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."
ForeignMars is under siege! Just before Halloween 2071, a terrorist bomb destroys a tanker truck on Highway One, close to a densely populated crater city. There are casualties up to half a mile from the blast. 500 killed or injured by what appears to be a biochemical weapon. The rewards for the bombers capture is massive and there are four humans and a dog who really need the money. Down on their luck as usual, the crew of the Bebop get on the case.
ForeignThe light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment. Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical n
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.
ForeignFrom director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes this thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud, Jeanne Moreau and Jean Reno. Rescued from death row by a top-secret agency, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is slowly transformed from a cop-killing junkie into a cold-blooded bombshell with a license to kill. But when she begins the deadliest mission of her career only to fall for a man who knows nothing of her true identity Nikita discovers that in the dark and ruthless world of espionage, the greatest casualty of all...is true love.
ForeignWith TEOREMA, a coolly cryptic exploration of bourgeois spiritual emptiness, Pier Paolo Pasolini moved beyond the poetic, proletarian earthiness that first won him renown. Terence Stamp stars as the mysterious stranger—perhaps an angel, perhaps a devil—who, one by one, seduces the members of a wealthy Milanese family (including European cinema icons Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Laura Betti, and Anne Wiazemsky), precipitating an existential crisis in each of their lives. Unfolding nearly wordlessly, this tantalizing metaphysical riddle—blocked from exhibition by the Catholic Church for degeneracy—is at once a blistering Marxist treatise on sex, religion, and art and a primal scream into the void.
ForeignThe preeminent dramatist of China’s rapid 21st-century growth and social transformation, Jia Zhangke has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous CAUGHT BY THE TIDES. Assembled from footage shot over a span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences—CAUGHT BY THE TIDES is a free-flowing work of unspoken longing, carried along more by music than dialogue as it looms around the edges of a poignant love story. The film mostly adheres to the perspective of Qiaoqiao (Jia’s immortal muse Zhao Tao) as she wanders an increasingly unrecognizable country in search of long-lost lover Bin (Li Zhubin), who left their home city of Datong seeking new financial prospects. The always captivating Zhao carries the film with her delicate expressiveness, while Jia constantly evokes cinema’s ability to capture the passage of time and the persistence of chang
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.
ForeignIn the rural alpine hamlet of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Takumi and his daughter, Hana, lead a modest life gathering water, wood, and wild wasabi for the local udon restaurant. Increasingly, the townsfolk become aware of a talent agency’s plan to build an opulent glamping site nearby, offering city residents a comfortable "escape" to the snowy wilderness. When two company representatives arrive and ask for local guidance, Takumi becomes conflicted in his involvement, as it becomes clear that the project will have a pernicious impact on the community. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow up to his Academy Award®-winning DRIVE MY CAR is a foreboding fable on humanity's mysterious, mystical relationship with nature. As sinister gunshots echo from the forest, both the locals and representatives confront their life choices and the haunting consequences they have.
ForeignJacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in the age of technology reached their creative apex with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the endearingly clumsy, resolutely old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a bafflingly modernist Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting testament to a modern age tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion.
ForeignThe lush and breathtaking beauty of the Alps, filmed with painterly grace under natural light from frigid winter to redemptive spring, provides the physical and emotional backdrop for VERMIGLIO, Maura Delpero’s visionary film, which won the Silver Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. This singular portrait of a sprawling family, set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, follows a series of dramatic, consequential events after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier (Giuseppe De Domenico), who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with the family's eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi). VERMIGLIO shows the lives of a provincial family in a remote village suspended in time by the customs of a fading era. Conjuring stories from her own family’s past, Delpero creates a deeply personal and human tale that recalls the great neorealist movement in Italian cinema, but through Lucia’s perspe
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.
ForeignThe year is 2044: artificial intelligence controls all facets of a stoic society as humans routinely "erase" their feelings. Hoping to eliminate pain caused by their past-life romances, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) continually falls in love with different incarnations of Louis (George MacKay). Set first in Belle Époque-era Paris, Louis is a British man who woos her away from a cold husband, then in early 21st Century Los Angeles, he is a disturbed American bent on delivering violent "retribution." Will the process allow Gabrielle to fully connect with Louis in the present, or are the two doomed to repeat their previous fates? Visually audacious director Bertrand Bonello (SAINT LAURENT, NOCTURAMA) fashions his most accomplished film to date: a sci-fi epic, inspired by Henry James' turn- of-the-century novella, THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE, suffused with mounting dread and a haunting sense of mystery. Punctuated by a career-defining, three-role performance by Seydoux, THE BEAST poignantly conv
ForeignPedro Almodovar is at the top of his game with "All About My Mother," a poignant, at times comedic examination of women in intimate relationships. "All About My Mother" visits themes of female vulnerability and solidarity, but in a new and profoundly mature way. Cecilia Roth plays strong-willed hospital worker Manuela, whose 18-year-old son's accidental death transforms her life. Reading her son's journals, grief-stricken Manuela realizes that he longed to hear about the father he never knew. Forsaking Madrid for Barcelona, she embarks on a search for the man she left almost 20 years before.
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.
ForeignMichelle is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a Burgundy village, close to her longtime friend Marie-Claude. When her Parisian daughter Valérie drops off her son Lucas to spend school vacation with his grandma, Michelle, stressed out by her daughter, serves her toxic mushrooms for lunch.
