Set at a Catholic boarding school for boys in Vichy France, Louis Malle’s Holocaust-themed coming-of-age drama Au Revoir les Enfants is possibly his best.
Pedro Almodóvar’s brazenly subversive ‘gay film noir’ Bad Education is one of the most daring exemplars of the genre. Gael García Bernal stars.
Actress-filmmaker Radha Blank makes a smart feature film debut with the semi-autobiographical midlife-crisis tale The Forty-Year-Old Version.
Best Actress Oscar winner Joan Crawford is terrific as the devoted mother of psycho daughter Ann Blyth in Michael Curtiz’s 1945 melo noir Mildred Pierce.
Contemplative Woody Allen comedy Stardust Memories is one of the most profound films ever. Charlotte Rampling, Marie-Christine Barrault costar.
Werner Herzog’s ‘minor’ psychological drama Woyzeck is superior to most ‘Hollywood Masterpieces.’ Klaus Kinski and Eva Mattes star.
Michelangelo Antonioni’s acclaimed 1957 neorealist drama Il Grido stars an outstanding Steve Cochran. Also in the cast: Alida Valli and Betsy Blair.
Ingmar Bergman’s sumptuous big-screen swan song, the 1982 period family drama Fanny and Alexander, is even more engrossing in its longer form.
Edgar Wright + Simon Pegg’s 2007 action comedy Hot Fuzz is a riotously funny and unusually creative spoof of Hollywood’s buddy movies.
Meet the Robinsons’ eccentric characters are key elements for the enjoyment of Disney’s (Pixar-influenced) futuristic family adventure comedy.
Ryan Phillippe and Chris Cooper deliver stellar performances in Billy Ray’s mature spy thriller Breach, based on the FBI’s infamous Robert Hanssen case.
Akira Kurosawa’s corporate drama The Bad Sleep Well deserves to be as well known as Seven Samurai + Rashomon.
Released 9 years after atomic bombs were dropped on 2 Japanese cities, the 1954 classic Godzilla / Gojira features 1 of cinema’s greatest monsters.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s brilliant Three Colors: Red features Jean-Louis Trintignant in a career-capping star turn and Irène Jacob in a career-making one.
In his 1966 ‘Swinging London’ masterwork Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni questions the perception of reality. David Hemmings stars.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s weakest entry in his 1990s trilogy, Three Colors: White is still better than most Hollywood romantic comedies. Julie Delpy stars.
Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 action classic Seven Samurai is one of those rare films that get better and better with each new viewing. Toshiro Mifune stars.
Seijun Suzuki’s challenging but memorable musical Princess Raccoon mixes various cinematic genres and styles. Zhang Ziyi and Joe Odagiri star.
Set in Brazil’s impoverished, semi-arid northeastern hinterlands, the road movie Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures offers more than big-screen ‘exoticism.’
Lior Ashkenazi is perfect as a guilt-ridden Mossad hitman in Eytan Fox’s flawed but gripping (gay-ish) political-psychological drama Walk on Water.
Darrell Roodt’s Oscar-nominated Zululand-set AIDS drama Yesterday is a must-see largely thanks to a sensational central performance by Leleti Khumalo.
Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace help to lift Paul Weitz’s timid socially conscious comedy In Good Company. Also in the cast: Scarlett Johansson.
Daniel Day-Lewis is the sensationally cruel heart of Martin Scorsese’s generally engrossing sociopolitical + historical drama Gangs of New York.
Sean Penn embodies the antithesis of the ‘American Dream’ in Niels Mueller’s nightmarish social critique The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Personal + political realms are inexorably intertwined in the Chilean coming-of-age drama Machuca, set at the time of that country’s 1973 military coup.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s capably acted family drama Tokyo Sonata exposes the seemingly inexorable unraveling of Japan’s traditional social fabric.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 2007 zombie movie 28 Weeks Later offers flesh-eaters and gore with a side of disturbing sociopolitical commentary.
Rancher Billy Bob Thornton follows his unusual space dream in Michael and Mark Polish’s folksy The Astronaut Farmer. Virginia Madsen costars.
Luchino Visconti gives Dostoevsky the un-Hollywood treatment in the romantic drama White Nights. Marcello Mastroianni and Maria Schell star.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s sublime 1993 psychological drama Three Colors: Blue provides Juliette Binoche with one of the best roles of her career.
Starring a fantastic Kristoffer Joner, Pål Sletaune’s thriller Next Door ventures into territory that remained off-limits to the likes of Alfred Hitchcock.
As a London stage diva, Annette Bening has a fantastic time in István Szabó’s All About Eve-ish period comedy Being Julia.
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