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Favorite Female Ensemble Cast Films

Movie list created by kathy

Sort by: Showing 27 items

Decade: Rating: List Type:

5.8

6.2

Bonneville (2006)

Director: Christopher N. Rowley
Starring: Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Joan Allen, Tom Skerritt, Christine Baranski, Victor Rasuk and Tom Wopat

Faced with the decision of a lifetime, Arvilla Holden loads up her 1966 Bonneville convertible and, with her friends in tow, sets out from Pocatello, Idaho en route to Santa Barbara.

As they detour to spots like Bryce Canyon and Las Vegas, it doesn’t take long for the women to realize Arvilla has something unexpected in store. But what none of them realize is that what began as a simple trip will end up becoming a chance to rediscover themselves, their friendship, the importance of promises - and of letting go.

kathy's rating:

389

6.2

6.9

Calendar Girls (2003) (2003)

Director: Nigel Cole
Starring: Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Geraldine James, Philip Glenister, Ciarán Hinds, John Alderton, George Costigan and John-Paul Macleod

A Women's Institute chapter's fundraising effort for a local hospital by posing nude for a calendar becomes a media sensation.

kathy's rating:

9.5

6.4

Chantilly Lace (1993)

Director: Linda Yellen
Starring: Ally Sheedy, Helen Slater, Jill Eikenberry, Lindsay Crouse, JoBeth Williams, Martha Plimpton and Talia Shire

A group of seven women (an animal breeder, a housewife, a photo-journalist, a film critic, a copywriter, an artist and a nun) reunite three times a year to share their experiences with each other.

kathy's rating:

313

7.7

7.8

The Children's Hour

Director: William Wyler
Based on the play by Lillian Hellman
Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Audrey Hepburn, James Garner, Miriam Hopkins, Fay Bainter, Karen Balkin, Veronica Cartwright, Mimi Gibson, William Mims, Sally Brophy and Hope Summers

A troublemaking student at a girls' school accuses two teachers of being lesbians.

kathy's rating:

8.2

6.9

Close to Home (2005)

Directors: Dalia Hager and Vidi Bilu
Starring: Smadar Sayar, Naama Schendar, Irit Suki and Katia Zimbris

Smadar and Mirit, both 18 years old, are assigned to patrol the streets of Jerusalem together as part of their military service. Worlds apart in their personality, their initial frosty relationship becomes a friendship as they deal with their own emotional issues, the crushes and break-ups in their love lives, as well as the political realities of the city in which they live.

kathy's rating:

492

6.9

6.7

Cracks (2009)

Director: Jordan Scott
Starring: Eva Green, Juno Temple, María Valverde, Imogen Poots, Sinéad Cusack and James McGovern

Jealousy flares after the swimming coach at an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

kathy's rating:

6.9

6.4

Crimes of the Heart (1987)

Director: Bruce Beresford
Starring: Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Diane Keaton, Tess Harper, Sam Shepard and Hurd Hatfield

Three sisters with quite different personalities and lives reunite when the youngest of them, Babe, has just shot her husband. The oldest sister, Lenny, takes care of their grandfather and is turning into an old maid, while Meg, who tries to make it in Hollywood as a singer/actress, has had a wild life filled with many men. Their reunion causes much joy, but also many tensions.

kathy's rating:

1526

6.9

7.2

The Descent (2005)

Director: Neil Marshall
Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Buring and Nora-Jane Noone

Six female friends, led by thrill seeker Juno, go caving a year after a tragic incident. But when they get trapped under the earth, all rationale escapes them as they start to suffer from limited oxygen and delusions - or are they? Now, the friends must find a way to escape the cave and the murky creatures that lie within it.

kathy's rating:

8.8

6.5

Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate

Director: Ted Post
Starring: Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Myrna Loy, Sylvia Sidney and Vince Edwards

Four elderly female friends are devoted to practical jokes. When one of the ladies gets obtains a computer-dating questionnaire, the others invent a mythical girl and feed the falsified information into the computer. Alas, the description matches a very real young lady, who becomes the target of a murderous rapist.

kathy's rating:

103

6.4

6.8

Female Agents (2008)

