Marya E. Gates is a freelance film writer based in Chicago. A fifth generation Californian, she studied Comparative Literature and French Literature at U.C. Berkeley, and also has an overpriced and underused MFA in Film Production from an unnamed university in San Francisco.

In 2010, she founded the movie holiday known as Noirvember, and in 2015, she spent the entire year watching nothing but films directed by women in a project called A Year with Women.

Before turning to writing full time, she worked in social media marketing and editorial for Warner Bros., Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies/FilmStruck, and Netflix Film.

Her first book "Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors In Their Own Words" was released in 2025. She also writes a monthly interview column for RogerEbert.com called "Female Filmmakers in Focus," and a weekly Directed By Women Viewing Guide for her newsletter Cool People Have Feelings, Too.

Although a generalist at heart, her areas of particular interest include female directors, film noir, and the silent film era. She has written on these subjects and more for RogerEbert.com, The Playlist, Emmy Mag, Moviefone, Nerdist, Inverse, IGN, IndieWire, and Vulture.

Her favorite film is Gillian Armstrong's Little Women (1994), and she loves the work of David Lynch, Jane Campion, Agnès Varda, Georges Méliès, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Richard Gere, and Ethan Hawke.

See photos of celebrities before they hit the big-time.

Marya E. Gates

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Producer

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