Campy late 20th century movies with strong female characters

April 30, 2024 7:13 PM

I’ve been on a campy movie kick (see also: FanFare). I’m realizing that I tend to prefer movies with women in leading roles - although I suspect it’s not about gender and is more about relational perspective. Anyway, favorites include Heathers, But I’m A Cheerleader, Saved, and Earth Girls are Easy. Mars Attacks! was pretty good too. I would very much appreciate your recommendations.
posted by bunderful to Media & Arts (39 answers total)

Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion
Death Becomes Her
Miss Congeniality
The Craft
Tank Girl
Legally Blonde is slightly later than your specified time period, since it came out in 2001, but I think fits the spirit of your question
Ever After
Election
posted by virve at 7:23 PM on April 30 [16 favorites]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie with Kristy Swanson.
posted by tipsyBumblebee at 7:23 PM on April 30 [8 favorites]

Slums of Beverly Hills
Drop Dead Gorgeous
posted by phunniemee at 7:25 PM on April 30 [9 favorites]

Amélie
posted by Melismata at 7:29 PM on April 30

Below Her Mouth
Bound

(Both VERY VERY GAY fwiw)
posted by mekily at 7:31 PM on April 30

This might be a bit obvious, but John Waters has done a bit of camp over the course of his career. Serial Mom, just for starters....
posted by flod at 7:31 PM on April 30 [7 favorites]

Troop Beverly Hills
posted by stormyteal at 7:42 PM on April 30 [10 favorites]

Hairspray (original only please)
Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Muriel's Wedding
Heavenly Creatures (has a very dark side)
To Die For
posted by brookeb at 7:59 PM on April 30 [6 favorites]

Slightly later, 2004, but D.E.B.S. is campy, strong female characters, very gay, and I completely skipped it until I read the review I just linked, my wife and I watched it, and loved the hell out of it.
posted by straw at 8:01 PM on April 30 [7 favorites]

Run Lola Run isn't exactly campy (though not exactly realistic either), but it does have a strong female protagonist.
posted by SPrintF at 8:03 PM on April 30 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: The time frame isn’t strict - I’m just more likely to have missed things prior to 2000-ish, especially movies that weren’t mainstream. The weird stuff that you missed if you lived in a smaller town with no movie theater. I likely missed a lot of the more obscure stuff after 2000, though.
posted by bunderful at 8:29 PM on April 30

NIGHT OF THE COMET
posted by demonic winged headgear at 8:35 PM on April 30 [14 favorites]

oh hell yeah, Tank Girl
posted by Sauce Trough at 9:23 PM on April 30 [9 favorites]

9 to 5 (1980 ok?)
posted by slidell at 9:32 PM on April 30 [4 favorites]

You can’t have a list of campy films with female leads without Parker Posey on it:

Clockwatchers
Party Girl
The House of Yes
Josie and the Pussycats (2001, but too good to leave off)
posted by inkytea at 9:38 PM on April 30 [12 favorites]

10 Things I Hate About You
Jawbreaker
Center Stage
The First Wives Club
Bring It On
Cruel Intentions
posted by the primroses were over at 10:18 PM on April 30 [4 favorites]

Also Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down and Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown
posted by brookeb at 10:30 PM on April 30 [5 favorites]

You need campy 1980s Susan Seidelman movies, like:

Desperately Seeking Susan starring Madonna
(A bored New Jersey suburban housewife's fascination with a free-spirited woman she has read about in the personal columns leads to her being mistaken for the woman herself)

and

She-Devil starring Meryl Streep and... Roseanne Barr
(A surprisingly resourceful housewife vows revenge on her husband when he begins an affair with a wealthy romance novelist.)
posted by rainy day girl at 10:32 PM on April 30 [5 favorites]

Wish you were here - headstrong female character in staid 1950s seaside town. Made 1987,
Peppermint Soda/Diablo menthe - 1977 French film about two adolescent girls growing up in the 60s.
I Capture the Castle: Cassandra growing up with her eccentric family in an English castle, 1930s.
posted by rongorongo at 11:54 PM on April 30

ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous stains
posted by brujita at 1:01 AM on May 1 [3 favorites]

Clueless? As if.
posted by Beverley Westwood at 1:47 AM on May 1 [7 favorites]

Baby Face
I’m No Angel
Silkwood
Frida (2002 but still good)
posted by torturedpoet at 3:15 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]

Zombieland which is probably too late but still.
posted by chasles at 4:02 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]

Rocky Horror Picture Show with Susan Sarandon as co-lead certainly ticks the campy box. She doesn't start out particularly empowered but stick with it.

