From Ground Zero
Dir. Ahmad Hassunah & Ahmed Al Danaf
From Ground Zero doesn’t have the most number of shorts within an anthology film, though it comes pretty close with…
La Chimera
Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
La Chimera is often meandering. Scenes flitter about and move at different paces, resembling dreams more than they do reality,…
Fabric of the Human Body
Dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel
While primarily a showcase of endoscopic footage of various surgeries in different hospitals throughout Paris—which should already be enough to…
Hive
Dir. Blerta Basholli
It’s been years since Fahrije and the women of her village lost their husbands to the war. It’s one thing…
Song Without a Name
Dir. Melina León
At times of political strife, how can one seek justice? Song Without a Name could have presented its case in…
Mario
Dir. Marcel Gisler
When striving towards your life goal, some concessions have to be made in order to get there, e.g. you would…
Birds of Passage
Dir. Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego
Organized crime and drug dealing has been a topic of many a film, sometimes even glamorizing the whole endeavor, but…
Up, Down, Fragile
Dir. Jacques Rivette
Up, Down, Fragile is a musical, but you wouldn’t know it until past the first hour. That’s because it doesn’t…
No Dogs or Italians Allowed
Dir. Alain Ughetto
With cardboard houses, sugar winters, and broccoli trees, No Dogs or Italians Allowed at first seems lighthearted, playful, and not…
La Belle Noiseuse
Dir. Jacques Rivette
When it comes to work, most apply to a job, take a 9-5 role for some decades, and then retire…
Official Secrets
Dir. Gavin Hood
Keira Knightley stars in this incredible true story of an Iraq War whistleblower who remains relatively little-known in the U.S.…
Jean de Florette
Dir. Claude Berri
As the Provence countryside is painted in golden sunshine, Jean de Florette seems like a straightforward period drama, celebrating the…
No Man's Land
Dir. Danis Tanović
The situation in No Man’s Land isn’t something we usually see in war movies, considering how often the genre has…
The Divine Order
Dir. Petra Biondina Volpe & Petra Volpe
With a particularly empowering tenderness and resilience, The Divine Order explores a glossed-over chapter in history wherein Swiss women could…
Theeb
Dir. Naji Abu Nowar
Theeb is set in the Hejaz (now part of Saudi Arabia) on the eve of the Great Arab Revolt against…
Beauty and the Dogs
Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania
Given the topic, there’s no surprise that Beauty and the Dogs is a harrowing watch. The gang rape itself is…
Toni Erdmann
Dir. Maren Ade
Good movies usually aren’t lengthy movies, unless we’re talking about cases like Toni Erdmann. It’s a supremely smart German-Austrian comedy that…
Triangle Of Sadness
Dir. Ruben Östlund
Among the sea of class satires released in the last year, Triangle of Sadness is one of the better ones.…
Three Colors: White
Dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s trilogy reflects both the colors and the values of the French republic: liberté, égalité, fraternité. In Trois couleurs…
North Face
Dir. Philipp Stölzl
Due to the fictional romantic subplot and the need to explain the historical background, it takes around half its runtime…
Heidi
Dir. Alain Gsponer
Where The Secret Garden championed the restorative powers of tending to a garden as well as one’s thoughts, Swiss novel…
Youth
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Youth is a film about Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) a famous composer vacationing at a resort in the Swiss Alps…
Waltz with Bashir
Dir. Ari Folman
In Waltz with Bashir, director Ari Folman grapples with the trauma and dehumanization of war by examining the role he…
Paris Je T'aime
Dir. Alexander Payne & Alfonso Cuarón
This anthology of 18 short films — directed by the likes of the Coen brothers, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, and…
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Dir. Ken Loach
You might expect a movie about the Irish struggle for independence from the British Empire during the 1920s to be…
