The Best Movies Directed By Women of the 21st Century

For Women’s History Month, Rotten Tomatoes is commemorating the work of women directors throughout the 21st Century. Our guide to the 270 best-reviewed movies by women filmmakers since 2000 includes documentary marvels like Nanfu Wang’s One Child Nation and Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson as well as unforgettable narrative features like Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Ava DuVernay’s Selma. The movies on the list cover an expansive breadth of topics, characters, and stories. They dispel the fallacy that women directors can only tell one type of story, one gorgeous image after moving story after another.

Women have been shaping cinema since its earliest days. Silent era pioneers like Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber blazed a trail as influential as their male counterparts; screenwriters like Francis Marion and editors like Margaret Booth were celebrated for their work, and Booth would go on to be one of the most influential voices on the MGM Studio lot. But as the film business became more lucrative, women were largely and unceremoniously pushed out of the creative and decision-making side of filmmaking. While many broke through with incredible work — among them Dorothy Arzner, Elaine May, Agnès Varda, and Kathryn Bigelow, who became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director for her film The Hurt Locker — the decades after the silent era and through the end of the 20th century saw filmmaking, especially in the mainstream, increasingly dominated by men. 

The past two decades have seen some great movement, though, and some major milestones hit (that Oscar win for Bigelow; Patty Jenkins’ historic work on Wonder Woman). The directors on this list include Lulu Wang, whose touching movie The Farewell won critical and industry acclaim, as well as Céline Sciamma for her latest film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (Now, if only the Academy would acknowledge their efforts…). There’s also Waad Al-Kateab, who with fellow director Edward Watts, brought her searing personal experience of the Syrian conflict to viewers around the world in For Sama, and Dominga Sotomayor Castillo, who took audiences with her back to 1990s Chile in her coming-of-age drama Too Late to Die Young. Sabaah Folayan’s feature debut Whose Streets? sits near Agnès Varda’s final documentaries Varda by Agnès and Faces Places.

To make the list, we looked at the top Certified Fresh films rated 90% and above directed by women since 2000, including those in directing teams. Among 2023’s additions include Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall and Celine Song’s Past Lives (each nominated for the 2024 Best Picture Oscar), Kelly Fremon Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Emma Seligman’s Bottoms, Raine Allen Miller’s Rye Lane, Sammi Cohen’s You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, and Adele Lim’s Joy Ride.

Enjoy the following list as a guide to some of the best movies by women directors so far this century. No two movies are alike in their ability to entertain, inform or reach us. – Monica Castillo 

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Page 1: Movies from 2020-present | Page 2: Movies from 2010-2019 | Page 3: Movies from 2000-2009

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