concentrated effort to improve that figure by you know, 2020 happened and I have to admit I haven’t kept track. So with that in mind, allow me a minute (or 20) to look at my Letterboxd account and run the figures.
Number of 2020 releases watched so far: 77
Number of 2020 releases watched that are directed by women: 16
You know what? I’m reservedly happy with that number. Of course I wish it was higher but that’s double the number of last year when I’ve watched roughly the same number of movies overall. I think it’s mainly due to having virtually no blockbuster movies this year, freeing up my time for indie releases. I’ll list all 16 for you now, and I may as well do a top 5, right?
365 Days – Barbara Bialowas, Tomasz Mandes
Emma. – Autumn de Wilde
Mulan – Niki Caro
Misbehaviour – Philippa Lowthorpe
High Note – Nisha Ganatra
Desperados – LP
The Old Guard – Gina Prince-Bythewood
She Dies Tomorrow – Amy Seimetz
Unpregnant – Rachel Goldenberg
On the Rocks – Sofia Coppola
American Murder: The Family Next Door – Jenny Popplewell
#5 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend – Claire Scanlon
Chosing a 5th place was tricky because looking back at my film diary, I ranked a lot of these 7/10. The one I had the most fun with though was the interactive Kimmy Schmidt movie. The show cheered me up during the tough days of having a newborn baby, and now the movie is here cheering me up in a terrible year!
#4 Birds of Prey – Cathy Yan
It almost feels surreal that I was at a cinema this year to see Birds of Prey. I don’t generally rate the DC movies but this was so much fun, and Margot Robbie is the perfect Harley Quinn. It sucks that WB didn’t give it the marketing it deserves, and now it’s been hailed as a flop.
#3 Kajillionaire – Miranda July
Kajillionaire just represents everything I love about indie movies. Great characters, great acting and a weird as heck story. I’m so glad I got to see it at the cinema before they closed again, and I’m hopeful that a streaming service picks it up soon so I can watch it again.
#2 The Broken Hearts Gallery – Natalie Krinsky
I’ve seen The Broken Hearts Gallery twice now and loved it just as much on a rewatch. There are hoards of average romcoms released every year but every now and again there’s a diamond in the rough and this is one of them.
#1 Happiest Season – Clea DuVall
I haven’t written a proper review of Happiest Season yet (that’s coming next week) but there’s just no way I wasn’t going to enjoy it. I’ve always been a Kristen Stewart fan, I would walk on all the LEGO barefoot for Aubrey Plaza and these last couple of months I’ve binge watched an unhealthy amount of Schitt’s Creek for Daniel Levy so it would have taken a disaster for me to not love this movie.
I’ve seen a handful of these and look forward to seeing at least a few more. Kajillionaire is the one I most want to see. Thanks for joining again! Love it!
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Thanks so much for hosting again Dell, I’m looking forward to next year already 🙂
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I’m glad someone liked Birds of Prey as that film was fun. I would love to spend more time with those women and hopefully if they do a Justice League/Suicides Squad film where both factions team up with the Birds of Prey. Imagine the chaos that would ensue.
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That would be crazy and I’d SO like to watch it!
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I finally got pro on letterboxd and seeing the amount of films I watched vs how many women directed them is….sad. I’m with you on Kajillionaire and Birds of Prey! I haven’t seen the other ones.
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It’s shocking isn’t it! I adore looking at my stats on Letterboxd ❤
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great list! i’m especially pumped to watch Kajillionaire, not to mention Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland which seems to be getting a lot of buzz! two other indie releases i really enjoyed were Tanya Wexler’s Buffaloed and Alice Wu’s The Half of It!
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I’m very excited to see Nomadland but I haven’t heard of the other 2 so I’m adding those to my list. Thanks for highlighting them to me 🙂
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Ugh considering my film slump I feel like my ratio would be embarrassing! But I did see 3 of the films on your list and there’s 3 on my list for December so I’m going to stick with that and try to do better next year!
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Oh that’s good going! Next year will be the year I make a concentrated effort to improve the ratio.
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I had soooooooo much fun with Birds of Prey!
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It’s one of those movies I’ll happily watch again and again!
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Awesome blogathon! I definitely need to catch up on female-directed movies, too! Out of your list, I’ve seen only 3. Hoping to watch MULAN once it’s available for free on Disney+!
Emma. – Autumn de Wilde
The Old Guard – Gina Prince-Bythewood
On the Rocks – Sofia Coppola
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Ooh you’ve seen 3 of the good ones though! I hope you enjoy Mulan, I had really low expectations and was pleasantly surprised, but it’s still not close to being my favourite live action Disney remake.
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I really need to watch more films directed by women as I’ve only seen 4 of those you mentioned. And I hated 3 of them (365 Days, Emma., and Mulan). But Birds of Prey was so good. I had so much fun, even rewatching it, and it’ll definitely be on my top 10 of the year.
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I’ve never consciously tracked how many movies I watch are directed by women but I think 2021 is the year I need to do that.
365 Days was sooooo terrible!
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