DramaEven across thousands of miles, the special bond between a mother and son can never be broken. It gives hope to Carlitos, a scrappy nine-year-old boy whose mother, Rosario, has gone to America to build a better life for both of them. While Rosario struggles for a brighter future, fate forces Carlitos' hand and he embarks on an extraordinary journey to find her. Critics and audiences alike have praised this inspirational and heartwarming tale of a mother's devotion, a son's courage and a love that knows no borders.
DramaJacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour guide (Alia Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.
ThrillerA young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a mild-mannered professor with a diabolically clinical mind. An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.
DramaFrom Academy Award-nominee Hirokazu Kore-eda—After learning a teacher is bullying her son, a mother demands answers, eventually resorting to legal action. But as the truth is gradually revealed, it proves more complex than anyone imagined.
ForeignWhen a massive, gilled monster emerges from the deep, a rag-tag team of volunteers cuts through a web of red tape to uncover the monster’s weakness and its mysterious ties to a foreign superpower. But time is not on their side.
Action & AdventureNamed "Best Picture of the Year" by over 100 critics nationwide! Two master warriors (Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh) are faced with their greatest challenge when the treasured Green Destiny sword is stolen. A young aristocrat (Zhang Ziyi) prepares for an arranged marriage, but soon reveals her superior fighting talents and her deeply romantic past. As each warrior battles for justice, they come face to face with their worst enemy - and the inescapable, enduring power of love. Set against 19th-century China's breathtaking landscape, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the action-packed, box office smash from acclaimed director Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm) featuring stunning martial arts choreography by Yuen Wo Ping (The Matrix).
DramaCelebrated with worldwide acclaim, this powerful true story of crime and redemption has won numerous prestigious awards around the globe! The streets of the world's most notorious slum, Rio de Janeiro's "City of God" are a place where combat photographers fear to tread, police rarely go and residents are lucky if they live to the age of 20. In the midst of the oppressive crime and violence, a frail and scared young boy will grow up to discover that he can view the harsh realities of his surroundings with a different eye, the eye of an artist. In the face of impossible odds, his brave ambition to become a professional photographer becomes a window into his world and ultimately his way out!
Action & AdventureD'Artagnan arrives in Paris trying to find his attackers after being left for dead, which leads him to a real war where the future of France is at stake. He aligns himself with Athos, Porthos and Aramis, three musketeers of the King.
ThrillerMemories of Murder tells the harrowing true story of the hunt for a sadistic serial rapist and murderer terrorizing a small province in 1980s South Korea. Marking the first of many successful collaborations between four-time Oscar® winner Bong Joon Ho and leading man Song Kang Ho, the film follows the paths of three increasingly desperate detectives as they attempt to decipher the violent mind of a killer in an effort to solve the case. Now, seventeen years after its initial release, and a year after the real culprit was identified, this cult classic takes its place as a modern masterpiece.
ComedyAn inspired motion-picture masterpiece,“Life Is Beautiful” (La vita è bella) was nominated in 1998 for 7 Academy Awards® – winning 3 Oscars®, including one for Best Actor Roberto Benigni.
In this extraordinary tale, Guido (Benigni) – a charming but bumbling waiter who’s gifted with a colorful imagination and an irresistible sense of humor – has won the heart of the woman he loves and created a beautiful life for his young family. But then, that life is threatened by World War II, and Guido must rely on those very same strengths to save his beloved wife and son from an unthinkable fate! Honored with an overwhelming level of critical acclaim, this truly exceptional, utterly unique achievement will lift your spirits and capture your heart!
ForeignThis is the story of Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey becomes the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style.
DocumentaryIn ANSELM, Wim Wenders creates a portrait of Anselm Kiefer, one of the most innovative and important painters and sculptors of our time. Shot in 3D and 6K-resolution, the film presents a cinematic experience of the artist’s work which explores human existence and the cyclical nature of history, inspired by literature, poetry, philosophy, science, mythology and religion. For over two years, Wenders traced Kiefer’s path from his native Germany to his current home in France, connecting the stages of his life to the essential places of his career that spans more than five decades.
Drama'La Civil' tells the story of Cielo, a mother in search of her daughter, abducted by a criminal gang in Northern Mexico. As the authorities fail to offer support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands. Cielo begins her own investigation and earns the trust and sympathy of Lamarque, an unconventional army Lieutenant working in the region. He agrees to help Cielo in her search, because her research data could be useful to his operations as well. Cielo’s collaboration with Lamarque pulls her further into a vicious cycle of violence. The film focuses on Cielo’s emotional rollercoaster, as she is drawn into increasingly intense and dangerous circumstances. The camera stays close, we never lose sight of her as she gradually transforms from housewife into avenging activist. As events unfold, Cielo gets closer to the truth: discovering a mass grave, obtaining official DNA analyses, confronting one of the presumed kidnappers, but corruption and apathy keep her from finding re
HorrorA remote manor; hushed, candlelit atmosphere; and shivery, supernatural menace. With his first English-language feature, Chilean Spanish writer-director-composer Alejandro Amenábar resurrected the classic gothic chiller to create a ghost story of uncommon emotional resonance. Nicole Kidman stars as a World War II–era mother whose imperiousness masks a terrifying pain, as she keeps her light-sensitive children enshrouded in darkness on her country estate. The arrival of three new servants punctures her insular world—and seems to disturb the balance between the living and the dead. With each stunning twist and turn, Amenábar immerses us more deeply in a realm haunted not only by spirits but also by guilt, trauma, and repression.
