griggs's - HerStory 2025: Ranked List

Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant (Denis Lavant) sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit (Gregoire Colin) plays out to the thunderous, operatic strains of Benjamin Britten.

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Anna (Aurore Clément), a detached and diffident director, arrives in Germany to show her latest film; she checks into a hotel, invites a stranger to her bed, and abruptly tells him to leave. He asks her to a birthday lunch with his mother and daughter; she goes.

Afterward, in Cologne, she meets an old friend, a Polish Jew and war refugee. In Brussels, she spends the night at a hotel with her mother, whom she rarely sees. On the train, a stranger tells his story. Last, it's home to Paris, where her lover Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel) picks her up and they go to a hotel. Throughout, people make personal revelations to her, and Anna listens with little affect. Although it was 30 years ago, the war seems ever present.

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'Petite Maman' is a sublime modern fairytale about the quiet wonder of mother-daughter relationships. After the death of her beloved grandmother (Margot Abascal), eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) meets a mysterious friend in the woods.

Together they embark on a fantastical journey of discovery which helps Nelly come to terms with this newfound loss. Celine Sciamma's new masterwork examines childhood, memory and loss with a typically delicate touch, elegantly weaved together into an enchanting and moving depiction of love and acceptance.

Mi-so (Esom) lives from day to day by housekeeping. Cigarettes and whiskey are the two things that get her through the day. When the government doubles the price of cigarettes, Miso decides to give up her house for cigarettes and whiskey and make a list of her friends to ask a favor to stay with.

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"Wendy and Lucy" is the story of Wendy (Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams), who is driving to Alaska in hope of a summer of lucrative work and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy.

When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart and she finds herself desperately searching for her only true friend. Starring Kelly Reichardt's own beloved dog as Lucy.

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Three days into his Miami honeymoon, New York Jewish Lenny (Charles Grodin) meets tall, blonde Kelly (Cybill Shepherd). This confirms him in his opinion that he has made a serious mistake and he decides he wants Kelly instead.

Her rich father is less than keen and lets everyone - including Lenny - know that he hates everything about him and the way he is going on.

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A satirical, subversive, surreal and irreverent story of rebellion, Vera Chytilova's classic film is arguably the most adventurous and anarchic Czech movie of the 1960's.

Two young women, both named Marie (Ivana Karbanová / Jitka Cerhová), revolt against a degenerate and decayed society by attacking symbols of wealth and bourgeois culture in hilarious and mind-warpingly innovative ways. Defiant feminist statement? Nihilistic, avant-garde comedy? Refreshingly uncompromising, Daisies is a riotous, punk-rock poem of a film that remains a cinematic enigma and continues to provoke, stimulate and entertain audiences and influence filmmakers even today.

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Set in Glasgow in the 1970s, 'Ratcatcher' is seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old James Gillespie (William Eadie), a young boy haunted by a secret.

Feeling increasingly distant from his family, his only escape comes with the discovery of a new housing development on the outskirts of town where he has the freedom to lose himself in his own world. Enticed by a gang of older boys, James is thrown together with vulnerable fourteen-year-old Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen) and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship which becomes their hesitant but touching experience of first love...

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In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard swept landscape of Nazi occupied Belorussia.

When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film's earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory. With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch black despair, 'The Ascent' finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war.

Inspired by true events, writer/director Jasmila Zbanic's gripping, Oscar-nominated thriller tells the story of a United Nations translator attempting to save the lives of her family, whilst pandemonium and escalating conflict rages around them.

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Chantel Mitchell (Ariyan Johnson), a hip, articulate, black high-school girl in Brooklyn, is determined not to become 'just another girl on the IRT' (the IRT is one of NYC's subway lines).

She dreams of medical school, a family, and an escape from the generational poverty and street-corner life her friends seem to have accepted as their lot. But personal and sexual challenges confront Chantel on her way to fulfilling these dreams.

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It's the beginning of summer in a small village in northern Turkey. Lale and her four sisters are on their way home from school, innocently playing with local boys but prying village eyes view their games with suspicion and word soon reaches their family.

Their home consequently becomes a prison at the hand of their uncompromising uncle and all the girls have to now live for is a future of arranged marriage. But these girls' rebellious streak will not be tamed so easily. Drawing vocal support from critics, festivals and audiences across the globe, this beautiful debut from director Deniz Gamze Erguven is a touching portrayal of innocent strength and resilience against modern misogyny.

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Val is the kind of live-in housekeeper who takes her work seriously. She serves her wealthy Sao Paolo employers day in and day out while lovingly nannying their teenage son whom she's raised since toddlerhood.

Everyone and everything in the elegant house has its place until one day, Val's ambitious, clever daughter Jessica arrives from Val's hometown. Jessica's confident, youthful presence upsets the unspoken yet strict balance of power in the household; Val must decide where her allegiances lie and what she's willing to sacrifice.

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In one of Agnes Varda's more provocative films she presents us with the dilemma faced by husband and father Francois (Jean-Claude Crouot) who finds himself falling in love with an attractive postal worker.

What follows is a detailed study of adult fidelity and happiness, which will ultimately end with major repercussions for all parties involved.

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Liliko (Erika Sawajiri), a supermodel who underwent full body plastic surgery to attain the perfect body and face and to reach the peak of her career.

However, her body begins to break down as an effect of the treatments and she grows desperate and unhinged, lashing out at first to her manager and agency and later to the public as she realizes that her current lifestyle cannot last long. Meanwhile, an inspector investigating a series of mysterious suicides and organ theft believes that Liliko and her unnatural beauty may be the key to unearthing an underground industry of unsafe medical practice and save lives.