Explore the best of contemporary cinema from around the world.
Directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur • 2012 • India
Starring P. K. Nair, Krzysztof Zanussi, Lester James Peries
An engaging, heartfelt look at one man’s battle to preserve his nation’s cinematic heritage, CELLULOID MAN is an intimate portrait of legendary Indian archivist P. K. Nair, who founde...
Directed by Shiva Sanjari • 2016 • Iran
The lives of Iranian women working in film changed drastically after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Shahrzad was sold by her father when she was only twelve years old, and was forced to dance in a cabaret in Tehran. Years passed and she became a famous ac...
Directed by Sahar Mosayebi • 2021 • Iran, China
Starring Elaheh Mansourian, Shahrbanoo Mansourian, Soheila Mansourian
A ROCKY-esque tale of determination and grit, PLATFORM follows three Iranian sisters as they compete to become international champions of wushu, a Chinese martial art. The sister...
Directed by Szabolcs Hajdu • 2014 • Hungary, Slovakia
Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Răzvan Vasilescu, Orsolya Török-Illyés
In this tantalizingly enigmatic neo-western, Francis (Isaach de Bankolé), a mysterious soccer player from the Ivory Coast, turns up in a small Hungarian town. Escaping from th...
Directed by Chris Shepherd • 2010 • United Kingdom
It’s a holiday to remember—or not—when a young man joins his dotty elderly aunt for a Christmas party at her local Conservative Club, where the wine is flowing, the bingo is heated, and the cracks in the genteel facade start to show.
Directed by Corneliu Porumboiu • 2018 • Romania
Starring Laurentiu Ginghina
Romanian New Wave leader Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST) directs this at once hilarious and poignant look at an ordinary man’s extraordinary ambitions. Ever since a leg fracture ended his aspirations of beco...
Directed by Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan • 2022 • Philippines
Starring Ammin Acha-ur, Pablo Quintos
This sublime winner of the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival follows Lynn (Ammin Acha-ur), who leaves her family’s remote home behind to traverse the harrowing roads o...
Directed by Anthony Banua-Simon • 2020 • United States
The Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi is seen by many as a paradise of leisure and pristine natural beauty, but these escapist fantasies obscure the colonial displacement, hyperexploitation of workers, and destructive environmental extraction that h...
Directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén • 2021 • Sweden, Costa Rica
Starring Wendy Chinchilla Araya, Ana Julia Porras Espinoza, Daniel Castañeda Rincón
This revelatory first feature from Nathalie Álvarez Mesén is a mesmerizing portrait of a woman in the process of taking ownership of her body and sel...
Directed by Nathaniel Kahn • 2003 • United States
Louis I. Kahn, who died in 1974, was one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, but he left behind an illegitimate son, Nathaniel, and a personal life of secrets and broken promises. MY ARCHITECT takes us on a heartbreaking yet humo...
Directed by Joyce Chopra • 2008 • United States
GRAMERCY STORIES is an inspiring look inside a unique residence in Manhattan that provides a safe home for twenty-five gay and transgender teenagers who have experienced violence at home and on the streets. Told from their candid, often witty persp...
Directed by Taika Waititi • 2016 • New Zealand
Starring Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata
Raised on hip-hop and foster care, defiant city kid Ricky (Julian Dennison) gets a fresh start in the New Zealand countryside. He quickly finds himself at home with his new foster family: the loving...
Directed by Rodrigo Reyes • 2020 • Mexico
To reflect on the five-hundred-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, director Rodrigo Reyes offers a bold hybrid-cinema experience exploring the brutal legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexico. Through the eyes of a ghostly conquistador...
Directed by Jeanie Finlay • 2019 • United Kingdom
Starring Freddy McConnell
Freddy is thirty and yearns to start a family, but for him this ordinary desire comes with unique challenges: he is a gay transgender man. Deciding to carry his own baby took years of soul searching, but nothing could pr...
Directed by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou • 2004 • United States
Starring Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye Lee
The American dream has rarely seemed so far away as in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s raw, vérité TAKE OUT, an immersion in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggli...
Directed by Ti West • 2009 • United States
Starring Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov
Director Ti West tips his hat to the slasher classics of the 1970s and ’80s with this intense, stylishly retro satanic shocker. Desperate for some quick cash, college sophomore Samantha Hughes (Jocelin ...
Directed by Reiner Holzemer • 2017 • Belgium
Starring Dries Van Noten, Iris Apfel, Pamela Golbin
For the first time, legendary fashion designer Dries Van Noten allows a filmmaker access to his creative process and rich home life. For an entire year, Reiner Holzemer documents the intricate steps ...
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour • 2014 • United States
Starring Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi
The first Iranian vampire western, Ana Lily Amirpour’s mesmerizing debut feature blends the influences of spaghetti westerns, graphic novels, horror films, the Iranian New Wave, and Jim Jarmusch into a truly...
Directed by Lucrecia Martel • 2008 • Argentina
Starring María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, Inés Efron
A bourgeois middle-aged dentist named Verónica (María Onetto) drives alone on a dirt road, becomes distracted, and runs over something. Immediately she becomes disoriented, unmoored from her identit...
Directed by Guy Maddin • 2002 • Canada
Starring Wei-Qiang Zhang, Tara Birtwhistle, David Moroni
Beautifully transposing the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s interpretation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire yarn from stage to screen, Guy Maddin forges a sumptuous, erotically charged feast of dance, drama, ...
Directed by Marina Zenovich • 2002 • United Kingdom
Every year, the nations of Europe face off in an epic pop-music battle known as Eurovision, with artists from each country attempting to outdo one another on a spectacular international stage. For this engagingly offbeat documentary, director M...
Directed by Denis Villeneuve • 2000 • Canada
Starring Marie-Josée Croze, Jean-Nicolas Verreault, Pierre Lebeau
Narrated by a talking fish, Denis Villeneuve’s sophomore feature blends magical realism, dark humor, and existential inquiry into an audaciously surreal fable. While driving under the i...
Directed by Warwick Thornton • 2009 • Australia
Starring Rowan McNamara, Marissa Gibson, Mitjili Napanangka Gibson
Winner of Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Warwick Thornton’s feature debut is a heartrending and tender vision of young love on the extreme margins of Australian society. T...
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi • 2015 • Japan
Starring Sachie Tanaka, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara
A powerful affirmation of the immersive potential of cinema, HAPPY HOUR is a slow-burning epic chronicling the emotional journey of four thirtysomething women in the misty seaside city of Kobe, Japa...