DramaThis legendary film from Soviet director Elem Klimov is a senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanizing horrors of war. As Nazi forces encroach on his small village in what is now known as Belarus, teenage Flyora (Alexei Kravchenko, in a searing depiction of anguish) eagerly joins the Soviet resistance. Rather than the adventure and glory he envisioned, what he finds is a waking nightmare of unimaginable carnage and cruelty—rendered with a feverish, otherworldly intensity by Klimov’s subjective camera work and expressionistic sound design. Nearly blocked from being made by Soviet censors, who took seven years to approve its script, COME AND SEE is perhaps the most visceral, impossible-to-forget antiwar film ever made.
RomanceAward-winning filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, The Other Side of Hope) makes a masterful return with Fallen Leaves, a timeless, hopeful and satisfying love story that won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Set in modern day Helsinki, the film tells the story of Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), two lonely souls whose chance meeting at a local karaoke bar is beset by numerous hurdles. From lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism and a charming stray dog, the pair's path to happiness is as bittersweet as it is ultimately delightful. Shot through with Kaurismäki's typically playful, idiosyncratic style and deadpan sense of humor, this tender romantic tragicomedy is both a loving tribute to the filmmaker's beloved contemporaries and a timely reminder of the potency of movie-going from one of cinema's living legends.
DramaCarla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a dedicated, idealistic young teacher in her first job at a middle school. Her relaxed rapport with her seventh-grade students is put under stress when a series of thefts occur at the school, and a staff investigation leads to accusations and mistrust among outraged parents, opinionated colleagues, and an enigmatic student. Caught in the middle of these complex dynamics, the more Carla tries to do everything right, the more desperate her position becomes.
DramaThis powerful and emotional romance/drama centers on a middle-aged man who, when visiting his childhood town, is flooded with memories of his first gay love. Celebrated novelist Stéphane Belcourt (Guillaume de Tonquédec) travels to his hometown after over 30 years. There, he meets Lucas (Victor Belmondo, grandson of Jean-Paul Belmondo), the son of Thomas, his secret teenage love. Lucas, inquisitive for information on his now deceased father, sets off turbulent emotions in the writer as his mind is flooded with memories of Thomas and their summer of love. The film contrasts the wintry present with the sun-splashed summer past when the shy, bespectacled Stéphane (Julien De Saint Jean) meets and falls for the rough and tumble Thomas (Rémy Gillet.) LIE WITH ME is erotic, tender, romantic and heartbreaking.
DramaNow nominated for four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature. Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of "Uncle Vanya" at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koshi Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins - with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR is a haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, accep
DramaThe sensation of the Cannes Film Festival and the most controversial film of the year, Blue is the Warmest Color made cinema history as the first film ever awarded the Palme d'Or to both its director and its actresses. In a star-making role, Adèle Exarchopoulos is Adèle, a passionate young woman who has a yearning she doesn't quite understand until a chance encounter with the blue-haired Emma ignites a flame and brings her to life. Léa Seydoux (Midnight in Paris) gives a fearless performance as Emma, the older woman who excites Adèle's desire and becomes the love of her life. Abdellatif Kechiche's (The Secret of the Grain) intimate epic of tenderness and passion charts their relationship over the course of several years, from the ecstasy of a first kiss to the agony of heartbreak. Pulsing with gestures, embraces, furtive exchanges, and arias of joy and devastation, Blue is the Warmest Color is a profoundly moving hymn to both love and life.
ForeignGraceful, enigmatic, and often frightening, DOGTOOTH is an ingenious dark comedy that won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, propelling Yorgos Lanthimos to the forefront of contemporary cinema's most ambitious young filmmakers. In an effort to protect their three children from the corrupting influence of the outside world, a Greek couple transforms their home into a gated compound of cultural deprivation and strict rules of behavior. But children cannot remain innocent forever. When the father brings home a young woman to satisfy his son's sexual urges, the family's engineered "reality" begins to crumble, with devastating consequences. Like the haunting, dystopic visions of Michael Haneke and Gaspar Noé, DOGTOOTH punctuates its compelling drama with moments of shocking violence, creating a biting social satire that is as profound as it is provocative.
HorrorOne of the most notorious J-horror films ever made, Takashi Miike’s Audition exploded onto the festival circuit at the turn of the century to a chorus of awards and praise. The film would catapult Miike to the international scene and pave the way for such other genre delights as Ichii the Killer and The Happiness of the Katakuris. Recent widower Shigharu Aoyama is advised by his son to find a new wife, agreeing Shigeharu seeks the advice of a colleague having been out of the dating scene for many years. Taking advantage of their position as a film company they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes enchanted by Asami, a quiet, 24-year-old woman, who is immediately responsive to his charms. But soon things take a very dark and twisted turn as we find that Asami isn’t what she seems to be… Pulling the audience into a story that will lead to one of the most harrowing climaxes in cinema history, Miike twists and turns us through delirious editing and sho
Action & AdventureAfter surviving The Wave, Kristian Eikjord (Kristoffer Joner, Mission: Impossible – Fallout) and his family find themselves at the center of another natural disaster. This time, the ground beneath Oslo, Norway can’t be trusted. For geologists like Kristian, studying the daily quakes proves that it’s no longer a matter of if, but when the next catastrophic event will strike. Will it surpass the devastating earthquake that destroyed the city in 1904? The Quake follows Kristian as he makes a perilous attempt to help his wife, daughter and others escape a crumbling skyscraper when nature takes its course again.
DramaMathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La haine, a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income banlieue districts on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui)—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis.
