Yes, I know there are only three days left in March, Women’s History Month, so let’s get right to some movies and series you can watch!
Netflix has a lot of good documentaries, but I’m just going to stick to the most pertinent, for Women’s History Month. The first I’ll recommend is She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, a 2014 documentary from director Mary Dore. This covers what’s called mainly the 60‘s and 70’s wave of activism for Women’s Rights, and gives us some insight into how tough it was and the birth of significant groups like NOW(National Organization for Women), and Black Sisters United, and how it impacted the women’s movement today. It’s empowering, stirring and enlightening and it gets a 7.9/10 on IMDb. Netflix also has Miss Representation, a 2011 documentary from director Jennifer Siebel Newsom. this movie aptly considers how the media portrays women, and how that contributes to the under-representation of women in important and influential jobs. It features interviews with teenage girls, to interviews with influential women today, like Condoleeza Rice, Rachel Maddow, Jean Kilbourne and Katie Couric. This movie won multiple awards, including Audience Awards at the 2011 Palo Alto International Film Festival and the 2011 Sonoma Film Festival. And it gets a 7.6/10 on IMDb. Netflix also offer The Ascent of Woman, a BBC2 four part series from 2015. This is hosted by Dr. Amanda Foreman and it examines the roles women have traditionally been offered, and how they really affected history, science and culture, and their role in revolution, as well. It’s an exciting and enlightening series and it gets an 8.2/10 on IMDb. And, Netflix also has Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, a 16 part series. Cinema has for decades been a white male dominated industry, but that wasn’t always the case, there were some great female directors and producers out there, like Alice Guy-Blache,Lois Weber, Nell Shipman, Alla Nazimova and even Mabel Normand. Here you can even view some of their work. There is no rating for this on IMDb, but rogerebert.com calls it “a treasure trove of silent film history! And, finally, if you want a little fiction, Netflix has The Women’s Balcony, a 2017 Israeli comedy. When a congregation is urged to embrace strict rules by an ultra-orthodox rabbi, the women of the group start to think twice and rebel. It stars Evelin Hagoel,Orna Banai,Sharon Elimelech, Einat Saruf and Avraham Aviv Alush and has quite a bit to say about sexism, fanaticism and tolerance. And it gets a stunning 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
So get a little wiser about women, this Women’s History Month(and every other month of the year), and enjoy what Netflix has to offer on the subject this March!
