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. And Katharine Hepburn was a fine Mary of Scotland in 1936. 

Greer Garson played orphans' advocate Edna Gladney in Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Marie Curie Madame Curie (1943), a role played by Rosamund Pike in the 2019 film Radioactive. Garson was Oscar-nominated for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960); Jean Stapleton played the role in the 1982 TV movie Eleanor, First Lady of the World. 

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).

Deborah Kerr starred in a fictionalized account of governess Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1956).  In 1959, The Diary of Anne Frank premiered; Shelly Winters donated the Supporting Actress Oscar she won for the film to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her portrayal of Barbara Graham in I Want to Live. (Jazz, and marijuana, are blamed.) Patty Duke was named Best Supporting Actress for playing Helen Keller in A Miracle Worker (1962).

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.) Debbie Reynolds played The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1964; Kathy Bates played the role in Titanic (1997).  In 1965, Julie Andrews played a version of Maria von Trapp (without the yodel) in The Sound of Music.

Faye Dunaway played outlaw Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), for which Estelle Parsons won a supporting Oscar for role as Blanche Barrow. 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; the two tied for the Best Actress Oscar. 

Julie Harris played a milquetoast version of the powerful and misunderstood poet Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst (1976). The only thing Harris seemed to have in common with Dickinson was her red hair. Unfortunately, I must say the same about Cynthia Nixon's portrayal in A Quiet Passion (2016).  

Jane Fonda starred as Tokin' Woman Lillian Hellman in Julia (1977), a film well worth seeing. Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft co-starred in The Turning Point, based on real-life ballerinas Isabel Mirrow Brown and Nora Kaye, a movie I would see again any time if I could find it streaming. 

Sally Field won an Oscar for Norma Rae (1979), based on real-life union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton. So did Sissy Spacek, who was exceptional as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), in which Beverly D'Angelo was perfect as Patsy Cline, as was Jessica Lange, who played Cline in Sweet Dreams (1985). Lange gave a powerful performance as Frances Farmer in Frances (1982), the year that Sissy Spacek played Joyce (Beth) Horman in Missing.

Silkwood (1983) stars Meryl Streep as activist Karen Silkwood. Streep also starred in Out of Africa (1985) as Tokin' Woman Isak Dinesen. The acclaimed actress played educator Roberta Guaspari in Music From the Heart (1999), Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009), and Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011) (for which she won the Oscar). She was nominated in the supporting category for playing writer Susan Orlean in Adaptation (2002), a role in which she gets high on a plant powder. 

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.) Susan Sarandon played Michaela Odone in Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and A League of Their Own 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 in Selena (1997). Judi Dench took home a Supporting Actress Oscar for her eight unforgettable minutes as Queen Victoria in Shakespeare in Love (1998). She also played the monarch in Mrs. Brown (1997).

In 2000, Julia Roberts won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the title character in Erin Brockovich, and Marcia Gay Harden took the Supporting Actress award for playing Lee Krasner in Pollock. Iris (2001) starred Judi Dench and Kate Winslet as author Iris Murdoch, and Frida (2002) starred Salma Hayek as painter Frida Kahlo. 

Nicole Kidman and her prosthetic nose won an Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2003). Cate Blanchett took the Supporting Actress prize for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004), winning over Laura Linney as Clara McMillen in Kinsey, and Sophie Okonedo as Tatiana Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda.

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. In 2005, Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand co-starred in North Country, based on a landmark sexual harassment class action case, and Catherine Keener played Harper Lee in Capote.

Marion Cotillard was named Best Actress for her role as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (2007). Carey Mulligan was nominated for her role in An Education (2009), based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, and  Angelina Jolie was nominated for playing Christine Collins in Changeling (2008). Jolie won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1999 for Girl, Interrupted, in which Winona Ryder played author Susanna Kaysen. While playing Maria Callas in Maria (2005), Jolie hallucinates on drugs. 

Helen Mirren won an Oscar for playing (the modern) Queen Elizabeth in The Queen (2006), and played Sonya Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009). Reese Witherspoon was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of Cheryl Strayed in Wild (2014); she'd won for playing June Carter Cash in Walk the Line (2006). Laura Dern was nominated for her role as Barbara "Bobbi" Grey in Wild. 

Tokin' Woman Kathy Bates portrayed Alice B. Toklas's lover Gertrude Stein in Midnight in Paris (2011).  Sally Field played Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln (2012), and Helen Hunt played sexual surrogate Charyl Cohen-Greene in The Sessions. Keira Knightley played code-breaker Joan Clarke in The Imitation Game (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. 

Tokin' Woman Susan Sarandon became an Oscar winner for her portrayal of death-penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking (2016). Hidden Figures from that year tells the story of NASA mathematicians Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer, who was nominated for an Oscar). 

Emma Stone portrayed Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes (2017), and Margot Robbie played tragic ice skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, for which Allison Janney took home a Supporting Actress award for playing her mother. Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise documented the life of the prominent writer, activist and Tokin' Woman. 

On the Basis of Sex (2018) dramatizes Ruth Bader Ginsburg's early career; the documentary RGB explores her life and work. Keira Knightley played the French author in Colette and Amy Adams played Lynne Cheney in Vice. Francis McDormand took the Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, based on events around the real-life murder of Kathy Page. 

In 2019, Kristen Stewart puffed pot in Seberg, 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, 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). Jessica Chastain transformed into Tammy Faye Baker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and won the Oscar for it. 

And finally, Annette Benning portrays long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad's record-breaking swim from Cuba to Floria at age 64 in Nyad (2023). Both she and Jodie Foster, who played her trainer Bonnie Stoll, were Oscar-nominated for their roles.

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