DramaIn the highly-acclaimed suspense thriller Incendies, a mother's dying wish creates a painful puzzle her children are forced to solve. At the reading of their mother's will, twins Jeanne and Simon are given instructions to locate the father they believed was dead and the brother neither knew existed. They travel to the Middle East, to piece together the story of the woman who brought them into the world only to make a shocking discovery.
ForeignThis critically-acclaimed, Oscar®-winning film (Best Foreign Language Film, 2006) is the erotic, emotionally-charged experience Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly) calls "a nail-biter of a thriller!" Before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's population was closely monitored by the State Secret Police (Stasi). Only a few citizens above suspicion, like renowned pro-Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman, were permitted to lead private lives. But when a corrupt government official falls for Georg's stunning actress-girlfriend, Christa, an ambitious Stasi policeman is ordered to bug the writer's apartment to gain incriminating evidence against the rival. Now, what the officer discovers is about to dramatically change their lives - as well as his - in this seductive political thriller Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) proclaims is "the best kind of movie: one you can't get out of your head."
DramaSeeking the promise of America, a beautiful young woman, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), joins her father on an odyssey to cross the gauntlet of the Latin American countryside. Along the way, she crosses paths with a teenaged Mexican gang member, El Casper (Edgar M. Flores), who is maneuvering to outrun his violent past. Together they have to rely on faith, trust and street smarts if they are to survive their increasingly perilous journey towards the hope of new lives.
RomanceFrance, 1760. Marianne is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Because she is a reluctant bride-to-be, Marianne arrives under the guise of companionship, observing Héloïse by day and secretly painting her by firelight at night. As the two women orbit one another, intimacy and attraction grow as they share Héloïse’s first moments of freedom. Héloïse's portrait soon becomes a collaborative act of and testament to their love.
Action & AdventureThis dark comedy is about a man who gets involved in the wildly dangerous and bloody narco business after being deported from the United States.
DramaThe life and controversial death of Vincent van Gogh told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death. Loving Vincent features 120 of Vincent van Gogh's greatest paintings. The plot, drawn from the 800 letters written by the painter himself, leads us to the significant people and events in the time prior to his unexpected death. Every shot is painted just as Vincent himself painted.
ForeignDetective Ma Seok-do investigates a murder case uncovering a Yakuza drug operation in South Korea. Conflict arises with the DEA Captain Joo when Ma's squad clashes with his jurisdiction, hindering their investigation. When Yakuza boss Ichizo senses his business is in danger, he sends hitman Ricky and his gang to South Korea to bring about order...
Action & AdventureAfter 50 years of prosperous offshore drilling along the Norwegian coastline, environmental consequences begin to manifest. A massive rack has opened on the ocean floor, causing a rig to collapse. A team of researchers and rescuers rushes in to search for the missing and assess the cause of the damage, but what they discover is that this is just the start of a possible apocalyptic catastrophe the world has never seen.
Action & AdventureHERO starring martial arts legend Jet Li in a visually stunning martial arts epic where a fearless warrior rises up to defy an empire and unite a nation! With supernatural skill ... and no fear ... a nameless soldier (Jet Li) embarks on a mission of revenge against the fearsome army that massacred his people. Now, to achieve the justice he seeks, he must take on the empire's most ruthless assassins and reach the enemy he has sworn to defeat! Acclaimed by critics and honored with numerous awards, HERO was nominated for both an Oscar®* and Golden Globe!
*2002 Best Foreign Language Film
DramaFrom the Academy Award®-winning director of THE REVENANT and BIRDMAN comes AMORES PERROS, the acclaimed director's first feature film, nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award®. Inventively structured with intersecting narratives, the movie dramatically brings three different story lines together in the wake of a terrible car crash. From Mexico City's mean streets to its posh high-rises, no one is exempt from destiny.
ForeignWhen a massive, gilled monster emerges from the deep, a rag-tag team of volunteers cuts through a web of red tape to uncover the monster’s weakness and its mysterious ties to a foreign superpower. But time is not on their side.
Action & AdventureThe most prolific kung-fu director in Hong Kong martial arts cinema, Chang Cheh, ushered in a new phase of his career and a new generation of action stars with The Five Venoms. The setting is ancient China’s School of Five Venoms, so named for its five types of kung-fu based on five venomous animals: centipede, scorpion, serpent, toad, and lizard. The school is notorious for the evil deeds of its disciples, leading to another classic battle between righteousness and depravity. This international hit, lauded in Ric Meyers' premiere, groundbreaking book martial arts movies as one of the greatest, spawned a series featuring the same actors in new roles which was also enjoyed from America to Asia.
RomanceA sunbaked Sicilian town in the summer of 1982 provides the vivid backdrop to this tender romantic drama about two teenagers who fall in love, but much to the disapproval of those around them. Gianni (Samuele Segreto) is a handsome but shy teen who works as a car mechanic at his stepfather’s garage but mercilessly taunted by the macho townsmen for being a homosexual. With his family life no better, Gianni withdraws into himself until one day he meets Nino (Gabriele Pizzuto), a curly-haired boy with an infectious smile. As the two become close and fall in love, the moral rumblings from their families and neighbors begin to erupt. With all against them, the boys decide to make a stand. An emotional and beautifully realized movie, Fireworks was based on a real-life incident, one which actually jump-started the Italian Gay Rights movement in 1981.
