What THe press are saying
“***1/2. STIRRING. Celebrates feminist history with GUSTO.”
Anita Katz, SF Examiner
“One of the year's best films. An urgent, illuminating dive into the headwaters of second-wave feminism. Wise, moving, upsetting, and sometimes funny. That defiant sisterhood changed the workplace, our sexual politics, our language. She's Beautiful When She's Angry is the best filmed account of how that happened you could ever expect to see.”
Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice
“This stirring and Informative documentary about the rise of the women’s movement in the United States, between 1966 and 1971, is an enticing blend of historical clips and interviews. There’s a warm, wise, passionate glow to … a great political success story. Visionary and heroic.”
Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“A rousing, overdue summation of the US women’s liberation movement. Celebratory in tone, capturing the exhilaration felt by a generation of women who challenged and shed age-old gender role limitations in a surge of rebellious energy.”
Dennis Harvey, Variety
"Mary Dore's documentary is powerful proof that the past is prologue.... not only a tribute to past bravery and determination, but also a warning and urgent rallying cry to the next wave."
Nathalie Atkinson, The Globe and Mail
"Nothing if not timely. It’s touring the country just as the concept of the grassroots movement as the spark for social change is having a moment."
Dani McClain, The Nation
“Leaves you wanting more. This ILLUMINATING effort packs a wealth of archival footage and current interviews with many vital figures of the movement into its brief running time. A hugely informational effort.”
Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
"Explores some of the second-wave movement's lesser-known moments. [...] Hones in on the complex and sometimes wild history of the women's struggle between 1966 and 1971, using archival footage and interviews with a diverse cast of activists."
Samantha Michaels, Mother Jones
"She's Beautiful When She's Angry" captures the excitement, electricity, humor and power of women realizing that they are not crazy, the system is crazy. By showing women as they take this great leap forward in consciousness and activism in the 1960s and early 1970s, Mary Dore makes revolution contagious for the far greater numbers of younger women who are making new leaps of consciousness and activism now. Seeing is believing. To see this documentary will help all women believe in ourselves and each other."
Gloria Steinem, founder, Ms. Magazine
"Reminds us, feminists didn't just feel as if they were changing the world - THEY CHANGED IT. Makes clear: the fight isn't over."
Rachel Saltz, The New York Times
“EXCEPTIONAL Bristling with the energy and insight of one of the most important social movements of the 20th century. INCISIVE. NIMBLE. Sharply edited.”
Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times
"Celebratory but clear-eyed. Dore’s film should be seen. Take your daughters. And your sons.”
Ty Burr, Boston Globe
"Superbly researched and edited."
Tirdad Derkhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer
"*** ½ Should be mandatory viewing for every American citizen, both girls and boys who should know where men's and women's political relationships now are, and how they got there. More than an honest work of journalism, this cautionary doc hears thunder in the distance, the legal storm threatening to rescind the progress made by a generation of women of all colors who fought and sacrificed for the freedoms women -- including my two daughters -- experience today.” – Dann Gire, Daily Herald (Chicago)
“I loved it. I watched it with my daughter. Thank you so much for this film because it manages to do all the history but also be fun. Provides historical context for today’s push for gender equality.”
Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC
“Pick of the Week. FASCINATING. Captures the excitement of that era, the growing sense of solidarity as more and more women discovered that their dissatisfaction was not an individual matter. Whatever mistakes have been made along the path and however the movement has been stereotyped, THE ESSENTIAL PROJECT OF FEMINISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE PROJECT OF HUMAN FREEDOM.”
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
“I was transfixed. Funny, poignant and fast-moving but most of all open-hearted and smart, this visually intense 90 minutes brought back the sounds, scenes and voices that had made it so exciting to be alive during the years of hope, dreams and passion of the 1960s and early 70s. What brought soft tears to well in my eyes, She's Beautiful tells the much larger story of how all our lives have been transformed and reinvented, not merely to bring women into high-tech boardrooms but releasing men to change diapers and bake cookies without shame and to push toddler strollers down the sidewalk without having to apologize. The convulsive, painful, contradictory -- and yet still threatened -- movement to see women as full partners in the human dance has, we too often forget, also enabled those of us with Y chromosomes to re-imagine who we can be as well, which is why Mary Dore's film is much more than a simple documentary.”
