Directed by Elaine May • 1987 • United States
Starring Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani

Once synonymous with “box-office bomb,” this unjustly maligned road-movie comedy from national treasure Elaine May has been on a steady path to critical respectability ever since its disastrous ...

Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve • 2021 • France
Starring Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska

Writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve embarks on a luminous summertime odyssey to the home of Ingmar Bergman for her seventh feature, a graceful, shape-shifting tale about the interplay of life and art and the ...

Directed by Claire Simon • 2023 • France

Timely, intimate, and deeply empathetic, OUR BODY observes the everyday operations of the gynecological ward in a public hospital in Paris. In the process, veteran documentarian Claire Simon questions what it means to live in a woman’s body, filming the d...

Directed by Sofia Coppola • 1999 • United States
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Kathleen Turner, James Woods

With this debut feature, Sofia Coppola announced her singular vision, exploring the aesthetics of femininity while illuminating the interior lives of young women. An adaptation of Jeffrey Eugeni...

Directed by Ellie Foumbi • 2021 • United States
Starring Babetida Sadjo, Souleymane Sy Savane, Jennifer Tchiakpe

Ellie Foumbi’s elegant moral thriller is a grippingly intense exploration of trauma, revenge, and forgiveness that stands as one of the most exciting feature debuts in recent memory. ...

Directed by Mary Bronstein • 2008 • United States
Starring Greta Gerwig, Mary Bronstein, Amy Judd

A defiantly lo-fi, ripe-for-rediscovery transmission from the early-aughts microbudget boom, Mary Bronstein’s rawer-than-raw portrait of toxic friendship traces the emotional fallout that follows a ...

Directed by Chie Hayakawa • 2022 • Japan, Philippines
Starring Chieko Baisho, Hayato Isomura, Stefanie Arianne

In a dystopian future, Japan’s government launches Plan 75, a program encouraging the elderly to terminate their own lives to relieve its rapidly aging population’s social and economic ...

Directed by Laurie Simmons • 2006 • United States
Starring Meryl Streep, Adam Guettel, Tony Nation

An extension of artist Laurie Simmons’s photographic work, in which she stages dreamlike tableaux using puppets and dolls, this unclassifiable musical brings her singularly surreal world to life. I...

Directed by Ekwa Msangi • 2020 • United States
Starring Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Zainab Jah, Jayme Lawson

In her luminous feature debut, filmmaker Ekwa Msangi chronicles a broken family’s journey to wholeness with empathy and insight. Seventeen years after his family was separated by the civil wa...

Directed by Lynne Ramsay • 2002 • United Kingdom, Canada
Starring Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Raife Patrick Burchell

Lynne Ramsay’s intoxicating study of grief and transformation stars a magnetic Samantha Morton as the eponymous enigma, a young woman who embarks on an audacious, freewhe...

Directed by Cauleen Smith • 1998 • United States
Starring Toby Smith, April Barnett, Will Power

A rediscovered treasure of 1990s DIY filmmaking, Cauleen Smith’s DRYLONGSO embeds an incisive look at racial injustice within a lovingly handmade buddy movie/murder mystery/romance. Alarmed by the rat...

Directed by Diana Peralta • 2019 • United States
Starring Sasha Merci, Darlene Demorizi, Héctor Aníbal

Sibling bonds are both rekindled and tested in the achingly alive feature debut from Diana Peralta. Rita (Sasha Merci) and Carolina (Darlene Demorizi), two high-spirited sisters raised in New Y...

Directed by Claire Denis • 2001 • France
Starring Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle

Claire Denis’s poetic take on the body-horror genre is an atmospheric reverie of blood and lust that lays bare the filmmaker’s core artistic concerns around power, desire, and delirium. Newlyweds Shane...

Directed by Maryam Touzani • 2022 • France, Morocco
Starring Lubna Azabal, Saleh Bakri, Ayoub Messioui

With her stirring and sensitive second feature, Moroccan writer-director Maryam Touzani (ADAM) weaves a richly emotional tapestry of love, forbidden desire, and compassion that’s as beautifully...

Directed by debbie tucker green • 2021 • United Kingdom
Starring Lashana Lynch, Tosin Cole, Danny Sapani

With this riveting adaptation of her acclaimed play, debbie tucker green pushes the boundaries of stage and screen alike. Dynamic, absorbing, and visually inventive, EAR FOR EYE traces racial...

Directed by Miryam Charles • Canada • 2022
Starring Schelby Jean-Baptiste, Florence Blain Mbaye, Marie Yardly Kavanagh

Shot on dreamy 16 mm, the stunning debut feature from Haitian-Canadian filmmaker Miryam Charles resurrects a tragedy that occurred within her own family—the unresolved death of ...