The Best Female Director Movies on Prime Video

What it's about: A California high school student plans to escape from her family and small town by going to college in New York, much to the disapproval of wildly loving, deeply opinionated and strong-willed mother.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 5 others).

What it's about: A father and daughter live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. But when a small mistake tips them off to authorities, they are sent on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle, PopcornFlix, Tubi & 1 other), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu, Sundance Now & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: The Square, a new film by Jehane Noujaim (Control Room; Rafea: Solar Mama), looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Catapulting us into the action spread across 2011 and 2012, the film provides a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of the struggle. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarek’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix, Prime Video & Fandor) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 2 services (Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: A chaotic Bridget Jones meets a snobbish lawyer, and he soon enters her world of imperfections.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but has to live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho’s university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance. However, Jessica has not been raised to be a servant and her very existence will turn Val’s routine on its head. With precision and humour, the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth may just be the ones to shake it all up.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A traumatised veteran, unafraid of violence, tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, Joe's nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Follows the dramatic journeys of video game developers as they create and release their games to the world. It's about making video games, but at its core, it's about the creative process, and exposing yourself through your work. In short: Making fun and games is anything but fun and games.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Meru is the electrifying story of three elite American climbers—Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk—bent on achieving the impossible.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A young boy makes a snowman one Christmas Eve, which comes to life at midnight and takes the boy on a magical adventure to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Ameba) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, an orphaned teen must battle a ruthless warlord to save the girl of his dreams.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Shudder) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A semi-fictionalized documentary about a day in the life of Australian musician Nick Cave's persona.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Cinefest, Docurama & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A legendary late-night talk show host's world is turned upside down when she hires her only female staff writer. Originally intended to smooth over diversity concerns, her decision has unexpectedly hilarious consequences as the two women separated by culture and generation are united by their love of a biting punchline.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: The Los Angeles punk music scene circa 1980 is the focus of this film. With Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Shout Factory TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: Based on the experiences of Nebraska cop Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) who discovers a deadly sex trafficking ring while serving as a U.N. peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia. Risking her own life to save the lives of others, she uncovers an international conspiracy that is determined to stop her, no matter the cost.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A single mother and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in the off-beat dramatic comedy. In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school the mom starts an unusual business – a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Tribeca Short List) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: Angelique, a young student, is in love with a married doctor. We see her attempts to make him leave his pregnant wife, but he does not appear for meetings or finally the booked journey to Florence. Then the movie is turned back to the beginning, and the view changes: We are now following the view of the doctor instead of Angeliques. And things look quite different now...

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: Víctor receives an unusual proposal, to carry 7 boxes of unknown content through the Market Number 4 but things get complicated along the way.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Adam Goldberg delivers "an uproarious study in transatlantic culture panic" as Jack, an anxious, hypochondriac-prone New Yorker vacationing throughout Europe with his breezy, free-spirited Parisian girlfriend, Marion. But when they make a two-day stop in Marion's hometown, the couple's romantic trip takes a turn as Jack is exposed to Marion's sexually perverse and emotionally unstable family.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: During the chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon as the panicked South Vietnamese people desperately attempt to escape. On the ground, American soldiers and diplomats confront a moral quandary: whether to obey White House orders to evacuate only U.S. citizens.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: In 1950s Australia, beautiful, talented dressmaker Tilly returns to her tiny hometown to right wrongs from her past. As she tries to reconcile with her mother, she starts to fall in love while transforming the fashion of the town.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But the girls must fend for themselves when Gum doesn't return from one of his adventures. Together, they nurture their passions for acting, aviation and ballet in this charming TV adaptation of Noel Streatfield's novel.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Musician Cat Power narrates this documentary on Janis Joplin's evolution into a star from letters that Joplin wrote over the years to her friends, family, and collaborators.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In its first 25 years only 10 people have finished The Barkley Marathons. Based on a historic prison escape, this cult like race tempts people from around the world to test their limits of physical and mental endurance in this documentary that contemplates the value of pain.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & fuboTV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However her spells work too well, and she ends up with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will drive her to the brink of insanity and murder.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Shudder & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: An exploration of the heavy metal scene in Los Angeles, with particular emphasis on glam metal. It features concert footage and interviews of legendary heavy metal and hard rock bands and artists such as Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Megadeth, Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne and W.A.S.P..

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Dr. Louis Creed's family moves into the country house of their dreams and discover a pet cemetery at the back of their property. The cursed burial ground deep in the woods brings the dead back to life -- with "minor" problems. At first, only the family's cat makes the return trip, but an accident forces a heartbroken father to contemplate the unthinkable.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, Starz & 1 other), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: Martin, a young blind photographer, is divided between his friendship with restaurant worker Andy and the exclusive love that Celia, who is terribly jealous of this new friendship, has for him.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Some 200 women defiantly cling to their ancestral homeland in Chernobyl’s radioactive “Exclusion Zone.”

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Docurama) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Wendy, a near-penniless drifter, is traveling to Alaska in search of work, and her only companion is her dog, Lucy. Already perilously close to losing everything, Wendy hits a bigger bump in the road when her old car breaks down and she is arrested for shoplifting dog food. When she posts bail and returns to retrieve Lucy, she finds that the dog is gone, prompting a frantic search for her pet.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Sundance Now & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: 14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Fandor & Epix), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney shot his classmate Larry King twice in the back of the head during first period. When Larry died two days later, his murder shocked the nation. Was this a hate crime, one perpetrated by a budding neo-Nazi whose masculinity was threatened by an effeminate gay kid who may have had a crush on him? Or was there even more to it?

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, HBO, Prime Video & 1 other), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Newly transferred to the bustling port city of Marseille to assist with a crackdown on organized crime, energetic young magistrate Pierre Michel is given a rapid-fire tutorial on the ins and outs of an out-of-control drug trade. Pierre's wildly ambitious mission is to take on the French Connection, a highly organized operation that controls the city's underground heroin economy and is overseen by the notorious —and reputedly untouchable— Gaetan Zampa. Fearless, determined and willing to go the distance, Pierre plunges into an underworld world of insane danger and ruthless criminals.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: Sophomore year has been a nightmare for Jessica Burns. Relentlessly harassed by her former friend Avery Keller, Jessica doesn't know what she did to deserve the abuse from one of South Brookdale High's most popular and beautiful students. But when a shocking event changes both of their lives, a documentary film crew, a hidden digital camera, and the attention of a reeling community begin to reveal the powerful truth about A Girl Like Her.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Sundance Now) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A woman is forced to go on the run when her superhuman abilities are discovered. Years after having abandoned her family, the only place she has left to hide is home.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Epix), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $5.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: "Trouble the Water" takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall--just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her Ninth Ward neighbors trapped in the city. Weaving an insider's view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in-your-face filmmaking, it is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes--two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu) & stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Fandor & Sundance Now).

What it's about: Follows three young, committed Public Defenders who are dedicated to working for the people society would rather forget. Long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads are so common that even the most committed often give up.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Morvern Callar wakes on Christmas morning to discover that her troubled boyfriend has committed suicide, leaving behind the unpublished manuscript to his first novel and a sum of money intended to pay for his burial. Instead, Morvern attempts to use both to reinvent her life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

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