The Best Movies to Watch by Female director on Plex
director: Female director
The Assessment is a psychological sci-fi thriller following Mia and Aaryan, a wealthy couple applying to be parents in the strictly controlled New World. Their final hurdle is to pass a seven-day assessment conducted by Virginia (Alicia Vikander), who makes sure to test every grain of Mia and Aaryan’s patience and sanity. The trials get […]
x2There are plenty of versions of the Cinderella story, but none as brutal and nauseating as The Ugly Stepsister. For one, it’s not a lovely fairytale that rewards the perseverance of good people through a royal romance. Instead, this European folklore inspired body horror takes the perspective of its titular character, a stepsister who is […]
“The healing power of art” sounds cheesy, but it’s a statement made beautiful and true in Ghostlight. It’s the sensitively told and wonderfully performed story of an ordinary man who, up until this point, doesn’t even know how Romeo and Juliet ends. That’s how detached he is from art. But when Rita (Dolly de Leon) […]
In Aftersun, Sophie recalls a holiday she took as an eleven-year-old in the ‘90s with her father. Video recordings help jog her memory, but she’s looking for more than just a blast from the past. Rather, she seems to be seeking answers to fill in the gaps between who she knew as her father and […]
After years of relatively tame, tearjerking LGBTQ+ dramas, finally comes a sexy, erotic thriller made for and by sapphic women that pushes past convention. Love Lies Bleeding is an unexpected sophomore film from British director Rose Glass, not just because it’s set in New Mexico, but because of the 80s B-movie vibe literally on steroids […]
Babes tells the story of Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), codependent best friends who are forced to reevaluate their relationship when Eden finally joins Dawn in becoming a mother. While Eden learns how to be more mature and independent, Dawn struggles to feel like herself again after two exhausting pregnancies. Burdened by these […]
The Royal Hotel sees Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) resorting to take up a dire live-in job behind the bar in a remote desert part of Western Australia. Although they’re warned that they’d “have to be okay with a little male attention” in the outcast mining town, their financial precarity overrides the potential […]
It’s hard not to watch The Unknown Country and think of Nomadland: along with similarities in their Terrence Malick-inspired visuals, both films follow lone women seeking catharsis on the road as they grieve profound losses. But Morrisa Maltz’s debut feature is a decidedly lower-key, more spiritual affair — and is all the better for it. […]
There’s a pervasive myth in movies that struggle (financial, physical, or otherwise) makes you stronger, but the truth is that struggle makes you weaker. Adversity makes you more resilient and resourceful, sure, but it takes a lot more to be stronger. The Fire Inside, a biopic about American Olympic athlete Ressa Shields, understands that truth, […]
The agonizing tug of war between dogma and desire is sharply illustrated in writer-director Laurel Parmet’s feature debut, set inside the claustrophobic confines of a conservative Christian community in Kentucky. Seventeen-year-old Jem (Eliza Scanlen) is at the age her elders believe is the right time to start thinking about a lifelong partner — a choice […]
Nothing about Saint Omer is easy. A female Senegalese migrant (Guslagie Malanga) is put to trial for committing infanticide, but throughout the film, it becomes clear how much of a victim she is too, of an uncaring and deeply prejudiced society. “What drove her to madness?” Her attorney asks at one point. We’re not sure. […]
In All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, documentarist Laura Poitras (Citizenfour, My Country, My Country) lends her empathetic and incisive lens to a subject so passionate and imaginative, she ends up collaborating with Poitras to co-create the documentary about her life. The subject is Nan Goldin, one of the most influential photographers of the late […]