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Directors Guild Of America Names 80 Best Films, But Only One Is Directed By A Woman

Directors Guild Of America Names 80 Best Films, But Only One Is Directed By A Woman
Directors Guild Of America Names 80 Best Films, Only One Is Directed Woman

The Directors Guild of America is celebrating its 80th anniversary by releasing a list of their 80 best-directed feature films. 

Compiled of more than 2,000 DGA members who voted for their favorites, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 drama “The Godfather” topped the list as the best directed film in the last 80 years. His films “The Godfather Part II” and “Apocalypse Now” were also among the top ten.

The list is quite impressive and filled with classics such as “Citizen Kane,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Casablanca,” “Schindler’s List,” “Gone With the Wind” and “Goodfellas,” who round out the top 10. What is most interesting is that only one film directed by a female made the list. Who would that be? It’s none other than Kathryn Bigelow and her 2009 Oscar-winner “The Hurt Locker” which comes in at 56 on the list. 

READ MORE: Indie Film Industry Still Has Woefully Few Female Directors, A New Study Reports

While it’s no secret that there lacks a number of women directors in all aspects of the industry, a new study titled “Women In Independent Film” recently demonstrated that though women directors fared better in the independent realm than with major studios, the percentage of women behind the camera is “stagnant.” It also stated that women are “not close to achieving parity in the independent realm.”

According to the DGA site, women only make up 22.7% of all DGA members with 14% being director members. The Guild hopes to be able to include more women and minorities into it’s group and states that they do not hire directors, they are only a reflection of employers’ hiring practices, “Eligibility for membership is generally based on who employers hire. The more women and ethnic minorities are hired to work in DGA-covered capacities, the more women and ethnic minorities will become new DGA members.”

So ultimately more men were voting for their favorites with a possibility of skewing the list to include more men. 

READ MORE: Full Frame: Why Are Women Filmmakers Finding More Opportunities in Documentaries?

Other notable directors included in the DGA list are Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick with five films each, Alfred Hitchcock with four, Martin Scorsese and David Lean each have three. Alejandro G. Iñárritu, James Cameron, Ridley Scott and Quentin Tarantino also formed part of the list. 

You can check all 80 by clicking here. 

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