Plain and simple, these are some of the most impactful feminist movies we've seen. If you ever get tired of male centric stories, these are pretty good alternatives to watch. As we do with fiction, we have picked films that focus on personal narratives but also have some pretty deep societal criticisms to offer, since the subject is political. We have categorized the movies to different branches of feminism, just to make it easier on ourselves and they are in no particular order.
1. The Handmaiden (radical feminism). This cinematic offering is probably the clearest representation of radical feminism we've seen in mainstream film industry. The women are resisting men's sexual violence and even destroy the predator's ancient porn library, for god's sake! Radical feminism is, after all, first and foremost about escaping men's sexual violence and it is the feminist branch that comes closest to misandry. This film is a visual stunner and the music is just as amazing. Not to mention the feminist lady boners one will get from the story.
2. Thelma & Louise (cultural feminism/radical feminism). This one was harder to pin down, but we thought that cultural and radical feminist elements were most visible in the movie. In the film, patriarchy is seen seeped into the culture and it manifests as either relatively harmless catcalling or in the worst case scenario, rape. The women, like in the previous entry, resist and try to escape this culture. Also, the women don't shy away from using violence, which is often seen as a legitimate way to fight against male power in radical feminist philosophical texts.
3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (liberal feminism/cultural feminism). Here we have an intersection of liberal feminism that comes in the form of the painter Marianne having a job and using her father's name to paint and cultural feminism in the form of Héloïse having to marry because she is upper class. Liberal feminism is very big on women having the right to vote, having ownership of property and, of course, women having a profession. In other words, political rights. Whereas cultural feminism is much more about the culture in general being oppressive towards women and it does not concern itself nearly as much in the political strife.
4. The Hours (liberal feminism). This is probably the most obvious liberal feminist movie on this list. All of the women are relatively well-to-do and the film depicts their struggles as women who want to work, be independent and live their life freely but face the struggle of laws or culture that make it harder for them to do that. We see, as well, how women have gained more rights or how the culture has changed over the decades through the three different stories. One could argue that this film also depicts intersectional feminism since one of its main characters is a sexual minority but since the movie ignores race and class we do not think it passes the muster in that aspect.
5. Sense & Sensibility (proto-feminism). Austen's work is pretty proto-feminist. Her books are about women, issues affecting women and their inner thoughts and feelings, at a time when most known authors were men. She lived around the same time as Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the earliest, if not the earliest, Western feminist thinkers and one could quite easily imagine that Austen read some of Wollstonecraft's declarations. Emma Thompson's screenplay reflects perfectly Austen's feminism before feminism was a thing.
6. If Beale Street Could Talk (womanism). The history of feminism, especially in the US, has been mostly dominated by white women and that has unfortunately created racism in many feminist circles where black women's issues are often ignored or belittled. This beautiful film not only focuses deeply on problems that affect black women but also has great bonding between women. Womanism is especially interested in communities and people's ties to each other and the movie shows this community love very poetically.
7. Mad Max: Fury Road (dystopian feminism/radical feminism). Another one where women are escaping men's sexual violence and power. It also combines apocalyptic visions with dystopian views on feminism - according to this movie, at least one place is very much run like the Handmaid's Tale but then is balanced with the all-women community the runaways meet. In the end, the film kind of finds this equlibrium of women and men working together to vanquish the evil patriarch, which is why we cannot fully label it as radical feminism because that field is quite vary about working with men.
8. Mulan (cultural feminism). This movie is probably the shallowest take on feminism we'll have on this list - but in the end, it is a story about a woman fighting and conquering stereotypes in a predominantly male environment. To this day, it is the best offering Disney has given in feminist filmmaking and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future.
9. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (eco-feminism). We all know how awesome Miyazaki's female characters are and how often he focuses his stories on them. Nausicaä has both the awesome and complex female character and the ecological message of treasuring the nature surrounding us, since we cannot live without it. One could argue that the film also depicts how women are socialized to be more tuned to nature and living things whereas men have been socialized to take lives and trample on the environment in the name of warfare.
10. Norma Rae (marxist feminism/socialist feminism). The picture should really tell you all you need to know. Marxist and socialist feminism is very much focused on women's economic oppression and working-class women's issues. This film is about a working woman's struggle to build a union in the factory she's working in, so it is totally up the alley of marxist feminism.
