Image from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night from giphy.com at https://gph.is/1NMynCN
The Bechdel Test is a measurement used to determine if a film includes two or more female characters, their interaction, and if they discuss something other than a man.
Autumn Sonata
An international concert pianist visits her grown daughter after a seven-year absence. Aching with the memory of her mother's neglect, the introverted daughter explodes into a rage and the reunion turns into a shattering confrontation.
Eighth Grade
Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school (the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year) before she begins high school.
The Favourite
Early eighteenth-century England is at war with the French. A frail Queen Anne occupies the throne, and her friend Lady Sarah tends to her ill health. When a new servant Abigail arrives, Sarah takes her under her wing, and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become time-consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps in to fill in as the Queen's companion. Their growing friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambitions, and no one will stand in her way.
Get Out
A young black man meets his white girlfriend's parents at their estate, only to find out that the situation is much more sinister than it appears.
If Beale Street Could Talk
A timeless love story set in early 1970s Harlem involving newly engaged nineteen-year- old Tish and her fiance Fonny who have a beautiful future ahead. But their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Now the pair and their families must fight for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.
Isle of Dogs
Set in Japan, this follows a boy's odyssey in search of his lost dog.
Mulholland Drive
A beautiful woman riding in a limousine along Los Angeles' Mulholland Drive is targeted by a would-be shooter, but before he can pull the trigger, she is injured when her limo is hit by another car. The woman stumbles away from the accident and meets up with a plucky ingénue new to L.A. But are things really as they seem?
Paper Moon
A smooth-talking con man and a nine-year-old orphan are up to tricks in depression-era Kansas.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
France, 1760. Marianne is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Because she is a reluctant bride-to-be, Marianne arrives under the guise of companionship, observing Héloïse by day and secretly painting her by firelight at night. As the two women orbit one another, intimacy and attraction grow as they share Héloïse first moments of freedom. Héloïse's portrait soon becomes a collaborative act of and a testament to their love.
The Shape of Water
An otherworldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War-era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda discover a secret classified experiment.
Shoplifters
On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft, and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
Suspira
A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.
Image from Frances Ha from film-grab.com at https://film-grab.com/2014/01/09/frances-ha/
Image from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-the-arash-nQgJL0RaAEWti
Image from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-sheila-vand-smR9LMhUixkXe
Image from Sicario from evanerichards.com at https://www.evanerichards.com/2017/4720
Image from Sicario from evanerichards.com at https://www.evanerichards.com/wp-content/gallery/sicario/Sicario_402.jpg
Image from Mulholland Drive from film-grab.com at https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/60%20(639).jpg?bwg=1547237982
Image from Martha Marcy May Marlene from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/elizabeth-olsen-martha-marcy-may-marlene-ciL0DoMyR9Ere
Image from The Florida Project from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/a24-the-florida-project-l0IsHpdbT4EX8wOgU
Ameĺie From Montmartre / Le Fabuleux Destin D'Ameĺie Poulain
Amélie is a young woman who had a decidedly unusual childhood; misdiagnosed with an unusual heart condition, Amélie didn't attend school with other children, but spent most of her time in her room, where she developed a keen imagination and an active fantasy life. Despite all this, Amélie has grown into a healthy and beautiful young woman who works in a cafe and has a whimsical, romantic nature. She decides to step into the lives of others around her to help them out.
Anora
Contemporary cinema's foremost chronicler of American dreamers and schemers hustling on the margins of capitalist promise, Sean Baker, reaches new heights of mastery with this audacious anti Cinderella story a whirlwind neorealist screwball comedy with an aching heart. In an electric, star-is-born performance, Mikey Madison soars as Anora, an enterprising, ferociously foulmouthed Brooklyn erotic dancer and sex worker whose Prince Not-So-Charming comes along in the form of a Russian oligarch's wild-child son.
Black Swan
A psychological thriller set in the world of New York City ballet. An insecure ballet dancer wins the lead in Swan Lake but slowly loses her grip on sanity when a seductive newcomer is out to steal her role.
The Florida Project
Set over one summer, the film follows precocious six-year-old Moonee as she courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother, all while living in the shadows of Disney World.
Frances Ha
A woman in her late twenties living in contemporary New York tries to sort out her ambitions, finances, and above all, her tight but changing bond with her best friend Sophie. Frances Ha gets at both the frustrations and the joys of being young and unsure of where to go next.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The first Iranian Vampire Western ever made. A joyful mash up of genre, archetype, and iconography, its prolific influences span spaghetti westerns, graphic novels, horror films and the Iranian New Wave.
The Innocents
Warsaw, December 1945: the Second World War is finally over and Mathilde is treating the last of the French survivors of the German camps. When a panicked Benedictine nun appears at the clinic one night begging Mathilde to follow her back to the convent, what she finds there is shocking: a holy sister about to give birth and several more in advanced stages of pregnancy.
Jane Eyre
When orphaned governess Jane Eyre arrives at imposing Thornfield Hall, she's intrigued by her brooding, wealthy employer, Rochester. His dark moods and the strange occurrences in the house lead her to discover a terrible secret that he had hoped to hide from her forever.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles / Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels
Evokes a sense of impending doom, the daily domestic routine of a middle-aged widow. Her chores include making the beds, cooking dinner for her grown son, and turning the occasional trick. Her life is beginning to break down.
Lore
Abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings, led by fourteen-year-old Lore embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country.
Martha Marcy May Marlene
"After escaping from a dangerous cult and the watchful eye of its charismatic leader, a young woman named Martha tries to reclaim a normal life with her family. But the haunting memories from Martha's past trigger a chilling paranoia, and nowhere seems safe as the fragile line between her reality and delusions begin to blur."
Mother!
A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
Persepolis
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family. Their long dream is realized when the hated Shah is defeated in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, Marji grows up to witness first hand how the new Iran has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study. This change proves an equally difficult trial for Marji and finds herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and her homeland have changed too much, and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.
Repulsion
Carol, who works in a beauty salon in London, is both repulsed and fascinated by men. She is unsure of how to handle their advances, which are numerous because she is gorgeous. Gripped by mental illness, she eventually imprisons herself in her apartment, where she suffers from sexual dreams. Her delirium leads to dire circumstances.
Sicario
After an idealistic FBI agent is recruited by a government task-force official to pursue a drug lord, she begins a perilous mission that forces her to question everything she believes, and pits her against a shadowy consultant with a dangerous agenda.
The Silence of the Lambs
When FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned a case involving a monstrous serial killer, she seeks counsel from an imprisoned cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, whose fascination with the young woman is as great as his hunger for murder. As their relationship develops, Starling must confront her own demons, and an evil so powerful that she may not have the courage or strength to stop it.
The Witch
A family in 1630s New England faces destruction by the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession. When one of their five children goes missing and their life-sustaining crops fail, they fall victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another.
