Like horror, the thriller genre is often thought of as a masculine genre. Action thrillers in particular are dominated by male protagonists and are often written and directed by men. But that’s not to say women don’t appear in thrillers or don’t enjoy them. Far from it. There are many great female-led thrillers out there, some of which could even be considered feminist in their messages. From The Call to Watcher, here are some must-see feminist thriller movies that fans of the genre will love.
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Brad Anderson’s The Call is an underrated crime thriller starring Halle Berry as a 911 operator and Abigail Breslin as the teenage girl she’s trying to save. The movie begins with Berry’s character, Jordan Turner, on a call with a female victim of a serial killer. The call goes disastrously wrong and Jordan is dealing with the aftermath of this tragedy when she receives a similar call from another teenage girl who’s been abducted (Breslin). Finally, Jordan has a chance to redeem herself, and she will stop at nothing to make sure this girl makes it out alive.
The Call has all the characteristics of a good thriller: it’s fast-paced, suspenseful, and wildly entertaining. But its greatest selling point is its strong lead and depiction of female empowerment. Halle Berry outdoes herself in this role, conveying anxiety and dread impeccably. She has some serious badass scenes in this movie, but her best scenes are those with Breslin’s character Casey. Over the course of their phone call, Jordan and Casey develop a close, nurturing friendship that is beautiful to watch unfold. Eventually, their support of each other culminates in one spectacular showdown between the two women and the killer that, quite frankly, isn’t celebrated enough.
Revenge is a tense action thriller by French director Coralie Fargeat. Falling under the rape-revenge subgenre, it follows a young woman named Jennifer (Matilda Lutz) who is enjoying a romantic getaway with her boyfriend Richard (Kevin Janssens) when his two friends, Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède), show up and wreak havoc. With Richard out of the house one morning, Stan sexually assaults Jennifer, whilst Dimitri turns a blind eye. When Richard gets wind of the news, he reacts in the most despicable way, protecting his friends and leaving Jennifer for dead. Unfortunately for them, she survives.
Revenge is a rape-revenge film done right. It doesn’t subject its viewers to needless scenes of sexual violence and instead focuses on Jennifer’s character, not her trauma. Jennifer is a great character and an even greater heroine. When viewers first meet Jennifer, she’s a sexually liberated, Lolita-type woman, at the mercy of the male gaze and filmed accordingly. After she is assaulted, however, Jennifer loses this mask and the male gaze is flipped on its head. In the absence of men, there are no more lingering shots, only scenes of Jennifer kicking ass and doing it well. Message received: the male gaze is dangerous, but a wronged woman is even more so. (In a different sense, of course.)
A rape-revenge movie with a twist, Promising Young Women ranks highly on the list of best movies released in 2020. Directed by Emerald Fennell in her feature film debut, it stars Carey Mulligan as Cassie, a young woman on the warpath to bring justice to her late friend, Nina. Cassie and Nina attended med school together, and during this time Nina was raped by a classmate named Al Monroe (Christopher Lowell). Despite Nina reporting the incident, Al faced no repercussions for his actions, leading Nina to commit suicide. Since then, Cassie’s made it her mission to trap and punish predatory men and seek revenge for her friend.
Promising Young Woman is a feminist movie through and through. It’s brave, provocative, and completely unapologetic in its message. Viewers one hundred percent side with Cassie and her mission to take down Al and other men like him. If authorities won’t, who will? Seeing Cassie lure these men, feign being inebriated, and then wait for them to make their move before doing a full one-eighty and taking them down is incredibly satisfying to watch. The prey becomes the predator, and Cassie relishes seeing these gross men crumble. She’s fearless, but not without her weaknesses. At the end of the day, she’s a petite woman going up against dangerous men. Promising Young Woman addresses this harsh reality whilst reveling in its revenge narrative.
Liz Garbus’ Lost Girls is a mystery thriller based on the true story of the Long Island Serial Killer, an unidentified serial killer who was active for nearly 20 years and is thought to have murdered between 10-16 individuals, many of whom were female sex workers. The movie stars Amy Ryan as Mari Gilbert, the headstrong mother of missing sex worker Shannan Gilbert (Sarah Wisser). When Mari discovers the police don’t take Shannan’s disappearance seriously, she launches an investigation of her own, exposing police prejudice and incompetence in the process.
Lost Girls is an inspiring, albeit incredibly sad, movie about a mother’s quest for justice. Mari is a force to be reckoned with, and the real-life Mari would have probably loved Amy Ryan’s all-guns-blazing performance. (Unfortunately, she passed away in 2016, after years of advocating for murder victims.) As with the other entries on this list, Lost Girls is a story worth being told, and it isn’t just its strong lead that makes it a feminist movie. The movie is also progressive for focusing on its victims and treating them as human beings: something the police lacked the decency to do.
Watcher is a recent psychological thriller that plays upon every woman’s worst nightmare. Directed by Chloe Okuno, it stars Maika Monroe as a young American woman named Julia who moves to Bucharest with her husband (Karl Glusman) and finds herself a victim of stalking. At first, it begins with Julia noticing the man in the opposite apartment building watching her. Then it escalates to her being followed by the strange man (Burn Gorman) whilst reports of a serial killer circulate the neighborhood. Julia is terrified, but her husband Francis thinks she’s being paranoid. Only time will tell who’s right.
Maika Monroe is most famous for appearing in It Follows, but Watcher is where her acting abilities shine the most. Monroe is incredibly believable as a woman whose intuitions are more reliable than the people around her. Julia is frequently gaslit by her husband and dismissed by the police. Her concerns are relayed back to her in a way that makes her seem crazy, and for a while, she doubts her own reality. But fear not, this is a feminist movie, and it wouldn’t be a feminist movie without Julia proving the bad men wrong and taking back her freedom.
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