Celebrating Women
Movie Recommendations from the Presidential Scholars Foundation
The Color Purple is a 1985 American coming-of-age period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg with a screenplay by Menno Meyjes, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker.
Frida is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by Julie Taymor. It depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo.
RBG is a 2018 American documentary film focusing on the life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female Supreme Court of the United States
He Named Me Malala is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim. The film presents the young Pakistani female activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai.
On the Basis of Sex is a 2018 American biographical legal drama film based on the life and early cases of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1993 to her death in 2020, and became the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
Seeing Allred is a 2018 documentary film directed by Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain, following women's rights attorney Gloria Allred.
I Am Greta is a 2020 internationally co-produced documentary film directed by Nathan Grossman, following climate change activist Greta Thunberg.
This unprecedented film celebrates Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos.
Drawing from over 100 hours of never-before-seen footage that has been tucked away in the National Geographic archives for over 50 years, award-winning director Brett Morgen tells the story of Jane, a woman whose chimpanzee research challenged the male-dominated scientific consensus of her time and revolutionized our understanding of the natural world.
Equal Means Equal offers an unflinching look at how women are treated in the United States today. Examining both real-life stories and precedent-setting legal cases, director Kamala Lopez uncovers how outdated and discriminatory attitudes inform and influence seemingly disparate issues, from workplace harassment to domestic violence, rape and sexual assault to the foster care system, and the healthcare conglomerate to the judicial system.
Produced and directed by Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, Gloria: In Her Own Words blends interviews of Steinem in her Manhattan apartment, archival footage, photographs from throughout her life, and clips from press interviews over the years.
Knock Down the House is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Rachel Lears. It revolves around the 2018 congressional primary campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush and Paula Jean Swearengin, four progressive Democrats endorsed by Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress who ran in that year's midterm elections.
Wonder Woman is a 2017 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name, produced by DC Films in association with RatPac Entertainment and Chinese company Tencent Pictures, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Suffragette is a 2015 British historical drama film about women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw and Meryl Streep.
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter is a 1980 documentary film and the first movie made by Connie Field about the American women who went to work during World War II to do "men's jobs."
Based on a true story, Made in Dagenham explores the movement that caused a significant law reform. Rita O'Grady (a fictional character) leads the 1968 Ford sewing machinist’s strike at the Ford Dagenham plant, where female workers walkout in protest against sexual discrimination, demanding equal pay. The strike is successful and leads to the Equal Pay Act of 1970.
She's Beautiful When She's Angry is a 2014 American documentary about some of the women involved in the second-wave feminism movement in the United States of America.
Iron Jawed Angles focuses on the American women's suffrage movement during the 1910s and follows women's suffrage leaders Alice Paul and Lucy Burns as they use peaceful and effective nonviolent strategies, tactics, and dialogues to revolutionize the American feminist movement to grant women the right to vote.
Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about African American female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race.