10 Amazing Films Directed By Women

So you know Walt Disney, right? Sort of racist guy back in the day who got into animation back in the 1920s and 1930s and created a media empire? Yeah, forget about him.

The person you need to be paying attention to is Lotte Reiniger, who had more creative ability than the designer of the mighty Mouse with like two percent of the credit. She was a director in Germany during the 1920s, and was responsible for one of the very first full length animated films, The Adventures of Prince Achmed.

It's a fairly conventional story, cribbed from 1001 Arabian Nights, but what is absolutely unforgettable is the animation style. Reiniger based her design on shadow puppets, painstakingly cutting out paper figures and moving them around in an early example of stop motion.

When you describe it, it sounds like it would look primitive and choppy, but what makes The Adventures of Prince Achmed special is that even now, watching the film in 2017, it is astonishing in its elegance and unbelievable level of craftsmanship.