Post-2000, Ready Or Not might work, a fun horror-lite although it's not super campy. Especially if covered in blood while wearing a wedding dress is your vibe.
posted by snarfois at 4:06 AM on May 1

For an 80s Bette Midler vibe:

Outrageous Fortune
Ruthless People
War of the Roses (not B.M.)
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
posted by archimago at 4:47 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]

The Last Seduction. And that Wikipedia page points to the British Film Institute program Playing the Bitch, which has other films that might fit your "strong female character" criteria.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:32 AM on May 1

It was couched as a romantic comedy when it came out (it does have some camp elements); I think The Matchmaker might still be worth a watch for you.
posted by gudrun at 7:15 AM on May 1

If the time period is flexible enough, 2021's Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar is right up your alley. It's a movie from its own universe, let alone time period. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo play best friends from Nebraska who go on vacation in Florida. It gets loopier as it goes.

From 1999, Dick (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams expose Richard Nixon!) would also be great.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:21 AM on May 1 [4 favorites]

There are a slew of 1980s "powerful woman" movies that I think edge into camp with the passage of time ... (CW for sexism/homophobia/racism of that era). Like:

Baby Boom
Working Girl
posted by pantarei70 at 8:31 AM on May 1 [2 favorites]

If Bring It On is along the right track, and you don't mind venturing into the early 2000s, I'd add Stick It
posted by sigmagalator at 9:02 AM on May 1 [3 favorites]

The Opposite Of Sex
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 9:42 AM on May 1

Misery
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:00 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]

Do you mind subtitles? If not, let me recommend Pedro Almodovar, and if 1980ish is late enough in the century, you really might like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
posted by less-of-course at 10:49 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]

2017, but obscure: Anna and the Apocalypse. I read a review of it which was essentially, "the best Scottish Christmas zombie musical I've ever seen" and, having seen it, I must concur.
posted by Athanassiel at 12:19 PM on May 1 [3 favorites]

Barb Wire, which is weirdly based on Casablanca with Pamela Anderson in the Humphrey Bogart role. It’s also semi-prescient in that the plot revolves around right wing Congressmen who start a Second American Civil War in 2017.
posted by chrisulonic at 1:44 PM on May 1

Tampopo, and the other films Juzo Itami made with Nobuko Miyamoto: A Taxing Woman, A Taxing Woman Returns, Minbo, Supermarket Woman
Wild Things
Single White Female
La Femme Nikita
The Hand the Rocks the Cradle
The Rage: Carrie 2
Jackie Brown
Death Proof (2007)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Magnificent Warriors
Beetlejuice
posted by dunhamrc at 8:39 PM on May 1 [1 favorite]

Cherry 2000, Kill bill, Long Kiss Goodnight
posted by Sebmojo at 12:50 AM on May 2 [1 favorite]

What an amazing thread this is! The only one I can think to add right now is Foxfire (1996) - Joyce Carol Oates is a pulp writer and nobody is ever going to convince me otherwise. I feel like it's a cousin to Poison Ivy in some ways. With Angelina Jolie, Jenny Shimizu and Jenny Lewis.
posted by queensissy at 12:34 PM on May 2 [1 favorite]

It came out in 2016, but The Love Witch is campy as hell and a very singular artifact; it feels like it's from the 70s or 80s in a way that very few retro movies manage.

Also the original Slumber Party Massacre (written by Rita Mae Brown, what?).
posted by Nibbly Fang at 8:09 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]