jodie foster – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

A PRIVATE LIFE – Review by Susan Granger

April 6, 2026April 11, 2026 Susan Granger A Private Life, Anne Berest, Daniel Auteuil, jodie foster, mathieu Amalric, Rebecca Zlotowski, Sophie Guillemin, Virginie Efira

Not one of Jodie Foster’s best films but unusual because – in her protagonist performance – she speaks impeccable French, making A Private Life more of a curiosity than a ‘must see.’ When Paris-based American psychoanalyst Lilian Steiner (Foster) learns that her patient of nine years committed suicide, she sets out to prove that she was actually murdered, enlisting help from her ex-husband. While it’s not the first time Foster has acted in French, it’s the most significant role in the language that she’s ever played, working with a director – Rebecca Zlotowski – who co-wrote the script with Anne Berest with her in mind.

Movie of the Week

MOTW January 16, 2026: A PRIVATE LIFE

January 11, 2026January 13, 2026 Jennifer Merin A Private Life, betsy bozdech, Cate Marquis, Daniel Auteuil, jennifer merin, jodie foster, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren king, mathieu Amalric, motw, Movie of the Week, nell minow, Rebecca Zlotowski, sandie angulo chen, sherin nicole, Simon Cohen-Solal, Virginie Efira

A psychiatrist’s personal and professional insecurities come together to send her spiraling in the wake of her long-time patient’s death in director Rebecca Zlotowski’s engrossing mystery/thriller A Private Life. Starring Jodie Foster in her French-language feature debut, the film follows Dr. Lilian Steiner (Foster) as she gets caught up in trying to prove that the engimatic Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira) didn’t die by suicide but, in fact, was murdered.

Reviews

BREAKDOWN: 1975 – Review by Lynn Venhaus

December 18, 2025December 21, 2025 Lynn Venhaus al pacino, Albert Brooks, Blaxploitation, Breakdown: 1975, documentary, Ellen Burstyn, jack nicholson, jodie foster, Josh Brolin, martin scorsese, Morgan Neville, Oliver Stone, Patton Oswalt, Robert Altman, robert deniro, Saturday Night Live, Seth Rogen, Steven Spielberg, Wesley Morris

In this Wayback Machine, called Breakdown: 1975, we travel back 50 years to a pivotal year that defined daring, imaginative filmmaking, and how coincidentally, it happened between the resignation of President Nixon and the Bicentennial birthday celebration. In Morgan Neville’s well-intentioned documentary, he puts the chaotic 1970s in perspective, touching on how young talented filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman and Steven Spielberg were inspiring a cinematic revolution. Studios took risks, and moviegoers responded in this heralded New Hollywood. As exuberant as this fertile time was, in real life, America was going through dismal days post-Watergate and Vietnam.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT January 2025: Vivian Kerr, Actress and Indie Filmmaker, SCRAP and SEANCE

December 30, 2024December 31, 2024 Jennifer Merin Female Filmmaker, greta gerwig, independent filmmaker, jodie foster, Johanna Coelho, reframd award, scrap, seance, Vivian Kerr, WeFunder

AWFJ’s January 2025 SPOTLIGHT is focused on Vivian Kerr, the producer, writer, director and star of Scrap, an entirely indie film that has been winning awards and gaining acclaim at film festivals since 1922 and has at long last landed (mid-December, 2024) on the internet for easy audience access. Scrap is Kerr’s first feature, and it took her almost a decade of dreaming and scheming to get it made and make it known. In doing so, she has transformed her career from that of an actress with roles on Grey’s Anatomy, Masters of Sex, Criminal Minds, New Girl, The Bold & The Beautiful and other shows to an new role as an independent filmmaker with promising prospects. She’s already premiered her second feature, a horror/thriller titled Seance, in October 2024 at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Kerr’s path to success is one that many women working in the movie industry might wish to follow. In AWFJ’s SPOTLIGHT interview, Kerr generously shares her experiences and strategies.

