Wanda is a 1970 American independent drama film written and directed by Barbara Loden, who also stars in the title role.

[3] Set in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania, the film focuses on an apathetic woman with limited options who inadvertently goes on the run with a bank robber.

Inspired by her own past feelings of aimlessness, as well as a newspaper article detailing a woman's participation in a bank robbery, Loden wrote the screenplay for Wanda before securing financing through Harry Shuster, a Los Angeles–based producer.

[6] Wanda Goronski, an unhappy housewife from rural eastern Pennsylvania, stays on her sister’s couch after leaving her husband.

After losing her job at a sewing factory, Wanda runs away with a man she had a one-night stand with, only for him to abandon her at an ice cream shop.

Later, they visit the Holy Land USA theme park, where Norman meets his Evangelical Christian father, to whom he shows unusual courtesy and respect.

Loden said the film was semi-autobiographical and that she was inspired to write it after reading a newspaper report that a woman had thanked a judge after he sentenced her to 20 years in prison for her participation in a bank robbery.

[7] Her husband Elia Kazan claimed to have written the initial script and then Loden "rewrote it many times, and it became hers.

"[10] In crafting the relationship between Wanda and Norman, Loden avoided integrating any legitimate romance between the characters, as she felt it was unrealistic.

[16] Loden recalled the logistics of the production as difficult, and said she ended up "using the [actors] as they were" and quit referring to the script shortly after beginning.

[26] Critics Judith Crist, Kathleen Carroll, and Pauline Kael wrote unfavorably of the film, recounted by Loden as they disliked the protagonist for being "dumb, and stupid, and all the things people used to say about me...

"[28] Jean Dietrich of the Louisville Courier-Journal praised the film for its portrayal of its characters, writing: "Wanda is a classic loser, underprivileged and underintelligent, who, in her hopelessness, turns to prostitution.

[30] The Hackensack Record's John Crittenden praised Loden's performance but felt the film would not resonate with many American moviegoers: "Sitting in judgment of the character, as audiences are apt to do, I doubt anyone will really like Wanda and sympathize with her.

[32] In a retrospective review, Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "To say that Wanda deglamorizes the American crime film is both entirely accurate and something of an understatement.

Loden’s first and only film as a director is a searingly honest character study whose jagged, unvarnished aesthetic—inspired in part by Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and the films of Andy Warhol—stood in stark contrast to the slick Hollywood dramatic tradition epitomized by, among others, Loden’s husband, the director Elia Kazan.