Directed by Mario Soffici • 1939 • Argentina
Starring Francisco Petrone, Ángel Magaña, Roberto Fugazot

Shot on location in the jungle, this gut-punching work of social realism by Mario Soffici—one of classic Argentine cinema’s foremost directors—simmers with rage against worker oppression. Despe...

Directed by Mohammad Reza Aslani • 1976 • Iran
Starring Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Fakhri Khorvash, Shohreh Aghdashlou

This rediscovered jewel of Iranian cinema has reemerged as one of the most astonishing works of the country’s prerevolutionary New Wave. A hypnotically stylized murder mystery awash...

Directed by Dikongué-Pipa • 1975 • Cameroon
Starring David Endene, Arlette Din Bell, Jeanne Mvondo

Dikongué-Pipa forged a new African cinematic language in MUNA MOTO, a delicate, emotionally resonant love story. In a Cameroon village, the rigid customs governing courtship and marriage mean that...

Directed by André de Toth • 1939 • Hungary
Starring Bella Bordy, Mária Tasnádi Fekete, Piri Vaszary

The maverick Hollywood stylist André de Toth sharpened his craft in his native Hungary, including making this chic, dynamic melodrama, studded with deco decor and jazzy musical interludes. Two up...

Directed by Uday Shankar • 1948 • India
Starring Amala Uday Shankar, Lakshmi Kanta, Birendra Banerjee

The only film by the visionary dancer and choreographer Uday Shankar is a utopian dream of cultural renewal and a celebration of Indian dance in all its variety. Unfolding as an epic film within...

Directed by Sarah Maldoror • 1972 • Angola
Starring Domingos de Oliveira, Elisa Andrade, Jean M’Vondo

This revolutionary bombshell by Sarah Maldoror chronicles the awakening of Angola’s independence movement. Based on a true story, SAMBIZANGA follows a young woman as she makes her way from the o...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Humberto Solás • 1968 • Cuba
Starring Raquel Revuelta, Eslinda Núñez, Adela Legrá

A breathtaking vision of Cuban revolutionary history wrought with white-hot intensity by Humberto Solás, this operatic epic tells the story of a changing country ...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Héctor Babenco • 1981 • Brazil
Starring Fernando Ramos da Silva, Jorge Julião, Gilberto Moura

With its bracing blend of unflinching realism and aching humanity, Héctor Babenco’s electrifying look at lost youth fighting to survive on the bottom ...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Edward Yang • 1985 • Taiwan
Starring Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Chin

Edward Yang’s second feature is a mournful anatomy of a city caught between the past and the present. Made in collaboration with Yang's fellow New Taiwan Cinema master Hou Hsiao-hs...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Usmar Ismail • 1954 • Indonesia
Starring A. N. Alcaff, Dhalia, Netty Herawaty

Giving voice to the anguish of a nation fighting for its soul, Usmar Ismail’s AFTER THE CURFEW follows the descent into disillusionment of a former freedom fighter wh...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Emilio Gómez Muriel and Fred Zinnemann • 1936 • Mexico
Starring Silvio Hernández del Valle, Antonio Lara, Miguel Figueroa

Early in his career, the Austrian-born future Oscar winner Fred Zinnemann codirected with Emilio Gómez Muriel the politica...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Ermek Shinarbaev • 1989 • Kazakhstan
Starring Aleksandr Pan, Valentina Tyo, Kasym Zhakibayev

A child is raised in Korea to avenge the death of his father’s first child in this decades-spanning tale of obsession and violence, the third collabora...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Kim Ki-young • 1960 • South Korea
Starring Kim Jin-kyu, Ju Jung-nyeo, Lee Eun-shim

A torrent of sexual obsession, revenge, and betrayal is unleashed under one roof in this venomous melodrama from South Korean master Kim Ki-young. Immensely popu...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty • Senegal • 1973
Starring Magaye Niang, Mareme Niang, Aminata Fall

With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this Fren...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Ahmed El Maânouni • 1981 • Morocco

The beloved Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the dynamic subject of this captivating musical documentary. Storytellers through song, with connections to political theater, the band became an international sens...

Criterion Collection Edition #918

A breathtaking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s masterwork overflows with unforgettable images and sounds. In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES revives the splendors of Armenian ...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea • 1968 • Cuba
Starring Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Omar Valdés

This film by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea is the most renowned work in the history of Cuban cinema. After his wife and family flee in the wake of the Bay of Pigs i...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Lino Brocka • 1975 • Philippines
Starring Hilda Koronel, Rafael Roco Jr., Lou Salvador Jr.

Lino Brocka achieved international acclaim with this candid portrait of 1970s Manila, a breakout example of the more serious-minded filmmaking the direct...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Mário Peixoto • 1931 • Brazil
Starring Olga Breno, Taciana Rei, Carmen Santos

An astonishing creation, LIMITE is the only feature by the Brazilian director and author Mário Peixoto, made when he was just twenty-two years old. Inspired by a haun...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Lütfi Ö Akad • 1966 • Turkey
Starring Yılmaz Güney

Set along the Turkish-Syrian frontier, this terse, elemental tale of smugglers contending with a changing social landscape brought together two giants of Turkish cinema. Director Lütfi Ö. Akad ...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Metin Erksan • 1964 • Turkey
Starring Erol Taş, Hülya Koçyiğit, Ulvi Doğan

Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear at the 1964 Berlin International Film Festival, Metin Erksan’s wallop of a melodrama follows the machinations of an unrepentantly s...

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project

Directed by Ritwik Ghatak • 1973 • Bangladesh
Starring Kabari Choudhury, Roushan Jamil, Prabir Mitra

The Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak’s stunningly beautiful, elegiac saga concerns the tumultuous lives of people in fishing villages along the banks of th...