If you’re looking for a way to help combat gender discrimination in Hollywood, try watching movies directed by women.
A network of female filmmakers called Film Fatales has compiled a list of all of the movies directed by women that are currently available on Netflix in the US, which you can visit here.
Less than 5% of top box office films are directed by women, according to the group’s website. And indeed, the 245 films on their list make up about 5% of Netflix’s total movie library in the US. (It’s hard to pin down exactly how many movies Netflix offers in any given country, given that the platform adds and removes movies every month, but most estimates hover around 4,500.) A 2015 report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found a slightly different, but equally dismal statistic: Women accounted for about 9% of directors of the year’s top 250 domestic grossing films, up 2% from the year before.
The Film Fatales list includes everything from documentary films, to horror, to The Hurt Locker. Chick flicks are on the list too, and many of them even pass the Bechdel test, which requires a film have two named women in it who talk to each other about something other than men. The 1995 classic Clueless, directed by Amy Heckerling, is an example of one such film. It features a trio of female characters, who talk to each other about making good grades and becoming strong women, in addition to who they want to date.
If you’re looking for an overtly feminist flick, try A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall, for a film about women taking on an activity usually reserved for men—baseball. Or try Itty Bitty Titty Committee, directed by Jamie Babbit, for a film about a romance between two members of a radical feminist collective.
The majority of the films on the list are about women’s experiences, but that doesn’t mean that men can’t watch and enjoy them too. After all, one good reason to increase diversity in Hollywood is to offer viewers new perspectives.