Directed by Jacques Becker • 1952 • France
Starring Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani, Claude Dauphin

Jacques Becker lovingly evokes the belle epoque Parisian demimonde in this classic tale of doomed romance. When gangster’s moll Marie (Simone Signoret) falls for reformed criminal Manda (Serge Reg...

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi • 1952 • Japan
Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Toshiro Mifune, Masao Shimizu

A peerless chronicler of the soul who specialized in supremely emotional, visually exquisite films about the circumstances of women in Japanese society, Kenji Mizoguchi had already been directing mov...

Directed by Max Ophuls • 1955 • France, West Germany
Starring Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov

LOLA MONTÈS is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol. With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the ...

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi • 1956 • Japan

For his final film, Mizoguchi brought a lifetime of experience to bear on the heartbreaking tale of a brothel full of women whose dreams are constantly being shattered by the socioeconomic realities surrounding them. Set in Tokyo's Red Light District (t...

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard • 1962 • France
Starring Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André Labarthe

VIVRE SA VIE (a.k.a. MY LIFE TO LIVE) was a turning point for Jean-Luc Godard and remains one of his most dynamic films, combining brilliant visual design with a tragic character study. The lovely Anna ...

Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1967 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli

Catherine Deneuve’s porcelain perfection hides a cracked interior in one of the actress’s most iconic roles: Séverine, a Paris housewife who begins secretly spending her after­noon hours working in a b...

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1975 • West Germany
Starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Chatel, Carl Boehm

A lottery win leads not to financial and emotional freedom but to social captivity, in this wildly cynical classic about love and exploitation by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Casti...

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 Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1981 • Germany
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Mario Adorf, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola (Barbara Sukowa), a seductive cabaret singer–prostitute, exults in her power as a tempter of men, but she wants more—money, property, and love. Pitt...

Directed by Gus Van Sant • 1985 • United States
Starring Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate, Ray Monge

With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant’s debut feature MALA NOCHE heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant’s hometown ...