ForeignNovember is set in a pagan Estonian village where werewolves, the plague, and spirits roam. Rainer Sarnet’s third feature film is a bold, twisted fairy tale about unrequited love. In November, the villagers’ main problem is how to survive the cold, dark winter. And, to that aim, nothing is taboo. People steal from each other, from their German manor lords, from spirits, the devil, and from Christ. They are willing to give away their souls to thieving creatures made of wood and metal called kratts, who help their masters, whose soul they purchased, steal even more. A young farmgirl Liina (Rea Lest) is hopelessly in love with Hans (Jörgen Liik), a nearby farmhand, whose heart she loses to the daughter of the German manor lord. In order to regain his love, Liina turns to any means necessary, even if that means tapping into the black magic that is circling around the village. Estonian pagan legends and Christian mythologies come to a spell-binding intersection in November.
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
ForeignThe most personal film by the underworld poet Jean-Pierre Melville, who had participated in the French Resistance himself, this tragic masterpiece, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the Resistance. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime. Long underappreciated in France and unseen in the United States, the atmospheric and gripping thriller ARMY OF SHADOWS is now widely recognized as the summit of Melville’s career, channeling the exquisite minimalism of his gangster films to create an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
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.
ForeignWith her first film in a decade, the fearless 75-year-old French auteur Catherine Breillat (FAT GIRL, THE LAST MISTRESS) proves she’s as provocative as ever with her Cannes-stirring film, which drives down the dark road of uncontrollable passion. A remarkably nuanced, radiant Léa Drucker plays Anne, an attorney who has plateaued in her marriage to Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin), a distracted businessman. His son, troubled seventeen-year-old, Theo (Samuel Kircher), from a previous marriage, has recently returned to Pierre’s ineffectual and despondent care. When Pierre leaves town for a business trip, Anne and Théo—confined under the same roof for the first time—find themselves in the throes of an unexpected and dangerously lustful affair, threatening the stability of the household. Music by Kim Gordon heightens the erotic tension of LAST SUMMER, a film that boldly surveys power dynamics, female desire, and fulfillment.
ForeignThis mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies unfolds in an unknown time in an unnamed village, where, one day, a mysterious circus—complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as the Prince—arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens that builds inexorably toward violence. In thirty-nine hypnotic long takes engraved in ghostly black and white, auteur Béla Tarr and codirector-editor Ágnes Hranitzky conjure an apocalyptic vision of dreamlike dread and fathomless beauty.
ForeignIn this beautiful and uplifting gay romance, two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives. Dutch phenom Gijs Blom stars as Sieger, a thoughtful 15-year-old who grapples mightily with his emerging sexuality. Ko Zandvliet co-stars as his love interest, the spirited, outgoing, and popular Marc.In their boyish summer courtship the pair swim, bike, and run — they also share ice creams and kisses as they gradually find the courage to be vulnerable with one another. The romance between them unfolds with a palpable sense of longing, and an aching sequence of heartache as Sieger tries to fight the inevitable outcome. With its authentic and perfectly poignant tone, plus an irresistible pop soundtrack, Mischa Kamp’s Boys ranks as one of the most wholesomely romantic gay teen films ever.
ForeignDissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeois world behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: the tenth feature in six years by genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard is a stylish mash-up of anticonsumerist satire, au courant politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, "the last romantic couple." With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, PIERROT LE FOU is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.
ForeignAnne is a lawyer with a beautiful home, family and life. When her troubled step-son comes to live with them, she forms an intimate bond with him. Initially a liberating move, soon turns into a disturbing story with devastating consequences.
ForeignIn the fifth of their immortal collaborations, Federico Fellini and the exquisitely expressive Giulietta Masina completed the creation of one of the most indelible characters in all of cinema: Cabiria, an irrepressible, fiercely independent sex worker who, as she moves through the sea of Rome’s humanity, through adversity and heartbreak, must rely on herself—and her own indomitable spirit—to stay standing. Winner of the best actress prize at Cannes for Masina and the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, NIGHTS OF CABIRIA brought the early, neorealist-influenced phase of Fellini’s career to a transcendent close with its sublimely heartbreaking yet hopeful final image, which embodies, perhaps more than any other in the director’s body of work, the blend of the bitter and the sweet that define his vision of the world.
ForeignPanah Panahi, son and collaborator of embattled filmmaker Jafar Panahi and apprentice to Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, makes a striking feature debut with this charming, sharp-witted, and deeply moving comic drama. 'Hit the Road' takes the tradition of the Iranian road-trip movie and adds unexpected twists and turns. It follows a family of four – two middle-aged parents and their sons, one a taciturn adult, the other an ebullient six-year-old – as they drive across the Iranian countryside. Over the course of the trip, they bond over memories of the past, grapple with fears of the unknown, and fuss over their sick dog. Unspoken tensions arise and the film builds emotional momentum as it slowly reveals the furtive purpose for their journey. The result is a humanist drama that offers an authentic, often comedic, and deeply sincere observation of an Iranian family preparing to part with one of their own.
ForeignIn 1975, Pierre Goldman, a fiery and controversial figure of revolutionary left-wing activism, was put on trial in France. Accused of multiple crimes including two murders, Goldman proclaims his innocence. The Goldman trial reflects the political, ideological and racial tensions that marked the 1970s in France and Europe. Considered to be the trial of the century, it divided an entire country and widened the gap between the conservative right and left-wing intellectuals.
