hustlers

Film Girl Film's Top 15 Movies Directed by Women In 2019

By Andrea Thompson

2019 was a great year for women in film, with a variety of filmmakers bringing complex stories of women’s experiences to the screen. Below are theoness Film Girl Film has chosen as the standouts, with honorable mentions included.

15. Honey Boy

Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios

This is a film that screams vanity project. Shia LaBeouf not only penned the story of the turbulent childhood and young adulthood of Otis (played by Noah Jupe at 12 and Lucas Hedges at 22) a child star and obvious proxy, he also stars as Otis's alcoholic father James, whose good (ish) intentions are mostly stifled by his inability to cope with past traumas. But LaBeouf's eschews any kind of cheap thrills or bad behavior justification to bring us a deeply human story of a toxic father-son bond. Certainly LaBeouf's tormented patriarch, a sex offender who is verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive toward his son, has no right to our sympathy, yet he gets it anyway, mostly because LaBeouf doesn't excuse or even fully explain his behavior. He's mostly interested in exploring the history that made James and Otis the men they are, and depicting the tenderness that existed between them despite everything.

14. Jezebel

IMDB

IMDB

Numa Perrier's deeply autobiographical film brings a black female gaze to sex work as it follows 19-year-old Tiffany (Tiffany Tenille), as she starts working as an internet fetish cam model. In Perrier's deeply complex portrayal, this world can be simultaneously empowering and exploitative, with Tiffany's older sister Sabrina, played by Perrier herself, serving as a mentor and voice of wisdom throughout. As much a coming-of-age story as an exploration of how each sister defines and exploits their sexuality, “Jezebel” disdains both melodrama and judgment for a thoughtful exploration of how those with few resources find a means to achieve power, financial stability, and their human connection.

13. Hustlers

STX Films

STX Films

“Hustlers” is one of those films that could've just been a puritanical cautionary tale about the dangers of girls gone wild. Good thing writer-director Lorene Scafaria saves her anger for the patriarchy rather than the strippers who come up with a plan to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients after the recession hits. Even smarter, Scafaria anchors her story in the friendship between Ramona (Jennifer Lopez in a career-best performance), the originator of the scheme, and Destiny (Constance Wu). Before 2008, they and their co-workers are able to earn more than a good living, but after the financial crisis, their profession becomes less than viable. So they decide to drug wealthy Wall Street men and get them to spend ridiculous amounts of money, which they would then keep for themselves. By giving women who are normally sexualized furniture center stage, Scafaria allows us to share their delight in scamming the scammers, then their fear as their world inevitably unravels, resulting in an insightful, female-centric crime story that mostly unfolds sans judgement.

12. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures

Given that 2018 saw the release of the critically and commercially successful documentary “Won't You Be My Neighbor?,” did 2019 really need another film about Fred Rogers? Hold that thought, because “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” makes an enthusiastic case for yes. It's probably no coincidence that the posters for both films also mention kindness, since Fred Rogers not only advocated it, he seemed to embody it, and not only to the children who were the target audience of his wildly successful show “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.” Even if Tom Hanks doesn't have much of a resemblance to Mr. Rogers, he nevertheless seems to channel him and the values he tirelessly championed to an uncanny degree, enough to make journalist Lloyd Vogel's (Matthew Rhys) journey from cynic to believer feel fresh rather than tired. Director Marielle Heller also brings the same clear-eyed compassion that made “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” so heartfelt to this story of a budding friendship between two very different men.

11. Rafiki

IMDB

IMDB

Star-crossed lovers were a thing long before film was, but Kenyan teenagers Kena and Ziki face more obstacles than most. Their fathers are not only running against each other in a local election, but they live in a deeply conservative society that expects them to be good wives and any LGBTQ relationships are legally punishable by jail or worse. As the love between Kena and Ziki grows, so too does the danger, leading to devastating consequences. Yet the joy the two find in each other, embodied in the gorgeous pink hues director Wanuri Kahiu bathes both in, outshines the trauma. Banned in Kenya for “clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya contrary to the law,” “Rafiki” nevertheless became the first Kenyan film to screen at Cannes, quickly finding acclaim while drawing attention to Kenya's anti-LGBT laws without catering to Western sensibilities.

