Women's Biographies on Film

Inspired by a post on a Turner Classic Movies Facebook fan group that noted it's Women's History Month and asked for readers to send in their favorite costumes worn by women(!), I started coming up with this list of women who have been portrayed in film instead, and it's quite an impressive one: 

Greta Garbo lead the way in Queen Christina (1933). Just the way she runs up the steps for her entrance hooked me. What a strong woman!

Katharine Hepburn was Mary of Scotland in 1936. Marie Curie was portrayed by Greer Garson in Madame Curie (1943), and by Rosamund Pike in the 2019 film Radioactive. 

Bette Davis portrayed Queen Elizabeth I in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Jean Simmons played the young Queen in Young Bess (1953), as Cate Blanchett did (more realistically) in Elizabeth (1998).

In 1959, The Diary of Anne Frank premiered, and Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her portrayal of Barbara Graham in I Want to Live. (Jazz, and marijuana, are blamed.)

Cleopatra (1963) starred Elizabeth Taylor, the first actress to make a million dollars for a role. (The Queen of Egypt was also portrayed as smoking something in the 2005/07 HBO series Rome.)

Barbra Streisand knocked 'em dead as the irrepressible Fanny Brice in Funny Girl (1968), the same year that Katharine Hepburn starred as the also-irrepressible Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter. 

Jane Fonda starred as Tokin' Woman Lillian Hellman in Julia (1977). 

Sally Field won an Oscar for Norma Rae (1979), based on real-life union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton.

Sissy Spacek was exceptional as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), in which Beverly D'Angelo was perfect as Patsy Cline. 

In 1982, Jessica Lange gave a powerful performance as Frances Farmer in Frances, and Jean Stapleton starred as Eleanor Roosevelt in the TV movie Eleanor, First Lady of the World.

Silkwood (1983) stars Meryl Streep as activist Karen Silkwood. Streep also starred in Out of Africa (1985) as Tokin' Woman Isak Dinesen, in The Iron Lady (2011) as Margaret Thatcher, and as Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009). 

Isabelle Adjani co-produced the breathtaking Camille Claudel (1988), in which she starred as the sculptor and muse, the same year Sigourney Weaver unforgettably played Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist. 

Judy Davis is wonderful as George Sand in Impromptu (1991). (There's a dejeuner sur l'herbe with herb in it.) A League of Their Own (1992) is Penny Marshall's ode to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. 

In What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), Angela Bassett gives a powerhouse performance as Tina Turner. Jennifer Lopez portrays the "Queen of Tejano Music" Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, who was murdered at the age of 23, in Selena (1997). 

Judi Dench stole the show as Queen Victoria in Shakespeare in Love (1998), and also played the monarch in Mrs. Brown (1997).

Julia Roberts won the Oscar for her portrayal of the title character in Erin Brockovich (2000). Frida (2002) starred Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo.  

Hillary Swank was splendid as suffragette Alice Paul in Iron Jawed Angels (2004). Frances O'Connor co-starred as Lucy Burns, with Julia Ormond as Inez Milholland, and Anjelica Huston as Carrie Chapman Catt. 

Helen Mirren starred as (the modern) Queen Elizabeth in The Queen (2006). Reese Witherspoon shoulda been Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of Cheryl Strayed in Wild (2014).  

I was disappointed in the Bessie Smith biopic Bessie (2015) starring Queen Latifah, which should have been great. Queen of the Desert starring Nicole Kidman as Tokin' Woman Gertrude Bell was similarly disappointing. (Kidman did a photo spread in Vogue inspired by her role.) Thankfully, Letters from Baghdad (2016) is a terrific documentary on Bell that was executive produced by Tilda Swinton, who gives voice to Bell in the film. 

Hidden Figures (2016) tells the story of three female African-American mathematicians, Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who worked at NASA during the Space Race in the 1950s and 1960s.

Emma Stone portrays Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes (2017), centering on the 1973 tennis match between King and male chauvinist challenger Bobby Riggs. Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise documents the life of the writer and activist. 

On the Basis of Sex (2018) dramatizes Ruth Bader Ginsburg's early career; the documentary RGB explores her life and work. Keira Knightley plays the French author in Colette. 

In 2019, Kristen Stewart puffs pot in Seberg, about the politically active actress who was hounded by government goons. Cynthia Erivo portrayed Harriet Tubman in Harriet, and Greta Gerwig's Little Women merges the character of Jo with author Louisa May Alcott. Renée Zellweger gave an astonishing (but sad) performance as an aging Judy Garland in Judy. 

Bombshell (2019) stars Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie as a composite character, and is based the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Another Bombshell (2018) is a documentary about actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr. 

The TV series Mrs. America (2020) tells the story of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, played by Cate Blanchett, who co-produced. Also depicted are Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks) and Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman), with Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, and Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug. Sarah Paulson plays the wide-eyed innocent we see the story through who, undergoes an awakening induced by drugs (as so often happens). 

Jennifer Hudson executive produced Respect (2021), in which she starred as Aretha Franklin. Hudson also portrayed Winnie Mandela in a 2011 film of the same name. 

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021) is a documentary depicting how the singer was targeted by the US Government for her drug use due to her politics. Diana Ross played her in Lady Sings the Blues (1972).  

"The First Lady" series (2022), interweaves the stories of Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson), Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis).  

And finally, Annette Benning portrays long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad's record-breaking swim from Cuba to Floria at age 64 in Nyad (2023). 

What films have I missed? Tell me in the comments.