Contemporary Cinema

Contemporary Cinema

A selection of 21st-century films from around the globe.

Audio 5.1 badge
Subscribe Share
Contemporary Cinema
  • The Arbor

    Leaving September 1

    Directed by Clio Barnard | 91 mins | 2010
    Andrea Dunbar’s first play, "The Arbor"—a grimly autofictional work about a Yorkshire schoolgirl who falls pregnant, named for the council estate where she lived—premiered in London’s West End when she was just 18. By her untimely dea...

  • The Black Sea

    Directed by Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. Harden | 93 mins | 2024
    A compassionate, convivial, and deeply humane improvised comedy from Moselle ("The Wolfpack", "Skate Kitchen") and co-director Harden, inspired by the latter’s own experiences, "The Black Sea" stars Harden—also providing original ...

  • The Deep Blue Sea

    Directed by Terence Davies | 99 mins | 2011
    In a tour de force performance, Rachel Weisz plays a woman brought to breaking point after shunning her husband, a High Court judge (Simon Russell Beale), in order to pursue a passionate affair with a dashing but troubled former RAF pilot (Tom Hiddlesto...

  • The Neon Bible

    Directed by Terence Davies | 92 mins | 1995
    Based on John Kennedy Toole’s Southern Gothic Bildungsroman, Terence Davies’ third feature is both his first adaptation and his first set outside England, but feels just as steeped in heady memory as his earlier works. His vision of 1940s rural Georgia ...

  • The Paperboy

    Directed by Lee Daniels | 107 mins | 2012
    Each shedding their actorly comfort zones, stars Matthew McConnaughey, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman and John Cusack strike out for the Florida swamps in this heady and lurid sixties-set noir. They orbit an alleged murder by Cusack’s rough-hewn alligator hunte...

  • This Woman

    Directed by Alan Zhang | 91 mins | 2023
    Feminist activist and multihyphenate artist Zhang’s directorial debut is a raw, often revelatory docufiction experiment that follows Beibei (Li Hehe), a recently unemployed 35-year-old woman who, in the early months of the pandemic, finds solace from an unf...

  • Transit

    Directed by Christian Petzold | 101 mins | 2018
    The first fraught and steamy pairing of Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski by acclaimed writer-director Christian Petzold—followed by 2020’s "Undine"—proved one of the best films of 2018, and a breakthrough for the beguiling Rogowski. Building on themes ...

  • All About Lily Chou-Chou

    Directed by Shunji Iwai | 146 mins | 2001
    Incredibly prescient in its understanding of how a still-young internet would fundamentally alter youth culture, Shunji’s film introduces Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) in an ice field, the landscape gradually obscured by accreting chat room messages. Alienated...

  • Whisky

    Directed by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll | 98 mins | 2004
    When Jacopo (Andrés Pazos), sullen, punctilious loner and owner of a decrepit sock factory in Montevideo, learns of an impending visit by his estranged brother, Herman (Jorge Bolani), returning to Uruguay from Brazil for the annivers...

  • This Is Not a Film

    Directed by Jafar Panahi | 75 mins | 2011
    Placed on house arrest by the Iranian government and forbidden from any further filmmaking activity for the following 20 years, Panahi used the slender resources at his command—his own apartment as a “set,” the aide of friends, including credited co-direc...

  • 3 Faces

    Directed by Jafar Panahi | 100 mins | 2018
    Panahi’s fourth post-filmmaking ban feature begins with a smartphone video of a young woman (Marziyeh Rezaei) who, forbidden by her parents to pursue her dream of acting professionally, appears to take her own life. The video is addressed to Behnaz Jafar...

  • No Sleep Till

    Directed by Alexandra Simpson | 93 mins | 2024
    The threat of an impending hurricane has sent most of the residents of and visiting tourists to the coastal Florida town of Atlantic Beach scurrying for cover—but Simpson’s ravishing mood piece lingers behind with a handful of holdouts ignoring the m...