Television series

Mrs. America

Name: Mrs. America
Genre: Drama
Released: 2020
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Tracey Ullman, Rose Byrne, Margo Martindale, Sarah Paulson

Mrs. America restages the 1970s battle over the Equal Rights Amendment as a nine-episode showdown between Phyllis Schlafly's grassroots conservative crusade and the feminist leaders trying to out-organize her. It's talky, gorgeously costumed, and funnier than the subject has any right to be — a political thriller fought with mimeographed newsletters and church-basement phone trees. Great for anyone who thinks history is dry.

TVMaze rating

7.6

If you liked this

Iron Jawed Angels2004

The direct ancestor of this fight — suffragettes chaining themselves to fences and starving in prison so their granddaughters could argue about the ERA. Same stubbornness, higher stakes.

But It's an HBO movie from 2004 and looks it — glossier and more melodramatic than the show's docudrama grit.

Feud2017

Two formidable women pitted against each other by an industry that only had room for one of them at a time — the same structural bind Schlafly and Steinem never quite escape.

But It's Hollywood cruelty, not political history, so the parallel is more emotional than substantive.

Bombshell2019

Another ensemble of sharply drawn women navigating institutional power and public image, with the culture war humming underneath every scene.

But It compresses a messy, ongoing scandal into a tidy three-act structure — less room to breathe than Mrs. America gives its characters.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Stepford Wives1975

Same cultural anxiety Mrs. America dramatizes as debate, here dramatized as genre nightmare — the fear of feminism made monstrous and literal.

A satirical horror film from the exact year the show is set, imagining the backlash to feminism as literal — husbands replacing their wives with obedient robots.

But It's campy 1970s B-movie horror with dated effects, not a think-piece — though it thinks plenty.

On the Basis of Sex2018

Ruth Bader Ginsburg fighting the same legal battlefield the show's feminists are fighting on television — patient, procedural, quietly radical.

But It's warmer and more reverent than Mrs. America ever allows itself to be — less interested in anyone's flaws.

The Loudest Voice2019

Sarah Paulson again, this time inside the machine that would eventually broadcast Schlafly's worldview to millions — a origin story for the other side of the culture war.

But Bleaker and more claustrophobic, built around one man's rise rather than a movement's clash.

Vice2018

A similarly irreverent, fourth-wall-winking take on how quiet, unglamorous people accumulate real power in Washington.

But Adam McKay's showy stylistic tricks can feel like they're undercutting the seriousness some viewers want here.

The Crown2016

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Hidden Figures2016

Women written out of their own history reclaiming credit, with the same sense that the personal and the political are inseparable.

But Much gentler and more triumphant — crowd-pleasing where Mrs. America is deliberately uncomfortable.

Fosse/Verdon2019

Same FX-prestige biopic machinery, same 1970s texture, and another brilliant woman overshadowed by a more famous partner.

But It's about dance and marriage, not policy — the thematic overlap is real but loose.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry2014no page yet

The real women behind the performances, telling their own story unmediated by a screenwriter's choices.

A documentary built from archival footage and interviews with the actual women the show fictionalizes — Steinem, Friedan's contemporaries, and dozens more history left out entirely.

But No arc, no actors, just talking heads and grainy footage — the raw material rather than the drama.

The Divine Order2017no page yet

Same decade, same fight, entirely different country — a reminder the ERA battle was one front in a much wider war.

A warm, funny Swiss film about the fight for women's suffrage in 1971 — proof this exact battle was happening simultaneously, elsewhere, with a very different ending.

But Subtitled, small-scale, and gentle where Mrs. America is sharp-elbowed — a village comedy rather than a political thriller.