14. The Iron Lady (2011)- Phyllida Lloyd

The Iron Lady Trailer

Meryl Streep is incredible- but I already knew that. What I didn't know was that Margaret Thatcher has dementia and actually cared about her family when she was in politics. I knew very little about her background going into the movie, and even though it is a story of a powerful woman overcoming adversity and becoming Prime Minister, I found it kind of sad. She worked with her father in their shop, worked hard on her studies, and even went to Oxford. But what she gained by all this work, for me, was masked by the fact that she had little social skills and no true friends. The non-linear timeline shows how those closest to Lady Thatcher all died, or left her, leaving her completely alone. She was a great advocate of women, and an incredibly important politician, but this beautiful movie gave insight into more than just that. Meryl Streep, as usual, transformed herself into Margaret Thatcher, and probably won't win the Oscar because she never does, but she deserves it. In the words of my mother, "Since when did Julia Childs become Margaret Thatcher?"