Top 4 Movies About Women’s Suffrage That You Should Watching Update 04/2024

Movies About Women's Suffrage

This isn’t a full list of what’s available, but it does include what we could easily find about what’s available on various platforms and at UM. Advertorial language is used in the text, and it is not meant to be an evaluation. PDF

Films

Women’s suffrage in New Zealand: What actually happened

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony did not do it only for us (PBS)

Two female friends. a unified front Together, they stood up for the rights of women around the world, and the impact of their unwavering resolve and unwavering will continues to reverberate today. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s efforts to bring about the women’s movement will be recounted in this book. Their joint ideal of women’s suffrage was not achieved until their deaths.

One woman, one vote. (PBS)

The United States claims to be the world’s greatest democracy, but more than half of its inhabitants are denied the opportunity to vote. As a result of the long battle, the 19th Amendment was approved by one vote in the Senate of the United States. Suffrage for women has been a 70-year battle. It is important to understand why men and women opposed the crusaders because they were afraid that the women’s vote would lead to a social upheaval.

1. The Divine Order
The Divine Order

Today is the 100th anniversary of women being able to vote in the United Kingdom, and it’s worth remembering that in many other countries, this result arrived considerably later.

Women were granted the right to vote in Switzerland in 1971, more than half a century after they were granted the same right in the United Kingdom. This film, in contrast to Suffragette, is more upbeat and optimistic about the suffrage movement. The movie follows Marie Leuenberger’s character Nora (a quiet housewife) as she rises through the ranks of the town’s suffragette organization, meeting a variety of interesting personalities along the way, including a feisty elderly widow and the proprietor of an Italian restaurant. The film is both humorous and motivating since it doesn’t shy away from using humor. This serves as a timely reminder that the most influential political movements are typically characterized by small-scale, localized protests.

2. Suffragette
Suffragette

If we didn’t begin with Suffragette, this collection wouldn’t be worth its salt. The film, which had an all-star cast including Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne-Marie Duff, was a critical and commercial success, and it did much to bring the suffrage movement and human rights issues to the big screen in the process. Four years before the Representation of the People Act was signed into law, the film begins. This film should serve as a wake-up message to anyone who believes the suffragettes were all about rosettes and tea parties. Suffragettes aren’t afraid to show their darker side, as evidenced by the film’s focus on events like bombings and the cutting of telegraph cables. Emily Davidson’s death at Epsom Derby in 1913 also features in the film. It’s hard to imagine that before Suffragette, no one had made a film like this on the British suffragette movement. Definitely worth the time. Netflix DVD; Askwith Film Library

3. Iron Jawed Angels

Iron Jawed Angels

Its name comes from a 1917 statement by Massachusetts Representative Joseph Walsh, who said that a committee on women’s suffrage would be surrendering to “the nagging of iron-jawed angels” if it were formed. The story revolves around Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor), two prominent women’s suffrage activists in the United States. Two years after returning to the United States from England, they joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her sister, Christine Pankhurst, to advocate for women’s suffrage in the United States. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were two of the most important supporters for the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote in 1920, by adopting many of the suffrage techniques used in the UK suffrage movement. The Sundance Film Festival premiere of Iron Jawed Angels won critical acclaim and a standing ovation, despite the film’s lack of blockbuster status. Netflix DVD; Askwith Film Library

4. Selma

Selma

The struggle for women’s suffrage has been an ongoing one throughout history. Despite landmark pieces of law, like the UK’s Representation of The People Act or the US Constitution’s 19th Amendment, progress is never complete. Because of this, Selma is included in our list of the best movies of the year. In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. led three marches down the roadway from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, forty-five years after the 19th Amendment was passed (played brilliantly by David Oyelowo). As a result of the marches, African-American individuals (male and female) were denied their right to vote in the United States. A poll tax, a literacy test, and mastery of the US constitution were all requirements of legislation established in Alabama and elsewhere in the American South, thereby disenfranchising most black Americans and many impoverished whites. An vital and sharp reminder of continuous battles for human rights and suffrage was brought to light by this film, despite some debate over its historical authenticity.