21st Century Cinema

21st Century Cinema

121 Episodes

Explore the best of contemporary cinema from around the world.

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21st Century Cinema
  • Life After BOB: The Chalice Study

    Episode 1

    Directed by Ian Cheng • 2021 • United States
    Starring Poonam Basu, Cherami Leigh, Dana Lee

    In this innovative anime created by artist Ian Cheng in the Unity game engine, neural engineer Dr. Wong installs an experimental AI named BOB (“Bag of Beliefs”) into the nervous system of his ten-year-old ...

  • Ennui ennui

    Episode 2

    Directed by Gabriel Abrantes • 2013 • France
    Starring Edith Scob, Laetitia Dosch, Omid Rawendah

    With a cast featuring Edith Scob and Esther Garrel, this delirious espionage farce resembles what might have happened if ZERO DARK THIRTY had been written by Georges Bataille.

  • Os humores artificiais

    Episode 3

    Directed by Gabriel Abrantes • 2016 • Portugal
    Starring Margarida Lucas, Amanda Rodarte, Gilda Nomacce

    Taking Wittgenstein’s assertion that the most profound problems can only be discussed in the form of jokes as a starting point, OS HUMORES ARTIFICIAIS (“The Artificial Humors”) combines old-Hol...

  • Godland

    Episode 4

    Directed by Hlynur Pálmason • 2022 • Iceland, Denmark
    Starring Elliott Crosset Hove, Vic Carmen Sonne, Ingvar Sigurdsson

    The struggle between the strictures of religion and our own brute animal nature plays out amid the beautifully forbidding landscapes of remote Iceland in this stunning psychol...

  • Will-o’-the-Wisp

    Episode 5

    Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2022 • France, Portugal
    Starring Mauro Costa, André Cabral, Joel Branco

    A rapturously queer, ecologically minded, antiroyalist musical fantasia, WILL-O’-THE-WISP finds the ever-audacious João Pedro Rodrigues (The Ornithologist) at his most playfully and pleasur...

  • Old Man

    Episode 6

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2012 • United States

    For more then 20 years Charles Manson has refused to communicate to the outside world. Until now. These are actual never before heard phone conversations between Canadian best selling author Marlin Marynick and Charles Manson.

  • 38
    22:50
    Episode 7

    38

    Episode 7

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew • 2021 • United States
    Starring Curie Choi, Alicia Novella Vasquez

    Vivid interruptions of sound and images fragment the psychic landscape of a thirty-eight-year-old woman who becomes obsessed with the social-media presence of the young woman who broke u...

  • I Love You So Much

    Episode 8

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2014 • United States
    Starring Leah Shore, Jarret Kerr

    Pillow talk takes a surreal turn in a shape-shifting blend of live action and animation.

  • Puss
    08:49
    Episode 9

    Puss

    Episode 9

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2021 • United States
    Starring Sarah Ellen Stephens, Karl Jacob, Brian W. Smith

    How does one get laid in the midst of a global pandemic? A woman seeks release for her locked-down libido, with surreal results.

  • First
    11:59
    Episode 10

    First

    Episode 10

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew • 2019 • United States
    Starring Mae Wangmo, Anne Hanavan, Angel Cruz

    A teenager lives her life, toggling seamlessly between her physical and digital selves. She walks over a bridge at sunrise, follows a stranger through the streets of the city, and meet...

  • Funeral

    Episode 11

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2018 • United States
    Starring Jarret Kerr, Jennifer Prediger

    On the day of her lover’s funeral, a pregnant woman works through her grief in an unexpectedly kinky way.

  • Hallway

    Episode 12

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2015 • United States
    Starring Margaret Singer, Sarah Ellen Stephens

    In a secret sex club in Brooklyn, a queer couple unleash upon each other a drug-induced existential barrage of delusions and broken dreams.

  • Negative Two

    Episode 13

    Directed by Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew • 2019 • United States
    Starring Eric Lee, Sean Dunn, Matthew Raviotta

    A twentysomething gay man develops a relationship over text messages with a stranger he meets on a dating app. Their exchange becomes increasingly intimate as the protagonist navigate...

  • Launch
    03:01
    Episode 14

    Launch

    Episode 14

    Directed by Leah Shore • 2021 • United States

    An animated outer-space odyssey puts Einstein’s theory of relativity to the test.

  • Lan Yu

    Episode 15

    Directed by Stanley Kwan • 2001 • Hong Kong, China
    Starring Liu Ye, Hu Jun, Huatong Li

    Filmed in secret in Beijing, this tender gay romance by Stanley Kwan combines the timeless conventions of classic melodrama with a radically frank depiction of queer intimacy as it traces, over the course of y...

  • Vámonos

    Episode 16

    Directed by Marvin Lemus • 2015 • United States
    Starring Vico Ortiz, Jessica Camacho, Natalia Cordova-Buckley

    Vico Ortiz (OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH) and Jessica Camacho (ALL RISE, THE FLASH, WATCHMEN) costar in this beautiful story about what it looks like to show up as an ally for our gender-nonconf...

  • A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here

    Episode 17

    Directed by Érica Sarmet • 2021 • Brazil
    Starring Zélia Duncan, Bruna Linzmeyer, Lorre Motta

    This formally innovative, euphorically sexy short travels through the queer Brazil of past, present, and future as it traces an encounter between an older butch biker and a band of young polyamorous lesb...

  • Carne seca

    Episode 18

    Directed by Jazmin Diaz • 2015 • United States
    Starring Joseph T. Campos, Karina Dominguez, Cristian Miranda

    Two brothers in rural Mexico have until sunset to sell a cooler of beef—or face their father’s anger.

  • Cette maison

    Episode 19

    Directed by Miryam Charles • Canada • 2022
    Starring Schelby Jean-Baptiste, Florence Blain Mbaye, Marie Yardly Kavanagh

    Shot on dreamy 16 mm, the stunning debut feature from Haitian-Canadian filmmaker Miryam Charles resurrects a tragedy that occurred within her own family—the unresolved death of ...

  • Infernal Affairs

    Episode 20

    Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak • 2002 • Hong Kong
    Starring Andy Lau Tak-wah, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Anthony Wong Chau-sang

    Two of Hong Kong cinema’s most iconic leading men, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah, face off in the breathtaking thriller that revitalized the city-sta...

  • Infernal Affairs II

    Episode 21

    Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak • 2003 • Hong Kong
    Starring Edison Chen Koon-hei, Shawn Yue Man-lok, Anthony Wong Chau-sang

    The first of two sequels to follow in the wake of the massively successful INFERNAL AFFAIRS softens the original’s furious pulp punch in favor of something mo...

  • Infernal Affairs III

    Episode 22

    Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak • 2003 • Hong Kong
    Starring Andy Lau Tak-wah, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Leon Lai

    Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah return for the cathartic conclusion of the INFERNAL AFFAIRS trilogy, which layers on even more deep-cover intrigue while steering the...

  • Demonlover

    Episode 23

    Directed by Olivier Assayas • 2002 • France
    Starring Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny

    “No one sees anything. Ever. They watch, but they don’t understand.” So observes Connie Nielsen in Olivier Assayas’s hallucinatory, globe-spanning DEMONLOVER, a postmodern neonoir thriller and med...

  • Rat Pack Rat

    Episode 24

    Directed by Todd Rohal • 2014 • United States
    Starring Eddie Rouse, Steve Little, Margie Beegle

    A Sammy Davis Jr. impersonator, hired to visit with a loyal Rat Pack fan, finds himself delivering last rites at the boy’s bedside.