Female Film Critics 24/375
A bleak Warsaw winter that’s made even bleaker by fear and intimidation is the backdrop to director Kasia Adamik’s tense drama/thriller Winter of the Crow. As it tells the story of an unwitting Englishwoman (Lesley Manville) whose visit to the Polish capital in December 1981 is thrown into chaos by the secret police’s declaration of martial law, the film explores what it means to resist an oppressive regime.
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In The Art of Adventure, director Alison Reid (The Woman Who Loved Giraffes) tells the globe-trotting tale of Robert Bateman and Bristol Foster, two longtime Canadian friends whose shared passion for nature and drive to see the world beyond North America led them on an 18-month odyssey across 50,000 miles and 19 countries in the late 1950s — and, later, fueled their careers as passionate stewards of the environment.
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She may be one of the most iconic faces of the 1960s, but chances are you don’t know all that much about Dame Lesley Lawson, aka Twiggy. Director Sadie Frost aims to correct that with Twiggy, an intimate behind-the-scenes documentary about the (in)famous model/actress/singer/daughter/girlfriend/wife/mother — who, it turns out, is awfully down-to-earth for someone who found worldwide fame so young.
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A tradition-loving Ghanaian fisherman who scoffs at the idea of electronic fish finders and turns up his nose at social media and smartphones learns that the modern world isn’t all bad in writer-director Zoey Martinson’s charming feature debut The Fisherman. And the fact that he does it with the help of a cheeky talking fish and a trio of energetic and aspiring young people makes his journey all the more whimsical.
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In a time when what it means to be a feminist seems to be as hotly contested as it ever has been, it’s illuminating to look back at the 1970s, when the “women’s lib” movement was hitting the mainstream. By telling the story of the magazine that strove to support and further that movement, Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print reminds us of how much has changed since then…and how far we have to go. (AWFJ.org featured Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print as our MOTW on July 2, 2025, we do so again to honor Ms. Magazine co-founders Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, recently deceased.)
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Watching Rory Kennedy’s pressing, powerful documentary Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing — the follow-up to Kennedy’s equally compelling 2022 film Downfall: The Case Against Boeing — it’s impossible not to dwell on two thoughts: First, these days, the act of choosing to step foot on an American-built plane kind of feels like playing a game of Russian Roulette, and second, it’s appalling how blatantly this country continues to prioritize profits over people’s lives.
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If, at first, writer-director Andrew Patterson’s quirky, Oklahoma-set crime thriller The Rivals of Amziah King doesn’t seem like a very female-forward movie, just wait. Without risking any big spoilers, its safe to say that co-star Angelina LookingGlass more than holds her own against poster boy Matthew McConaughey in this twisty genre-defying indie film about queen bees, unconventional family ties, revenge, and the toe-tapping power of roots music. The Rivals of Amziah King deserves to become the sleeper hit of 2026.
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If most people spent as much time thinking about what’s below the waves as they do what’s beyond the stars, chances are that more of them would know who Dr. Edith Widder is. But since that’s not the case, we can all be grateful to filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt for the excellent job she does presenting the pioneering oceanographer/marine biologist and her fascinating life’s work in the documentary A Life Illuminated.
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Quirky and poignant, Italian writer/director Carolina Cavalli’s The Kidnapping of Arabella tells the story of a young woman named Holly, whose grief and childhood pain conspire to leave her believing that the space-time continuum has somehow brought her face to face with a younger version of herself. As she figures out what to do with that unlikely opportunity, she must ultimately face the reality she’d rather ignore. As the movie begins, Holly, who studies physics and is mourning the loss of her mother, is begrudgingly working at an ice rink, where she opts to blame small holes in the fabric of the universe for unusual moments like randomly finding a tooth on the ice. When, after scamming/bullying a fast-food worker into giving her a free order of fries, Holly encounters a feisty 8-year-old girl in the parking lot, she becomes convinced that the child is, in fact, her younger self, brought to her to give her a second chance at making better life choices. So when the girl offers to pay Holly for a ride to “anywhere but here,” they drive off together.
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Quietly emotional and tenderly sincere, Petite Maman is a poignant tale about loss, connection, and growing up. Blending gentle fantasy elements with grounded, naturalistic performances, writer-director Céline Sciamma tells the story of 8-year-old Nelly, whose parents take her with them to clear out her mother’s childhood home after the death of her beloved grandmother. To her surprise, she finds much more waiting for her there than her mother’s old books and playthings.
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