Films which just fill you with feminist happiness

What about Fargo? Another Coen Brothers masterpiece.

I also think Moonlight Kingdom has a cool female young lead.

I watched Burn After Reading the other night, was weeping with mirth about it. It's a Coen brothers film with George Clooney and Brad Pitt looking as unattractive as it is possible for them to look. The women in the film are all more competent, determined and focused than the men and they don't get killed, unlike a couple of the male characters. So unusual and it struck me so forcibly how shocking it was to see the male characters killed in a way that it wouldn't have been shocking to see the women killed, usually they're just not important enough to matter about being shot. Made me realise how inured I am to seeing VAW in films, how casually it's done. It felt really shocking when the same thing happens to the men.

True Grit, I watched it again recently and was reminded of the wonderful gumption of 14 year old Mattie Ross. A great female character. (Although the film/book probably wouldnt pass the Bechdel test. Shame).

The Descent? Has almost an entirely female cast.

Seraphine
La Vie En Rose
Manon des Sources
Raise the Red Lantern

The Help
The Colour Purple
Run Lola Run
Winters Bone
Frozen River
The Handmaids Tale
Frida

Alien
Aliens
Terminator 2

the war that started tomorrow (or something like that)
Main role is female, strong leader but not unrealistically perfect
Another woman saves a man's life and carries him back to where they're sheltering. They're all impressed she carried him but not particularly because she's a female iyswim.

Riding in cars with boys.
Almost anything involving Jodie Foster

There's a film called Hard Boiled Sweets which isn't really feminist in that it's a typical East End gangster film, but it has a nice twist at the end.

Whale Rider is awesome and should be watched by every teen girl.

Women on the verge of Nervous Breakdown.

Daah, sorry for the mix up, Quagmire!

The film you're talking about sounds very interesting.

The Help? Haven't seen it but read the book.

9 to 5

Fucking Amal- Swedish coming of age movie.
Ronia the robbers daughter - an other Swedish movie based off of an Astrid Lindgren book.
Serenity- a Joss wedon film.
The golden compass- the books are better.
The wizard if oz.
oh god, this is hard...

Seconding Studio Ghibli films, especially Kiki's Delivery Service.

Sorry Profondo, I didn't mean that film. What's the name of that fairly traumatic Australian film where the young men are supported by the middle of nowhere community in raping girls, one of whom dies when jumping out of a car to escape, and a lone woman visitor on a motorbike manages to change things?

Shame in what way, Quagmire? I'm v interested. I could see it as feminist through the fact that it democratizes and de-sexualizes portrayal of the body (because though it's about sex, it sure ain't sexy! )

I like what Steve McQueen does a lot. I think the way he films the body is very open, like in Hunger you could say he de-politicizes Bobby Sands by treating him (or Michael Fassbender at least) as pure material body, asking us to identify with the universality of human pain, not politics.

Testament of Youth (TV series about Vera Brittain, from her book). About being a feminist during WW1. Can't recommend book and series enough.

Shame?
Really depressing film though.

Thelma and Louise isn't really feminist as the main characters after running off die in the end, the ultimate punishment

They do die, but it's not a punishment, I don't think. It's not the film saying "look what happens to transgressive women, serves them right!"

I always (and it's one of my favourite films, has been since my teens, I've seen it countless times) read it as an indictment of the society that brought T&L to that cliff and left them no option other than death or a long jail sentence.

I would also suggest Aliens, and maybe Terminator (been years since I've seen it though).

I love Volver - strong hard working women across the generations. Also it looks so beautiful.

There is also another drama on 4od from the 90s, quite gentle and not overly dramatic called 'behaving badly'.

It stars Judi Dench as a middle aged woman divorced by her husband who decides to not do what is expected of her by society (live quietly on her own). I haven't ever seen anything quite like it and it wasn't entirely what I was expecting but I enjoyed it nonetheless.