Film Series
A Different Picture: Women Filmmakers in the New Hollywood Era, 1967—1980
From Bonnie and Clyde to Heaven's Gate, the brief window of American director-driven cinema that flourished in the late 1960s through the 1970s has been framed as a triumph of a handful of male movie brat auteurs. But the true revolutionaries of the moment were the trailblazing women filmmakers who defied historic inequity to bring their stories to the screen. Emerging from the feminist and civil rights movements of the 1960s, this generation of women artists—working both inside and outside the Hollywood system—created a striking, brash, and empathetic counter-cinema that exists as a direct challenge to their male counterparts.
Girlfriends director Claudia Weill explores the dilemma of “having it all.”
Early works by Kathryn Bigelow, Julie Dash, Penelope Spheeris, and other major directors.
Elaine May’s black comedy masterpiece and an animated feminist fantasia by Faith Hubley.
Landmarks of feminist cinema exploring the experiences of women in patriarchal society.
Unforgettable portraits of two singular black artists and personalities.
Yvonne Rainer’s radical fusion of melodrama, performance art, and radical feminism.
Joan Micklin Silver and Barbara Loden explore the experiences of women immigrants.
Women speak for themselves in these vital historical documents.
Women voice their thoughts on racism, trauma, sexuality, and desire.
Lydia Lunch and other downtown icons in lo-fi provocations from No Wave New York.
A vengeance-seeking hellcat hits the road in the first female-directed biker film.
The female convicts of a prison island rise up in revolt against their male oppressors.
A subversive exploitation swirl of leftist politics, revolutionaries, softcore, and LSD.
Joan Micklin Silver rewrites the romantic comedy as a romantic horror movie.
John Cassavetes and Peter Falk are electric in Elaine May’s dark buddy thriller.
Two stylistically striking portraits of black family life and struggle in 1970s America.
Ghostly structuralist experiments from groundbreaking director Chantal Akerman.
Innovative works by pioneering black female filmmakers Kathleen Collins and Fronza Woods.
A bittersweet romantic drama that addresses the female gaze.
Chantal Akerman’s poignant reflection on distance and dislocation.
Extraordinary moments of female-led labor action.
Revelatory histories of Chinese-American and Chicana identity.
A stunning, eye-opening look at the dark heart of America’s prison-industrial complex.
Claudia Weill’s wonderfully frank and funny study of female friendship in 1970s New York.