10. Varda By Agnès

IMDB

IMDB

If the documentary “Varda By Agnès” is difficult to define, it's because the late great filmmaker Agnès Varda herself defies anything resembling easy categorization. Like her other films, the premise of “Varda By Agnès” is deceptively simple, yet soon reveals layers of complexity which unfold throughout, as Varda looks back on her life and career while articulating her style of filmmaking. However, the doc is far more than a retrospective, and far less predictable, at one moment reminiscent of a casual chat with an old friend, the next an imaginative journey wherein a great artist instructs devoted cinephiles and neophytes alike on how she not only viewed, but interpreted the world. It's a fitting end to a decades-long career and life, both of which 90-year-old Varda defined on her own terms to the end.

9. The Farewell

IMDB

IMDB

A movie with a character who happens to be a terminally ill grandmother is a tough sell for a comedy. But the matriarch who receives a fatal cancer diagnosis isn't just a side character in “The Farewell,” she's the central plot point. After struggling New Yorker Billi's (Awkwafina) beloved Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) is diagnosed, her family opt to keep her illness a secret and decide to throw a fake wedding to provide an excuse for them all to gather in China and celebrate Nai Nai one last time. And it's...pretty funny, with not just the expected dark humor, but a wide spectrum of hilarity abounding alongside the touching moments of grief. Based in part on writer-director Lulu Wang's own experiences, “The Farewell” is apt to make you laugh and cry not just in equal measure, but simultaneously.

8. Little Woods

Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Film Festival

You can never have too much of Tessa Thompson, and “Little Woods” allows her to fully immerse herself into a role and world where a single wrong step could tear through a life with the force of a tornado. And she downright mesmerizes as Ollie, who finds herself in tight circumstances with a mere eight days left on her probation and the hope of a new life. Or rather, her somewhat estranged sister Deb (Lily James) does after their mother dies, and Deb and her son find themselves on the verge of homelessness and destitution. To help her family, Ollie decides to reenter the world of prescription drug smuggling, a dangerous but profitable business in their bleak rural North Dakota town. Remarkably, this is director Nia DaCosta's feature debut, and the fact that she gives us a brilliantly realized modern Western with a feminist twist, where a drug run to Canada also doubles as an attempt to receive a safe and low-cost abortion, is hopefully indicative of much more to come. Thankfully, there are already hopeful signs of just that.

7. Queen & Slim

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

“Queen & Slim” kicks off with its title characters on a date that is only remarkable for its lack of spark, but things get heated in the worst way after a police offer pulls them over for a minor issue, and things escalate, with Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) getting shot and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) shooting the officer in self defense. The two then go on the run together, with their bond and their relationship blossoming as they drive south through a lush vision of Black Americana. That they both come off as deeply human while remaining symbolic of the tragic human cost of racism seems due in large part to the near symbiotic creative melding of director Melina Matsoukas, who also directed Beyonce's “Lemonade,” and writer Lena Waithe, the creator of the series “The Chi” and who also wrote the acclaimed “Master of None” episode “Thanksgiving.” Their story is tragic, but it is also full of beauty and humor as Queen and Slim dare to hope for something better, even as they know the odds against such a thing are overwhelmingly stacked against them.

6. Fast Color

Lionsgate Publicity

Lionsgate Publicity

It's said that not all heroes wear capes, and certainly none of the women with superhuman abilities do in “Fast Color.” This criminally underseen gem has many of the beats, but almost none of the familiar tropes of typical superhero fare. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays a woman named Ruth, a fugitive on the run from authorities attempting to harness her abilities, and most critically, from herself, since those abilities have become a destructive force she's unable to control. In this bleak dystopian future which is rapidly running low on resources, the key to Ruth's future may just lie in the home she fled years ago, where her estranged mother (Lorraine Toussaint) and daughter (Saniyya Sidney) embody a past she tried to escape, and a more hopeful future they may be able to bring to fruition.

5. The Souvenir

A24

A24

Joanna Hogg's semi-autographical film “The Souvenir” is like a deceptively calm pond which conceals a raging torrent just beneath the surface. Honor Swinton Byrne, the woman responsible for the storm that's eventually unleashed, may still be constantly referred to as Tilda Swinton's daughter, but this film suggests that won't be the case for long. Her performance as Julie, a young film student in the 80s whose dreams are nearly derailed by her involvement with an older man who is also a heroin addict, is the kind of on-screen arrival that the term breakout role was made for. With part two arriving next year, it's hard to imagine how Hogg or Byrne will match the kind of urgency they brought to this film, but this creative pairing – which feels like a match made in cinematic heaven – could feasibly pull it off.