ComedyCreating "one of the jauntiest of all war-of-the-sexes comedies" (Pauline Kael), Pedro Almodóvar, Spain's premiere writer-director, creates an off-kilter universe of madness, mayhem and pure fun. High atop one of Spain's poshest penthouses, three women have come to the end of their mental ropes. Super-sexy Pepa (Carmen Maura) is forever teetering around atop her skyscraper spikes as she obsesses over Iván (Fernando Guillén), the lover who just jilted her over the answering machine! Her neurotic best friend Candela (María Barranco) is seeking refuge at Pepa's place because she recently realized her lover is a Shiite terrorist. And Iván's ex-wife Lucía (Julieta Serrano) was just released from a 20-year stint in a mental institution. They're all mighty mad -- in fact, they're on the verge of a nervous breakdown and one of them is about to commit murder unless the other half-crazed femmes fatales can stop her!
ComedyThe tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous “ramen western” by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges, our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.
Action & AdventureAfter barely surviving a violent attack by an elusive serial killer, crime boss Jang Dong-su (Don Lee) finds himself forming an unlikely partnership with local detective Jung Tae-seok (Kim Moo Yul) to catch the sadistic killer simply known as "K".
ComedyThe year is 1984, and on the rural East Coast of New Zealand“Thriller” is changing kids’ lives. Boy, a young dreamer obsessed with Michael Jackson, lives with his brother and cousins and dreams of his long-lost father, who was sent to prison for robbery not long after Boy was born. When his father returns home after seven years away, Boy is forced to confront the man he thought he remembered and learn to get along without the hero he had been hoping for. “Boy” is the hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age tale about heroes, magic and Michael Jackson.
HorrorKiyoshi Kurosawa’s arresting international breakthrough established him as one of the leaders of an emerging new wave of Japanese horror while pushing the genre into uncharted realms of philosophical and existential exploration. A string of shocking, seemingly unmotivated murders—each committed by a different person yet all bearing the same grisly hallmarks—leads Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) into a labyrinthine investigation to discover what connects them, and into a disturbing game of cat and mouse with an enigmatic amnesiac (Masato Hagiwara) who may be evil incarnate. Awash in hushed, hypnotic dread, CURE is a tour de force of psychological tension and a hallucinatory journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind.
ForeignAt 16, Justine is a brilliant, promising student and a strict vegetarian. But when she starts veterinary school, she quickly encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. Desperate to fit in during the first week of hazing rituals, she strays from her principles and eats raw meat for the first time and faces the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions as her true self emerges.
ForeignWith the world closing in on him, the legendary ex-assassin Kenshin will have to look inside himself and revisit his roots to find the strength he needs to protect his friends and end Shishio’s reign of terror once and for all.
DramaAfter 40 years of absence, Felice returns to his hometown: Naples. He rediscovers the places, the codes of the city and a past that eats away at him.
HorrorTRAIN TO BUSAN is a harrowing zombie horror-thriller that follows a group of terrified passengers fighting their way through a countrywide viral outbreak, trapped on a suspicion-filled, blood-drenched bullet train ride to the Safe Zone…which may or may not still be there.
Action & AdventureInternational superstar Jet Li delivers non-stop thrills in this martial arts masterpiece, which was inspired by the incredible true story of a real-life hero. When a fight destroys the reputation of a renowned martial arts champion (Li) along with the lives of his family, his path to redemption brings him face-to-face with the most ferocious opponents in the world. This riveting epic from the producers of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon features explosive, innovative fight sequences from the legendary action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping.
AnimeForty years ago, the Mythical Pokémon Celebi fled from a vicious hunter, and a young Trainer named Sammy rushed to protect it. Sammy and Celebi vanished in the forest—becoming yet another strange legend that the townspeople tell. In the present day, Ash and friends arrive in the forest, and find that the story is true when both boy and Pokémon turn up again! This time, the Iron Masked Marauder is after Celebi, armed with a cruel device that makes any Pokémon mindlessly obedient and evil. Can Ash, Sammy, Misty, and Brock withstand the power of the corrupted Celebi, and restore it to its true self?
Drama“Love and Mercy: Faustina” begins with St. Faustina before Christ called her to religious life and follows her as she not only answers Christ’s call but receives the image of the Divine Mercy in a vision in 1931 in a tiny town in Poland. The image does not become a tangible reality until years later when her confessor convinces a local artist to paint the image. While St. Faustina would not live to see the world venerate the image of the Divine Mercy, her confessor sought Vatican approval and was met with many obstacles. It wasn’t until Pope John Paul II took interest in the image and St. Faustina’s story that the image was spread worldwide. Additionally, unique scientific analysis shown in “Love and Mercy: Faustina” proves that St. Faustina did see Christ in her vision.
ForeignDetective Ma Suk Do investigates a murder case uncovering a Yakuza drug operation in South Korea. Conflict arises with the DEA Captain Joo Seong when Ma's squad clashes with his jurisdiction, hindering their investigation. When Yakuza boss Ichizo senses his business is in danger, he sends hitman Ricky and his gang to South Korea to bring about order...
DramaDr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is a driven plastic surgeon haunted by personal tragedies. After many years of trial and error, he finally prefects a new skin – a shield which could have prevented the death of his wife in an accident years earlier. His latest “guinea pig” is a mysterious captive whose true identity masks a shocking mystery. THE SKIN I LIVE IN is a masterful tale of secrets, obsession and revenge from Academy Award winning writer/director Pedro Almodovar.
ForeignFifty years ago, the Japanese Defense Forces killed Godzilla or so they thought. When a series of terrifying natural disasters begin to plague Japan, including the inexplicable offshore sinking of a U.S. submarine, a mystic old man warns his nation that Godzilla has come back to destroy Japan as revenge for all the souls lost in the Pacific War. When mere military might can not squash the monster, the mystic man awakens the Holy Beasts of Yamato - King Ghidorah, Mothra and Baragon, sleeping giants that protected Japan in ancient times. These untamed mammoth beasts take on Godzilla with frightening supernatural brute power that has been 2,000 years in the making. Tradition and technology collide in this chilling high-tech, cutting-edge fable.
