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In many ways, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s entire career has been leading up to The Woman King. The filmmaker made her debut with 2000’s Love & Basketball, a movie she intended to be a Black When Harry Met Sally… The film evolved into something more autobiographical, using Prince-Bythewood’s own history as an athlete as the foundation for the story of a ball player (Sanaa Lathan) who falls for the boy next door, but still achieved her original objective: It gave a generation of Black women a chance to see themselves as the lead in a romantic comedy.
With 2020’s The Old Guard, Prince-Bythewood made history as the first Black woman to direct a major comic book movie, a big-budget Netflix release starring Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne as immortal assassins. It was a natural transition for her to The Woman King, a historical war epic in which Viola Davis stars as the leader of the all-female Agojie warriors. Once again, the movie is the director’s chance to center Black characters in a genre she loves.
“In the last 10 years, I have been really focused on, ‘I want our Braveheart.’ I love that movie, and I’ve never seen myself reflected in a film like that,” she explains. “I still feel like it’s a miracle that this film got made.”
MORE: With ‘The Woman King,’ Gina Prince-Bythewood Got to Make Her Own ‘Braveheart’ (Exclusive)
Below, Prince-Bythewood shares with A.frame six films that have most influenced her throughout her career — including, of course, Braveheart.
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