Director: Jean-Paul Salomé
Starring: Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Deborah Francois, Marie Gillain, Moritz Bleibtreu, Julien Boisselier and Maya Sansa

In May 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive commando group under the command of Louise Desfontaines and her brother Pierre. Their mission - to rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy and to kill a German SS colonel who is close to figuring out the imminent secret of D-Day - proves to be emotional and brutal.

kathy's rating:

6.6

6.1

Foxes (1980)

Director: Adrian Lyne
Starring: Jodie Foster, Cherie Currie, Marilyn Kagan, Kandice Stroh, Scott Baio, Grant Wilson, Sally Kellerman, Randy Quaid, Lois Smith, Adam Faith, Fredric Lehne and Wayne Storm

A group of four teenage girls come of age in the asphalt desert of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley arranged with a blazing soundtrack and endless drinking, drugs and sex.

kathy's rating:

1080

7.4

7.7

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

Director: Jon Avnet
Starring: Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker, Cicely Tyson, Chris O'Donnell, Stan Shaw, Gailard Sartain, Timothy Scott, Gary Basaraba, Lois Smith, Danny Nelson and Richard Riehle

A housewife who is unhappy with her life befriends an old lady in a nursing home and is enthralled by the tales she tells of people she used to know.

kathy's rating:

1613

7.7

The Help (2011)

Director: Tate Taylor
Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson, Sissy Spacek, Ahna O'Reilly, Anna Camp, Chris Lowell, Brian Kerwin and Mike Vogel

An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids' point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.

kathy's rating:

6.4

5.9

How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980)

Director: Robert Scheerer
Starring: Jessica Lange, Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, Dabney Coleman, Fred Willard, Richard Benjamin, Eddie Albert, Cathryn Damon and Garrett Morris

In order to beat inflation and subsidise their alimony cheques, three suburban housewives plot to steal one million dollars from a large plastic ball displayed in a local shopping centre.

kathy's rating:

6.9

If These Walls Could Talk (1996)

Directors: Nancy Savoca and Cher
Starring: Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek, Cher, Anne Heche, Jada Pinkett, Shirley Knight, Catherine Keener, Jason London, CCH Pounder, Xander Berkeley, Hedy Burress, Eileen Brennan, Lindsay Crouse, Craig T. Nelson and Matthew Lillard

A portrait of three women from three generations - all who occupied the same house at various times - who had unwanted pregnancies. A recently widowed nurse struggling to take control of her life in the early '50s. A mother of four overwhelmed by trying to raise a family and maintain a career in the '70s. A young student making a decision with the help of one woman that will change the course of both their lives in the '90s.

kathy's rating:

127

7.5

7.1

If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000)

Directors: Jane Anderson, Martha Coolidge and Anne Heche
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Chloë Sevigny, Michelle Williams, Sharon Stone, Ellen DeGeneres, Marian Seldes, Nia Long, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Carlson, Paul Giamatti, Elizabeth Perkins, Jenny O'Hara, Regina King, Kathy Najimy, Mitchell Anderson and George Newbern

A portrait of three women from three generations - all who occupied the same house at various times - who love women. In 1961, an elderly woman is "widowed" when her companion of 50 years dies. In 1972, a feminist co-ed lets her sexual politics take the back seat to a powerful attraction when she finds herself seduced by an outsider. And in 2000, a couple with almost everything that two women can have, want the one thing they can't have - unless something more than fate intervenes.

kathy's rating:

1156

6.7

7.3

A League of Their Own

Director: Penny Marshall
Starring: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Lori Petty, Rosie O'Donnell, Anne Ramsay, Megan Cavanagh, Ann Cusack, Lynn Cartwright, Téa Leoni, Pauline Brailsford, Jon Lovitz, David Strathairn, Garry Marshall and Bill Pullman

Two sisters join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amidst their own growing rivalry.

kathy's rating:

7.5

6.5

Little Darlings (1980)

Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
Starring: Tatum O'Neal, Kristy McNichol, Armand Assante, Matt Dillon, Nicolas Coster and Cynthia Nixon

Two 15-year old girls from different sides of the tracks compete to see who will be first to lose their virginity while at camp.

