The Director's Series: Patty Jenkins, Wonder Woman


Throughout 2025 I'm turning my focus to Directors. They help craft the vision on screen that makes a movie work. This year I'm looking at five favorite films from 18 directors I admire and 10 films directed by different women that I have enjoyed. Join me Fridays and Saturdays throughout 2025 as we take this journey.

Wonder Woman (2017)
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, and David Thewlis
Director: Patty Jenkins
About: I've been going through five films from 18 of my favorite directors, but interspersed will be 10 films from female directors. This is the second of those films, and one of the better superhero films of the last decade. This was part of the old DCEU, the origin story for Wonder Woman as played by Gadot, who first appeared in the Batman v Superman film. Gadot is great in this role and I really enjoyed the origin story here. Wonder Woman is a hero for which we haven't often seen the origin story, so this felt fresh. Wright and Nielsen do a nice job, too, while I really enjoyed Pine here. I also liked the World War I setting, which felt a bit different. Jenkins does some really nice work with the combat scenes at the front. Overall, this felt like a breath of fresh air in the franchise and a really fun film that I've seen often since its release and continue to enjoy. It's one of the best of the DCEU.

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