Top 5 Movies Starring Women

[Kyle]

Okay, so let's talk about your top 5 movies that star a woman as the main character. It doesn't count if she's a co-star with a man-- the main character has to be a woman who drives the story. Good examples (although these aren't necessarily on my list):

Rosemary's Baby
Salt
Lucy
Boy's Don't Cry
Sister Act

Movies that don't count:

War of the Roses
Ghost
Bridget Jones' Whatever
Any Rom Com where the co-stars are a man and a woman

[poorpete]

My Neighbor Totoro
Inside Out
Juno
Kiki's Delivery Service
Fargo

Runners Up:
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
The Color Purple
Kill Bill Vol 1.
Wizard of Oz
The Miracle Worker
Sound of Music
Tangled
Mary Poppins
Whale Rider
Cinderella
Cole Miner's Daughter
Steel Magnolias
Aliens

[Elle]

All About Eve
Volver (maybe too much like Ghost?)
The Trip to Bountiful
My New Gun
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (NOT a RomCom, Kyle, but kind of like War of the Roses I guess)

I'm having a hard time with this list. So many movies to try to narrow down! I was going to add Sound of Music but Pete already has that one, and then I was thinking about adding Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Heathers and Sense and Sensibility but I thought Kyle would disqualify them as a RomCom, so...

[Bluedevyl]

Pride and Prejudice
Brave
Ever After (maybe a romcom, not sure)
Amelie
Hanna

Honorable Mentions:

The Hunger Games series
Tomb Raider
Resident Evil series
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series

[Reika]

So far I have Aliens and the new Ghostbusters. Most of the type of movie I watch tends to be dominated by men.

[Zen]

Carol
Aliens
Whale Rider
Victor Victoria
Hunger Games

[Cazmonster]

Halloween (1978)
May
Maggie
A GIrl Walks Home Alone at Night
Crimson Peak

[Mike]

Fury Road

[Reika]

[Mike]

Best part is that it's a movie named for the male lead who is clearly second-banana to Theron's Furiosa.

[Elle]

Shockingly still have not seen this, need to commandeer the Netflix queue. Horror movie women is good; I would say Alien, Rosemary's Baby, Misery, Silence of the Lambs, and Carrie.

[Mike]

I wouldn't include Misery. She was awesome in that, but it's not her story. She is the foil, the obstacle the protagonist must overcome. Annie doesn't have a story arc or character development.

All the rest of those I think are great choices.

[Kyle]

I thought about Misery, but it's a co-lead. I feel the same way about Juno and Fury Road. I know how everyone's happy that she's the star of the movie- but so is Max-- it's a co-lead. I'm happy to see BlueDevil put Hannah- I gave that one a lot of thought. Anyways, here's my list:

1. Black Swan
2. Short Term 12
3. The Babadook
4. Run Lola Run
5. Aliens

Honorable Mentions:
Salt (this is a terribly underrated movie)
Carrie (the original)
The Descent
Thirteen
Girl, Interrupted

[Reika]

I know that Fury Road was listed as a co-lead, but I really do think it was Furiosa's story with Max there as a distant support.

[Kyle]

I can see that, and to an extent we're arguing semantics. But while it was her story- it was from the male eye. It was a Mad Max movie, that's for sure. But again- it's all just semantics really.

[Mike]

I'd make the same argument Reika does, but ultimately it's a judgment call. Since it's your game, I'll go with you on that one. It IS a Mad Max movie.

[Kyle]

And here's the point of the exercise, right? Like, if we want to think about top 5 movies with a man as the sole lead- we'd have no problem. Those are 90% of all movies (the other 9.9% has a female co-lead). Hell, there are a ton of movies that don't actually even have women in speaking roles. And if we want to rule out movies where women are only the love interest of the protagonist- then we're hitting a significant percentage.

So what I wanted to do was think about movies that had women as the lead- like how Bruce Willis is the lead in Die Hard. And it's hard to do. Ultimately I came up with a list, and I absolutely love all of the movies in my top 5. But if I had to make a top 10, or especially a top 20, then there'd be some movies that I thought were just good-- not great, but good.

[Tahlvin]

Little Women.

[Elle]

Oooh there are two good versions of Little Women!

As far as making the list itself, I find it extremely difficult not because there are too few but because so many of the movies that I like have a female lead or main character. When one of your favorite types of movie is a British or literary period piece, you can be assured that many will have a female lead.

[Tahlvin]