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All is Forgiven
Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve | 98 mins | 2007
Mia Hansen-Løve was only twenty-five when she directed one of the most striking and auspicious first features in 21st century French cinema, which finds the brisk economy of expression, nuanced characterization, and formal daring of her future films (F... -
A Quiet Passion
Directed by Terence Davies | 125 mins | 2016
Emily Dickinson’s particular combination of intense brilliance and private, suppressed desires make her an ideal subject for the cinema of Terence Davies. Here, the atmosphere in the Dickinson family home is at first leavened by piquant but convivial r... -
Asako I & II
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi | 119 mins | 2018
Between the international breakthrough of 2015’s "Happy Hour" and the sensation that was 2021’s "Drive My Car," Hamaguchi produced this beguiling romance, concerning a young woman and her affairs with, first, a self-dramatizing young drifter, Baku, ... -
Bergman Island
Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve | 112 mins | 2021
Vicky Krieps shines in Mia Hansen-Løve’s wry and playful portrait of a woman, mother, and frustrated artist. Starring opposite Tim Roth, the pair play married filmmakers who travel for a writing retreat to the secluded Swedish island of Fårö—a place s... -
Days
Leaving May 1
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang | 127 mins | 2020
The parallel narratives of a middle-aged man seeking treatment for a chronic illness in Hong Kong (Lee Kang-sheng) and a Laotian immigrant in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) eventually, finally, meet in a moment of ecstatic release. -
eXistenZ
Directed by David Cronenberg | 97 mins | 1999
David Cronenberg has never exactly worked in the register of naturalism, and his just-off, uncanny valley style fits this immersive virtual reality thriller like an UmbyCord in a bio-port. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law co-star in a mindbending sor... -
Funny Ha Ha
Directed by Andrew Bujalski | 90 mins | 2002
The first feature by Bujalski and a veritable manifesto for the lo-fi, DIY, radically modest “mumblecore” movement, "Funny Ha Ha" stars Kate Dollenmayer as Marnie, a 23-year-old recent college graduate in Boston still drinking like a freshman and makin... -
Goodbye First Love
Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve | 110 mins | 2011
As in her first two features, Mia Hansen-Løve’s third reckons with the psychic fallout of a young woman abandoned by a man she loves—here, not a father but a lover. Camille, 15 (a radiant Lola Créton), is blindsided when her boyfriend, 19-year-old Sul... -
Hannah Takes the Stairs
Directed by Joe Swanberg | 83 mins | 2007
Years before she became the billion-dollar "Barbie" girl, Greta Gerwig was perhaps mumblecore’s invaluable utility player, taking on the title role in Swanberg’s largely improvised third feature alongside a cast round out by an all-star lineup of filmmake... -
Ida
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski | 82 mins | 2013
In 1962, in the Polish People’s Republic, novice nun Ida (AgataTrzebuchowska) is on the verge of taking her vows, but before she does she sets out to visit her only living relative, a promiscuous, hard-living judge (Agata Kulesza). Together they’ll e... -
Lady Vengeance
Directed by Park Chan Wook | 115 mins | 2005
The capper of Park’s “Revenge Trilogy” follows a woman wrongfully imprisoned for kidnapping and killing a six-year-old boy, as she meticulously lays the groundwork for an elaborate plan of retribution, then sets it into merciless motion on her release.... -
L'Intrus
Directed by Claire Denis | 130 mins | 2004
One of Claire Denis’s most ambitious, complicated, and exhilaratingly daring films charts an itinerary traveling from the snowy Alps to Korea to Tahiti, following an old mercenary (Michel Subor, from Le Petit Soldat and Beau travail) in search of both a ... -
Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
Directed by John Maybury | 91 mins | 1998
Long before Daniel Craig pursued a fraught gay romance in "Queer" (2024), there was "Love is the Devil": in this brutal but scintillating flashback to 1960s London, Craig portrays George Dyer, the petty criminal from the rough-and-tumble East End who beca... -
Millennium Mambo
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien | 107 mins | 2001
A seductive submersion into the techno-scored neon nightlife of Taipei, Hou’s much-misunderstood marvel follows an aimless bar hostess drifting away from her blowhard boyfriend and towards a suave, sensitive gangster. A transfixing trance-out of a mov... -
Momma's Man
Directed by Azazel Jacobs | 99 mins | 2008
After two delicate, scrappy features that made him a filmmaker to watch ("Nobody Needs to Know" and "The Good Times Kid"), Azazel Jacobs delivered a small-scale treasure that quickly became the standard bearer for a new generation of New York independent... -
Mutual Appreciation
Directed by Andrew Bujalski | 109 mins | 2005
Bujalski’s second feature stars Bishop Allen vocalist Justin Rice as a Boston transplant musician freshly arrived in New York, looking for new bandmates while drifting between a noncommittal affair with a radio station DJ (Seung-Min Lee), boozy sessio... -
Nights and Weekends
Directed by Greta Gerwig and Joe Swanberg | 80 mins | 2008
Following the subgenre-crystallizing success of "Hannah Takes the Stairs" (2007), Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig reunited for another low-key, Cassavettes-channeling mumblecore opus. The co-directors, -writers, and -stars play James and Ma... -
Party Girl
Directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer | 94 mins | 1995
With her beguiling presence and spry, screwball energy, Parker Posey made her name as the queen of American indie cinema during its ’90s boom. The recently restored "Party Girl" captures an ascendent Posey in wickedly fine form as Mary, the to... -
Romance
Directed by Catherine Breillat | 99 mins | 1999
When Marie’s (Caroline Ducey) boyfriend loses interest in having sex with her, she engages a series of new and increasingly violent lovers—in pursuit of self-knowledge and perhaps a kind of transcendence through these acts of erotic masochism. Renow... -
Signature Move
Directed by Jennifer Reeder | 80 mins | 2017
In writing this zesty but tender rom-com, Fawzia Mirza—also the film’s star—mined her life experience as a Muslim Pakistani lesbian living in Chicago. Zaynab (Mirza) finds herself falling for the effusive Alma (Sari Sanchez), but isn’t ready to come ou... -
Spa Night
Directed by Andrew Ahn | 97 mins | 2016
Andrew Ahn’s remarkably assured debut feature is a portrait of forbidden sexual awakening set in the nocturnal world of spas and karaoke bars in Los Angeles' Koreatown. David Cho (Joe Seo, who won the Special Jury Award at Sundance for his breakthrough perf... -
Strawberry Mansion
Directed by Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney | 91 mins | 2021
In the near future of Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney’s psychedelic sci-fi adventure, mild-mannered Dream Auditor James Preble (played by Audley) gets in way over his head when he’s sent on assignment to the eponymous Strawberry M... -
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Directed by Park Chan Wook | 116 mins | 2002
Fired from his factory job, the deaf, gentle Ryu finds work in the underworld—and begins on a path that will end in an explosion of visceral violence. A brutal, claustrophobic film of escalating desperation, illustrating with grim logic how an ordinary... -
Team Picture
Directed by Kentucker Audley | 61 mins | 2007
Shot in Memphis, Tennessee for a cool $1,500, the amiably ambling "Team Picture" stars Audley—in his debut as feature writer/director—as David, a twentysomething whose total disinterest in anything beyond noodling on his guitar is cause for concern to...