Wadjda

Wadjda is a miracle of logistics and nerve. Haifaa al-Mansour, the first female Saudi filmmaker, shot the entire film in Riyadh — the first feature ever shot entirely in Saudi Arabia — while directing from a van via walkie-talkie because she couldn't publicly mix with the male crew without violating the country's gender segregation laws.

The story is deceptively simple: Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), a 10-year-old girl in Riyadh, wants a bicycle. This is not allowed. The school headmistress warns her that "a bicycle will ruin your virtue." Wadjda enters a Quran recitation competition, hoping to win enough money to buy the green bicycle in the shop window.

But the film is not just about a bicycle. It is a portrait of a society in which every aspect of a woman's life — transportation, education, marriage, reproduction — is controlled by men. Wadjda's mother, who needs her husband's permission to work, who is terrified he will take a second wife because she hasn't borne a son, is the film's true tragic figure.

The final shot — Wadjda riding her bicycle on a Riyadh rooftop, alone, defiant, free — is one of the great images of liberation in cinema.