Frank Browning, Huffington Post
"From employment discrimination and affordable childcare to reproductive health and sexuality, the film parses through many of the movement’s battles without ignoring deep internal factions regarding race, class and sexuality. Like the movement it depicts and the women it honors, She’s Beautiful is complex."
“A feminist film MASTERPIECE. Offers an INSPIRING account of the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s.”
Kitty Lindsay, Ms. Magazine
Chosen as No. 5 in Ms. Magazine's The Year of the Fighter: The Top 10 Feminist Films of 2014
Kitty Lindsay, Ms. Magazine
"A riveting 2014 documentary about the 1960s and 70s women's movement"
Anne Glusker, Smithsonian.com
"Within the first minutes, I felt my own history with feminism...link arms with the present. To see myself as part of the continuum was HEARTBREAKING and ELECTRIFYING."
Samantha Updegrave, Bitch Media
"It’s a useful documentary, and it needed to be made now...Most of the women interviewed here are in their 70s, and it’s about time a director like Mary Dore came along to record their recollections....As the title would suggest, director Dore has a sense of humor, and so do Rita Mae Brown, Alix Kates Shulman, Heather Booth and the various other women interviewed here....To think of how people thought and acted just 45 years ago is to realize that the women in this film were the advance guard of the modern era. That makes them important, and they make this documentary important."
Nick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Exhaustively researched, “She’s Beautiful” is a whirlwind tour through the movement’s marches, protests, poetry readings, consciousness-raising groups and the spirited discussions — that we’re still having — about work, child care, compensation and rape.
Jessica Zack, San Francisco Chronicle
"One of the year's best films, Mary Dore's She's Beautiful When She's Angry is an urgent, illuminating dive into the headwaters of second-wave feminism, the movement that — no matter what its detractors insist — has given us the world in which we live."
Alan Scherstuhl, Phoenix New Times
A bubbling cauldron of newfound freedom and energy coming to life, an inspiring reminder of what people of a like mind and heart can accomplish. “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” is a thing of beauty indeed.
Tom Long, Detroit News
“Profoundly necessary. Inspiring. A powerful reminder that feminist is not a dirty word.”
Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper
"A fascinating look at how feminism changed the world. Timely and engaging."
"When reviewing documentaries, I have a practice of taking a note any time the film teaches me something I didn’t know before. I learned more while watching She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, Mary Dore’s doc about the early days of the women’s liberation movement, than I have from any other movie. "
“She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a great reminder that feminism is not just for straight, white women, and this documentary is proof.”
Trish Bendix, After Ellen
"Documentaries about social movements must walk a difficult line: how to champion the triumphs of activists who worked hard for triumphant social change without venturing into hagiography. She's Beautiful When She's Angry expertly walks that line...From start to finish, She's Beautiful When She's Angry captures the energy-- sometimes angry, sometimes joyful-- of young feminists then and now... This is the best film yet about the women's movement, and it will be invaluable as a teaching resource."
Sarah B. Rowley, The American Historian
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry would be useful in undergraduate courses in women’s history, feminism, women’s studies, U.S. history, and protest and reform movements. Secondary school libraries and public libraries would also benefit from adding She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry to their collections.
Kathleen Spring, Educational Media Reviews Online (Highly Recommended)
Highly recommended for all school, university, and public libraries.
School Library Journal, Starred Review
“The kick-ass women’s movement film we’ve been waiting for. With outrage and humor, brings back the revolution in living color and black-and-white, with torrents of music from the ‘60s and ‘70s.”
Amy Stone, The Lilith Blog
“She's Beautiful is rambunctious, joyful, provocative, earnest, profound--and utterly mesmerizing--just like the women who made the movement. I hope every young woman, and every young man, will see this movie. Mary Dore's gift for inspiring activism shines through every frame.”
Dominique Browning, slowlovelife.com
“An insightful, inspiring, and gripping look at the historical underpinnings of contemporary feminism. The headiness of the era is palpable.”
Eleanor Bader, RH Reality Check
"The film is truly entertaining, thought-provoking, shocking, witty and sassy, managing to keep a sense of humour, whilst also keeping an honesty and sensitivity to the seriousness of the cause."
