Carey Mulligan in “Suffragette”

Like Ava DuVernay’s Selma, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette is the story of a movement. Rejecting great-person versions of history, the films embrace various perspectives to create the peoples’ version, and both are all the more powerful for that. These narratives about people who are swept up by the winds of change and sweep the audience with them.

[You can read my review of Suffragette here]

Working from a terrific script by Abi Morgan, Gavron tells the parallel stories of the English suffragist movement that fought for women’s right to vote as well as that of Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a laundress and reluctant feminist who joins the cause, even though she knows she’s a foot soldier for women of means, like leader Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep in a cameo.)

Mulligan gives such a nuanced performance that she appears not to act the role, but live it. At this point in 2015, Mulligan’s only competition for the lead actress Oscar is herself — meaning her performance as Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the Madding Crowd.

Other rousing films that made you want to join the cause? Alternatively, other performances of 2015 that are lead actress contenders?