Interviews

Annette Bening on Preparation for NYAD – Wendy Mitchell interviews

February 23, 2024March 4, 2024 Wendy Mitchell annette bening, diana nyad, jodie foster, nyad

Annette Bening can still hardly believe she has been on the heightened emotional and physical journey playing the long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad. “I never in my wildest imagination ever imagined doing something like this. Especially in my 60s!” she says with a hearty laugh. “So that’s what was also very enticing about it.” When Bening first read the script, adapted from Diana Nyad’s memoir Find A Way, she remembers, “I was moved and I laughed, I was furious at her, but I loved her. I found her funny. I found her exasperating. I found the story just ultimately so inspiring because it’s so surprising. As a character she was outrageous and I knew I wanted to play her. Bening certainly questioned herself as she trained for a year in the pool, not just to get into the right shape to walk around in a swimsuit for most of the film but also to make sure she had the precise strokes and breathing patterns of a seasoned swimmer — even the same breathing to the left that Nyad had to do to see her coach Bonnie Stoll (played by Jodie Foster) on the boat.

Reviews

NYAD – Review by Diane Carson

November 20, 2023November 21, 2023 Diane Carson annette bening, bonnie stoller, diana nyad, jodie foster, julia cox, netflix, nyad, Rhys Ifans, truth-based. biopic

Nyad takes as its subject an extraordinary, record setting individual, marathon swimmer Diana Nyad. Rather than a nonfiction presentation, they dramatize Nyad’s attempts to become the only person to swim the one hundred three miles from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida, without a shark cage, in dangerous waters, including jellyfish, sharks, and strong currents. Nyad first attempted the arduous swim in 1978 when she was twenty-eight and then took up the challenge again in her 60s. She would need all her resolve to make repeated attempts at achieving her goal.

Reviews

NYAD – Review by Elisabetta Bianchini

October 20, 2023January 13, 2026 Elisabetta Bianchini Anna Harriette Pittman, annette bening, diana nyad, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, jodie foster, Rhys Ifans

Based on the true story of Diana Nyad, Annette Bening and Jodie Foster bring the power of female friendship to the thrilling and moving biopic of the famed open-water swimmer. Filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi stepped into their fist narrative feature film with Nyad, coming from the documentary world with renowned movies like Free Solo and The Rescue. But they’re still very much in their wheelhouse — the world of extreme sports — for this impressively gripping film. When Diana (played by Bening) was in her 20s, she attempted to swim from Cuba to Florida, but never ended up making it all the way. In her 60s, the famed swimmer found a new sense of inspiration to try to achieve this difficult feat again, specifically wanting her friend, trainer and raquetball campion, Bonnie Stoll (Foster), to be her coach and be by her side for the swim.

Reviews

NYAD – Review by T.J. Callahan

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023 T. J. Callahan annette bening, bonnie stoller, Cinema Citizen, diana nyad, jodie foster, julia cox, netflix, nyad, Rhys Ifans, truth-based

Academy Award nominee Annette Bening makes a splash as the tenacious, outspoken, record breaking swimmer with a superiority complex. Bening keeps this flick afloat with her willingness to go the extra mile in and out of the ocean. Co-star and Oscar Winner Jodie Foster matches Bening stroke for stroke as her best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. As NYAD kicks into gear, so do Bening and Foster with an effortless relay exchange of dialogue that helped keep this two hour aquatic tale from going under.

Reviews

NYAD – Review by Jennifer Merin

October 10, 2023October 16, 2023 Jennifer Merin annette bening, bonnie stoller, Cinema Citizen, diana nyad, jodie foster, julia cox, netflix, nyad, Rhys Ifans, truth-based

Anyone age five or older in 2023 most likely knows of the exploits of Diana Nyad, the legendary long distance swimmer who at long last conquered her long-standing goal of swimming the 110 miles of open sea from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. She was age 64 when she dove into her fifth attempt to swim the distance and, despite daunting odds, reached Key West after some 53 hours in the water. Directing their first narrative feature, directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin effectively tell the story of Nyad’s triumph.

Reviews

THE MAURITANIAN – Review by Leslie Combemale

January 23, 2021 Leslie Combemale benectic cumberbatch, guantanemo, jodie foster, shalene woodley, tahar rahim'truth-based, the mauritanian

So much star power should amount to a lot more than what audiences will get out of The Mauritanian. Thank the cinematic gods for Tahar Rahim, however, who is the film’s saving grace, bringing appropriate gravitas to his portrayal of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the title role, around which all the mystery and tension of the story is centered. It is the story of his imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay, his years of torture and interrogation, and his fight to be freed. It is startling how much Rahim looks like his character’s real life counterpart, whose NY Times best-selling memoir, Guantanamo Diary, is the basis for the film.

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