ForeignIf you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That’s the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world. AFTER LIFE’s high-concept premise is grounded in Kore‑eda’s documentary-like approach to the material, which he shaped through interviews with hundreds of Japanese citizens. What emerges is a panoramic vision of the human experience — its ephemeral joys and lingering regrets — and a quietly profound meditation on memory, our interconnectedness, and the amberlike power of cinema to freeze time.
ForeignThe coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution. We meet nine-year-old Marjane when the fundamentalists first take power, forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. The story then follows her as she cleverly outsmarts the "social guardians" and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden, while living with the terror of government persecution and the Iran/Iraq war. Then Marjane's journey moves on to Austria where, as a teenager, her parents send her to school in fear for her safety and she has to combat being equated with the religious fundamentalism and extremism she fled her country to escape. Marjane eventually gains acceptance in Europe, but finds herself alone and horribly homesick, and returns to Iran to be with her family, though it means putting on the veil and living in a tyrannical society. After a difficult period of adjustment, she enters art school and marries, continuing to speak out against the hypocri
ForeignBoth a landmark of radical political cinema and one of the most visually ravishing films ever made, this legendary hymn to revolution shimmers across the screen like a fever dream of rebellion. The result of an extraordinarily ambitious collaboration between the Soviet and Cuban film industries, director Mikhail Kalatozov’s I AM CUBA unfolds in four explosive vignettes that capture Cuban life on the brink of transformation, as crushing economic exploitation and inequality give way to a working-class uprising. Backed by Carlos Fariñas’s stirring score, the dazzling camera work by Sergei Urusevsky—an inspiration for generations of filmmakers to follow—gives flight to the movie’s message of liberation.
ForeignJulie (Laure Calamy) can’t catch a break. For a single mother raising two children in the suburbs of Paris but working in the city, the commuter train is a lifeline–and it’s suddenly been severed during the latest transit strike. Without the train, Julie can’t get to her job as the head maid at a five-star hotel–or to the interview for a better job she has lined up. Out of desperation, Julie turns to neighbors and her own gutsy resourcefulness to commute into the city for work, barely making it back in time to pick up her kids before dinner. Worse yet: it’s only Monday. Julie is at her breaking point and soon finds herself bending the rules to stay afloat in a ruthless society as her responsibilities pile up. Anchored by Calamy’s powerful performance, Full Time is an impossible race against time and a kinetic thriller assembled from the everyday obstacles faced by working parents everywhere.
ForeignOn January 3, 1889 in Turin, Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, a cab driver is having trouble with a stubborn horse. The horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse’s neck, sobbing. After this, he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan, until he loses consciousness and his mind. Somewhere in the countryside, the driver of the cab lives with his daughter and the horse. Outside, a windstorm rages. Immaculately photographed in Tarr’s renowned long takes, The Turin Horse is the final statement from a master filmmaker.
ForeignLife after death is the main theme in this drama about the process of transformation of a man during his surprising and enlightening experiences in the spiritual dimension. With magnificent art direction and special effects that have never been seen before in a Brazilian production, the film brings to the screen the most important work by Brazilian medium Chico Xavier who, through the account of the spirit of doctor André Luiz, describes in great detail what life is like at “ASTRAL CITY: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY”.
ForeignBased on a true story, this story chronicles the life of Andres Lopez aka "Florecita" who after the killing of Pablo Escobar finds himself in the impossible position of having to go undercover for the DEA or go to the very prison where his mortal enemies wait to kill him. Turning states evidence, Florecita, quickly rising through the ranks of the Colombian Cartel finds himself working both sides of the most dangerous battle known to man.
ForeignAs a wealthy Swedish family celebrates the birthday of their patriarch Alexander (Erland Josephson, Cries and Whispers), news of the outbreak of World War III reaches their remote Baltic island — and the happy mood turns to horror. The family descends into a state of psychological devastation, brilliantly evoked by Tarkovsky's arresting palette of luminous greys washing over the bleak landscape around their home. (The film's masterful cinematography is by Sven Nykvist, Ingmar Bergman's longtime collaborator).
ForeignBased on a novel by the legendary Marcel Pagnol, JEAN DE FLORETTE is (alongside MANON OF THE SPRING) the first installment in a rich, engrossing epic of greed and deception set amid the bucolic splendor of the Provence countryside. Gerard Depardieu gives one of his great performances as the hunchbacked city slicker Jean, who is determined to make a success of the farm he has inherited—unaware that his new neighbor César (Yves Montand) and his nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil) have launched a ruthless scheme to take control of the land for themselves.
ForeignXavier Giannoli’s sumptuous adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s epic novel, Lost Illusions is a ravishing vision of the birth of modern media. Lucien de Rubempré (Benjamin Voisin) is an ambitious and unknown aspiring poet in 19th century France. He leaves his provincial town, arriving in Paris on the arm of his admirer, Louise de Bargeton (Cécile de France). Outmatched in elite circles, Lucien’s naive etiquette prompts Louise to retreat back to her husband, leaving the young poet to forge a new path. Lucien makes a new friend in another young writer, Etienne Lousteau (Vincent Lacoste), who introduces him to the business of journalism where a salon of wordsmiths and wunderkinds make or break the reputations of actors and artists with insouciant impunity. Lucien agrees to write rave reviews for bribes, achieving material success at the expense of his conscience and soon discovers that the written word can be an instrument of both beauty and deceit.
