Directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid • 1943 • United States
Starring Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid

Cinematic trance-maker Maya Deren and her husband Alexander Hammid launched an underground revolution with this avant-garde landmark—shot in their Hollywood home, but a world away from the co...

Directed by Doris Wishman • 1965 • United States
Starring Gigi Darlene, Barnard L. Sackett, Sam Stewart

One of the highlights of legendary exploitation auteur Doris Wishman’s ultraprolific career, BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL tells the tale of Meg (Gigi Darlene), a Boston housewife who, after she is rap...

Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1967 • United States
Starring Jason Holliday

On the night of December 2, 1966, Shirley Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. For twelve straight hours, they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang,...

Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1968 • Belgium

Directed by and starring Chantal Akerman, this short film was made when she was just eighteen.

Directed by John Cassavetes • 1968 • United States
Starring John Marley, Lynn Carlin, Gena Rowlands

John Cassavetes puts a disintegrating marriage under the microscope in the searing FACES. Shot in high-contrast 16 mm black and white, the film follows the futile attempts of the captain of indust...

Directed by John Waters • 1970 • United States

The gloriously grotesque second feature directed by John Waters is replete with all manner of depravity, from robbery to murder to one of cinema's most memorably blasphemous moments. Made on a shoestring budget in Waters' native Baltimore, with th...

Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1972 • Belgium

In Chantal Akerman's early short film LA CHAMBRE, we see the furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life, with Akerman herself staring back at us. This breakthrough formal experiment is the first film ...

Directed by Martin Scorsese • 1974 • United States
Starring Catherine Scorsese, Charles Scorsese

In one of his most personal works, Martin Scorsese sits down with his parents, Catherine and Charles, in their New York apartment for a free-flowing discussion that touches on family history, the imm...

Directed by Derek Jarman • 1990 • United Kingdom
Starring Tilda Swinton, Johnny Mills, Kevin Collins

Half waking dream and half fiery polemic, THE GARDEN was born of director Derek Jarman’s rage over continued antigay discrimination and the sluggardly response to the AIDS crisis (he himself he h...

Directed by Ken Jacobs • 2010 • United States

Ken Jacobs applies his exacting digital techniques—including his signature stroboscopic effects—to footage of the New York City loft where he lives and works. The result is a deconstruction of his most personal physical space and an intensification o...

Directed by Naima Ramos-Chapman • 2016 • United States
Starring Naima Ramos-Chapman, Angela Silverio, Bianca Soto

A young woman dealing with the psychological aftermath of sexual violence shuffles between experiences both mundane and extraordinary as she attempts to leave her New York City apart...

Directed by Laida Lertxundi • 2018 • Spain, United States

Laida Lertxundi applies the six compositional principles of eighteenth-century Chinese painter Shih-t’ao (such as “draw attention to a scene emerging from a static background” and “add scattered dynamism to immobility”) to this cosmic dia...

Directed by John Magary • 2020 • United States
Starring Kalle Condliffe, John Magary

Cooped up in their New York City apartment during the pandemic, a couple’s lockdown frustrations find release during a DIY haircut in this black-comic riff on Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough short THE BIG SHAVE.