Directed by Hal Ashby • 1971 • United States
Starring Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort

With the idiosyncratic American fable HAROLD AND MAUDE, countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era. Working from a script by Colin Higgins, Ashby tells the story of the emo...

Directed by Mary Bronstein • 2008 • United States
Starring Greta Gerwig, Mary Bronstein, Amy Judd

A defiantly lo-fi, ripe-for-rediscovery transmission from the early-aughts microbudget boom, Mary Bronstein’s rawer-than-raw portrait of toxic friendship traces the emotional fallout that follows a ...

Directed by Ronald Bronstein • 2007 • United States
Starring Dore Mann, Mary Wall, Carmine Marino

A nightmare transmission from the grungiest depths of the New York indie underground, the visceral, darkly funny, and totally sui generis debut feature from Ronald Bronstein is a dread-inducing visi...

Criterion Collection Edition #941

Directed by Susan Seidelman • 1982 • United States

Susan Seidelman established her distinctive vision of New York City with this debut feature, the lo-fi original for her vibrant portraits of women reinventing themselves. After escaping New Jersey, the quintess...

Directed by Kevin Smith • 1994 • United States
Starring Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti

Famously shot on a shoestring budget of less than $30,000, CLERKS launched the career of indie legend Kevin Smith and won over audiences with its raw energy, irreverent humor, and proudly ...

Directed by James Gray • 2008 • United States
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw

Set in the insular world of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, this timeless romantic drama features a remarkably raw, vulnerable performance from Joaquin Phoenix as Leonard, a charismatic but troubled y...

Directed by David Chase • 2012 • United States
Starring John Magaro, James Gandolfini, Bella Heathcote

The feature-film debut from David Chase, creator of “The Sopranos,” is a uniquely unsentimental, open-ended coming-of-age story set in the counterculture explosion of midcentury America. In 196...

Directed by James Merendino • 1998 • United States
Starring Matthew Lillard, Michael A. Goorjian, Annabeth Gish

It’s 1985 and Stevo (Matthew Lillard) is that rare animal: a punk rocker in the Mormon stronghold of Salt Lake City, Utah. Though he’s just graduated from college with honors, his life...

Directed by Jeff Lieberman • 1988 • United States
Starring Kevin Dillon, Deborah Goodrich, Jennifer Tilly

Cult director Jeff Lieberman (BLUE SUNSHINE, JUST BEFORE DAWN) pays homage to the heyday of 1950s science fiction with a sublimely schlocky, awesomely ’80s alien-invasion satire. When video-...

Directed by Jane Schoenbrun • 2021 • United States
Starring Anna Cobb, Michael J. Rogers, May Leitz

“I want to go to the World’s Fair.” Isolated teen Casey (Anna Cobb) repeats this cryptic mantra three times into the eerie glow of her laptop screen, initiating herself into the viral World’s Fair...

Directed by William Friedkin • 1985 • United States
Starring William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow

William Friedkin’s kinetic neonoir takes the ’80s action thriller to new heights of hyperstylized excess. Federal agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) has a score to settle as he vows to t...

Directed by Alile Sharon Larkin • 1982 • United States

In this poetic, groundbreaking work from LA Rebellion trailblazer Alile Sharon Larkin, Alana (Margot Saxton-Federella), a Black art student, sets out to reclaim her body image and self-worth from Western, patriarchal beauty standards and, in...

Directed by Horace Jenkins • 1982 • United States
Starring Richard Romain, Tommye Myrick, Carol Sutton

Written, produced, and directed by the late, trailblazing director Horace B. Jenkins and crafted by an entirely African American cast and crew, this luminous, recently rediscovered landmark of ...

Directed by Wong Kar Wai • 2007 • China, France, Hong Kong
Starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz

For his oft-overlooked first English-language feature, legendary director Wong Kar Wai brought his dreamily elliptical sense of time and intoxicating, color-saturated romanticism to America, f...

Directed by Whit Stillman • 1990 • United States
Starring Carolyn Farina, Edward Clements, Taylor Nichols

One of the great American independent films of the 1990s, the surprise hit METROPOLITAN, by writer-director Whit Stillman, is a sparkling comedic chronicle of a young man’s romantic misadven...

Directed by John Curran • 2004 • United States, Canada
Starring Mark Ruffalo, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts

Adapted from two short stories by Andre Dubus (whose work was also the inspiration for IN THE BEDROOM), this unflinching domestic drama is a fearlessly raw, morally complex exploration of infide...

Directed by Richard Kelly • 2001 • United States
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, James Duval

Described by director Richard Kelly as “‘The Catcher in the Rye’ as told by Philip K. Dick,” this cult classic is a mind-altering experience whose metaphysical enigmas are still being unraveled. T...

Directed by Sidney Lumet • 2007 • United States
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke

Renowned director Sidney Lumet brought five decades of cinematic mastery to bear in his final film, a riveting thriller that achieves the weight of Greek tragedy. A typically virtuosic Phil...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 2009 • United States
Starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer

Two of contemporary cinema’s most electrifying eccentrics, Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage, join forces for a thoroughly unhinged pulp fever dream. Not—despite the title—a remake of or sequel to the si...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 2009 • United States
Starring Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny

What strange series of events led a man to murder his mother with an ancient sword? Produced by David Lynch, Werner Herzog’s typically idiosyncratic take on a true crime unfolds as a fascinatin...

Directed by Charles Burnett • 1999 • United States
Starring James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave, Margot Kidder

Virtually unseen for years only to reemerge as a lost gem of American independent cinema, this surprising, ineffably tender romantic comedy from master director Charles Burnett (KILLER OF S...

Directed by Bette Gordon • 1983 • United States
Starring Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, Richard M. Davidson

The provocative, sexually charged tale of a woman’s journey of self-discovery, Bette Gordon’s independent landmark offers a bold challenge to conventional notions of feminism and pornography. ...

Directed by Michael Roemer • 1980 • United States
Starring Elizabeth Huddle, Christopher Lloyd, Elizabeth Franz

Having chronicled the last days of terminally ill people for his documentary DYING, director Michael Roemer channeled his experiences making that film into this emotionally raw and wre...

Directed by Michael Imperioli • 2009 • United States
Starring Steve Schirripa, Sharon Angela, Emory Cohen

The directorial debut from “Sopranos” star Michael Imperioli is an intense, emotionally raw portrait of lost souls attempting to fill the spiritual voids at the center of their lives. Over t...