2019
All films seen with a first national release or festival screening I…
Ranked by average user rating. The list was extracted thanks to here and here. This was not possible without the curation of these megalists. It will be updated monthly.
[Please note: Ágnes Hranitzky co-directed Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse with her husband Béla Tarr. Read more below the eligibility rules.]
An official list progress project on all-time stats pages for Pro and Patron users. See all films that have entered and read Ella Kemp's deep-dive into the list here! Expanded from a top 100 to a top 250 on September 26th, 2022, on the list's 3-year anniversary.
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ELIGIBILITY RULES:
• This list counts female co-directors, even if uncredited. The developers are considering a design change so that they can be credited on the main page instead of just the crew tab.
• Includes cis, transgender and female-identifying directors.
• Films must be feature-length (45+ minutes), with a theatrical and/or festival release.
• Documentaries of any kind, short films, theater/stage, TV movies, TV series or miniseries, and episodes are excluded.
• There is a 1,000 minimum ratings threshold.
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NOTABLE INCLUSIONS:
• The #1 on the list, City of God was co-directed by Kátia Lund. However, Lund was snubbed for the Academy Award while only Fernando Meirelles was nominated due to their rules about director teams. Meirelles and Lund worked together closely, directing the short Golden Gate in 2001 together as a test run for City of God. They then collaborated on the City of Men TV series adapted from City of God where she directed four episodes.
• Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse were co-directed by Béla Tarr's wife and editor Ágnes Hranitzky. The credit developed because of the extent Hranitzky had to be on set to assist Tarr with the timings of his long takes in order to match other shots. She edited all his films since 1981 but the credit only began in 2000. I am not mistaking Béla to be a woman.
• While they are among the most high-profile transgender directors in the list, The Matrix and Bound are valid regardless of how the Wachowski siblings publically identified at the time. Transgender women are always women, no matter which body parts they were born with.
Please feel free to let me know any other movies I've missed.
Warning: If you did not get this far in the description and you leave a thoughtless comment such as "Bela Tarr is a man" then it will be removed. You can ask "Who is the credited female director on The Turin Horse?" but we ask you do not phrase your question the other way.
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STATS:
Top Decade: 2010s (78 films)
Top Decade, 20th Century only: 1990s (31 films)
Top Year: 2023 (20 films, by premiere year)
Top Year, 20th Century only: 1999 (6 films, by premiere year)
Newest Film: Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Oldest Film: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
Longest Film: Out 1 (743 mins)
Shortest Film: The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia (45 mins)
Oscar Nominations: 105 (between 38 films)
Oscar Wins: 31 (between 13 films)
Best Picture Winners: 3 out of 4 (includes Slumdog Millionaire, co-directed by Loveleen Tantan; The Hurt Locker misses the list)
Best Picture Nominees: 13 out of 22 (Children of a Lesser God, The Prince of Tides, An Education, The Hurt Locker, The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone, Zero Dark Thirty, Promising Young Woman & The Power of the Dog miss the list)
Oscar Nominees for Best Director: 7 out of 9 (Emerald Fennell, Kathryn Bigelow, and Jane Campion's Oscar win miss the list)
Animated Films: 25
Directorial Debuts: 112
Non-English Language Films: 159
Films With Male Director Credits: 38 (Jean-Marie Straub shares seven credits with Danièle Huillet, Béla Tarr shares two credits with Ágnes Hranitzky, and Hugh Welchman shares two credits with DK Welchman.)
TOP DIRECTORS TALLY:
• Danièle Huillet – 7 films
• Agnès Varda – 6 films
• Claire Denis – 4 films
• Kelly Reichardt – 4 films
• Chantal Akerman – 3 films
• Greta Gerwig – 3 films
• Ann Hui – 3 films
• Naomi Kawase – 3 films
• Elaine May – 3 films
• Lynne Ramsay – 3 films
• Céline Sciamma – 3 films
• Kinuyo Tanaka – 3 films
• Naoko Yamada – 3 films
• Andrea Arnold – 2 films
• Lizzie Borden – 2 films
• Jane Campion – 2 films
• Sofia Coppola – 2 films
• Rita Azevedo Gomes – 2 films
• Marleen Gorris – 2 films
• Agnieszka Holland – 2 films
• Ágnes Hranitzky – 2 films
• Nadine Labaki – 2 films
• Penny Marshall – 2 films
• Mira Nair – 2 films
• Jonni Phillips – 2 films
• Naoko Ogigami – 2 films
• Emma Seligman – 2 films
• Larisa Shepitko – 2 films
• Nora Twomey – 2 films
• Wachowski Sisters – 2 films
• DK Welchman – 2 films
• Lina Wertmüller – 2 films
• Chloé Zhao – 2 films
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Other lists of female filmmakers:
• Bubbling Under: Top 100* Highest-Rated Women-Directed Films With Less Than 1k Logs
• Top 150 Highest-Rated Women-Directed Documentaries
• Written by Women
• Recommendations for everyone who wants to watch more movies by female directors but doesn’t know where to start
• “females cant make movies” yeah lol look at these dickface
• directed by women
• 11 Essential Films Directed by Women—a #52FilmsbyWomen List from Women In Film
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I also run top 50s of each year since 2016, the official top 250 documentaries, the official top 100 films by Black directors, the official top 100 films by women Asian directors, the official top 50 animated films by women directors and the official top 50 horror films by women directors lists. See the Letterboxd 'Official List Network for more lists ranking films by Letterboxd member average rating.
Special credit to Mihir Nanda for sourcing additional eligible films.
