Ladies First

In honour of International Women’s Day, here's a list of films that I consider female-centric. This eclectic selection includes both well-known titles and lesser-known works that are often overlooked by clickbait film sites and terminally online Letterboxd hags.

Dementia (John Parker, 1955)
Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) 
The Violent Years (William Morgan, 1956)
Beat Girl (Edmond T. Gréville, 1959)
Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962) 
The Demon (Brunello Rondi, 1963)
The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) 
The Whip and the Body (Mario Bava, 1963) 
White Slaves of Chinatown (Joseph P. Mawra, 1964) 
Bad Girls Go to Hell (Doris Wishman, 1965)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965) 
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)
The Nanny (Seth Holt, 1965)
Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) 
Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967) 
Barbarella (Roger Vadim, 1968)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) 
The Laughing Woman (Piero Schivazappa, 1969)
And Soon the Darkness (Robert Fuest, 1970) 
Eugenie de Sade (Jesús Franco, 1970)
The Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker, 1970) 
The Big Doll House (Jack Hill, 1971)
Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kümel, 1971)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jireš, 1971) 
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (Shunya Itō, 1972)
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Sergio Martin, 1972) 
Coffy (Jack Hill, 1973)
The Doll Squad (Ted V. Vikels, 1973)
The Iron Rose (Jean Rollin, 1973) 
Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973) 
Act of Vengeance (Bob Kelijan, 1974) 
Big Bad Mama (Steve Carver, 1974) 
Caged Heat (Jonathan Demme, 1974)
House of Whipcord (Pete Walker, 1974)
Messiah of Evil (Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, 1974)
Vampyres (José Ramón Larraz, 1974) 
Ilsa: She-Wolf of the S.S. (Don Edmonds, 1975)
Footprints on the Moon (Luigi Bazzoni, Mario Fanelli, 1975) 
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) 
The Switchblade Sisters (Jack Hill, 1975)
Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976) 
Rabid (David Cronenberg, 1977)
The Sentinel (Michael Winner, 1977) 
Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977) 
I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978)
The Lady in Red (Lewis Teague, 1979)
Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
The Living Dead Girl (Jean Rollin, 1982) 
Chained Heat (Paul Nicholas, 1983)
Angel (Robert Vincent O'Neill, 1984)
Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) 
Singapore Sling (Nikos Nikolaidis, 1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) 
Serial Mom (John Waters, 1994) 
Bound (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 1996)
The Long Kiss Goodnight (Renny Harlin, 1996) 
A Gun for Jennifer (Todd Morris, 1997) 
Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997) 
Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999) 
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

May (Lucky McKee, 2002) 
The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005) 
Amer (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani, 2009)
The Loved Ones (Sean Byrne, 2009)
Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) 
Excision (Richard Bates Jr, 2012) 
Nymphomaniac (Lars Von Trier, 2013)
The Babadook (Emily Kent, 2014) 
Starry Eyes ( Dennis Widmyer, Kevin Kölsch, 2014)
The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016)
Revenge (Coralie Forgeat, 2017) 
Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019) 
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 2021)
Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021) 
Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright, 2021) 
Hatching (Hanna Bergholm, 2022) 
Anora (Sean Baker, 2024)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024) 
The Substance (Coralie Forgeat, 2024)
The Ugly Stepsister (Emilie Blichfeldt, 2025) 

Compiling a list such as this, particularly when it includes many films prior to the #MeToo era, reveals how cultural opinions can change over time. Titles once considered misogynistic are now praised as essential feminist cinema. This demonstrates the unpredictability of cultural attitudes and the importance of not censoring the past.