This essay is one of several contributed by filmmakers and actors as part of Variety's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time package.I remember distinctly seeing “Bridesmaids” for the first time at The Grove in Los Angeles. At one point, I had laughed hysterically at something and was doubled over. The thought came to my head of how striking it was to be looking up on the screen and seeing this group of women, how rare it was. It was like...
Undisputed Cinema
Gina
Prince-Bythewood
Original stories are hard to come by in any medium, especially in the sequel-obsessed world of Hollywood cinema, but Prince-Bythewood gave audiences one with her 2022 film “The Woman King,” a historical epic about a band of female warriors led by General Nanisca (Viola Davis) that fought to preserve the African kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s. The Los Angeles native, who got her first big break as a writer on the “Cosby Show” spinoff “A Different World” in 1993, also directed an installment of the ABC miniseries “Women of the Movement” that premiered in early 2022, about Mamie Till-Mobley’s (Adrienne Warren) efforts to get justice for her son Emmett Till (Cedric Joe), a 14-year-old Black boy tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955.