The Best Movies & Shows Released in 2013 (+Mood: Thought-provoking)

Danish writer-director Lars von Trier concludes his so-called Depression trilogy with the two parts of Nymphomaniac, an elaborate retelling of the life of a young woman (played by Stacy Martin and then, by Charlotte Gainsbourg) lived from one libidinous pleasure to another. The film’s elaborate subplots have a life of their own and flashbacks often […]

The medium of cinema has been used as a tool for revolution, but so too was it complicit in genocide. That was true of the Khmer Rouge regime, as the remaining footage of the time came entirely from the state, to be used in re-education programs and propaganda to hide the difficult realities caused by […]

“It is better to live miserable than to die happy,” or so says one of the characters in Jia Zhangke’s anthology film A Touch of Sin. On its surface, the “sin” referenced in the title might pertain to the acts of murder that the four protagonists commit, but in the context of China’s rapidly changing […]

Snowpiercer is an under-the-rader post-apocalyptic thriller that offers the grittiness that many times only Asian cinema may achieve. South Korean director Joon-ho Bong forces audiences to forget that Chris Evans was ever a Marvel superhero, as he leads a revolt of his fellow “low-class” citizens against the self-appointed gentry in a train that contains all remaining […]

One’s home country should be the place where a citizen has their rights, but that’s not the case in Charlie’s Country. At times, the film seems like a simple, straightforward depiction of an Aboriginal man living in a Westernized society, but David Gulpilil, who stars and who co-wrote the script, subtly infuses his community’s rage […]

Coherence is a film that captivates you to the point of questioning the reality that surrounds you. It’s a Quantum physics based sci-fi thriller that keeps your eyes sealed to the screen – not with unrealistically beautiful actors or special effects, but with an original screenplay and unexpected twists. Very refreshing.

Filmmaker Petra Costa tells the story of moving to New York from Brazil to follow her dream, the same one her mother once followed, of becoming an actress. She carries memories of a third person who made the same move, a sister called Elena. Elena left her when she was seven-years-old, and after intermittent calls […]

Ask yourself how many Palestinian movies you have seen before. You will want to give this smart and twisty Academy Award nominee by Golden Globe winning director Hany Abu-Assad a chance to change your answer. Omar, a Palestinian baker, climbs the West Bank Wall to see his lover, Nadia, whom he wants to marry. When […]

An earnest, simple documentary with an equally as simple premise: four friends travel to Guatemala for 8 weeks and try to live on one dollar a day each. What starts as an experiment for them quickly becomes an illustration of levels of poverty some of us will luckily never experience. More than 1.1 billion people […]

A documentary about girls and young women in developing nations around the world facing and confronting a myriad of cultural pressures and injustices. The personal stories of nine girls are written by celebrated female writers from their individual countries (spanning The Americas, Africa and Asia), recreated in dramatic fashion by director Richard Robbins, and narrated […]

I loved this movie. It starts a bit weird but gets so good. In a parallel world where human frequencies determine luck, love, and destiny, Zak, a young college student, must overcome science in order to love Marie, who emits a different frequency than his own. In an attempt to make their love a reality, […]

Nine years after his out-of-nowhere, mind-bending premier Primer, writer/producer/director/ star Shane Carruth returns with this exponentially more challenging feature—a neo sci-fi/drama/romance/thriller quite nearly impossible to describe effectively in words. Ostensibly focused upon a woman who has been drugged, brainwashed and robbed and is subsequently drawn to an unknown man who has experienced a similar theft, […]

In a world where many women learn about relationships from movies and many men learn about women from porn, how does reality take shape when two people of each group get into a relationship? The explosion is as insightful as it is funny as director, screenwriter, and main character Joseph Gorden Levitt takes you on a genuine […]

A beautiful and touching story about staying true to your inner morals and humanity in the middle of a raging war. Set during the conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia, Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak), an old Estonian farmer, takes in two wounded soldiers from opposite sides, who agree to not kill each other as long as they […]