This week, Barbie became the first female-directed film to reach $1 billion (that’s almost £789 million) at the box office. But while Greta Gerwig may be the first woman to helm such a successful cinematic endeavour, she certainly won’t be the last. 

As more and more women directors finally receive the recognition they deserve, let’s take a look at some of the most anticipated female-directed films coming later this year.

Saltburn, directed by Emerald Fennell

Starring Jacob Elordi, Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike, the film is set in the mid-2000s and follows an Oxford student who develops an obsession with a wealthy classmate and his family while visiting their estate. As Deadline reported, it’s a dark story about a “grand, aristocratic English family”. 

The BFI recently announced that Saltburn will have its international debut at the London Film Festival later this year. “I’m honoured that our film is able to open this year’s BFI London Film Festival,” Fennell said. “It is a festival that inspired me so much growing up, one that I followed excitedly from my bedroom on the other side of London. It feels extra-special that Saltburn, this very British tale of excess, is able to make its international debut at the wonderful BFI.”

Starring: Jacob Elordi, Barry Keoghan, Rosamund Pike, Alison Oliver, Carey Mulligan, Richard E Grant, Archie Madekwe

Release date: London Film Festival premiere on 4 October 2023; in UK cinemas 24 November 2023

Priscilla, directed by Sofia Coppola

From Sofia Coppola – a director known for her unique ability to blend sumptuous femininity with real darkness in films such as Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides – comes Priscilla, a new look at the life of Priscilla Presley, the wife of Elvis. This film comes just one year after Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated Elvis. But from what we hear, it will be very different in its focus on a female perspective.

“I’m excited to do something rooted in that Americana style for the first time,” Coppola told Vogue. “And Priscilla is a quintessential glamour icon. I was just so interested in Priscilla’s story and her perspective on what it all felt like to grow up as a teenager in Graceland. She was going through all the stages of young womanhood in such an amplified world – kind of similarly to Marie Antoinette.”

Starring: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Dagmara Dominczyk

Release date: Venice Film Festival premiere on 4 September 2023; UK cinema release date TBC

You Hurt My Feelings, directed by Nicole Holofcener

A film that looks unflinchingly at the anxiety and emotional turbulence of creativity and middle age, as a novelist’s marriage turns to chaos when she accidentally hears her psychologist husband discussing her latest novel. YMHF stars comedic genius Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld and Veep fame alongside Tobias Menzies, most recently seen in House of the Dragon.

Though it’s peppered with wry humour, the film is also filled with agonising honesty. “A lifetime of wondering if people are lying to me inspired the idea. And when they don’t lie, can I cope with that?” said Hologcener to Filmmaker Magazine, adding: “My movies are so obviously growing with me. The characters just slowly become my age, and the issues are the issues that are important to me at the time.”

Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed

Release date: Out now on Prime Video

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, directed by Raven Jackson

Directed and written by American artist Raven Jackson, All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt tells the epic, multi-generational tale of a woman’s life in Mississippi. “Tender caresses and enveloping embraces are portals into the life of Mack, a Black woman in Mississippi,” reads a Sundance Film Festival synopsis. “Winding through the anticipation, love, and heartbreak she experiences from childhood to adulthood, the expressionist journey is an ode to connection – with loved ones and with place.” The film stars British actor Sheila Atim, known for The Woman King and Bruised, in the lead role.

Starring: Sheila Atim

Release date: UK release date to be announced

Fair Play, directed by Chloe Domont

Starring Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor and Oppenheimer’s Alden Ehrenreich, Fair Play is a new Netflix thriller following an engaged couple whose relationship unravels as they work together at a high-stakes hedge fund.

“It was a story that was burning inside of me and a story I couldn’t not tell,” first-time feature director Chloe Domont told Netflix’s Tudum. “I wanted to reckon with some unresolved feelings I had in the past, specifically dating men who I felt were threatened by either my ambition or any little bits of accomplishments. These dynamics should no longer be normalised.” Based on what we know so far, this is sure to be one film that resonates with a lot of women.

Starring: Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan, Sebastian de Souza

Release date: On Netflix from 13 October 2023

Past Lives, directed by Celine Song

One of the most celebrated films to come out of the Sundance Film Festival in January, Celine Song’s gorgeous Past Lives follows two childhood friends who, after being separated for years, reunite in New York. Both have moved on and created their own lives — but as old feelings resurface, the pair wrestle with the emotional pull of the past.