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.
ForeignIn this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Phoenix Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is squashed when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. This onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors got director Seijun Suzuki in trouble with Nikkatsu studio heads, who were put off by his anything-goes, in-your-face aesthetic, equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.
ForeignGérard Depardieu delivers a towering performance as the immortal hero of hopeless romantics everywhere—he of the legendary long schnoz who selflessly uses his verse to help a friend woo the woman he himself secretly loves. Exquisite Academy Award–winning costumes, elegant cinematography, and a superlative screenplay adaptation by Jean-Claude Carrière and director Jean-Paul Rappeneau come together in a period piece par excellence that captures the wit, heart, and, yes, panache of Edmond Rostand’s beloved play.
ForeignAvailable online for the first time, SEX AND LUCIA is a visually stunning and thematically adventurous look at passion, elusive relationships and deep bonds between people who thought they were strangers. Lucía is a young waitress in Madrid, who seeks refuge on a quiet, secluded Mediterranean island after the loss of her longtime boyfriend. Amidst the fresh air, dazzling sun, and glistening deep blue water, Lucía begins to piece together the dark corners of her past relationship. Enthralling on every level, SEX AND LUCIA is a stirring love story that dazzles with its labyrinthine plot, breathtaking cinematography and erotic passion.
ForeignAn agonizing portrait of desperate Japanese soldiers stranded in a strange land during World War II, Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain is a compelling descent into psychological and physical oblivion. Denied hospital treatment for tuberculosis and cast off into the unknown, Private Tamura treks across an unfamiliar Philippine landscape, encountering an increasingly debased cross section of Imperial Army soldiers, who eventually give in to the most terrifying craving of all. Grisly yet poetic, Fires on the Plain is one of the most powerful works from one of Japanese cinema’s most versatile filmmakers.
Foreign“Visionary” barely begins to describe this masterpiece of Chinese cinema and martial arts moviemaking. A Touch of Zen by King Hu depicts the journey of Yang (Hsu Feng), a fugitive noblewoman who seeks refuge in a remote, and allegedly haunted, village. The sanctuary she finds with a shy scholar and two aides in disguise is shattered when a nefarious swordsman uncovers her identity, pitting the four against legions of blade-wielding opponents. At once a wuxia film, the tale of a spiritual quest, and a study in human nature, A Touch of Zen is an unparalleled work in Hu’s formidable career and an epic of the highest order, characterized by breathtaking action choreography, stunning widescreen landscapes, and innovative editing.
ForeignMariangela Melato (Swept Away) stars as Signora Bolk, a self-made tycoon interested in ecological preservation. She is fed up with the terrorists who poach Italy's rich beauty, and as part of a crazy retaliation scheme she hires a former CIA agent to abduct the number one violator, Giuseppe 'Beppe' Catania. Catania is taken to her villa on a private island where he insists that as a man, he cannot go without sex. She relents and hires two prostitutes to pleasure him. Blindfolded and chained, Beppe realizes that the third woman is none other than the woman who kidnapped him and agrees to pay the $100 million but only with a twist.
ForeignWinner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is the new film from the celebrated director of Distant and Climates. In the dead of night, a group of men – among them, a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor and a murder suspect – drive through the Anatolian countryside, the serpentine roads and rolling hills lit only by the headlights of their cars. They are searching for a corpse, the victim of a brutal murder. The suspect, who claims he was drunk, can’t remember where he buried the body. As night wears on, details about the murder emerge and the investigators’ own hidden secrets come to light. In the Anatolian steppes, nothing is what it seems; and when the body is found, the real questions begin.
ForeignJustice knows no border for Hamid (Adam Bessa), who has taken refuge in France after being detained and tortured by the Assad regime in Syria. Exiled and undercover, the mild-mannered literature professor now works as part of a secret group pursuing Assad’s enforcers, who have fled Syria and assumed new identities in Europe – including the guard responsible for inflicting unspeakable abuse upon him. Covertly communicating their life-or-death decrees through a multiplayer video game, the undercover cell operates in broad daylight but wrestles with how far they can push their retribution in a land that only faintly recalls Assad’s atrocities. With his mother now living in a refugee camp in Beirut, Hamid puts on a brave face and extols his new life, but the cracks begin to show as he becomes consumed by the hunt. Hot on the trail of a man at his local university (Tawfeek Barhom) who bears a striking resemblance to his torturer, Hamid is sure that he’s identified the culprit, but c
ForeignSensual and elegant, Catherine Corsini’s SUMMERTIME follows Carole and Delphine as they fall in love against the backdrop of early feminist activism in 1971 France. After living in the city, Delphine is called home to help with her family farm in the countryside and is forced to choose between her responsibility to them and the life of love she had in Paris with Carole. An enlightening tale about the infatuation of first love and its universal themes.
ForeignThe second installment in Claude Berri’s sprawling rural tragedy that began with JEAN DE FLORETTE, MANON OF THE SPRING follows a beautiful but shy shepherdess (Emmanuelle Béart) as she plots vengeance on the men whose greedy conspiracy to acquire her father’s land caused his death years earlier. Taken together, these masterful adaptations of the novel by Marcel Pagnol stand as high-water marks of the French cinema, recapturing the rich humanist tradition of its classical era.
