Directed by Walerian Borowczyk • 1976 • France
Starring Sylvia Kristel, Joe Dallesandro, André Falcon

One of director Walerian Borowczyk’s most haunting and psychologically complex films, LA MARGE (“The Margin”) stars Joe Dallesandro as Sigismond, a happily married businessman who embarks on an...

Directed by Mina Shum • 1994 • Canada
Starring Sandra Oh, Stephen Chang, Alannah Ong

An irresistible, star-making performance from Sandra Oh lights up this warm, sharp-witted look at what it means to hold onto heritage while forging one’s own identity. She stars as Jade, a young Chinese Canadian...

Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien • 2001 • Taiwan
Starring Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Duan Chun-hao

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s neon-splashed reverie is a dreamlike drift through the night world of early-2000s Taipei. From the year 2011, the wayward Vicky (Shu Qi)—a bar hostess caught between a jealously possessive boyf...

Directed by Catherine Breillat • 2004 • France
Starring Amira Casar, Rocco Siffredi

After attempting suicide, a young woman (Amira Casar) makes a startling proposition to the man (Rocco Siffredi) who rescued her: she will pay him to watch her naked body over the course of four nights as long as ...

Criterion Collection Edition #535

Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1983 • Japan
Starring David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti

In this captivating, skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima, David Bowie regally embodies Celliers, a British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Rock star R...

Directed by Alain Resnais • 1959 • France, Japan
Starring Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada

A cornerstone of the French New Wave, the first feature from Alain Resnais is one of the most influential films of all time. A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) engage in a ...

Directed by Vojtěch Jasný • 1963 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Jan Werich, Emília Vášáryová, Vlastimil Brodský

In this modern-day fairy tale and rediscovered Czech New Wave cult classic, an ordinary Bohemian village is visited by a magician (Jan Werich), his beautiful assistant (Emília Vásáryová), a...

Directed by Youssef Chahine • 1969 • Egypt
Starring Mahmoud el-Meliguy, Ezzat el-Alaili, Nagwa Ibrahim

Adapted from a classic novel by Abd al-Rahman Sharqawi, this howl of rage against social injustice is one of director Youssef Chahine’s most influential works, crowned by a career-best perform...

Directed by Felipe Cazals • 1976 • Mexico
Starring Enrique Lucero, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Rodrigo Puebla

One of Mexico's most highly regarded works of political cinema, CANOA: A SHAMEFUL MEMORY reimagines a real-life incident that had occurred just eight years before its release, when a group of ur...

Directed by Jacques Rozier • 1962 • France
Starring Jean-Claude Aimini, Daniel Descamps, Stefania Sabatini

In his bold yet playful feature debut—an overlooked gem of the French New Wave—Jacques Rozier satirizes several major cultural currents of early-sixties France: political myopia, romantic e...

Directed by Andrzej Żuławski • 1981 • France, West Germany
Starring Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent

Andrzej Żuławski’s stunningly choreographed nightmare of a marriage unraveling is an experience unlike any other. Professional spy Mark (Sam Neill) returns to his West Berlin home to fin...

Directed by Héctor Babenco • 1977 • Brazil
Starring Reginaldo Faria, Ana Maria Magalhães, Paulo César Peréio

An enormous box-office success in Brazil, Héctor Babenco’s second feature electrified audiences with its gritty, gut-punching evocation of a corrupt world where the line between criminals...

Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1968 • Senegal
Starring Makuredia Guey, Yunus Ndiaye, Isseu Niang

This second feature by Ousmane Sembène was the first movie ever made in the Wolof language—a major step toward the realization of the trailblazing Senegalese filmmaker’s dream of creating a cinema by,...

Directed by Marcel Carné • 1946 • France
Starring Yves Montand, Pierre Brasseur, Serge Reggiani

The last of the celebrated collaborations between director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert (CHILDREN OF PARADISE) unfolds in a dreamily beautiful vision of a wintry, nocturnal Paris shor...

Directed by Stanley Kwan • 2001 • Hong Kong, China
Starring Liu Ye, Hu Jun, Huatong Li

Filmed in secret in Beijing, this tender gay romance by Stanley Kwan combines the timeless conventions of classic melodrama with a radically frank depiction of queer intimacy as it traces, over the course of y...

Directed by Lars von Trier • 2011 • Denmark, Sweden, France
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård

In this beautiful movie about the end of the world, Justine (Kirsten Dunst, winner of the Best Actress prize at Cannes) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating ...

Directed by Olivier Assayas • 2016 • France
Starring Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz

With this intimate supernatural drama, the celebrated French filmmaker Olivier Assayas conjures a melancholy ghost story set in the world of celebrity and haute couture. Starring Kristen Stewart, ...

Directed by Kidlat Tahimik • 1977 • Philippines Starring Kidlat Tahimik, Mang Fely, Dolores Santamaria

Acclaimed by Werner Herzog as “one of the most original and poetic works of cinema made anywhere in the seven...

Directed by Robert Bresson • 1977 • France
Starring Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc

“My sickness is that I see clearly.” Robert Bresson’s most controversial film (the French government banned viewers under the age of eighteen from seeing it, believing it would incite a rash of ...

Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1960 • Japan
Starring Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Reiko Dan

WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse’s finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko (played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine), who works as a bar hoste...

Directed by Lionel Rogosin • 1959 • United States
Starring Miriam Makeba, Vinah Makeba, Zachria Makeba

One of the bravest and most powerful political films ever made, Lionel Rogosin’s urgent indictment of racial injustice—filmed in secret in 1950s Johannesburg, South Africa—follows a young Zulu ...