Film
Iron Jawed Angels
An HBO drama about the final, most radical decade of the American suffrage fight, led by Hilary Swank's Alice Paul and Frances O'Connor's Lucy Burns as they break from their cautious elders and take the movement to the streets, the White House gates, and prison cells. Stylish, propulsive, and unapologetically partisan, it's history told at the speed of a thriller, built for anyone who wants their civics lesson with a pulse.
If you liked this
Selma2014
Ava DuVernay turns the 1965 voting-rights march into the same kind of tense, tactical drama: protest as strategy, not just sentiment, with a movement fracturing over how far to push.
But Focuses tightly on a few weeks and assumes some background knowledge of the civil rights movement's wider arc.

Suffragette2015no page yet
The British side of the same fight: working-class women, window-smashing, prison, and a lead performance from Carey Mulligan that makes the cost of militancy feel personal.
But Grimmer and more claustrophobic than Iron Jawed Angels, with less of its rally-the-troops momentum.
Made in Dagenham2010
Ford factory women down tools for equal pay in 1968 Essex - funny, warm, and rousing, with a similarly scrappy underdog coalition finding its voice.
But Broader and cosier than Iron Jawed Angels, more crowd-pleaser than history lesson.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Hunger2008
Alice Paul's forced feedings in prison are framed here as heroic sacrifice; Hunger shows the same tactic from inside a cell in Thatcher's Britain, stripped of any rescuing music.
Steve McQueen's unflinching account of Bobby Sands' 1981 IRA hunger strike, told almost wordlessly through the body's slow collapse - the same weapon Alice Paul used, taken to its terminal end.
But Long static takes, real physical deterioration on screen, and almost no plot - it demands patience and a strong stomach.

More like this (8)
Milk2008
Sean Penn's Harvey Milk builds a movement from nothing through the same mix of theatre, coalition-building, and personal risk that powers Alice Paul's campaign.
But A biopic of one man rather than an ensemble, and its tragic ending is heavier than anything here.

On the Basis of Sex2018
Young Ruth Bader Ginsburg fights sex discrimination case by case - a quieter, legal-brief version of the same change-the-law-not-just-the-mood strategy.
But Courtroom procedure over marches and speeches makes it talkier and lower-stakes moment to moment.

Mrs. America2020
Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne face off over the Equal Rights Amendment fifty years later, proving the argument this film starts never actually got finished.
But Nine episodes is a big commitment, and it gives real sympathy to the anti-feminist side, which can be uncomfortable.

Hidden Figures2016
Three Black women engineers outmanoeuvre NASA's segregated bureaucracy - the same theme of quiet, dogged persistence against a system built to exclude you.
But Considerably gentler and more feel-good, with far less confrontation and risk than the suffrage fight.

North Country2005
Charlize Theron leads the real-life lawsuit that invented American sexual-harassment law - a workplace, not a street, but the same lone-woman-against-the-system spine.
But Heavier on courtroom grind and personal trauma, lighter on the ensemble camaraderie that makes this fun.

The Post2017
Meryl Streep's Katharine Graham risks everything publishing the Pentagon Papers - a different fight, but the same portrait of a woman deciding the old caution no longer applies.
But It's about press freedom rather than women's rights specifically, and Graham's world is boardrooms, not the street.

17761972
Same room, different century: the founding document Alice Paul's amendment was trying to finish. Watch the men sing about unalienable rights and notice who they meant.
A singing, dancing Continental Congress argues its way toward independence - funny, cheesy, and weirdly moving about how democracies actually get built, one grudging vote at a time.
But It's a stagey 70s musical full of men in powdered wigs harmonising about liberty - about as far from this film's urgency as you can get.

Not for Ourselves Alone1999no page yet
Carrie Chapman Catt's cautious old guard, sneered at by Paul's generation, inherited this earlier fight - watch it to see why the elders were so afraid of losing ground.
A patient documentary tracing the suffrage fight's first fifty years, before Alice Paul was even born - letters, photographs, and scholarship instead of hunger strikes and marches.
But It's three hours of talking heads and archival stills with none of the film's urgency or drama - a history lecture, not a thriller.
People
Cast
Hilary SwankAlice Paul
Vera FarmigaRuza Wenclawska
Anjelica HustonCarrie Chapman Catt
Molly ParkerEmily Leighton
Margo MartindaleHarriot Blatch
Frances O'ConnorLucy Burns
Lois SmithReverend Anna Howard Shaw
Brooke SmithMabel Vernon
Adilah BarnesIda Wells-Barnett
Laura FraserDoris Stevens
Julia OrmondInez Millholland
Patrick DempseyBen Weissman
Directing
- Katja von GarnierDirector
Writing
- Eugenia Bostwick-SingerTeleplay
- Raymond SingerTeleplay
- Sally RobinsonTeleplay
Production
- Jane JenkinsCasting Director
- Denise PinckleyCo-Producer
- James BigwoodCo-Producer
- Laura McCorkindaleCo-Producer
- Len AmatoExecutive Producer
- Lydia Dean PilcherExecutive Producer
- Paula WeinsteinExecutive Producer
- Robin FormanExecutive Producer