kathy's rating:

183

7.2

Made in Dagenham (2010)

Director: Nigel Cole
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Andrea Riseborough, Geraldine James, Jaime Winstone, Rosamund Pike, Rupert Graves, Daniel Mays, John Sessions, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Kenneth Cranham, Nicola Duffett and Phil Cornwell

A dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination.

kathy's rating:

7.9

7.6

Maidens in Uniform

Director: Leontine Sagan
Based on the novel and play by Christa Winsloe
Starring: Hertha Thiele, Dorothea Wieck, Emilia Unda, Gertrud de Lalsky, Ellen Schwanneke, Marte Hein, Hedwig Schlichter, Lene Berdolt, Lisi Scheerbach, Margory Bodker, Erika Mann, Else Ehser, Ilse Winter, Charlotte Witthauer, Erika Biebrach, Ethel Reschke, Annemarie von Rochhausen, Ilse Vigdor, Barabara Pirk and Doris Thalme

kathy's rating:

3885

6.6

Mean Girls (2004)

Director: Mark Waters
Screenplay: Tina Fey
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Lizzy Caplan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Poehler, Lacey Chabert, Jonathan Bennett and Daniel Franzese

After growing up abroad, teenager Cady Heron moves to Chicago, where she quickly makes inroads into the most popular clique in high school - that is, until the ex-boyfriend of one of the clique members falls in love with Cady … then there's hell to pay.

kathy's rating:

273

6.8

6.9

Nine to Five

Director: Colin Higgins
Starring: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, ‎Dabney Coleman, Marian Mercer, Sterling Hayden, Henry Jones, Peggy Pope, Elizabeth Wilson and Lawrence Pressman

Office satire about three female secretaries who decide to get revenge on their tyrannical, sexist boss by abducting him and running the business themselves. The trio, one of whom has been passed over for promotion because she is a woman, spend a night together having drug-induced fantasies of killing the slave-driving chauvinist. One of them panics the following day when she suspects she really has poisoned the tyrant.

kathy's rating:

7.1

6.8

Paradise Road (1997)

Director: Bruce Beresford
Starring: Glenn Close, Cate Blanchett, Frances McDormand, Julianna Margulies, Jennifer Ehle, Wendy Hughes, Elizabeth Spriggs and Pauline Collins

A group of women from different countries - including an educated British musician, an Australian nurse and an American socialite - leave Singapore during World War II. When their boat is attacked, they wash up in Japanese-occupied Sumatra and end up in a POW camp. Conditions there are grim, with prisoners brutally punished for minor violations. But the captives soon decide to form a singing group that just may lift these very different women out of misery.

kathy's rating:

1398

5.5

5.6

Sex and the City (2008)

Director: Michael Patrick King
Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Jason Lewis, Evan Handler, Willie Garson, Mario Cantone, Lynn Cohen, Jennifer Hudson and Candice Bergen

A New York writer on sex and love is finally getting married to her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.

kathy's rating:

7.3

5.4

She'll Be Wearing Pink Pyjamas (1985)

Director: John Goldschmidt
Starring: Julie Walters, Anthony Higgins, Jane Evers, Janet Henfrey, Paula Jacobs, Penelope Nice, Maureen O'Brien, Alyson Spiro, Jane Wood and Pauline Yates

Eight women attend one of Britain's toughest survival schools to challenge themselves and conquer their fears. They learn that there is more to survival than passing the course.

kathy's rating:

571

6.8

7.3

Steel Magnolias (1989)

Director: Herbert Ross
Starring: Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott, Kevin J. O'Connor and Sam Shepard

A young beautician, newly arrived in a small Louisiana town, finds work at the local salon, where a small group of women share a close bond of friendship and welcome her into the fold.

kathy's rating:

7.3

Women of Valor

Director: Buzz Kulik
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Kristy McNichol, Alberta Watson, Valerie Mahaffey and Terry O'Quinn

World War II drama about the courage and determination shown by a group of U.S. Army nurses who are taken captive by Japanese troops during the invasion of the Philippines and thrown into a PoW camp in Bataan, where they suffer humiliations and hardships at their hands.

kathy's rating: