In honour of International Women’s Day, we are celebrating women in film, both on screen and behind the camera. Check out our list of womxn-centric (and mostly female-directed) documentaries, short films, and feature-length movies to watch to celebrate women and women filmmakers!

Period. End of Sentence.

This Netflix documentary (that recently won an Oscar!) focuses on a group of women who work together to create and sell sanitary pads in a rural village in Northern India. This heartwarming short aims to destigmatize female menstruation and is a wonderful display of a group of women supporting each other to achieve their dreams.

20th Century Women

In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening!) is a single mother who runs a boarding house and is raising her teenage son Jamie. Concerned that she is unable to connect with her son, Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie (Greta Gerwig!) a free-spirited artist who is a tenant in Dorothea’s house, and Julie (Elle Fanning!) a savvy and provocative neighbor who is also Jamie’s friend – to help with Jamie’s upbringing.

Divines

Dounia is a teenage girl living in a banlieue on the outskirts of Paris with her mother and aunt. Along with her best friend Maimouna, Dounia hustles for money by shoplifting and reselling stolen goods on the streets. when Dounia meets Rebecca, a local drug dealer, she vows to follow in her footsteps and make more money than anyone can imagine. Maimouna helps Dounia complete a series of dangerous tasks so that she can join Rebecca’s gang, but things do not go as planned.

Mustang

In a Turkish village, five orphaned sisters live under house arrest while their strict uncle and grandmother prepare for their arranged marriages. When the girls begin to get married off one by one, the youngest sister Lale tries to stop the cycle of abuse and escape.

Certain Women

Three stories about three different women who strive to forge their paths in the American Northwest. A lawyer (Laura Dern) tries to subdue a disgruntled client; a wife and mother (Michelle Williams) who is building her dream home confronts the cracks in her marriage; and a lonely ranch hand forms an ambiguous relationship with a law student (Kristen Stewart).

Obvious Child

Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) is a stand-up comedian whose life is a bit of a mess. Newly unemployed and dumped by her boyfriend, Donna is forced to grow up and face adulthood when a quick fling with a graduate student results in an unwanted pregnancy in this Netflix comedy.

Shirkers

In 1992, Sandi Tan made her first movie with the help of an American producer Georges Cardona – who then disappeared with all the footage. Twenty years later, the Singaporean indie film was recovered, sending Tan on a personal journey to uncover Georges’ vanishing footprints in Netflix’s intriguing documentary hit.

Wadjda

Wadjda is a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Fun-loving and headstrong, when Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale, she wants the bike so that she can beat her neighbour Abdallah in a race. However, when her mother doesn’t allow her to get the bike, Wadjda resolves to raise the money for it herself.

Love Serenade

Dimity and Vicki-Ann are two sisters living together in Sunray, a small town in Australia where there is little to do besides fish and listen to the radio. When D.J. Ken Sherry arrives from Brisbane to run the local radio station, the girls compete for his attention, until they realize he is taking advantage of them both.

Support the Girls

Lisa (Regina Hall) is a sports bar general manager who nurtures and protects her female employees fiercely. Despite Lisa’s commitment to the restaurant and the girls, her patience is severely tested over the course of one day by her racist boss, disrespectful customers, and personal troubles with her marriage.  

Skate Kitchen

Camille is a lonely teenager living in Long Island with her conservative mother who doesn’t like her skateboarding. Despite a recent accident, Camille is still infatuated with skating and goes to New York City to follow Skate Kitchen, a group of all-girl skaters she found on Instagram. When Camille joins the girl group, she begins to understand the true meaning of friendship and her inner self.