When I was working on my most recent update of 2018’s women-directed films, I noticed a small trend: Netflix acquired a lot of the best women-directed movies and documentaries from film festivals, and they’ve also financed a number of women-directed movies. Netflix has such varied offerings that it’s a little difficult to come up with definitive stats, but just eyeballing it, they seem to have an unusually high percentage of female-directed and/or written movies on offer, including well-established directors like Nicole Holofcenter and Tamara Jenkins. Finally, Netflix has already been getting a lot of press for their recent efforts to bring back the rom-com, but I’m not sure anyone has noted that almost half of these movies are directed or written by women: Set It Up, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Nappily Ever After, and Us and Them.
Here’s a complete list of upcoming films. I’m especially excited about the ‘coming soon’ section, which contains a couple of film festival acquisitions, including The Kindergarten Teacher, a remake of an Israeli film, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Proustian-sounding documentary, Shirkers, about a writer who recovers film from a movie she shot in 1992.
Streaming now:
Like Father Writer & Dir. Lauren Miller Rogen
Set It Up Dir. Claire Scanlon Writer: Katie Silberman
Sierra Burgess is a Loser Writer: Lindsey Beer
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before Dir. Susan Johnson Writers: Sofia Alvarez based on a novel by Jenny Han
Us and Them Dir. Rene Liu
Coming soon:
The Land of Steady Habits Writer & Dir Nicole Holofcenter
Nappily Ever After Dir. Haifaa Al-Monsour
Private Life Writer & Dir. Tamara Jenkins
The Kindergarten Teacher Writer & Dir. Sara Colangelo
Shirkers Writer & Dir. Sandi Tan
Feminists: What Were They Thinking? Dir. Johanna Demetrakas
Thelma and Alice 