On Jan. 15, 2025, the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC) announced its selections for the best in film for 2024. The voting process was conducted virtually.

The critics group is celebrating 2024’s best movies by and about women, including outstanding achievements by women who rarely get to be honored historically in the film world. The award-winning movies also emphasize WFCC’s mission statement that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully.

WFCC is an association of 75 women film critics and scholars from around America and world, who are involved in print, radio, online and TV broadcast media. The group was formed in 2004 as the first women critics organization in the United States, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism needs to be recognized fully. WFCC also prides itself on being the most culturally and racially diverse critics group in America, and best reflects the diversity of movie audiences.

Writer-director-producer Coralie Fargeat’s body horror film, ‘The Substance,’ released by Mubi; scribe-helmer-producer Jacques Audiard’s musical crime comedy, ‘Emilia Pérez,’ distributed by Pathé, and writer-director-producer Tyler Perry’s war drama, ‘Six Triple Eight,’ which premiered on Netflix; were WFCC’s most-honored movies of 2024. ‘The Substance’ topped four categories, while ‘Emilia Pérez’ won three awards and ‘Six Triple Eight’ received two honors.

‘The Substance’ won the group’s prize for Best Movie by a Women (Directing) and Best Woman Storyteller (Screenwriting) for Fargeat, as well as Best Actress for Demi Moore. The feature also received the Adrienne Shelly Award, which recognizes a film that most passionately opposes violence against women.

The full list of WFCC’s 2024 awards is below.

Best Movie About Women

Winner: ‘Emilia Pérez’

Runner up: ‘Wicked’

‘How to Have Sex’

‘All We Imagine as Light’

‘Lee’

Best Movie by a Woman (Directing)

WINNER: ‘The Substance’ (Coralie Fargeat)

Runner up: ‘Lee’ (Ellen Kuras)

‘All We Imagine as Light’ (Payal Kapadia)

‘Treasure’ (Julia von Heinz)

Best Woman Storyteller (Screenwriting)

WINNER: Coralie Fargeat (‘The Substance’)

Runner up: Payal Kapadia (‘All We Imagine as Light’)

Julia von Heinz (‘Treasure’)

Line Langebek Knudsen (‘The Girl with the Needle’)

Best Actress

WINNER: Demi Moore (‘The Substance’)

Runner up (TIE): Pamela Anderson (‘The Last Showgirl’)

Runner up (TIE): Kate Winslet (‘Lee’)

Nicole Kidman (‘Babygirl’)

Saoirse Ronan (‘The Outrun’)

Best Actor

WINNER: Colman Domingo (‘Sing Sing’)

Runner up: Adrien Brody (‘The Brutalist’)

Daniel Craig (‘Queer’)

Ralph Fiennes (‘Conclave’)

Best Supporting Actress

WINNER: Zoe Saldana (‘Emilia Pérez’)

Runner up: Felicity Jones (‘The Brutalist’)


Danielle Deadwyler (‘The Piano Lesson’)

Karla Sofía Gascón (‘Emilia Pérez’)

Best Foreign Film by or About Women

WINNER: ‘Emilia Pérez’

Runner up: ‘I’m Still Here’

‘All We Imagine as Light’

‘The Girl with the Needle’

Best Documentary by or About Women

WINNER: ‘Frida’

Runner up: ‘Black Box Diaries’

‘The Last of the Sea Women’

‘Zurawski v Texas’

Best Equality of the Sexes

WINNER: ‘Challengers’

Runner up: ‘The Six Triple Eight’

‘Daddio’

‘Civil War’

Best Animated Female

WINNER (TIE): ‘Memoir of a Snail’ (Grace)

WINNER (TIE): ‘The Wild Robot’ (Roz)

Runner up: ‘Inside Out 2’ (Joy)

Best Screen Couple

WINNER: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield (‘We Live in Time’)

Runner up: Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore (‘The Room Next Door’)

Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn (‘Daddio’)

Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitizine (‘The Idea of You’)

Best TV Series

WINNER (TIE): ‘Disclaimer’

WINNER (TIE): ‘The Diplomat’

Runner up: ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’

‘Lioness’

*Adrienne Shelly Award – For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women

WINNER: ‘The Substance’

Runner up: ‘Black Box Diaries’

‘Unstoppable’

‘Blink Twice’

*Josephine Baker Award – For best expressing the woman of color experience in America

WINNER: ‘Six Triple Eight’

Runner up (TIE): ‘Wicked’

Runner up (TIE): ‘The Fire Inside’

‘Shirley’

*Karen Morley Award – For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity

WINNER: ‘The Last Showgirl’

Gia Coppola, the director of ‘The Last Showgirl,’ has released an acceptance speech for the drama’s win:

“Thank you so much for this award and acknowledgement. I share this with my Showgirl family, the cast, the crew, and all the Las Vegas locals who were instrumental in making this film happen. Regardless of age or gender, we all know or have aspects of these characters— struggling from the confines of what society tells us who we should be and want. Shelly never stops dreaming. Be you!”

Runner up: ‘The Six Triple Eight’

‘Shirley’

‘Treasure’

Acting and Activism Award

Kerry Washington

Lifetime Achievement Award

Maggie Smith