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 Sofia Coppola • 2003 • United States, Japan
Starring Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi

Sofia Coppola’s wonderfully woozy, mood-drenched is-it-a-love-story? unfolds amidst the lavish yet lonely corridors of the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo, where Charlotte (Scarlett Johans...

Directed by Leslie Harris • 1992 • United States
Starring Ariyan A. Johnson, Kevin Thigpen, Ebony Jerido

Leslie Harris’s indie touchstone made a splash when it won a special jury prize at Sundance in 1993, offering a window into a world still sorely underrepresented in mainstream cinema: that of...

Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson • 2015 • United States
Starring David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan

From the singularly brilliant, offbeat imagination of screenwriter and codirector Charlie Kaufman (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) comes a bea...

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 Rebecca Miller • 2015 • United States
Starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore

Rebecca Miller’s wittily sophisticated modern spin on the screwball romance stars Greta Gerwig as Maggie, a vibrant, practical-minded New Yorker who, without success in love, decides to have a ch...

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 Peter Hedges • 2003 • United States
Starring Katie Holmes, Derek Luke, Sean Hayes

Rebellious daughter April Burns (Katie Holmes) has offered to host Thanksgiving dinner for her suburban clan in her grubby Lower East Side apartment. But her attempts to create an unforgettable feast go...

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 Zach Braff • 2004 • United States
Starring Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Ian Holm

Like THE GRADUATE for early-2000s indie kids, the breakout Sundance hit from writer-director-star Zach Braff captures twentysomething angst with a mix of charming comedy and touching sincerity—and made s...

Directed by Bill Gunn • 1973 • United States
Starring Duane Jones, Marlene Clark, Bill Gunn

Straining the conventions of blaxploitation and horror through a singular avant-garde sensibility, Bill Gunn’s revolutionary independent landmark GANJA & HESS is a highly stylized and utterly original tre...

Directed by Jonathan Demme • 2008 • United States
Starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin

When Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), she brings a long history of personal demons, family conflict, and tragedy ...

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 Noah Baumbach • 2007 • United States
Starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black

Margot Zeller (Nicole Kidman) is a short-story writer with a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue. On the eve of the wedding between her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and h...

Directed by John Carpenter • 1988 • United States
Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster

The ultimate Reagan-era rebuttal, John Carpenter’s subversive science-fiction satire follows a drifter (pro-wrestling legend Roddy Piper) who discovers that America is being controlled by yuppie alien...

Directed by Charles Burnett • 1994 • United States
Starring Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, Ice Cube

Charles Burnett’s powerful police drama follows J. J. Johnson (Michael Boatman), an idealistic rookie cop and the only Black officer in an all-white precinct, as he confronts racism and corruption w...

Directed by John Carpenter • 1974 • United States
Starring Brian Narelle, Dan O'Bannon, Cal Kuniholm

John Carpenter made his feature debut with this gleefully gonzo science-fiction satire, which began life as a student film and went on to become a cult classic. Onboard the titular spaceship, a t...

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 Abel Ferrara • 1981 • United States
Starring Zoë Lund, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto

Abel Ferrara’s exploitation-scuzz classic takes place in the cesspool of 1980s New York, where mute garment-district worker Thana (Zoë Lund, who also cowrote Ferrara’s BAD LIEUTENANT) is raped once, t...

Directed by Shannon Plumb • 2013 • United States
Starring Shannon Plumb, Derek Cianfrance, Lora Lee Gayer

Keatonesque slapstick meets woman-on-the-edge psychodrama in this singular, tonally audacious exploration of modern motherhood, performance, and identity. Displaying a brilliance for both ph...

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 Robert Lee King • 2000 • United States, Australia
Starring Lauren Ambrose, Thomas Gibson, Nicholas Brendon

Adapted from the play by camp icon Charles Busch, this wickedly satirical genre mash-up combines the GIDGET-style beach movie of the ’60s with the ’80s teen slasher for a wildly...