ForeignThe Prince is an explosive homoerotic prison drama set in a repressive 1970s Chilean prison. During a night of heavy drinking, Jaime, a hot-tempered narcissist, suddenly stabs his best friend. He is sent to jail for murder and there, alone and afraid, he comes under the protection of a tough older inmate known as “The Stallion.” The unlikely pair begin a clandestine romance but violent power struggles inside the penitentiary threaten their bond. This searing story of survival at all costs, takes its inspiration from Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’amour and Fassbinder’s Querelle in its affecting exploration of masculine aggression, conflicting loyalties and pent-up sexual desires.
ForeignIn this cinematic concert the concluding film of the Qatsi Trilogy preceded by the critically acclaimed KOYAANISQATSI ("Life Out Of Balance"), and POWAQQATSI ("Life In Transformation") mesmerizing images reanimated from everyday reality, then visually altered with stateoftheart digital techniques, chronicle the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic, and the virtual. Extremes of intimacy and spectacle, tragedy and hope, fuse in a tidal wave of visuals and music, giving rise to a unique artistic experience that reflects Reggio's visions of a brave new globalized world.
ForeignAydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities.
ForeignOne of the sixties' great international art-house sensations, Woman in the Dunes was for many the grand unveiling of the surreal, idiosyncratic worldview of Hiroshi Teshigahara. Eija Okada plays an amateur entomologist who has left Tokyo to study an unclassified species of beetle that resides in a remote, vast desert; when he misses his bus back to civilization, he is persuaded to spend the night in the home of a young widow (Kiyoko Kishida) who lives in a hut at the bottom of a sand dune. What results is one of cinema’s most bristling, unnerving, and palpably erotic battles of the sexes, as well as a nightmarish depiction of everyday Sisyphean struggle, for which Teshigahara received an Academy Award nomination for best director.
ForeignPablo, a small-time drug dealer, and his teenage sister Apolline have forged an unbreakable bond through their shared obsession with the online video game Darknoon. When Pablo falls for the mysterious Night, he gets swept up in their liaison, abandoning his sister to deal with the impending shutdown of their digital haven alone. As Pablo’s reckless choices provoke the wrath of a dangerous rival gang, the end of their virtual life draws near, upending their reality. The newest vision from Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel ('Jessica Forever') is a bittersweet apocalyptic love story with a modern MMORPG twist.
ForeignIn this bold, genre-defying horror-musical mashup — the playful and confident debut of Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska — a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters are drawn ashore in an alternate '80s Poland to explore the wonders and temptations of life on land. Their tantalizing siren songs and otherworldly aura make them overnight sensations as nightclub singers in the half-glam, half-decrepit fantasy world of Smoczynska's imagining. In a visceral twist on Hans Christian Andersen's original Little Mermaid tale, one sister falls for a human, and as the bonds of sisterhood are tested, the lines between love and survival get blurred. A savage coming-of-age fairytale with a catchy new-wave soundtrack, lavishly grimy sets, and outrageous musical numbers, The Lure explores its themes of sexuality, exploitation, and the compromises of adulthood with energy and originality.
ForeignGermany, 1957. Attorney General Fritz Bauer receives crucial evidence on the whereabouts of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann. The lieutenant colonel, responsible for the mass deportation of the Jews, is allegedly hiding in Buenos Aires. Bauer, himself Jewish, has been trying to take crimes from the Third Reich to court ever since his return from Danish exile. However, there is little success so far due to the fierce German determination to repress its sinister past. Due to his distrust in the German justice system, Fritz Bauer contacts the Israeli secret service Mossad, and by doing so, commits treason. Bauer is not seeking revenge for the Holocaust - he is concerned with the German future.
ForeignAward-winning actors Gael García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) and Alice Braga (I Am Legend) ignite the screen in this thrilling and sexy new take on the classic Western. When a gang of ruthless bandits set fire to a remote family farm and kidnap the farm- owner's daughter Vania (Braga), help arrives in the form of Kaí (García Bernal) a mysterious man who emerges from the rain forest. With the grace of a jaguar, Kaí rescues Vania and plunges into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse with the gangsters. With the hornet's nest now stirred, Kai and Vania must decide how far they will go to preserve the farm and their vanishing way of life.
ForeignSpain, 1966: Antonio (Javier Cámara, from “I’m So Excited!”) is a teacher and a Beatles fan – facets he combines by getting his pupils to recite the lyrics from “Help” in English class. When he learns that his idol John Lennon is making a film in Almería (Richard Lester’s “How I Won the War”) he resolves to meet him. On the journey he picks up two young runaways: Bethlehem, a pregnant girl fleeing a convent, and Juanjo, a boy escaping a dictatorial father.
Foreign16 year old Rocco's two aims in life are to get laid and to see his favorite pop star in concert with his best friends, sassy and tomboyish Maria and nerdy and quiet Mauri. When a bullying incident at school forces Rocco to come out to his divorced middle-class parents, their liberal leanings are severely tested. Luckily his two friends stand by him and join him in running away from home (in his parents stolen car) to see their favorite singer in concert, followed hot on their heels by his neurotic mother and eccentric gran to hilarious effect. A vibrant, funny coming out tale, A Little Lust is both immersive and totally life-affirming.
ForeignA renowned health supplement company, run by a ruthless businesswoman, is abducting young women as part of an experiment bio-hacking babies’ DNA to enable her clients to reverse the aging process. When Mia sets out to investigate this shady business, she ends up getting trapped in the human farm’s perverse web. Can she somehow escape from the nightmare?
