The Best Documentaries For Women’s History Month

Women have been putting in the work for a long time, moving the needle one movement at a time and risking their careers, reputations, and relationships to see the dream of equality come to fruition. And these documentaries, they prove that.

To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’ve rounded up some of the most fascinating and inspiring films that shine a light on the fight for Women’s Rights. Whether it’s on the field, on the screen, in the courtroom, the boardroom, or on the battlefield, these docs show the courage and determination women have had to wield to get sh*t done. Applaud them by streaming some.

Year: 2018

Cast: Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Richard Nixon

Genre: Documentary, Biography

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 133 minutes

Director: Susan Lacy

Trailer: Watch Here

Plenty of celebrities claim to be activists but few have the mugshots and the decades of boots-on-the-ground work that actress Jane Fonda does. Yes, she protested the Vietnam War, and yes, the moniker “Hanoi Jane” still sticks some 50 years later, but Fonda’s philanthropic and revolutionary efforts extend past just one war. She balanced her unparalleled resume on-screen — in films like 9 to 5 that pushed the women’s cause forward — with protest efforts behind the camera, giving us a model for what intersectional feminism looks like by proving it’s possible to fight for more than just one cause. This doc pieces together her history of activism, focusing on her work with women’s movements in the Middle East, South America, the States, Africa, and beyond, with some illuminating and colorful commentary by the A-list friends who know her best.

Year: 2021

Cast: Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Rachel Maddow

Genre: Documentary, Sports

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 105 minutes

Director: Sean Fine, Andrea Nix

Trailer: Watch Here

This HBO doc understands the best argument for equal pay in the world of women’s sports won’t take place in a courtroom — it happens on the field. After years of asking for better pay and working conditions, the U.S. Women’s Soccer team started demanding equity in their sport instead, and they do so here by dominating in the 2019 World Cup, bringing yet another star home for their country as the U.S. Men’s team continues to fail on an international level. With an intimate look into the grueling training and preparation required for the global tournament balanced against the draining legal saga some of the team’s star players, including Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, had to contend with while fighting for each World Cup win, the doc makes a compelling case for why the onus of equal pay shouldn’t fall on the players’ shoulders.

Year: 2021

Cast: Iliza Shlesinger, Sherri Shepherd, Margaret Cho

Genre: Documentary, Comedy

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 87 minutes

Director: Andrea Blaugrund Nevins

Trailer: Watch Here

Being funny is hard work, especially when you’re a female comedian contending with the toxic boys’ club of stand-up. Still, this condensed and refreshingly honest look at life on the stage never gets bogged down by the negative. Instead, as is their way, the women tapped to tell their stories manage to find the humor and reliability amongst all the muck they’ve waded through. Sitdown interviews with names like Iliza Shlesinger and Margaret Cho are coupled with archive footage of the legends who came before them — think Joan Rivers and Ali Wong — and more recent, headline-making acts from newcomers like Kelly Bachman who went viral for calling out Harvey Weinstein during her set. The punchline may be the ridiculous, cringe-worthy hoops these women were made to jump through to be considered funny but thankfully, they kept going and this doc goes a long way in highlighting the progress they’ve made.

Year: 2019

Cast: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush

Genre: Documentary

Rating: PG

Runtime: 87 minutes

Director: Rachel Lears

Trailer: Watch Here

The current political climate is so bogged down by partisan in-fighting and performative outrage it’s easy to forget that Capitol Hill used to be a place where people went to fight for change. We’re not saying this doc, which follows the grassroots campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will make you believe in Democracy again, but it is inspiring, just in a different way. By showcasing her charisma and approachability while also diving into more intimate parts of her life, like her relationship with her late father, this feel-good look at the rise of Ocasio-Cortez remind us of the power women can wield when they set their mind to something.

Year: 2019

Cast: Beyonce, Jay-Z

Genre: Documentary, Music

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 137 minutes

Director: Beyonce, Ed Burke

Trailer: Watch Here

Beyoncé’s history-making Coachella performance was enough to temporarily rename the music festival Beychella a few years ago but for fans who couldn’t afford to see Queen Bee perform live, this backstage pass is more than just a concert in streaming form. Are there killer performances, musical mash-ups, and dance routines Sure. But what really makes this music doc stand out besides the talent of its star is the intimate look fans are given into Beyoncé’s personal life, from her surprise pregnancy to her struggle to get in shape before the event and all the in-between madness and heartbreak.

