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Celebrating Women’s History Month in the cinemas
The March 2024 repertory film roundup
Stephen Silver
March is Women’s History Month, and the region’s repertory film venues are showing a wide variety of films featuring women as protagonists and directors. From the legendary Pam Grier to one of the hottest directors in Hollywood today, Greta Gerwig, there are plenty of chances to see films starring and written, produced, or directed by women.
The highlights
Pam Grier: Coffy with Foxy
Coffy
Friday, March 1, 4:30 and 7pm
Saturday, March 16, 7:30pm
Foxy Brown
Friday, March 1, 9:15pm
Saturday, March 16, 3:00pm and 5:15pm
PFS East, 125 South 2nd Street, Philadelphia
The Film Society presents two of the most popular 1970s films of the blaxploitation genre, both starring Pam Grier and directed by Jack Hill. Coffy stars Grier as a nurse who fights drug dealers, while Foxy Brown has her avenging her lover. Both inspired Quentin Tarantino to cast Grier in Jackie Brown 25 years later, while both films are subjects of critic Odie Henderson’s new book Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema.
Lady Bird
March 3, 7, and 11, 2024
PFS East, 125 South 2nd Street, Philadelphia
Wednesday, March 6, 7:15pm
Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr
Gerwig directed the much-Oscar-nominated Barbie, and six years before that came her feature directorial debut, 2017’s Lady Bird. The acclaimed film starred Saoirse Ronan as a working-class teenager dreaming of escaping her native Sacramento.
It’s playing multiple times throughout March, with the Film Society choosing it as part of its PFS Member 50, while BMFI is offering a seminar led by Elizabeth Nathanson, PhD, of Muhlenberg College.
Three by Agnes Varda
Varda by Agnès
Sunday, March 17, 1pm
The Beaches of Agnès
Sunday, March 17, 3:30pm
Le Bonheur
Sunday, March 17, 6pm
The Film Society is presenting several Agnès Varda films in March. Part of it is a triple feature of the late French master’s films on a single day, including two of her later works and one of her earlier ones. The films come ahead of the arrival in August of A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnès Varda, the upcoming biography by longtime Philadelphia critic Carrie Rickey.
Rose
Thursday, March 7, 7pm
Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 South Independence Mall East, Philadelphia
Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media presents a special International Women’s Day showing of Aurélie Saada’s 2021 French film about a 78-year-old woman rediscovering herself following the death of her husband. Not many movies are in French and Yiddish with English subtitles, but this one is.
More cinema screenings
American Psycho
Friday, March 1
Colonial Theatre
Midnight Cowboy
Saturday, March 2
PFS East
The Way We Were
Sunday, March 3
Colonial Theatre
Thelma and Louise
Sunday, March 3
Water Tower Cinema
Impulse
Wednesday, March 6
PhilaMOCA
Labyrinth
Wednesday, March 6 and Sunday, March 10
Fathom Events (various theaters)
Moonstruck
Friday, March 8
PFS East
The Last Picture Show
Sunday, March 10
Colonial Theatre
Field of Dreams
Saturday, March 16, and Saturday, March 30
Bryn Mawr Film Institute
Network
Monday, March 18
Bryn Mawr Film Institute
Hidden Figures
Thursday, March 21
Ambler Theatre
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Friday, March 22
Ritz Five
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23
Ritz Five
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
Friday, March 22
Hiway Theater
Godzilla (1954)
Saturday, March 23
Hiway Theater
The Iron Giant
Saturday, March 23
Hiway Theater
9 to 5
Thursday, March 28
Philadelphia Film Center, Greenfield
Pandora’s Box
Friday, March 29
Lightbox Film Center
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