4. One Child Nation

One Child Nation

One Child Nation

Director Nanfu Wang grew up in a time when China's infamous one-child policy was at its height, with every facet of society extolling the virtues of having a smaller family...and the consequences of disobedience. After Wang had a son, she decided to investigate the policy she'd never given much thought to and its impact. When she uncovered was a complex and horrific hidden history of forced abortions, child abandonment, and infants who were literally torn from their arms of their families and given to American couples for adoption, who were tragically unaware that they were abetting kidnapping. Wang fearlessly confronts her own complicity and that of her family and community as she delves into the past, and how China is attempting to erase it from its future.

3. Little Women

Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures

Greta Gerwig didn't just write and direct Louisa May Alcott's beloved 1868 novel, she brought it to life, with each of the four March sisters getting their due. Yes, even Amy. One of the most brilliant decisions Gerwig makes is to bring the book to the big screen in a nonlinear fashion, juxtaposing scenes from the sisters' idyllic childhood with their darker adulthood. While the Civil War rages, depriving them of their father, the March family becomes a matriarchal worldutopia, wherein Meg (Emma Watson), Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy (Florence Pugh) are free to explore their hopes and ambitions, guided by their beloved Marmee (Laura Dern), and befriended by their wealthy neighbor Laurie (Timothée Chalamet). As each sister struggles to find her way, Gerwig takes care to ensure that their lives not only feel familiar, but relevant as each wrestles with how to balance their dreams with the narrow expectations imposed on them.

2. Atlantics

IMDB

IMDB

Mati Diop made history in more ways than one with her feature debut “Atlantics.” She was the first black woman to have a film in the main competition at Cannes, where “Atlantics” won the Grand Prix. The film more than lives up to the hype, with a touching love story that is also part supernatural fable and devastating indictment of modern exploitation and rampant poverty. Ada (Mama Bineta Sane) lives in a Senegalese suburb, and is promised to a wealthy man. But she is in love with Souleiman (Traore), a construction worker on a futuristic tower which is due to open soon. Souleiman and his co-workers haven't been paid for their labor in months, so they decide to take their chances and depart by sea in search of something better. As Ada waits for news of him as she prepares to marry, she gradually learns that the spirits of Souleiman and the other young men are possessing the bodies of the living and demanding justice. As Ada slowly comes to accept the truth and take control of her own life and body (she's forced to take a virginity test), Diop infuses her story with a beauty that never belies its sense of urgency for compassion in a world that can often seem short on it.

1.Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Neon

Neon

If Céline Sciamma had just wrote and directed a romance between two women who find the kind of love that leaves the screen burning from their mutual passion, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” would still have been one of the best films of the year. But Sciamma does so much more, making the case for an entire history that has mostly been unacknowledged by the art world. Not just of the female artists who managed to create in spite of the obstacles, but the lives of women in general, who are often not considered worthwhile subjects. (Times have sure changed, huh?) “Portrait” may take place in 18th century France, but its insights into the dynamics between artist and muse, how art is created, and how those who are silenced manage to find a voice, feels very much needed in our present moment.

Honorable mentions: Late Night, Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Booksmart, Hala

52 Films By Women: Hustlers (2019)

STX Films

STX Films

By Andrea Thompson

Once upon a time, I hit something of a low point. Actually it wasn't something of a low point, it felt like rock bottom, or perilously close to it. I was unemployed, spat out of a city I had moved to in hopes of a fresh start and better career prospects, and struggling to pick up the financial and professional pieces while crashing on a relative's couch. Feeling stuck in a city and situation I was desperate to escape, it didn't much help that I was heading to a job interview waiting tables at a comedy club in a part of town that looked like where dreams go to die.

Much to my fascination, I discovered the venue shared a building with a strip club. Due to a still healthy sense of curiosity and no doubt a desperate desire to make as much money as I could, I decided to head over and check it out. To my untrained eye, it seemed like a less seedy example of the business, which was probably helped by the nonexistent crowd, hardly surprising on a weekday afternoon. To my shock, a fully clothed woman who worked there (or claimed to) spoke of the close-knit bond among her coworkers as well as their artistic endeavors outside of the club, revealing my own preconceptions about the women who earned a living there.

She encouraged me to apply, and I soon found myself discussing the requirements of the job with a male manager, including the seeming lack of complexity there was to the dancing. I wasn't so sure about that, as the stripper I saw working the pole possessed a flexibility it didn't look like I could approach, let alone replicate. The really profound moment was a relatively small one, and it involved the various styles of revealing attire the dancers wore. Whatever their style of dress, the manager referred to their work clothes as a costume.