Year: 2018

Cast: Donna Howard, Brigitte Amiri

Genre: Documentary, Historical

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 99 minutes

Director: Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg

Trailer: Watch Here

Watching this doc in light of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade is, admittedly, difficult. It’s devastating to see the predictions made here — that eventually, the government and not women will decide what happens to women’s bodies — come true. But even if we know where the journey has stalled, it doesn’t make the incredible work done by the activists in this film, or the knowledge of the bloody history of this fight, any less important. From the women who marched to the lawmakers who tried to legislate protections for women’s healthcare to the clinic workers injured and killed when “pro-life” activists committed acts of domestic terrorism, there’s something to be learned here. At the very least, you’ll come away angry and motivated to continue the fight.

Year: 2018

Cast: Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Laurie Anderson

Genre: Documentary

Rating: NA

Runtime: 86 minutes

Director: Johanna Demetrakas

Trailer: Watch Here

If you’ve ever wondered what historians are talking about when they distinguish between first, second, and third-wave feminism, this doc will go a long way in educating you on the movement in a way that feels less pedantic and more inspiring. It recruits artists and feminists like Judy Chicago, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Sally Kirkland to examine feminism in the 1970s by way of a pivotal photo project by Cynthia MacAdams that captured the Equal Rights Movement as it was happening. In doing so, it delivers a broader definition of feminism, one that’s graduated from Suffragette iconography to a portrait that crosses lines of race, class, privilege, and profession. It’s both inspiring, to see how far the cause has come and galvanizing, to see how far it still needs to go.

Year: 2020

Cast: Maggie Nichols, Rachael Denhollander

Genre: Documentary, Sports

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 103 minutes

Director: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk

Trailer: Watch Here

When women accomplish something as profoundly difficult as competing at the Olympics, they often have a more challenging road to get there than their male counterparts. That’s especially true for the female gymnasts featured in this powerful, award-winning documentary that exposes the abuse and cover-ups at the center of the women’s national team’s success. The Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal rocked the world of gymnastics just a few years ago and this film looks at the controversy from the point of view of reporters at the Indianapolis Star in charge of exposing it. A cover-up spanning two decades and involving higher-ups at both US Gymnastics and Michigan State where Nassar served as a physician and professor, this revealing investigation into a sinister culture that’s hidden behind the success of its top female athletes makes you rethink everything you thought about the Olympic dream, and what’s sacrificed in pursuit of it.

Year: 2015

Cast: Malala Yousafzai, Ziauddin Yousafzai

Genre: Documentary

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 88 minutes

Director: Davis Guggenheim

Trailer: Watch Here

You likely already know the story of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl targeted by the Taliban for insisting that women have the same right to an education as men. But that assassination attempt on a school bus in 2012 wasn’t the end of her story. It wasn’t the beginning of it either, as this award-winning doc sets out to prove. Named for an Afghani folk hero, Malala was a rebel and a fighter from an early age, one of the few girls in her village who continued her education despite threats from grown men trying to suppress her potential. The film explores how her father inspired her quest — warning, you’ll get misty-eyed anytime the pair talk about their bond on-screen — and how that tragic day galvanized the Nobel Peace Prize-winning work that would follow.

Year: 2022

Cast: Abby, Judith Arcana, Heather Booth

Genre: Documentary, Historical

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 101 minutes

Director: Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes

Trailer: Watch Here

So much of the work done when it comes to Women’s Rights is done in the shadows, by ordinary people taking extraordinary risks to do what’s right. This doc shines a much-needed light on those women by telling a little-known story that feels like the plot of an award-winning drama. The Jane Collective was an underground group of revolutionaries that used code names and safe houses to help women find safe, affordable access to abortion in the early 70s. Their story is fascinating, harrowing, and at times, nerve-wracking but to spoil it anymore would be to rob you of the chance to experience the broad range of emotions inspired by watching women sacrifice everything to help women.