386 Best Movies Written By Female writer (Page 12)

There isn't a single moment of unnecessarily exaggerated emotion or comedy in this French-Danish animated film, which may keep its world very small compared to its peers, but it portrays everything with arguably more depth and beauty. Long Way North moves with a stately pace, giving it more dramatic heft and allowing us to take in all of the film's painterly surfaces and soft silhouettes. But it's not just the art style that sets the film apart; it also avoids what we expect from a traditional adventure, keeping the most important character beats private and internal. This may make the movie feel a little more distant than it should be, but the feeling that it leaves you with is undeniable—a sense that everything is connected, and those who are lost will always find a way home.

Genre: Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family

Actor: Audrey Sablé, Boris Rehlinger, Bruno Magne, Christa Théret, Cyrille Monge, Delphine Braillon, Féodor Atkine, Gabriel Le Doze, Juliette Degenne, Loïc Houdré, Marc Bretonnière, Rémi Bichet, Stéphane Pouplard, Thomas Sagols

Director: Rémi Chayé

Starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson. Lars and the Real Girl is a funny and thought-provoking look at the psychology of loneliness and the healing power of love. I rented this a few years back because of Ryan Gosling - he had just blown me away in Fracture so I was trying to catch up on his other movies. It was an unexpected gem. One of the sweetest movies I have ever seen - it was kind of like a fairy tale. With a blow-up doll. Yes, that's right.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Alec McClure, Angela Vint, Annabelle Torsein, Arnold Pinnock, Aurora Browne, Billy Parrott, Boyd Banks, Doug Lennox, Emily Mortimer, Joe Bostick, Joshua Peace, Karen Robinson, Kelli Garner, Lauren Ash, Liisa Repo-Martell, Lindsey Connell, Liz Gordon, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Nancy Beatty, Nicky Guadagni, Patricia Clarkson, Paul Schneider, R.D. Reid, Ryan Gosling, Sally Cahill, Tannis Burnett, Tommy Chang, Torquil Colbo

Director: Craig Gillespie

Rating: PG-13

John Mulaney’s comedy special has candid interview segments, gallows humor on a children’s show, oddly specific musical numbers, and other variety show tropes. It having a children’s cast is largely why its snarky, uneasy tone works, and the topics that make it so are why you might watch it again. The cute absurdity of it all, as well as brief moments of introspection that can catch you off guard, are why you might even watch this with (older) kids—just don’t expect them to sit through the whole thing. It’s a comedy special for kids, by adults, so by design it’ll always be a bit off.

Genre: Comedy, Family

Actor: Alexander Bello, André De Shields, Annaleigh Ashford, Ava Briglia, Camille De La Cruz, Cordelia Comando, David Byrne, Erin Quill, Isabella Iannelli, Jacob Laval, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jake Ryan Flynn, John Mulaney, Jonah Mussolino, Lexi Perkel, Linder Sutton, Mary Stout, Natasha Lyonne, Oriah Elgrabli, Orson Hong, Phyllis Bash, Rhys Thomas, Richard Kind, Suri Marrero, Tyler Bourke, Zell Steele Morrow

Director: Rhys Thomas

Rating: PG

We’re familiar with dick jokes from stand-up comedians, especially male stand-up, but Jacqueline Novak’s 90-minute show about the blow job feels completely new. Get on Your Knees feels like casual storytelling from someone experienced yet distant enough to be a cool authority on it (say, your best friend’s older sister’s best friend), but funnier. It’s like a gossip session about a first experience, except the breathless, dizzying stream of thought is peppered with philosophical thought and points out the absurdity around the language and common attitudes about sex. And as she does so, and as she talks about self-conscious fumbling and unanswered questions, she strides back and forth, in an easy, self-assured way, the way we’d like to feel going into the act.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Jacqueline Novak

Director: Natasha Lyonne

Rating: R

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Romance

Actor: Arnaud Vachon, Félix-Antoine Bénard, Madeleine Péloquin, Marc Beaupré, Marguerite Bouchard, Marie Brassard, Micheline Bernard, Noémie O'Farrell, Patrice Dubois, Patrick Hivon, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine, Sara Montpetit, Sarianne Cormier, Sébastien Beaulac, Sophie Cadieux, Steve Laplante, Sylvie Lemay

Director: Ariane Louis-Seize

Set in 1970s Italian countryside, this is a quirky movie that’s full of plot twists.

Lazzaro is a dedicated worker at a tobacco estate. His village has been indebted to a marquise and like everyone else, he works without a wage and in arduous conditions.

Lazzaro strikes a friendship with the son of the marquise, who, in an act of rebellion against his mother, decides to fake his own kidnapping. The two form an unlikely friendship in a story that mixes magical realism with social commentary.

Genre: Drama, Fantasy

Actor: Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher, Alessandro Genovesi, Alice Rohrwacher, Antonio Salines, Carlo Massimino, Carlo Tarmati, Daria Deflorian, Daria Pascal Attolini, David Bennent, Elisabetta Rocchetti, Gala Othero Winter, Leonardo Nigro, Luca Chikovani, Natalino Balasso, Nicoletta Braschi, Pasqualina Scuncia, Sergi Lopez, Tommaso Ragno

Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Rating: PG-13

After working on Prime's TV series Verdict, Argentinian director Anahí Berneri has now made her Netflix debut with Elena Knows, a mother-daughter drama based on the book of the same name by famous novelist Claudia Piñeiro (International Booker Prize Shortlist). Berneri has not lost her arthouse touch, on the contrary, Elena Knows looks lush and minimal at the same time. With the use of shallow focus, the cinematography presents the world as an inhospitable place to the protagonist, Elena (Mercedes Morán, recently in Netflix's The Kingdom), whose advanced Parkinson's robs her of her agency, day after day. Very early on in the film, she loses her daughter and carer, Rita (Erica Rivas you might know from Wild Tales), and her absence leaves a gaping hole in the life of the grubby elderly woman. Berneri's newest film owns up to its investigative thriller elements as Elena insists her daughter has been murdered, but at its heart, it holds a paradox: that of maternal love and parental hatred. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Agustina Muñoz, Erica Rivas, Horacio Camandulle, Marcos Montes, Mercedes Moran, Mercedes Scápola, Miranda de la Serna, Mónica Gonzaga, Susana Pampín

Director: Anahí Berneri

Unlike in other films that only seem to evoke a previous era to make a target demographic feel warm and fuzzy inside, there's something vaguely artificial about Death of Nintendo's air of nostalgia—which is exactly what helps it tell its story. There isn't anything particularly novel about this movie's plot or characters, but Raya Martin's direction has us consider various themes between all the stuff you'd expect to see in a young adult movie. In moments of quiet unease that seem to punctuate every other sequence, we're drawn towards the absence of father figures, the inability of the women to get through to their sons (already embedded in patriarchal customs), and the idea that one's childhood in a Catholic country seems to be marked by physical pain. Beyond the film's feathery lighting and colorful production design, there's a surprising amount to think about.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Agot Isidro, Elijah Alejo, Jigger Sementilla, John Vincent Servilla, Kim Chloe Oquendo, Lou Veloso, Mailes Kanapi, Moi Bien, Nikki Valdez, Noel Comia Jr., Ramon Bautista

Director: Raya Martin