Contemporary Cinema

Contemporary Cinema

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

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Contemporary Cinema
  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...