HorrorA strange man known only as the "metal fetishist", who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese "salaryman", out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of disease that is turning his body into scrap metal, and that his nemesis is not in fact dead but is somehow masterminding and guiding his rage and frustration-fueled transformation.
Kids & FamilyFrom Japan's famed Studio Ghibli comes an Academy Award®-nominated story of friendship, mystery and discovery that delivers stirring emotions and breathtaking animation. When shy, artistic Anna travels to the seaside to stay with relatives, she stumbles upon an old mansion surrounded by marshes, and the mysterious young girl, Marnie, who lives there. The two girls instantly form a unique connection and friendship that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. As the days go by, a nearly magnetic pull draws Anna back to the Marsh House again and again, and she begins to piece together the truth surrounding her strange new friend. Based on the beloved young adult novel by Joan G. Robinson and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (The Secret World of Arrietty), When Marnie Was There is a haunting tale gorgeously rendered with its moonlit seascapes, glowing orchestral score, and powerful portrayals of friendship and belonging.
DramaWinner of the prestigious Camera d’Or for best first film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the enthralling "Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell" from Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Thien An is a reverie on faith, loss, and nature expressed with uncommon invention and depth that follows a thirtysomething man after he leaves Saigon for a trip back to his rural hometown following a family tragedy.
Action & AdventureBehind every great man there lies a teacher, and this was certainly true of Bruce Lee, who claimed as his mentor a martial arts expert named Ip Man (1893-1972). A genius of Wushu (or the Chinese martial arts school), Ip Man grew up in a China nearly ripped to pieces by racial hatred, nationalistic strife and warfare. He rose like a phoenix above these ashes, however, courtesy of his participation in matches against various Wushu masters and kung-fun warriors - ultimately training martial arts icons such as Lee. This biopic starring Donnie Yen and directed by Wilson Yip dramatizes Ip's life story.
Action & AdventureThe very day he’s about to drive his family to a new life in the city, geologist Kristian Elkjord senses something wrong with the mountain that overlooks his scenic town. No one wants to believe that this could be the big one, especially with tourist season at its peak, but when a landslide from the mountain sends tons of rock and earth crashing into the water, everyone has ten minutes to outrace the resulting tsunami to higher ground in this thrilling action spectacular.
Action & AdventureOne of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour ride from Akira Kurosawa—featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura—seamlessly weaves philosophy and entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action, into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope.
DramaTae-Sik is a widower with a mysterious past. When a young girl he befriends is kidnapped by a vicious drug gang, Tae-Sik rushes to save her. Hell-bent on justice after being framed by the nasty criminals, he takes the law into his own hands.
RomanceIn this celebrated Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, a famous Italian filmmaker, haunted by the memories of his first love, returns to his hometown after an absence of 30 years. Upon his return, he connects with the community and remembers the highlights and tragedies that shaped his life and inspired him to follow his dream of becoming a filmmaker. Featuring a memorable score by Ennio Morricone, it's an irresistible, and romantic celebration of the movies.
For those who have never seen it -- and those who have never forgotten it -- director Giuseppe Tornatore's (MALENA, THE STAR MAKER) cherished Academy Award®-winning motion picture (1990, Best Foreign Language Film) is now fully restored and digitally remastered!
DocumentaryThis riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood reconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and artful reenactments to examine how the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized by Islamic extremists. Casting professional actresses as the missing daughters, along with acclaimed Egyptian-Tunisian actress Hend Sabri as Olfa, award-winning director Kaouther Ben Hania ('The Man Who Sold His Skin') restages pivotal moments in the family’s life. These scenes are interwoven with confessions and reflections from Olfa and her younger daughters, offering the women agency to tell their own story and capturing moments of joy, loss, violence, and heartache. Winner of four prizes including L’Oeil d'Or (Best Documentary) when it screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, 'Four Daughters' is a compelling portrait of five women and a unique and ambitious work of nonfiction cinema that exp
AnimeAsh gets a special peek into the secret home of Latias and her brother, Latios, but this peaceful place is soon threatened by the thieves from before—Annie and Oakley—who are after both Legendary Pokémon and a mysterious jewel called the Soul Dew. These elements combined will let them control a powerful machine that normally protects against danger. When the machine malfunctions, though, it not only puts Latias and Latios at serious risk, but the entire city of Alto Mare, as well!
HorrorFrom Dario Argento, maestro of the macabre and the man behind some the greatest excursions in Italian horror (Suspiria, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), comes Deep Red – arguably the ultimate giallo movie. One night, musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings, Blow Up), looking up from the street below, witnesses the brutal axe murder of a woman in her apartment. Racing to the scene, Marcus just manages to miss the perpetrator… or does he? As he takes on the role of amateur sleuth, Marcus finds himself ensnared in a bizarre web of murder and mystery where nothing is what it seems… Aided by a throbbing score from regular Argento-collaborators Goblin, Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso and The Hatchet Murders) is a hallucinatory fever dream of a giallo punctuated by some of the most astonishing set-pieces the sub-genre has to offer.
