Directed by David Schickele • 1971 • United States
Starring Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam, Elaine Featherstone, James Earl Garrison

When Paul Okpokam arrived in the U.S. in 1968, David Schickele decided to make a film about his Nigerian friend’s experience of coming to teach at San Francisco State Coll...

Directed by John Woo • 1986 • Hong Kong
Starring Ti Lung, Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung

The box-office sensation that established director John Woo as the king of 1980s Hong Kong action cinema and set the standard for the heroic bloodshed genre, this electrifying gangster saga combines the directo...

Directed by Lam Nai-choi • 1991 • Hong Kong
Starring Fan Siu-Wong, Gloria Yip, Yukari Oshima

The ultimate Hong Kong black-comic gorefest, this live-action adaptation of the cult manga is a blood feast of entrail-wreathed splatter and literally eye-popping ultraviolence. After he’s sentenced to a...

Directed by Catherine Breillat • 1976 • France
Starring Charlotte Alexandra, Hiram Keller, Rita Maiden

Filmed in 1976 but not released until 2000, A REAL YOUNG GIRL is Catherine Breillat’s taboo-busting directorial debut and one of the boldest explorations of female sexuality ever committed to c...

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn • 1999 • Denmark
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Kim Bodnia, Liv Corfixen

On the gritty margins of Copenhagen, two friends drift apart as violence and obsession take hold. Disaffected alcoholic Leo (Kim Bodnia) struggles with a crumbling relationship and growing rage, w...

Directed by Bigas Luna • 1993 • Spain, Italy, France
Starring Javier Bardem, Maribel Verdú, Benicio Del Toro

Bigas Luna’s follow-up to his international hit JAMÓN JAMÓN is a deliriously libidinous, scathingly satirical takedown of toxic machismo and capitalist excess. A superbly earthy Javier Ba...

Directed by Tony Richardson • 1959 • United Kingdom
Starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Mary Ure

Based on the smash-hit play by John Osborne that inaugurated Britain’s “angry young men” literary movement, this touchstone of the British New Wave features a searing performance from Richard Burt...

Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1983 • France
Starring Amanda Langlet, Arielle Dombasle, Pascal Greggory

The third installment in director Eric Rohmer’s cycle of Comedies and Proverbs unfolds with the languorous air of a summer holiday. Fifteen-year-old Pauline (Amanda Langlet) gets a firsthand look a...

Directed by Vittorio De Sica • 1964 • Italy, France
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo Puglisi

Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren cemented their status as one of the all-time great screen couples in Vittorio De Sica’s classic battle-of-the-sexes farce. He’s Domenico, a suave, b...

Directed by Youssef Chahine • 1958 • Egypt
Starring Youssef Chahine, Farid Shawqi, Hind Rostom

Youssef Chahine established his international reputation with this masterpiece, which, though initially a commercial failure in Egypt, would become one of the most influential and celebrated works in ...

Directed by John Woo • 1990 • Hong Kong
Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Jacky Cheung, Simon Yam

One of director John Woo’s most ambitious and emotionally charged films, this intense action epic follows the fates of three friends—gangsters Ben (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), Frank (Jacky Cheung), and Paul (...

Directed by Tsui Hark • 1986 • Hong Kong
Starring Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, Cherie Chung

In the aftermath of China’s first democratic revolution, three high-spirited young women (Brigitte Lin, Cherie Chung, Sally Yeh) from very different backgrounds cross paths on a quest for liberation. Fate fin...

Directed by Stanley Kwan • 1987 • Hong Kong
Starring Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Alex Man Chi-leung

Cantopop superstars Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung display the androgynous magnetism that made them icons as doomed lovers in this emblematic film of Hong Kong’s Second New Wave, directed by pioneering...

Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • Belgium
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte

A singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow, whose chores ...

Directed by Glauber Rocha • 1964 • Brazil Starring Geraldo Del Rey, Yoná Magalhães, Othon Bastos

Myth, mysticism, and revolution collide in a blistering existential western from Glauber Rocha, a pioneer of B...

Directed by Ann Hui • 1982 • Hong Kong
Starring George Lam, Andy Lau Tak Wah, Cora Miao

One of the major films of the Hong Kong New Wave, Ann Hui’s BOAT PEOPLE is a work of indelible humanity and searing political resonance. Invited to document the progress of postwar Vietnamese society, a Japan...

Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1975 • Senegal
Starring Thierno Leye, Myriam Niang, Seune Samb

An adaptation of Ousmane Sembène’s own 1973 novel, XALA is a hilarious, caustic satire of political corruption under an inept patriarchy. On the night of his wedding to his third bride, government offici...

Directed by Amir Naderi • 1984 • Iran
Starring Madjid Niroumand, Moussa Torkizadeh, Abbas Nazeri

Childhood takes on mythic dimensions in one of the defining works of postrevolutionary Iranian cinema. Inspired by director Amir Naderi’s own boyhood, THE RUNNER is lit from within by Madjid Nirouman...

Directed by Leos Carax • 1984 • France
Starring Denis Lavant, Mireille Perrier, Carroll Brooks

The first feature by Leos Carax (made when he was just twenty-three years old) is an intoxicating, lusciously stylized evocation of a nocturnal Paris populated by moody misfits and lost souls. Among th...

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1974 • West Germany
Starring Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin

The wildly prolific German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder paid homage to his cinematic hero Douglas Sirk with this update of that filmmaker’s 1955 ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. A ...

Directed by Emilio Fernández • 1951 • Mexico
Starring Ninón Sevilla, Tito Junco, Rodolfo Acosta

A treasure of Mexico’s cinematic golden age, this deliriously plotted blend of gritty crime film, heart-tugging maternal melodrama, and mambo musical is a dazzling showcase for iconic star Ninón Sevi...

Directed by Ricky Lau • 1985 • Hong Kong
Starring Lam Ching-Ying, Ricky Hui, Chin Siu-Ho

The film that, along with producer Sammo Hung’s SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS, launched an entire hopping-vampire horror-comedy subgenre is Hong Kong cinema at its most gleefully inventive and gloriously unrestrained. T...