Directed by Zeinabu irene Davis • 1999 • United States
Starring John Earl Jelks, Michelle A. Banks, Nirvana Cobb

A poignant portrait of Deaf African Americans and the complexities of love at both ends of the twentieth century, Zeinabu irene Davis’s film is a groundbreaking story of inclusion and...

Criterion Collection Edition #957

Directed by Elaine May • 1976 • United States
Starring Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, Ned Beatty

Elaine May crafted a gangster film like no other in the nocturnal odyssey MIKEY AND NICKY, capitalizing on the chemistry between frequent collaborators John Cassavete...

Directed by Robina Rose • 1981 • United Kingdom
Starring Jordan, Anne Rees-Mogg, Mitch D

A gorgeously photographed work of surreal, somnambulant cinema, Robina Rose’s singular snapshot of London’s early 1980s art scene casts a hypnotic spell all its own. Over the course of a single nightshift, a...

Criterion Collection Edition #902

Directed by Donna Deitch • 1985 • United States
Starring Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau

Donna Deitch's swooning and sensual first narrative feature, DESERT HEARTS, was groundbreaking upon its release in 1985: a love story about two women, made entirely inde...

Criterion Collection Edition #896

Directed by Agnieska Smoczyńska • 2015 • Poland
Starring Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszańska, Marta Mazurek

This genre-defying horror-musical mash-up—the bold debut of Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska—follows a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters drawn ashore ...

Directed by Ann Hui • 2002 • Hong Kong
Starring Jacky Cheung, Anita Mui, Karena Lam

Brimming with serene, ineffable beauty, JULY RHAPSODY is a profound and soothing tale from Hong Kong auteur Ann Hui (BOAT PEOPLE) about paddling through life’s chaos—even as things that seem eternal, like the Yan...

Directed by Sarah Maldoror • 1972 • Angola
Starring Domingos de Oliveira, Elisa Andrade, Jean M’Vondo

This revolutionary bombshell by Sarah Maldoror chronicles the awakening of Angola’s independence movement. Based on a true story, SAMBIZANGA follows a young woman as she makes her way from the o...

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 Lizzie Borden • 1986 • United States
Starring Louise Smith, Ellen McElduff, Amanda Goodwin

Sex work is portrayed with radical nonjudgment in Lizzie Borden’s immersive, richly detailed look at the rhythms and rituals of society’s most stigmatized profession. Inspired by the experience...

Criterion Collection Edition #965

Directed by Barbara Loden • 1970 • United States
Starring Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins

With her first and only feature film—a hard-luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in—Barbara Loden turned in a groundbreaking work of American independent cinema, bri...

Directed by Miranda July • 2005 • United States
Starring John Hawkes, Miranda July, Miles Thompson

With this compassionate, startling comedy that could have come from no other artistic sensibility, the brilliant Miranda July reveals a world both familiar and strange—an original vision of creativ...

Directed by Payal Kapadia • 2024 • France, India, Netherlands
Starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam

Payal Kapadia’s acclaimed fiction-feature debut is a radiant ode to hope-giving connections forged amid big-city anonymity. Set against the hypnotic luminescence of Mumbai, ALL WE IMAG...

Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1987 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Miroslav Machácek, Tomás Palatý, Stepánka Cervenková

Věra Chytilová’s subversive take on the 1980s teen-horror movie assembles a gaggle of bratty adolescents for a mysterious skiing retreat at a snowbound cabin where they find themselve...

Criterion Collection Edition #743

Directed by Lucrecia Martel • 2001 • Argentina
Starring Martín Adjemián, Diego Baenas, Leonora Balcarce

The release of Lucrecia Martel’s LA CIÉNAGA heralded the arrival of an astonishingly vital and original voice in Argentine cinema. With a radical and disturb...

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 Martha Coolidge • 1975 • United States
Starring Michele Manenti, Jim Carrington, Anne Mundstuk

Trailblazing filmmaker Martha Coolidge made her feature debut with this unflinchingly personal hybrid of documentary and fiction. Centered on an intense reenactment of Coolidge’s experienc...

Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1982 • Belgium, France
Starring Aurore Clément, Tchéky Karyo, Jan Decorte

A hot summer evening in Brussels: couples dance in bars and cafés, part outside homes, or escape together under the darkness of night; some discover or reignite romance, some end it, while sti...

Directed by Lizzie Borden • 1983 • United States
Starring Honey, Adele Bertei, Jean Satterfield

A blistering rallying cry issued loud, clear, and unapologetically queer, Lizzie Borden’s explosive postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a revoluti...