ForeignThis multiple award winner from Tom Tykwer (The Princess And The Warrior) stars Franka Potente as Lola, the orange-haired punk girlfriend of Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), a small-time courier for a big-time gangster. Manni is working a standard pickup/drop-off, and everything is going fine until an unforeseen incident makes Lola late to pick him up. One stroke of bad luck leads to another, and by the time Manni calls Lola, he has a big problem: He is supposed to meet his unforgiving boss in 20 minutes with 100,000 marks that suddenly he does not have. Lola rushes out of her apartment, attempting to get to Manni and somehow pick up 100,000 marks along the way. As the seconds tick down, the tiniest choices become life-altering (or -ending) decisions, and the fine line between fate and fortune begins to blur.
ForeignWinner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and named the same by the National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics’ Circle, LA Film Critics’ Association and such groups in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Santa Fe. In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other. The eroticism in Cuaron's road movie (which broke all box-office records in Mexico) is the real deal: tactile, sexy, psychologically charged. It's not there to shock or provoke giggles--this is no Hollywood teen comedy--but to illuminate these complex, poignant and lost characters… The movie has an emotional kick that lingers like a primal memory. When the year is over, Cuaron's film will be remembered as one of 2002's finest.
DramaIn a seaside village on the outskirts of an Italian city, where the only law seems to be survival of the fittest, Marcello is a slight, mild-mannered man who divides his days between working at his modest dog grooming salon, caring for his daughter Alida, and being coerced into the petty criminal schemes of the local bully Simoncino, an ex-boxer who terrorizes the neighborhood. When Simoncino’s abuse finally brings Marcello to a breaking point, he decides to stand up for his own dignity through an act of vengeance, with unintended consequences.
ComedyLate winter 1953. The lives of nearly half the planet are in Stalin's hands. A military surgeon, General Yuri Georgievich Klensky (Yuri Tsurilo), finds himself a target of the "Doctors' Plot": the anti-Semitic conspiracy accusing Jewish doctors in Moscow of planning to assassinate the Soviet elite. Pursued, abused, and marked for the gulags, Yuri is chased and dragged through a Stalinist Soviet nightmare. His desperate, jolting journey encapsulates the madness of the era.
Action & AdventureSergeant Gerry Boyle is an eccentric small-town cop with a confrontational and crass personality and a subversive sense of humor. A longtime policeman in County Galway, Boyle is a maverick with his own moral code. He has seen enough of the world to know there isn’t much to it and has had plenty of time to think about it. When a fellow police officer disappears and Boyle’s small town becomes key to a large drug trafficking investigation, he is forced to at least feign interest when dealing with the humorless FBI agent Wendell Everett assigned to the case. Left to run his territory to his liking for many years, he is not at all impressed when the FBI comes to town.
DramaFollowing the collapse of his clan, an unemployed samurai (Tatsuya Nakadai) arrives at the manor of Lord Iyi, begging to be allowed to commit ritual suicide on the property. Iyi’s clansmen, believing the desperate ronin is merely angling for a new position, try to force his hand and get him to eviscerate himself—but they have underestimated his beliefs and his personal brand of honor. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize, Harakiri, directed by Masaki Kobayashi is a fierce evocation of individual agency in the face of a corrupt and hypocritical system.
RomanceHong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career.
DocumentaryFinal Account is an urgent portrait of the last living generation of everyday people to participate in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Over a decade in the making, the film raises vital, timely questions about authority, conformity, complicity and perpetration, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women ranging from former SS members to civilians in never-before-seen interviews reckon with – in very different ways – their memories, perceptions and personal appraisals of their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history.
ForeignParis in the 1930s — a playground for industrial heirs and debonair architects, but the City of Lights does not shine evenly for all. Struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Terezkiewicz) and her best friend Pauline (Rebecca Marder), an unemployed lawyer, live in a cramped flat and owe five months’ rent. Opportunity knocks after a lascivious theatrical producer who made an inappropriate advance towards Madeleine turns up dead. Madeleine stands trial for murder and ascends to decadent stardom, with Pauline serving as defense counsel and media circus ringmaster. A new life of fame, wealth, and tabloid celebrity awaits — until the truth comes out. Adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil and featuring a murder’s row of a supporting cast including Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon, and Fabrice Luchini, The Crime Is Mine is a rollicking farce and scabrous satire with a wily feminist edge from one of French cinema’s most chameleonic stylists, François Ozon.
DramaMerchant Ivory Productions, led by director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, became a household name with A Room with a View, the first of their extraordinary adaptations of E. M. Forster novels. A cherubic nineteen-year-old Helena Bonham Carter plays Lucy Honeychurch, a young, independent-minded, upper-class Edwardian woman who is trying to sort out her burgeoning romantic feelings, divided between an enigmatic free spirit (Julian Sands) she meets on vacation in Florence and the priggish bookworm (Daniel Day-Lewis) to whom she becomes engaged back in the more corseted Surrey. Funny, sexy, and sophisticated, this gargantuan art-house hit features a sublime supporting cast—including Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Denholm Elliott, Maggie Smith—and remains a touchstone of intelligent romantic cinema.
IndependentTracing the life of a renowned icon painter, the second feature by Andrei Tarkovsky vividly conjures the murky world of medieval Russia. This dreamlike and remarkably tactile film follows Andrei Rublev as he passes through a series of poetically linked scenes—snow falls inside an unfinished church, naked pagans stream through a thicket during a torchlit ritual, a boy oversees the clearing away of muddy earth for the forging of a gigantic bell—gradually emerging as a man struggling mightily to preserve his creative and religious integrity. Appearing here in the director’s preferred 183-minute cut as well as the version that was originally suppressed by Soviet authorities, the masterwork Andrei Rublev is one of Tarkovsky’s most revered films, an arresting meditation on art, faith, and endurance.