ForeignFor her first feature after graduating from the All-Russian State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK), Larisa Shepitko trained her lens on the fascinating Russian character actress Maya Bulgakova, who gives a marvelous performance as a once heroic Russian fighter pilot now living a quiet, disappointingly ordinary life as a school principal. Subtly portraying one woman’s desperation with elegant, spare camera work and casual, fluid storytelling, Shepitko, with WINGS, announced herself as an important new voice in Soviet cinema.
ForeignVincent (Patrick Bruel), a successful forty-something, is about to become a father for the first time. He is invited to dinner at the charming apartment of his sister, Elisabeth (Valérie Benguigui), and brother-in-law, Pierre (Charles Berling), where he catches up with his childhood friend, Claude (Guillaume de Tonquédec). Whilst waiting for Anna (Judith El Zein), his younger spouse who is always running late, his fellow guests happily bombard him with questions on his fast approaching fatherhood... But when his hosts ask Vincent what name he has chosen for his future offspring, his response plunges the family into chaos.
ForeignOnce-great Spanish matador Nacho Martinez has been reduced to starring in gruesome "snuff" films. Martinez is idolized by Antonio Banderas, who has no notion of his idol's current illegal profession. Terrified at the thought of drawing blood in the bullring, Banderas nevertheless seeks out Martinez' assistance in preparing for a bullfighting career. To prove his "machismo", Banderas rapes Martinez' lady-friend Eva Cobo. No one will believe Banderas' confession of the rape, so he decides to attach more importance to his crime by confessing to a recent rash of serial killings (actually perpetrated by Martinez and his cohorts). Bandera's case is taken by feminist attorney Assumpta Serna, who unwittingly--but not unwillingly--sets herself up as Martinez' next "conquest."
ForeignJean-Pierre Léaud returns in the delightful STOLEN KISSES, the third installment in the Antoine Doinel series. It is now 1968, and the mischievous and perpetually lovestruck Doinel has been dishonorably discharged from the army and released onto the streets of Paris, where he stumbles into the unlikely profession of private detective and embarks on a series of misadventures. Whimsical, nostalgic, and irrepressibly romantic, STOLEN KISSES is François Truffaut’s timeless ode to the passion and impetuosity of youth.
ForeignA new priest (Claude Laydu) arrives in the French country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish. The apathetic and hostile rural congregation rejects him immediately. Through his diary entries, the suffering young man relays a crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village and from God. With his fourth film, Robert Bresson began to implement his stylistic philosophy as a filmmaker, stripping away all inessential elements from his compositions, the dialogue and the music, exacting a purity of image and sound.
ForeignA young teacher in modern Bhutan, Ugyen, shirks his duties while planning to go to Australia to become a singer. As a reprimand, his superiors send him to the most remote school in the world, in a village called Lunana, to complete his service. He finds himself exiled from his Westernized comforts after an arduous 8 day trek just to get there. There he finds no electricity, no textbooks, not even a blackboard. Though poor, the villagers extend a warm welcome to their new teacher, but he faces the daunting task of teaching the village children without any supplies. He wants to quit and go home, but he begins to learn of the hardship in the lives of the beautiful children he teaches, and begins to be transformed through the amazing spiritual strength of the villagers
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.
ForeignAs Magdalena's (Emily Rios) 15th birthday approaches, her working class family prepares for the all-important QUINCEAÑERA - a lavish coming-of-age celebration. To help with expenses, Magdalena is forced to wear a hand-me-down party dress and abandon her dream of arriving in a Hummer limousine. But when her father discovers she's pregnant and refuses to believe the incredible truth - she's actually still a virgin - Magdalena moves in with her elderly Uncle Tomas (Chalo Gonzalez) and black sheep cousin Carlos (Jesse Garcia). Her newfound family is soon put to the test, however, when an unexpected crisis threatens to tear them apart, and Magdalena learns what it truly means to come of age.
ForeignSmall-time swindler Marcos (Ricardo Darín) observes Juan (Gastón Pauls) pulling off a scam on a cashier, and then getting caught as he attempts the same trick again. Claiming to be a policeman, Marcos drags Juan out of the store, then reveals himself to be a fellow grifter with a higher stakes game in mind, and invites Juan to be his partner. When an old time con-man enlists them to sell a forged set of extremely valuable rare stamps,"The Nine Queens," the tricky negotiations that ensue introduce a cast of suspicious characters including Marcos' beautiful sister Valeria (Leticia Brédice) and their innocent younger brother Federico (Tomás Fonzi). As the deceptions and duplicity mount, a slew of thieves and con artists make it difficult to figure out who is conning whom.
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.
ForeignLaura, a young journalist living an isolated life in a cramped Mexico City flat, is not lucky in love. The banality of her daily life stands in stark contrast to her nightly pursuit of sex and love. These short-lived affairs barely take the edge off her isolation, but then she meets the brooding, would-be actor Arturo. Their chemistry ignites feelings in Laura that leave her deeply troubled. The two embark on an increasingly dangerous sadomasochistic relationship in which pleasure, pain and love merge. Their physical relationship seems headed for a very dark place as her secret past resurfaces, pushing Arturo to the limit in this intense, powerful and at times deeply unsettling movie.
