Feminist Tendencies
Feminism as a concept has gone in and out of vogue since the first suffragette demanded the right to vote, but throughout history there have always been remarkable women, prepared to claim their power in the name of a cause ('Ride to Freedom: The Rosa Parks Story', 'Veronica Guerin'), or just to rediscover their own self-worth ('Shirley Valentine', 'My Brilliant Career'). This collection does not only contain films about the political struggle of women to achieve equality ('Iron Jawed Angels'), if it did it would be a very short list because despite the fact that the rise of women in the workforce and in politics was one of the defining movements of the 20th century, very few films have been made on the subject - filmmaking being still a largely male-dominated pusuit. Now, as women are making films in greater numbers than ever, our own Niki Caro is a good example of someone ready and willing to tell a story about the oppression, and ultimate triumph of women in the 'post-feminist' 1980s ('North Country'). Perhaps women as an audience are now ready and willing to hear their own stories.
At Home with the Braithwaites: Series 4 (2003)
6.8/10
Director: Morag Fullarton
Starring: Amanda Redman, Peter Davison, Sylvia Syms, Lynda Bellingham
In the fourth and final season, Alison and David begin bitter divorce proceedings making family relations more strained than ever. There are some inte... Read more
Ocean's Eight (Blu-ray) (2018)
6.3/10
Director: Gary Ross
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway
Five years, eight months, 12 days and counting -- that's how long Debbie Ocean has been devising the biggest heist of her life. She knows what it's go... Read more
Butterflies: Series 2 (1980)
7.2/10
Director: Various
Starring: Wendy Craig, Geoffrey Palmer, Bruce Montague, Andrew Hall, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Bored housewife Ria (Wendy Craig) is still frustrated with her mundane life and her platonic relationship with Leonard is proving more problematic tha... Read more
Sylvia (1985)
6.6/10
Director: Michael Firth
Starring: Eleanor David, Mary Regan, Nigel Terry, Tom Wilkinson
Absorbing story of author-educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner, who brought new educational techniques to the teaching of the Maori students in 1940's New Ze... Read more
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)
7.1/10
Director: Angela Robinson
Starring: Oliver Platt, Connie Britton, Bella Heathcote, Rebecca Hall, Luke Evans
If behind every great man is a great woman, then Harvard psychologist and inventor Dr. William Moulton Marston has the good fortune of having two -- h... Read more
Bagdad Cafe (1987)
7.5/10
Director: Percy Adlon
Starring: Marianne Sagebrecht, CCH Pounder, Jack Palance
This enchanting and affectionate fable unveils, in a series of wonderful vignettes, the developing friendship between several oddball characters. Mari... Read more
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Margaret Cho: Beautiful (2009)
6.4/10
Starring: Margaret Cho
Learning to love her luscious self over the past forty years, comedian Margaret Cho realised that the eye of the beholder doesn't hold all the power w... Read more
Rosenstrasse (2003)
6.8/10
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader, Martin Feifel, Jurgen Vogel, Jutta Lampe
Drawing on the true events of Spring 1943 when hundreds of German women protested the incarceration of their Jewish husbands in the Jewish Welfare Off... Read more
Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000)
6.6/10
Director: Rodrigo Garcia
Starring: Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Holly Hunter, Calista Flockhart, Kathy Baker, Valeria...
An all-star cast shines in this comedy-drama of five vignettes, as modern women deal with a myriad of problems. Glenn Close struggles with loneliness;... Read more
Heartbreak Hotel (2006)
5.2/10
Director: Colin Nutley
Starring: Helena Bergstrom, Maria Lundqvist, Claes Mansson, Johan Rabaeus
English filmmaker Colin Nutley once again works with his Swedish wife, Helena Bergstrom, in this intelligent and sharply funny drama about two forty-s... Read more