Directed by Marva Nabili • 1977 • Iran
Starring Flora Shabaviz

The earliest complete surviving feature film directed by an Iranian woman, Marva Nabili’s THE SEALED SOIL chronicles the resistance of a young woman (Flora Shabavis) to her forced marriage, a defiance quickly misinterpreted by her fa...

Directed by Mira Nair • 1991 • United States, Uganda
Starring Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhury, Roshan Seth

The vibrant cultures of India, Uganda, and the American South come together in Mira Nair’s MISSISSIPPI MASALA, a luminous look at the complexities of love in the modern melting pot. Yea...

Directed by Karyn Kusama • 2000 • United States
Starring Michelle Rodriguez, Jaime Tirelli, Paul Calderon

Bullied by her father at home and feeling adrift at school, Diana Guzman (Michelle Rodriguez) finds refuge in an unexpected pocket of her native Brooklyn—a timeworn boxing gym, where she lea...

Criterion Collection Edition #356

Directed by Jane Campion • 1989 • New Zealand
Starring Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, Tom Lycos

Though she went on to create a string of brilliant films, Jane Campion will always be remembered for her stunning debut feature SWEETIE, which focuses on the hazard...

Criterion Collection Edition #957

Directed by Elaine May • 1976 • United States
Starring Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, Ned Beatty

Elaine May crafted a gangster film like no other in the nocturnal odyssey MIKEY AND NICKY, capitalizing on the chemistry between frequent collaborators John Cassavete...

Directed by Agnès Varda • 2008 • France
Starring Agnès Varda

“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes. If we opened me up, we’d find beaches.” Originally intended to be Agnès Varda’s farewell to filmmaking, this enchanting auto-portrait, made in her eightieth year, is a freewheeling journey...

Criterion Collection Edition #965

Directed by Barbara Loden • 1970 • United States
Starring Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins

With her first and only feature film—a hard-luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in—Barbara Loden turned in a groundbreaking work of American independent cinema, bri...

Directed by Bette Gordon • 1983 • United States
Starring Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, Richard M. Davidson

The provocative, sexually charged tale of a woman’s journey of self-discovery, Bette Gordon’s independent landmark offers a bold challenge to conventional notions of feminism and pornography. ...

Directed by Joan Micklin Silver • 1977 • United States
Starring John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Goldblum

Inspired by director Joan Micklin Silver’s time working at New York’s storied alt weekly the “Village Voice,” this unsung gem of 1970s slice-of-life seriocomedy offers an incisive, bitterswe...

Directed by Payal Kapadia • 2024 • France, India, Netherlands
Starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam

Payal Kapadia’s acclaimed fiction-feature debut is a radiant ode to hope-giving connections forged amid big-city anonymity. Set against the hypnotic luminescence of Mumbai, ALL WE IMAG...

Directed by Julie Dash • 1991 • United States
Starring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara O. Jones

Julie Dash’s rapturous vision of black womanhood and vanishing ways of life in the turn-of-the-century South was the first film directed by an African American woman to receive a wide release. In ...

Directed by Joyce Chopra • 1985 • United States
Starring Laura Dern, Treat Williams, Mary Kay Place

Suspended between carefree youth and the harsh realities of the adult world, a teenage girl experiences an unsettling awakening in this haunting vision of innocence lost. Based on Joyce Carol Oate...

Criterion Collection Edition #334

Directed by Barbara Kopple • 1976 • United States

Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award-winning HARLAN COUNTY USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ somet...

Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1982 • Belgium, France
Starring Aurore Clément, Tchéky Karyo, Jan Decorte

A hot summer evening in Brussels: couples dance in bars and cafés, part outside homes, or escape together under the darkness of night; some discover or reignite romance, some end it, while sti...

Directed by Jan Oxenberg • 1991 • United States

A lost-and-found revelation from indie film and TV maverick Jan Oxenberg is a docu-fantasy narrative focused on the filmmaker’s hilarious, messy, Jewish family as they prepare to say goodbye to someone they love. Narrated by a cardboard cutout of O...

Criterion Collection Edition #941

Directed by Susan Seidelman • 1982 • United States

Susan Seidelman established her distinctive vision of New York City with this debut feature, the lo-fi original for her vibrant portraits of women reinventing themselves. After escaping New Jersey, the quintess...

Directed by Ayoka Chenzira • 1994 • United States
Starring Kim Weston-Moran, Victoria Gabrielle Platt, Mizan Nunes

A rediscovered treasure of independent cinema, this incisive comedic drama follows Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt), a teenager coming of age in Brooklyn, as she looks to two...

Criterion Collection Edition #978

Directed by Agnès Varda • 1977 • France
Starring Valérie Mairesse, Thérèse Liotard, Ali Raffi

In the early 1960s in Paris, two young women become friends. Pomme is an aspiring singer. Suzanne is a pregnant country girl unable to support a third child. Pomme len...