ForeignEver since the National University strike broke out, Sombra and Santos have been living in angst-ridden limbo. Education-less, motionless, purposeless, and unsure of what the strike will bring, they begin to look for strange ways to kill time. But their idiosyncratic routine is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Tomas, Sombra's kid brother. Unable to fit in amongst these older slackers, Tomas discovers that unsung Mexican folk-rock hero Epigmenio Cruz has been hospitalized somewhere in the city. Tomas convinces Sombra and Santos they must track him down in order to pay their final respects on his deathbed. But what they thought would be a simple trip to find their childhood idol, soon becomes a voyage of self-discovery across Mexico City's invisible frontiers.
ForeignA passionate tale of love and liberation set within the conservative modern society of the Republic of Georgia, AND THEN WE DANCED follows Merab, a devoted young dancer who, with his partner Mary, has been tirelessly training to land a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. The arrival of Irakli—a confident and gifted male dancer with the perfect form and rebellious streak Merab lacks—at once sparks both an intense competitive rivalry and a burgeoning romantic desire that threatens Merab's security, family relationships and his future in dance.
ForeignTHE FORBIDDEN ROOM is Guy Maddin’s ultimate epic phantasmagoria.Honoring classic cinema while electrocuting it with energy, this Russian nesting doll of a film begins (after a prologue on how to take a bath) with the crew of a doomed submarine chewing flapjacks in a desperate attempt to breathe the oxygen within.Suddenly, impossibly, a lost woodsman wanders into their company and tells histale of escaping from a fearsome clan of cave dwellers. From here, Maddin andco-director Evan Johnson take us high into the air, around the world, and into dreamscapes, spinning tales of amnesia, captivity, deception and murder,skeleton women and vampire bananas. Playing like some glorious meeting between Italo Calvino, Sergei Eisenstein and a perverted six year-old child, THE FORBIDDEN ROOM is Maddin's grand ode to lost cinema. Created with the help of master poet John Ashbery, the film features Mathieu Amalric, Udo Kier, Charlotte Rampling, Geraldine Chaplin, Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, Louis Negin,
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...
ForeignACADEMY AWARD® and GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINEE for 2015 Best Foreign Language Film. Set in 1992, during the growing conflict between separatists in the wake of the Soviet Union’s break-up, this deeply moving film tells the compelling story of two immigrant farmers who make the dangerous decision to remain in a war torn area long enough to harvest their tangerine crop. When the war inevitably comes to their doorstep, the men risk their lives by taking in two wounded soldiers from opposite sides. These fighters vow to kill each other when they recover, but their extended period of recovery ultimately has a powerful and humanizing effect that helps to transcend ancient ethnic divides. Set against a stunning landscape defiled by war, this beautiful and poetic film makes a timeless and eloquent statement for peace.
ForeignBursting with the colorful street style & music of Nairobi’s vibrant youth culture, RAFIKI is a tender love story between two young women in a country that still criminalizes homosexuality. Kena and Ziki have long been told that “good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives” - but they yearn for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls encourage each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, Kena and Ziki must choose between happiness and safety.
Initially banned in Kenya for its positive portrayal of queer romance, RAFIKI won a landmark supreme court case chipping away at Kenyan anti-LGBT legislation. Featuring remarkable performances by newcomers Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva, RAFIKI is a hip tale of first love “reminiscent of the early work of Spike Lee” (Screen Daily) that’s “impossible not to celebrate” (Variety)!
ForeignThis internationally award-winning film casually and sometimes caustically uncovers what binds us - and blinds us - to the differences between our ways of life in the West with modern day Iran. Fascinating, funny and tragic, it's 'a gem of comic action' that explores the ambiguity between the sexes" (The Hollywood Reporter). The Tehran soccer stadium roars with 100,000 cheering men - and only men. According to Islamic custom, women are not allowed, and the ambitious girls who manage to sneak in are caught and sent to a holding pen, guarded by male soldiers their own age. Duty makes the young men and women adversaries, but duty can't overcome their shared dreams, their mutual attraction, and ultimately their overriding sense of national pride and humanity.
ForeignPoetic, riveting and moving, three-time Academy Award nominee Carlos Saura's latest foray into the music of Argentina explores the heart of traditional Argentine folklore and its stunning musical heritage – from traditional styles to modern dance. Now 84, the three-time Academy Award nominee states: "by beginning with the most beautiful traditional songs, I wish to explore the deep, telluric connection between song and soil, tradition and the future...I will create a film that is not only for aficionados but for all lovers of music and dance – as well as those who especially liked Carmen or Tango. My desire is to create a cinematic experience unlike any other."
ForeignLise (16 years old) is accused of murdering her best friend. As the trial starts, her parents stand right by her side. But once her secret life is revealed in court, the truth becomes indistinguishable. "I love you" means nothing. Everyone says "I love you". A young girl called to the witness stand casually drops these disarmingly simple words that are enough to give one chills. That is a recurring feeling throughout this unusually precise courtroom drama, where words and their power are at the center of attention. In this case, the legal proceedings become the ritual of a society putting its own youth on trial.
ForeignG. W. Pabst brought the war movie into a new era with his first sound film, a mercilessly realistic depiction of the nightmare that scarred a generation, in Germany and beyond. Digging into the trenches with four infantrymen stationed in France in the final months of World War I, Pabst illustrates the harrowing ordeals of battle with unprecedented naturalism, as the men are worn away in body and spirit by firefights, shelling, and the disillusion that greets them on the home front. Long unavailable, the newly restored Westfront 1918 is a visceral, sobering antiwar statement that is as urgent today as when it was made.
