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 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 ...

Directed by Rosine Mbakam • 2023 • Belgium, Cameroon
Starring Pierrette Aboheu, Karelle Kenmogne, Cécile Tchana

Over the past decade, Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam has distinguished herself with her incisive observational documentary portraits of African women. With MAMBAR PIERRETTE, her f...

Directed by Park Chan-wook • 2000 • South Korea
Starring Lee Yeong-ae, Lee Byung-hun, Song Kang-ho

Superstar director Park Chan-wook achieved his first major success with this masterful mystery thriller, which explores the complex relationship between North and South Korea with searing humanity....

Directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky • 2000 • Hungary
Starring Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla

This mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by László Krasznahorkai, WERCKMEISTER HARMONIE...

Directed by Alain Guiraudie • 2013 • France
Starring Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, Patrick d’Assumçao

The critically acclaimed STRANGER BY THE LAKE has been described as a modern-day Hitchcockican masterpiece. A picturesque cruising spot in the countryside of France sets the scene for t...

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 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 ...

Directed by Đặng Nhật Minh • 1984 • Vietnam
Starring Lê Vân, Nguyen Hữu Mười, Nguyễn Minh Vương

Widely regarded as one of the greatest Vietnamese films ever made, this deeply moving exploration of grief and trauma centers on Duyên (Lê Vân), a young woman whose husband is killed in Vietnam’s post...

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 Ousmane Sembène • 1977 • Senegal
Starring Mamadou Dioumé, Ousmane Sembène, Tabata Ndiaye

In precolonial Senegal, members of the Ceddo (or “outsiders”) kidnap Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) after her father, the king, pledges loyalty to an ascendant Islamic faction that plans to...

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 Bertrand Tavernier • 1980 • France, West Germany
Starring Romy Schneider, Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton

Part human drama, part sci-fi cautionary tale, Bertrand Tavernier’s DEATH WATCH unfolds in a future where death by disease has become extremely rare. When it is discovered that...

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 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 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 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 Lars von Trier • 2000 • Denmark, France
Starring Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse

A heartbreaking performance from avant-pop icon Björk lights up this singular, emotionally wrenching musical from Lars von Trier, who made use of over a hundred handheld digital video cameras to br...

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...