Girls Trip featured an all-female leading cast, which resulted in an iconic film packed with various comedic moments; here are three films with a similar female-driven narrative.
Overview
There are very few things that come close to the experience of a girls night in. Dressed in your most comfortable clothes, cocktails and snacks in hand, topped with a movie which you can all enjoy, the experience is unmatched.
It’s even better if the movie provides laugh-out-loud moments and the occasional cry in some.
While the go-to use to be rom-coms, with more and more films focusing on the strong bonds between women, nothing says girls night in like watching classic films with a female-driven narrative like Girls Trip.
What is Girls Trip about?
Girls Trip is the Malcolm D. Lee directed cult-classic comedy from 2017.
Written by Kenya Barris, Erica Rivinoja and Tracy Oliver, the comedy tells the story of, “When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there’s enough dancing, drinking, brawling and romancing to make the Big Easy blush.”
The movie featured an all-female and Black leading cast of acclaimed actresses including Regina Hall as Ryan, Queen Latifah as Sasha, Jada Pinkett-Smith as Lisa and breakout star, Tiffany Haddish as Dina, in her first leading movie role.
Three female-driven movies like Girls Trip
Girls Trip premiered in 2017, and the film is lauded for how it managed to break one of the longest running and unfounded rules in terms of how to make a successful Hollywood film.
The belief was that a film cannot be successful in Hollywood if it has an all-female leading cast, especially if it is an all-Black, female cast.
Girls Trip proved this narrative wrong, as it brought in an estimated $30.4 million during its first weekend at the box office. After four weeks, domestically, it had grossed over $100 million.
The film proved that a female-led film can be a box office success. However, there are other cult-classic films which feature an all-female lead, sometimes all-Black, which might have not proved to be box office successes, but in the years since their releases, have become cult-classics.
Here are three of the best female-driven movies like Girls Trip below.
1. Set It Off
While Set It Off might not be a comedy, the 1996 released action crime cult-classic is one of the first films which featured the formation of a four all-female leading cast.
Written by Kate Lanier and directed by F Gary Gray, at the time of the film’s release, it was not a commercial success, but in the years since its release, it has not only become a cult-classic for females but for people of colour.
Premised on, “Desperation drives four inner-city women to bank robbery in Los Angeles, then they start mistrusting each other.”
Starring Jada Pinkett-Smith, Vivica A. Fox, Queen Latifah and Kimberly Elise, Set It Off is a compelling story filled with action, clever-comical outbursts and tear-jerking moments.
2. Waiting to Exhale
One of the other overlooked cult-classic films to feature an all-female Black leading cast is another 90s classic, Waiting To Exhale.
Released in 1995, the screenplay was written by Ronald Bass, and the premise of the film was based on Terry McMillan’s novel, and the “film follows four very different African-American women and their relationships with men.”
Directed by acclaimed actor and director, Forest Whitaker, Waiting to Exhale features veteran actresses including Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon and legendary musician Whitney Houston in the title roles.
3. The Sex and The City movies
With the ongoing reboot series of Sex and The City tited And Just Like That… currently airing on HBO Max, what better way to end the list with probably the most iconic all female-foursome friendship group that anyone can reference. The Sex and The City franchise has two films in total.
The first, Sex and The City was released in 2008, premised on, “A New York City writer on sex and love is finally getting married to her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.”
Sex and The City 2 was released in 2010 and was premised on “Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte join Samantha for a trip to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).”
Conclusion
The narrative that an all-female leading cast cannot hold a movie is one that has perpetuated even against the backdrop of the aftermath of the Me Too movement, and the growing number of television series that have continued to show the fallacy of the statement.
However, in film, the change has taken more time to translate. However, every now and then a movie like Girls Trip comes out and disrupts this narrative.
However, Girls Trip is not the only film to have done so, more especially to have had an all-female Black leading cast, spawning cult-classics more than commercial successes.