New Zealand Herald
"ASTONISHING in reminding us of the ‘liberties’ we take for granted today. Almost 50 years since the second wave began, I couldn’t help but nod along with the crowd in the dark theater. Right on, sister. Right on."
Jaclyn Trop, Good Magazine
“She’s Beautiful takes us on a radical journey through the trenches of our fight and struggle in a male-dominated society."
Lisa Tedesco, Curve
"This film should be shown in every school, because on top of celebrating the amazing women who changed the world, and educating those of us ignorant of their accomplishments, this documentary serves as a cautionary tale. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry returns, in the end, to the angering fact that there are those who would roll back the rights extended and disempower women—which hurts everyone. The burden lies on feminists, who must always stand vigilant, ready to fight back."
Michael Lyons, Plentitude Magazine
“Thrives on is authenticity [and] instills a very potent sense of empowerment and appreciation in its audience. Excellent!”
Emily Mae Czachor, Annenberg Digital News
“Watching the film and the struggles of the woman I suddenly connected again with my mom and what she was going through during that same period. Mom was suddenly there sitting next to me in the theater. This is a damn fine film. It’s a triumph where we understand where we were, how we got to now, and where we may be heading tomorrow – and why the fight still has to be fought. It’s a film that should be shown to every little girl or anyone who doesn't think that causes and movements and political action can change the world-because it can. AN ABSOLUTE MUST SEE.”
Steve Kopian, Unseen Films
"Intensely relevant and timeless."
Ife Blount, Milwaukee Examiner
"Brilliant!!! She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is the most powerful and definitive documentary of the modern women's movement."
Ruth Rosen, author of The World Split Open
"The film is an archival treasure -- a history of the many strands of the Women's Movement, its multiple struggles and voices -- and activism that marries the past to what needs to be done today. She’s Beautiful is rousing, funny and self-critical. As provocative, colorful and lighthearted as its title, this is an important film about serious women doing the serious work of feminism, but also having fun -- the time of their lives, in fact, while changing the world."
Eleanor Pam, President, Veteran Feminists of America
"She’s Beautiful When She is Angry is such a terrific documentary and so skillfully introduces the core ideas, struggles, and successes/failures of the women’s movement during the late 60s and early 70s. What I especially love about this film is the way it underscores the key role of those in the “trenches” – the many local organizers in cities like Boston, NY, Chicago, LA, and SF/Berkeley. They are pictured “back then” as well as now, in recent interviews that allow for the rare kind of reflection that a younger audience so greatly appreciates. And these interviews make clear that it was the superb organizing work of “unsung heroes” (in addition to the important leadership of people like Friedan, Abzug, and Steinem) that catapulted this movement to become one of the key social justice forces of the past century."
Judy Norsigian, Our Bodies, Ourselves
"Thank you for bringing this empowering, riveting and emotional story back to the forefront of our minds and hearts. As a 25 year old woman, when the credits rolled, I was overcome with so much emotion -- relief, frustration, inspiration, hope, despair. There's much ground to cover, but we can do it. This certainly has awoken something in me, and I want to help. I want to carry on the legacy!"
Boston viewer
"I want everyone I know to see the film, I want us to gather groups of women together in our living rooms and watch it and talk. I want to watch it with my mother and sister. I want women to get together across generations and have consciousness-raising sessions. Vibrant, graceful, complex, and very respectful of the viewer, it really tugged at me, making me ask myself hard questions. Yes, that's the power of the movement itself -- it asked people to ask themselves questions."
Sarasota viewer
"Thank you for putting your efforts and heart behind this project. As a woman who grew up in a patriarchal family, never had a women's studies course, and shied away from embracing the word "feminism," my eyes were totally opened seeing your film! Now, it's my duty to share that so others can learn if they don't already know."
Canadian Viewer
"To me it was amazing how Mary and her team put together a documentary that so wonderfully covered such a huge scope in an exceedingly watchable and enjoyable manner. The thing I really loved is the way she drew in the actual people who were personally involved with archival material and current conversations with the very same folks. But more than that, and so current for today, it is much of a tutorial about “How do you start a movement?” "
Chapin Cutler, Boston