Film Girl Film's Top 10 Films Directed By Women In 2020

By Andrea Thompson

It’s been a very odd year, and we didn’t get nearly as many films directed by women as we should have. But we still got enough for 2020 to be an embarrassment of riches, with the expected comic book action movie to a father-daughter love story (hey there was more than one of those), as well as a mother-daughter one, a feminist crime drama, and plenty of ruminations on the evasiveness of the American Dream and whether it ever existed in the first place. Here’s our our list of the 10 best films directed by women in 2020.

10. Birds of Prey

Hell hath no fury like a Harley scorned in this fantastic film. Margot Robbie is clearly having a blast as Harley Quinn, who literally fights her way to empowerment after she parts ways with the Joker and finds herself unprotected and with a target on her back as a whole lot of people come gunning for revenge. But the biggest threat turns out to be the crime lord Roman (Ewan McGregor, hamming it up and also loving it), a toxic, psychotic man child who enjoys peeling off the faces of his enemies. Things only get better when Harley decides to protect Cassandra (Ella Jay Basco), the kid she’s tasked with delivering to Roman, and teams up with three other, equally deadly women: Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett), and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez). And the costumes are as fabulous as they are practical. Hair ties included.

9. Crip Camp

Cheating a bit with this one, since it’s just co-directed by a woman, but “Crip Camp” more than earns its place on this list, not just for its almost unbelievably uplifting depiction of how hard and how long people with disabilities had to fight for the considerations we now take for granted, but just how much this documentary manages to encompass. Beginning with the camp of the title, an unorthodox summer camp for disabled teenagers which transformed the lives of everyone who attended, “Crip Camp” follows the attendees for years after as many became activists and fought for their rights. When it was first screened at Sundance, many had tears in their eyes by the end, and every drop was earned.

8. The Half Of It

To watch “The Half of It” is to be awed by the sheer creativity Alice Wu had stored up since her last film, the groundbreaking 2004 lesbian romcom “Saving Face.” When the teenage Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) agrees to write a love letter on behalf of jock Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer) to his crush Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire), she doesn’t expect to become Paul’s friend or fall in love with Aster in a meeting of two passionately creative minds, with references to everything from “The Philadelphia Story” to “The Remains of the Day.” As “The Half of It” warns, this may not be a story where anyone gets what they want, but this unconventional love triangle proves more nourishing than most, even as the film warns of love’s potential to bring out the worst as well as the best in us.

7. Nomadland

Chloé Zhao explored and dissected the myth of the American cowboy in her 2017 film “The Rider,” and she once again digs deep in “Nomadland” to subvert the idea of the pioneer through the modern nomad community. When Fern (Frances McDormand) loses everything in the Great Recession, even her zip code, she takes to the road in search of her next paycheck, braving the elements and connecting with others who share her wanderlust. Far from a dour, depressing portrait of victimized people, “Nomadland” is a compassionate and insightful exploration of an America and a culture where basic security is proving more and more evasive, with characters who shatter our expectations and occasionally break our hearts.

6. I’m Your Woman

It’s still a radical prospect to build an entire film about a character who would normally spend it quivering in fear in the most ineffective way possible, and that’s if she was fortunate enough to avoid tragically dying so the male hero could begin his journey. But in “I’m Your Woman,” director Julia Hartmakes Jean (Rachel Brosnahan) the hero(ine) of her own story and this one. In a classic feminist premise, Jean is a homemaker who remains willfully ignorant of her husband’s activities, which in this case are very illegal. But her stability is shattered when he betrays his partners and she’s forced to go on the run with her infant son. On her own for the first time, Jean becomes a force to be reckoned with, and Hart handily avoids cheesy soapbox moments and romanticizing her new circumstances as Jean fights to save her family and reclaim her life in a drama where the term desperate housewife takes on new meaning.

5. Dick Johnson Is Dead

Creativity surely runs Kirsten Johnson’s family, since she and her father Dick Johnson took a very unusual, compelling route to facing death. As the omens of her father’s impending demise become more apparent, Kirsten and Richard decided to make a film where she regularly staged and filmed some very strange, mostly fatal accidents befalling Richard. Richard is bafflingly game as he cheerfully indulges his daughter’s dark humor, and they both discuss their various approaches to life, death, and knowingly prepare for the final event which will ultimately part one of the most lovable on-screen father-daughter duos of all time.

4. The Assistant

The eye of the storm can often seem like a calm, peaceful place, one where the waters raging outside have little to do with us. But over the course of a single day, as Jane (Julia Garner) performs a series of mostly demeaning tasks for an unseen, powerful executive, she sees too many signs for her to ignore. The parallels to Weinstein are obvious, but director Kitty Green would rather center those caught up in a system that willingly enables toxicity and a supply of fresh victims to powerful predators.

3. Cuties

Few would wish the kind of press that “Cuties” garnered upon its release, which managed to almost completely obscure the fact that it’s a beautiful film about a girl trying to find her way in a world of extremes. 11-year-old Amy (Fathia Youssouf) and her mother are awaiting their father’s return from Senegal...and his new wife, who will marry him in their home. Witnessing her mother’s pain and grappling with her own impending womanhood, Amy is drawn to a dance group of girls her own age, and is soon leading them in performing increasingly provocative routines. A complex portrait of girlhood under pressure from various forces, Amy’s rebellion is less about finding a community than finding a home where she can be herself in a world that is attempting to objectify her at every turn.

2. Miss Juneteenth

There’s a history that hums in Channing Godfrey Peoples’s film, one which speaks of the legacy of racism, slavery, how Black women occupy spaces in their communities while often functioning as unconventional leaders. But the real core of the film is the mother-daughter love story, which endures despite the differences between single mother Turquoise (Nicole Beharie), a former winner of the titular pageant, and her teenage daughter Kai (Alexis Chikaeze), who is competing to be the next Miss Juneteenth at her mother’s insistence despite her clear reluctance. If the story is familiar, Peoples makes all the difference as she brings an entire community to life from a perspective that’s clearly that of an insider.

1. First Cow

The American Dream has taken something of a beating lately, but seldom have its dark undercurrents been explored with such unflinching insight and compassion than in Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow.” The barely settled 1820s Northwest seems like fertile ground for two friends eager to make their fortune, only to discover how little remains for them. What unfolds becomes a twisted inversion of a rags to riches story, but Reichardt always centers the genuine, caring bond between the two men, which always shines brighter than the cruelty around them.