6 female-centric films you need to see for Women’s History Month

While I think we should be celebrating women and their achievements every day, I do appreciate an entire month dedicated to the history of Women Showing the World How It’s Done—ahem, I mean Women’s History Month.

To celebrate Women’s History Month cinematically, I offer some of my absolute favorite movies about, starring, and/or directed by women, available to borrow on Kanopy, the streaming service from your library:

Daughters of the Dust (1991), directed by Julie Dash
1hr 52min
Featuring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers & Barbara-O

Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust unfolds at a moment of transition: a Gullah Geechee family living on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina is preparing to leave their ancestral home for the mainland. As they weigh that decision, the film lingers with the women of the family—grandmothers, mothers, daughters—who carry memory, tradition, and spiritual knowledge across generations.

Rather than pushing the story forward in a conventional way, Dash lets it drift, guided by voices, images, and rituals that emphasize how culture is preserved through women. It’s a quietly radical film, and a historic one: the first feature by a Black woman to receive a wide theatrical release in the U.S., and one whose influence continues to ripple outward decades later.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
1hr 40min
Featuring Sheila Vand & Reza Sixo Safai

Bad City is bleak, rundown, and full of people taking advantage of one another—but it’s also home to a very unusual young woman. She’s a vampire, she stalks the streets alone at night, and she has little patience for men who mistreat others. When she meets a drifting, lonely young man, a strange and tentative romance begins to take shape.

Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut feature flips familiar genre tropes on their head, turning the vampire into a symbol of female autonomy rather than fear. Stylish, funny, and quietly defiant, the film blends westerns, horror, and art-house cool to imagine what it might look like if a woman reclaimed power in a place designed to crush it.

Westwood: Punk. Icon. Activist.: The Life and Work of Fashion Icon Vivienne Westwood (2018), directed by Lorna Tucker
1hr 20min

This documentary traces the life and work of Vivienne Westwood, from her early days helping define punk style to her later role as a globally recognized fashion designer and outspoken activist. Through archival footage and present-day access, the film shows how Westwood has always used fashion as a form of rebellion—against consumerism, complacency, and political apathy.

What made Westwood especially compelling was her refusal to fade quietly into “icon” status. While still running her own label and speaking her mind well into her 70s, she emerged as a woman who never stopped challenging authority—or the idea that creativity has an expiration date. When we lost her in 2022, the world lost a true legend; this film is one of the best ways to truly see her spirit and her keen design eye in action.

Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), directed by Agnès Varda
1hr 29min
Featuring Corinne Marchand & Dominique Davray

Over the course of two hours in real time, Cléo from 5 to 7 follows a young Parisian singer as she waits for the results of a medical test that could change her life. As she wanders the city, killing time, her anxiety slowly gives way to reflection—and a growing awareness of how little control she feels over her own image and fate.

Directed by Agnès Varda, the film gently but deliberately shifts its gaze. What begins as a portrait of surface beauty becomes something much deeper: a woman moving from being looked at to truly seeing herself. It’s a quietly feminist classic that still feels startlingly modern.

Frances Ha (2012)
1hr 25min
Featuring Greta Gerwig & Mickey Sumner

Frances is broke, awkward, and fiercely devoted to her best friend—and she’s not quite sure what she’s doing with her life. As she bounces between apartments, jobs, and relationships in New York City, her carefully imagined future keeps slipping just out of reach.

Anchored by Greta Gerwig’s performance, Frances Ha captures a very specific kind of female restlessness: the fear of falling behind, the intensity of female friendship, and the long, messy process of figuring out who you are when nothing goes according to plan. It’s funny, a little melancholy, and deeply affectionate toward its heroine. And while I am not normally a Noah Baumbach film enthusiast, this sweet and funny film won me over completely.

Rough Aunties (2008), directed by Kim Longinotto
1hr 46min

Rough Aunties follows four women in Durban, South Africa, who run Bobbi Bear, a nonprofit organization supporting children who have experienced sexual abuse. Faced with cultural stigma, broken systems, and heartbreaking stories, these women refuse to back down—finding creative, compassionate ways to help children speak about what has happened to them and seek justice.

Rather than framing its subjects as saviors, the film focuses on the day-to-day emotional labor of advocacy. It’s a powerful portrait of women stepping into gaps left by institutions, and of how care, persistence, and solidarity can become acts of resistance.

*Access to films may vary.

Kanopy’s Women’s History Month collection is absolutely brimming with amazing films about and directed by women. I could have spent (and plan to!) many more hours rewatching beloved movies and discovering new loves. 

What are some of your favorites from this list? 

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