DramaBased on a true life story, The Motorcycle Diaries is an inspiring and thrilling adventure that traces the youthful origins of a revolutionary spirit. The film follows two daring friends, Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Gael García Bernal,, Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), who hop on the back of a beat-up motorcycle for a breathtaking and exciting road trip across Latin America. From executive producer Robert Redford and acclaimed director Walter Salles (Central Station) comes a life-changing journey that critics are hailing as "Magnificent!" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)
HorrorOn an ordinary suburban street in Buenos Aires, voices are heard from kitchen sinks. Bodies are levitating. Evil is here. It is up to a doctor, her colleague, and an ex-cop to get to the bottom of this neighborhood nightmare. Demian Rugna's must-see "Terrified" is one of the scariest movies of 2018.
Kids & FamilyParis, 1910. Panic sweeps the city as floodwaters rise and a monster is on the loose! Meanwhile a wacky inventor, his camera-crazy best friend, and a madcap monkey are on a mission to protect the beast, Franc, as he holds a rare and special talent. With the help of the beautiful but feisty singer Lucille, the team harbors the monster to keep him from the ghastly wannabe Mayor, Commissioner Maynott, who has a plan to capture Franc and reveal him to be nothing more than a monstrous danger to the people of Paris.From the director of "Shark Tale".
RomanceLost souls reach out for human connection amid a glimmering Hong Kong in Wong Kar Wai’s hallucinatory, neon-soaked nocturne. Originally conceived as a segment of CHUNGKING EXPRESS only to spin off on its own woozy axis, FALLEN ANGELS plays like the dark, moody flip side of its predecessor as it charts the subtly interlacing fates of a handful of urban loners, including a coolly detached hit man (Leon Lai Ming) looking to go straight; his business partner (Michelle Reis), who secretly yearns for him; and a mute delinquent (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who wreaks mischief by night. Swinging between hard-boiled noir and slapstick lunacy with giddy abandon, the film is both a dizzying, dazzling city symphony and a poignant meditation on love, loss, and longing in a metropolis that never sleeps.
RomanceThe bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this alluring work of slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Formerly one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin)—unleashing a gathering wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, LA PISCINE dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces.
Action & AdventureDonnie Yen reprises his role as the legendary Wing Chun master in the grand finale of the revolutionary martial arts series. Following the death of his wife, Ip Man travels to San Francisco to ease tensions between the local kung fu masters and his star student, Bruce Lee, while searching for a better future for his son. From the action visionary behind Kill Bill and The Matrix, witness the heroic sendoff to the saga that inspired a new wave of martial arts movie fans.
DramaAn epic journey of friendship and self-discovery, THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS is a landmark cinematic experience as intimate as it is monumental, as deep as it is expansive. Adapting the award-winning novel by Paolo Cognetti, directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch (THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN) portray through observant detail and stunning landscape photography the profound, complex relationship between Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who first meet as children when Pietro’s Milan family vacations in an isolated village at the base of the Alpine slopes. As they mature, Pietro becomes estranged from his business-minded father (Filippo Timi) even as Bruno—emotionally abandoned by his own father—takes up the role of surrogate son. Pietro’s father’s death reunites the two in realizing his dream of constructing a cabin on the Alps, and the project and subsequent explorations of the awe-inspiring mountain range bond Pietro and Bruno in a shared pur
ComedyPedro Almodóvar's Volver (Coming Back) is set in Madrid's lively working-class neighborhoods, where three generations of women survive wind, fire and even death, thanks to goodness, audacity and a limitless vitality. They are Raimunda (Penélope Cruz), who is married to an unemployed laborer and has a teenage daughter (Yohana Cobo); Sole (Lola Dueñas), her sister, a hairdresser; and the mother of both (Carmen Maura), who died in a fire along with her husband. The presence of the mother, whose reappearance in death seems to arise out of a need to fix the situations she couldn't resolve in life, gradually becomes a comfort to her daughters as well as her grandchild. The female ensemble cast together was awarded Best Actress at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
ForeignWinner of six prestigious European Film Awards, including Best Picture and 2004 Golden Globe® nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this coming-of-age adventure blends the fall of Communism with the salient emotions of a family's love. "Destined to become one of Germany's biggest international hits," (BBC Films), Good Bye, Lenin! is a beautiful introduction to a whole new, free world. In 1989, Christiane Kerner has lost her husband and is completely devoted to the Socialist East German state. A heart attack leaves her in a coma, and when she awakens eight months later, the Berlin Wall has fallen and it's a whole new world. To protect her from the shock, her son Alex hatches a plan to keep her in the dark. It's easy... all he has to do is turn back the handle of time.
ForeignIn Mussolini’s Italy, repressed Jean-Louis Trintignant, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode – and murder – joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane (the assassination of his leftist mentor), he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium’ and wife Stefania Sandrelli and lover Dominique Sanda dancing the tango in a working class hall. But those are only a few of this political thriller’s anthology pieces, others including Trintignant’s honeymoon coupling with Sandrelli in a train compartment as the sun sets outside their window; a bimbo lolling on the desk of a fascist functionary, glimpsed in the recesses of his cavernous office; a murder victim’s hands leaving bloody streaks on a limousine parked in a wintry forest. Bernardo Bertolucci’s masterpiece, adapted from the Alberto Moravia novel, boasts an authentic Art Deco look created by production des
DramaIn this action-packed fantasy epic, a firefighter Ja-hong is taken to the afterlife by three guardians, where only after passing seven trials and proving he lived a noble life will he be able to reincarnate.
Sci-Fi & FantasyGodzilla (a.k.a. Gojira) is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning almost thirty sequels. A thrilling, tactile spectacle that continues to be a cult phenomenon, the original, 1954 Japanese version is presented here.