As Song told The Hollywood Reporter, the Korean-American film is inspired by her experiences as a Korean immigrant. “There’s a bar in the East Village that I ended up in because I was living around there,” she said. “And I was sitting there with my childhood sweetheart who flew in from Korea, now he is a friend, who only really speaks Korean, and my American husband who only really speaks English. And I was sitting there trying to translate these two guys trying to communicate, and I felt like something really special was going on. I was sort of becoming a bridge or a portal between these two men and also, in some ways, these two worlds of language and culture. Something about that moment really sparked something, and then it made me really feel like maybe this could be a movie.”

Starring: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro

Release date: In UK cinemas 30 August 2023

Bottoms, directed by Emma Seligman

In 2021, Emma Seligman’s directorial debut Shiva Baby became an instant cult classic. This year, Seligman is reuniting with the film’s star Rachel Sennott for Bottoms, a teen comedy about two female high schoolers who start their own fight club in a ruse to hook up with cheerleaders.

Seligman, who co-wrote the film with Sennott, told Alternative Press about their process. “I was like, ‘I have one comedy idea and I want it to be a queer teen sex comedy for queer girls,’” she said. “But also, I wanted them to be heroes who save the day and fight in some capacity. That’s all I had for her, and she was like, ‘Great. I want to see horny women,’ and came at it from her perspective. Then we hit the ground running.” Sign us up.

Starring: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Nicholas Galitzine, Ruby Cruz, Kaia Gerber

Release date: In UK cinemas 25 August 2023

Lee, directed by Ellen Kuras

Lee is the first feature directed by Ellen Kuras, best-known as the cinematographer of A Little Chaos and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Starring Kate Winslet, the biopic follows war journalist Lee Miller who famously photographed the frontlines of World War II.

Starring: Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Alexander Skarsgård, Andrea Riseborough, Josh O’Connor

Release date: Toronto Film Festival premiere this September; UK cinema release date TBC

Janet Planet, directed by Annie Baker

Annie Baker has quickly become one of the most exciting playwrights around – now, she’s making her directorial debut with Janet Planet, a mother-daughter drama set in rural New England. It’s billed as “a work of surreal tranquillity that moves at a different, lost pace of life, and which perceives heartbreak just as Lacy [the daughter] is beginning to grasp the world and her place in it”.

Starring: Zoe Ziegler, Julianne Nicholson, Elias Koteas, Sophie Okonedo, Will Patton

Release date: New York Film Festival premiere in the autumn; UK cinema release date TBC

Theatre Camp, directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman

An ode to theatre kids everywhere, Theatre Camp dives into the world of an overnight theatrical camp, with all of its petty rivalries, dramas and eccentricities. While rehearsals may be hectic and theatre kids may be a little nuts, the film ultimately showcases the magic of the stage.

The film is mostly improvised and is directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman. As Booksmart’s Gordon told Harper’s Bazaar, it was very much a group effort. “I need collaboration like I need water,” she said. “If you don’t want to collaborate, you shouldn’t work in film. Other people are going to bring your story to life, whether it be the costume designer or the set decorator. There’s so many people involved, which I love so much, because you can have such a specific vision in your head, but the way that other people bring that to life might be different than you expected and will elevate it in such a wonderful way.”

Starring: Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Jimmy Tatro, Noah Galvin, Ayo Edebiri

Release date: In UK cinemas 25 August 2023

Nightbitch, directed by Marielle Heller

Based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch tells the story of a new mother who abandons her art career to raise her son. Things soon take a turn for the mythical when she finds a strange patch of hair on her body.

Marielle Heller has previously directed The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. This will be her fifth feature.

Starring: Amy Adams, Zoe Chao, Scoot McNairy

Release date: UK cinema release date TBC

Love Lies Bleeding, directed by Rose Glass

Directed by Rose Glass, who made her directorial debut with Saint Maud in 2019, Love Lies Bleeding is an unexpected romance that follows a female bodybuilder (Katy M O’Brian) and her protective lover, played by Kristen Stewart.

As O’Brian told Collider, the film will be a blend of genres. “In the original script there were a lot of Saint Maud kind of moments,” she said. “Like body horror, that kind of thing. We kind of had to consolidate it I guess a little bit more. I’m really excited to see what the final edit looks like, but I think it’s more focused on the love story and more focused on the thriller aspect. So it’s a love thriller, kind of western. It’s shot like a western.” A love-thriller-western – we can’t wait!

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy M O’Brian, Dave Franco

Release date: UK cinema release date TBC

Images: A24, MGM Studios, Prime Video, Sky Cinema, Netflix, Getty