Jennifer Lawrence’s latest collabo with director David O. Russell has the 25-year old actress starring as Joy Mangano, a single mother and entrepreneur who invents the Miracle Mop. The movie is aptly called Joy and (see if you can follow us on this one) inspires this week’s 24 Frames gallery: all the single female titles that we think you might enjoy watching.
Saoirse Ronan is a trained from birth to be an assassin by her ex-CIA father in this crisply
choreographed, cool take on the revenge thriller.
Lucy
Year: 2014
Director Luc Besson’s return to action filmmaking stars Scarlett Johansson as the titular character,
who evolves into a badass fighter after learning to use (just go with it) more than 10% of her brain.
Chloe
Year: 2010
Amanda Seyfried stars in this psychosexual thriller as a call girl who’s hired by a woman to seduce
her husband as a test of his fidelity.
Honey
Year: 2003
After Dark Angel and before Fantastic Four, Jessica Alba was Honey, the center of a
moral hip-hop story that featured some sweet dance moves.
Selena
Year: 1997
Jennifer Lopez plays Latino crossover icon Selena Quntanilla, charting her rise into the Billboard 200
starting from a young age to her murder at age 23 by the hands of her manager.
Serena
Year: 2015
Lawrence’s back on the list! And with a movie from this same year no less. She joins her frequent on-screen
significant other Bradley Cooper in this Depression-set drama from acclaimed Danish director Susanne
Bier.
Victoria
Year: 2015
Laia Costa stars as young woman in Berlin who gets swept into a late-night chase. The Certified Fresh
thriller drew early festival attention due to being shot in one unbroken 2-hour take without digital
assistance.
Maggie
Year: 2015
It is not a tumor! …But it might be a viral zombie infection. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays daddy to
Abigail Breslin’s Maggie, who must come to terms with her remaining days after being bitten by an
infected human.
Carrie
Year: 1976
Sissy Spacek stars as the high school girl who never stood a chance, in this horrifying look at
supernatural powers, cruelty, and teen angst. The film was remade in 2012 by Kimberly Peirce and starring
Chloe Grace Moretz.
Matilda
Year: 1996
Mara Wilson is Matilda, a precocious and ESP-gifted child trapped in an unloving home and a school run
by a sadistic headmaster. Directed by Danny DeVito, his quirky movie captures the freewheeling essence
of the original Roald Dahl book.
Alice
Year: 1990
Two movies called Alice came out close to each other a long time ago: there was the Czech
film, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland by Jan Svankmajer, and a 1990 Woody Allen movie
starring Mia Farrow who uses magic pills to explore a possible infidelity.
Amelie
Year: 2001
Audrey Tatou’s international breakthrough role was that of adorable perpetual daydreamer in this
lively French romantic-comedy.
Carol
Year: 2015
Based on the significant 1952 Patricia Highsmith novel, Cate Blanchett plays an older woman who falls
for a young shopgirl in a repressive American society.
Sabrina
Year: 1954
With its humorous script and Audrey Hepburn’s immense screen presence (which causes a romantic
competition between Humphrey Bogart and William Holden), Sabrina remains a resonant romantic gem.
Elizabeth
Year: 1998
A rich, suspenseful journey into the heart of British Royal politics, and features a typically
outstanding performance from Cate Blanchett as the royal Queen.
Frida
Year: 2002
Salma Hayek and director Julie Taymor together give audiences a passionate, visually striking biopic
about the larger-than-life artist.
Gigi
Year: 1958
A bourgeois musical romance and winner of Best Picture, Leslie Caron plays a girl so young and carefree
she initially can’t see relationships with men as anything but platonic fun.
Gloria
Year: 2014
As a woman in her golden years seeking love, star Paulina Garcia delivers sweetly poignant portrait of
a character often neglected in Hollywood.
Laura
Year: 1944
Gene Tierney as Laura starts out dead at the beginning of the movie but nothing is as it ever seems in
a noir, and Otto Preminger runs us through the ringer in this psychologically complex portrait of
obsession and murder.
Marnie
Year: 1964
In Hitchcock’s last great film, Tippi Hedren plays a compulsive thief who slowly gets blackmailed into
marrying Sean Connery.
Penelope
Year: 2006
Christina Ricci stars in this modern fairy tale of a pig-faced woman who searches for love beyond
superficiality, while James McAvoy, Peter Dinklage, and Reese Witherspoon round out the charming
supporting cast.
Annie
Year: 2014
Two chances to play out your hard knock life fantasies: the 1982 John Huston-directed version starring Aileen Quinn, and the one from
2014 starring Quvenzhané Wallis of Beasts of the Southern Wild fame.
Rebecca
Year: 1940
Hitchcock’s first American film (and his only Best Picture winner), the never-seen title character hangs with dread over every scene in this gothic masterpiece.
Christine
Year: 1983
The final movie in Stephen King’s C-word trilogy (including Carrie and Cujo) stars a
1958 Plymouth Fury who, bad from birth, terrorizes every human she comes in contact with.