ForeignFrom acclaimed Korean writer/director Kim Ki-Duk comes this exquisitely beautiful and award-winning human drama set on a tree-lined lake where a tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft. Under the vigilant eye of Old Monk (Yeong-su Oh), Child Monk learns a hard lesson about the nature of sorrow when some of his childish games turn cruel. In the intensity and lushness of summer, the monk, now a young man (Young-min Kim), experiences the power of lust, a desire that will ultimately lead him to dark deeds. With winter, the man atones for his past actions, and spring starts the cycle anew. With an extraordinary attention to visual detail, Kim has crafted an original yet universal story about the human spirit, moving from innocence, through love and evil, to enlightenment and finally rebirth.
ForeignRobert, a Polish immigrant working at a fish factory in Norway, has come to earn money to pay off his mother's debts. Robert realizes he has feelings for his colleague Ivar. For fear of losing his position within a group of Poles at the factory, he hides his feelings, especially when it turns out that Ivar is doing vogue and is an aspiring drag queen.
ForeignFour friends, all teachers at various stages of middle age, are stuck in a rut. Unable to share their passions either at school or at home, they embark on an audacious experiment from an obscure philosopher: to see if a constant level of alcohol in their blood will help them find greater freedom and happiness. At first they each find a new- found zest, but as the gang pushes their experiment further, issues that have been simmering for years come to a head and the men are faced with a choice: reckon with their behavior or continue on the same course.
Underscored by delicate and affecting camerawork, director Thomas Vinterberg's spry script, co-written with regular collaborator Tobias Lindholm, uses this bold premise to explore the euphoria and pain of an unbridled life. Playing a once brilliant but now world-weary shell of a man, the ever surprising Mads Mikkelsen delivers a fierce and touching performance.
ComedyAdopted by his grandmother, Madame Souza, Champion is a lonely little boy. Noticing that this lad is never happier than on a bicycle, Madame Souza puts him through a rigorous training process. Years go by and Champion becomes worthy of his name. Now he is ready to enter the world-famous cycling race, the Tour de France. However during this cycling contest two mysterious men in black kidnap Champion. Madame Souza and her faithful dog Bruno set out to rescue him. Their quest takes them across the ocean to a giant Megalopolis called Belleville where they encounter the renowned "Triplets of Belleville", three eccentric female music-hall stars from the 30's who decide to take Madame Souza and Bruno under their wing. Thanks to Bruno's brilliant sense of smell, the brave duo are soon on to Champion's trail. But will they succeed in beating the devilish plans of the evil French mafia?
ComedyWith university life not all it's cracked up to be, best friends Will, Neil and Simon decide to travel to Australia to meet up with Jay, whose life Down Under on a gap year is the epitome of sun, surf and sex. Or so he claims.
Sci-Fi & FantasyThis contemporary film has an updated look and a high-tech polish while still retaining the spirit of past 'Godzilla' films. In it, Japan is threatened not only by Godzilla, but by a gigantic flying monster and its legions of hungry larva. As the monsters go at it, the Japanese military scrambles to destroy all them all.
Action & AdventureWhile seeking a legendary, time-bending blade, two Goryeo-era shamans cross paths with modern-era people hunting down a dangerous alien concealed inside a human's body.
DramaIn the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Gabriel has just moved in with his colleague, Juan. Shy and reserved, Gabo is reluctant to follow Juan's wandering hands and meaningful looks. With a revolving door of beauties streaming out of Juan's bedroom, his machismo seems firmly in place. However, the attraction between the two men is undeniable. What starts out as a sexual relationship based on convenience of location, soon develops into the engrossing evolution of a tender and intimate relationship, which is as sweet as it is heartbreaking. But, as reality begins to set in on their homemaking fantasy, something has to give, or does it?
ForeignA singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow, whose chores include making the beds, cooking dinner for her son, and turning the occasional trick. In its enormous spareness, Akerman’s film seems simple, but it encompasses an entire world. Whether seen as an exacting character study or as one of cinema’s most hypnotic and complete depictions of space and time, Jeanne Dielman is an astonishing, compelling movie experiment, one that has been analyzed and argued over for decades.
DramaA subtly ravishing passage through the halls of time and memory, this sublime reflection on twentieth-century Russian history by Andrei Tarkovsky (STALKER) is as much a poem composed in images, or a hypnagogic hallucination, as it is a work of cinema. In a richly textured collage of varying film stocks and newsreel footage, the recollections of a dying poet flash before our eyes, his dreams mingling with scenes of childhood, wartime, and marriage, all imbued with the mystical power of a trance. Largely dismissed by Soviet critics on its release because of its elusive narrative structure, MIRROR has since taken its place as one of the director’s most renowned and influential works, a stunning personal statement from an artist transmitting his innermost thoughts and feelings directly from psyche to screen.
DramaThe extraordinary, internationally embraced YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO . . .), directed by the late Taiwanese master Edward Yang, follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-age father NJ’s tentative flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang’s attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, the filmmaker deftly imbues every gorgeous frame with a compassionate clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.
ThrillerAn uncompromising revenge thriller of operatic scope, The World of Kanako is a non-stop visual and emotional assault to the senses as it follows troubled ex-detective Akikazu on the hunt for his missing teenage daughter, Kanako. What he discovers in his search is an unsettling and harrowing web of depravity surrounding both Kanako and himself. As Akizaku stumbles along a shocking trail of drugs, sex and violence, he finds himself woefully unprepared for the revelations that affect all he holds dear.