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Frances Ha is a 2012 American comedy drama film directed by Noah Baumbach. It is written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, who also stars as Frances, a struggling 27-year-old dancer. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2012, and was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on May 17, 2013, by IFC Films.
She moves to Chinatown and shares an apartment with her friends Lev and Benji for a brief period. Sophie and Frances's relationship struggles as Sophie and her boyfriend, Patch, grow closer. Frances learns that the dance company does not need her to work their Christmas show, which means Frances can no longer afford the apartment. She visits her hometown of Sacramento for Christmas where she sees her family and reconnects with high school friends.
Rachel, a fellow dancer in the company, lets Frances stay with her for a few weeks. During dinner with Rachel's family, Frances discovers that Sophie has quit her job at Random House and is moving to Tokyo with Patch. Frances, on a whim, decides to spend an uneventful couple of days in Paris that she pays for with a credit card. She returns to Vassar College, her alma mater, to work as a waitress and summer resident assistant. Overworked and not allowed to take classes, Frances reads Sophie's blog of her life in Tokyo.
One night, Sophie and Patch are at an alumni auction where Frances is waitressing. Frances learns they are engaged and sees the couple get into a fight. She lets a drunk Sophie stay with her in the dorm room she's been given, where Sophie reveals that she suffered a miscarriage while in Japan and is unhappy in her relationship. Sophie goes back to New York City the next morning, leaving a note for Frances. Some time later, Frances returns to Washington Heights in Manhattan.
Frances eventually reconciles with Sophie and enjoys a modest but satisfying existence as a fledgling choreographer, teaching dance to young children, and as a Bookkeeping for her former dance company. She rents her own apartment. Upon moving in, Frances writes her name, Frances Halladay, onto a slip of paper in order to mark her new mailbox. Her full last name does not fit, so she folds the paper to read: "Frances Ha".
Gerwig cited Joseph Conrad's novella The Shadow-Line and Woody Allen's film Annie Hall (1977) as inspirations for the film. Baumbach and Gerwig also have cited the films of the French New Wave and Woody Allen as influences, as well as Something Wild (1986) and Lost in America (1985) which they watched during the production.
In the bonus features on the home-video release, the filmmakers said that the film was shot in the style of French New Wave cinema, with the tools of a student filmmaker. Even though the production had both the budget for and access to professional-level Arri Alexa and lenses, they chose to use the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, a consumer-grade photographic camera that can record high-definition video. Instead of adapting professional cinema lenses, as other cinematographers have done when working with that camera, they used Canon L-series EF Prime lens and zoom lenses designed for still photography. They mostly used a 50mm prime lens and a 70–200mm zoom lens, rarely employing 35mm and 85mm prime lenses because they lacked the mechanics and features common among Cine lens (when paired with the camera’s large full-frame sensor, they make it difficult to Focus puller). By using a very small camera and extremely limited lighting equipment, the production could quickly and easily move locations without attracting much attention. Without large crews, elaborate sets, and special visual effects, the production could afford to shoot around the world on a fairly limited budget.
The soundtrack includes a song by Felix Laband and references multiple French films; it contains music by Georges Delerue, Jean Constantin and Antoine Duhamel, who originally wrote for films of the French New Wave.
The film had a limited release in the United States on May 17, 2013, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on the Criterion Collection label on November 12, 2013.
Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice praised Gerwig's performance, writing, "It's a relief that Frances Ha isn't as assertively frank, in the 'Look, ma, no shame!' way, as Girls. And this is partly Gerwig's vision, too. No other movie has allowed her to display her colors like this. Frances is a little dizzy and frequently maddening, but Gerwig is precise in delineating the character's loopiness: Her lines always hit just behind the beat, like a jazz drummer who pretends to flub yet knows exactly what's up".
Peter Debruge, reviewing for Variety, described Frances Ha: "This modest monochromatic lark doesn't present a story—or even a traditional sequence of scenes—so much as it offers spirited glimpses into the never-predictable life of Frances, a 27-year-old dancer." He said Frances was "a character whose unexceptional concerns and everyday foibles prove as compelling as any New York-set concept picture, delivering an affectionate, stylishly black-and-white portrait of a still-unfledged Gotham gal". Sarah Galo of Mic also noted that Frances Ha “is really quite daring in its portrayal of female friendship. Frances and Sophie go through the motions of being BFFs to breaking up to being reunited in the end.”
The Los Angeles Times highlighted Gerwig's foray as part of a trend of female actors becoming writers or co-writers; other examples include Zoe Kazan with Ruby Sparks and Rashida Jones with Celeste and Jesse Forever. Baumbach filmed Frances Ha with his cinematographer Sam Levy digitally and in black-and-white, the latter to emulate, in part, collaborations by Woody Allen and his cinematographer Gordon Willis, in films like Manhattan (1979). CBS News compared Frances Has style to the works of Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch and François Truffaut.
In 2015, it was included on Olivier Assayas' list of his 10 favorite film for Criterion Collection. In 2025 it ranked number 90 on The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list, finishing at number 125.
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress – Comedy or Musical | Greta Gerwig | ||
| Independent Spirit Awards | Best Feature | Frances Ha | ||
| Best Editing | Jennifer Lame | |||
| Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actress in a Comedy | Greta Gerwig | ||
| British Independent Film Awards | Best International Independent Film | Frances Ha | ||
| London Film Critics Circle Film Awards | Film of the Year | Frances Ha | ||
| Actress of the Year | Greta Gerwig | |||
| Technical Achievement | Sam Levy | |||
| Toronto Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actress | Greta Gerwig | ||
| Casting Society of America | Casting - Low Budget Feature | Douglas Aibel Henry Russell Bergstein | ||
| Central Ohio Film Critics Association | Best Picture | Frances Ha | ||
| Best Actress | Greta Gerwig | |||
| Bodil Awards | Best American Film | Frances Ha | ||
| Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival | Audience Award | Noah Baumbach | ||
| Vancouver Film Critics Circle | Best Actress | Greta Gerwig |
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