ForeignUsing correspondences and texts written by Johann Sebastian Bach, and read by his wife, Anna Magdalena, filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet have crafted one of the most precise, rewarding biopics ever put to screen. CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH's intense emotional pull can be understood by its status as a musical film in the most thorough sense: its performances—extended sequences set within the very spaces once occupied by Bach himself, as trained performers wear and play materials accurate to the period—are immense, bringing us closer to the sound than was ever thought possible. Immaculately restored on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH invites viewers to experience a bygone age.
ForeignFrom Pedro Almodóvar, the director of the Academy-Award(r) winning All About My Mother (Best Foreign Language Film, 2000), comes his most acclaimed film yet. TALK TO HER is the surprising, altogether original and quietly moving story of the spoken and unspoken bonds that unite the lives and loves of two couples. Two men (Benigno and Marco) almost meet while watching a dance performance, but their lives are irrevocably entwined by fate. They meet later at a private clinic where Benigno is the caregiver for Alicia, a beautiful dance student who lies in a coma. Marco is there to visit his girlfriend, Lydia, a famous matador, also rendered motionless. As the men wage vigil over the women they love, the story unfolds in flashback and flashforward as the lives of the four are further entwined and their relationships move toward a surprising conclusion.
ForeignVersailles, August 1715. Back from hunting, Louis XIV–masterfully portrayed by French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Leaud (The 400 Blows) - feels a pain in his leg. A serious fever erupts, which marks the beginning of agony for the greatest King of France. Surrounded by a horde of doctors and his closest counselors, who sense an impending power vacuum, the Sun King struggles to run the country from his bed.
Based on extensive medical records and the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon and other courtiers, The Death of Louis XIV is a wry neoclassical chamber drama, a work of pure magic by Albert Serra, one of today’s most singular directors.
ForeignIn the aftermath of the 1990 earthquake in Iran that left fifty thousand dead, Abbas Kiarostami returned to Koker, where his camera surveys not only devastation but also the teeming life in its wake. Blending fiction and reality into a playful, poignant road movie, AND LIFE GOES ON follows a film director who, along with his son, makes the trek to the region in hopes of finding out if the young boys who acted in WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE? are among the survivors, and discovers a resilient community pressing on in the face of tragedy. Finding beauty in the bleakest of circumstances, Kiarostami crafts a quietly majestic ode to the best of the human spirit.
ForeignPhilippe Abrams is the director of the Salon-de-Provence post office. He's married to Julie, whose depressed state makes life impossible. To make her happy, Philippe plots to get transferred to the Côte d’Azur. But it backfires, and he is transferred to Bergues, a small town in northern France, instead.
ForeignYoussef Chahine established his international reputation with this masterpiece, which, though initially a commercial failure in Egypt, would become one of the most influential and celebrated works in all of Arab cinema. The director himself stars as Kenawi, a disabled newspaper hawker whose obsession with a sultry drink seller (Hind Rostom, known as the "Marilyn Monroe of Arabia") leads to tragedy of operatic proportions on the streets of Cairo. Blending elements of neorealism with provocative noir-melodrama, CAIRO STATION is a work of raw populist poetry that explores the individual’s search for a place in Egypt’s new postrevolutionary political order.
ForeignThe first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s sublime, interlacing KOKER TRILOGY takes a simple premise—a boy searches for the home of his classmate, whose school notebook he has accidentally taken—and transforms it into a miraculous child’s-eye adventure of the everyday. As our young hero zigzags determinedly across two towns, aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters, his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of rural Iranian society in all its richness and complexity and a touching parable about the meaning of personal responsibility. Sensitive and profound, WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE? is shot through with all the beauty, tension, and wonder a single day can contain.
Foreign"Hae-won (Seong-won Ji) is a woman on the edge: a series of incidents at work earn her a forced “vacation,” but when she travels to a remote island from a childhood visit, at the urgent request of her friend Kim Bok-nam (Yeong-hie Seo), she has no idea what devils of the past are waiting. Moo-do Island is an unpleasant place to visit, and you definitely don’t want to live there. Bok-nam is crumbling under a weight of violence, sexual menace, and fear – with no means of escaping her tormentors. The vengeful rage that waits inside her is growing, and her sanity shredding. If Hae-won can’t help her escape, she may have to take matters into her own hands, once and for all."
ForeignDeath metal band Impaled Rektum escapes prison to perform at Wacken, Germany’s iconic music festival. Their wild and perilous adventure into the metal music scene challenges the band’s integrity in the sequel to cult classic HEAVY TRIP.
ForeignFrom critically acclaimed, erotically candid writer/director Pedro Almodóvar (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) comes a raw, seductive tale based on a novel by British mystery writer Ruth Rendell. When naive, lovestruck Victor (Liberto Rabal) attempts to seduce beautiful and wealthy but strung-out junkie Elena (Francesca Neri), all he gets for his trouble is a one-way, six-year ticket to prison, where he concentrates on strengthening his mind, his body...and his desire for vengeance on the man who put him there. After his release, Victor crosses paths with Elena, who is as beautiful as ever since she cleaned up her act. Still madly in love with her, Victor will stop at nothing to win her over even if it means revenge for Elena has married David (Javier Bardem), the cop who sent him to prison!