STX Films

STX Films

Such an insignificant issue of semantics, but it helped me realize why I found stripping so unsettling in spite of my firm commitment to sex positivity. I realized that stripping was only a two-way exchange in terms of services rendered and cash given. Nor was it simply a commodification of sexuality. What it was really selling was male fantasy, and the job of the women was to cater to that above all else. Their desires weren't a part of the equation. A simple conclusion? Perhaps. Yet it allowed me to form my own convictions about an ongoing debate in the feminist community about whether various expressions of female sexuality were demeaning, empowering, or both.

I never ended up taking either the serving or stripping job. But this experience came to mind while I was watching and very much enjoying the movie “Hustlers” at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. It's got the usual “inspired by a true story” qualifier, but the movie seems to share a remarkable number of similarities with the article that is its source material. Both tell the story of a group of strippers who came up with a very much illegal scheme to scam their Wall Street clients out of their money.

Much of the enjoyment is due to writer-director Lorene Scafaria embracing the magical ingredient essential to this movie's success: centering the women. Whether their sexuality is empowering or not is almost beside the point, not to mention an oversimplification. It's how they chose to use it which matters. And hey, let's face it, it's also a large part of what makes their story as fun as it is fascinating. Countless movies have at least a scene or two at a strip club, and they often have strippers who function as living set pieces to make the movie sexier, edgier, or a combination of both. Few bother to give them speaking lines, let alone any kind of storyline devoted to them.

STX Films

STX Films

In “Hustlers,” the female gaze is centric from the start, as is control. The first thing we hear as we meet our viewpoint character Destiny (Constance Wu) is Janet Jackson's 1986 hit song “Control.” These women have to fight not just for money, but power over their lives and bodies, and Destiny is still getting accustomed to this world and how to make a living in it. At first at least. Once she meets Ramona, gloriously played by Jennifer Lopez in full diva mode, she thrives as Ramona decides to take her under her wing. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say, under her fur coat as she purrs, “Climb in my fur.” Their friendship is the gateway into the supportive world they and the other women create for themselves, and we see their camaraderie, and how playing sex objects affects their personal lives. Although any music fans will be disappointed, since Cardi B and Lizzo don't have roles as much as extended cameos. And since it's 2007, there's no need for schemes. The Wall Street types they cater to are able and willing to spend the money that allows Destiny and the others to live the good life.

Then the financial crisis hits, and both Destiny and the country are thrown into disarray. She becomes pregnant by her boyfriend, and the two part ways a few years after their daughter is born. Once Destiny exhausts her meager options, she returns to stripping, only to find that her former workplace has become a far harsher place that's mostly populated by Russians who are willing to give the men blow jobs. Most of the women she knew have moved on, but Ramona still frequents the club and recruits her for her new hustle. She and the others she works with lavish suitably wealthy men with attention and drinks, drug them to encourage higher spending habits, take them to the club where they worked, and take a percentage from what they spend there.

And it actually works for quite a long time, with Ramona and Destiny relishing the money and the power they find scamming the scammers. It's hard to blame them, as it was painfully clear just how disposable these women were when they were doing legit work. Before, the top CEO clients, whom Ramona referred to as “axe murderers,” were given free reign and never faced any consequences for their actions because everyone wanted what they had, whether it was their privilege, status or wealth. I've never seen “The Wolf of Wall Street,” but I'm willing to bet this one sentence is a better analysis of this world than the entire three hour runtime of “Wolf.”

STX Films

STX Films

Women are a rarity in this world, often limited to a select few who managed to fight through the bro culture and somehow get to the top, or more commonly, as wives, mothers, and mistresses. So the deeply feminine perspective is what makes this story feel so refreshing, despite its familiarity. If you've seen any kind of gangster or mafia movie, you know how this goes. Destiny and her friends make money and they simply don't know when or how to stop. They then make the mistakes that will bring them down. As Destiny puts it, hurt people hurt people.

While the pain they caused is acknowledged, but most of the men don't earn our sympathy, from the main characters or the female journalist they recount the story to years later. These men stole from others with no consequences in a game rigged in their favor, and the movie makes most of them as expendable as Destiny and her cohorts generally are. It wasn't just that these women were dishing out the pain so routinely heaped on them, it was the vicious cycle of exploitation they were perpetuating. Even the drugging seemed normal to them, given how much illicit substances were already a part of their world. “Hustlers” merely shows us a world where our most common beliefs about money, beauty, and power are taken to an extreme that ultimately devalues everyone, even those who initially appear to benefit from it most.