Subgenre Sampler
Foreign Cinema: 3343 Films to Buy & Rent
Emilia Perez (2025)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez…
- Set in Mexico but made in France, this exciting Trans–Gangster–Musical has polarized audiences but is best appreciated as a modern…
Cuckoo (2024)
- Dir. Tilman Singer
Feat. Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Marton Csokas…
- A truly strange and unpredictable horror movie that sustains an off–kilter and discombobulating atmosphere throughout its runtime.
American…
Out of Season (2024)
- Dir. Stéphane Brizé
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Alba Rohrwacher
- A richly layered French romantic drama starring Guillaume Canet (playing a famous actor much like himself) and Alba Rohrwacher as former lovers who…
Àma Gloria (Ama Gloria) (2023)
- Feat. Louise Mauroy-Panzani, Ilça Moreno Zego
- Centred by an extraordinary child performance, this is an exquisite French drama bathed in the milk of human kindness in the face of…
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
- Dir. Justine Triet
Feat. Sandra Huller, Swann Arlaud, Jehnny Beth…
- An extraordinary, multi–layered dramatic thriller from France that deservingly won the Palm D'or at Cannes.
For the past year, Sandra, a…
Boy and the Heron, The (Kimitachi wa Do Ikiru ka) (2023)
- Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
Feat. Robert Pattinson, Dave Bautista, Mark Hamill…
- A 12–year–old boy, struggles to settle in a new town after his mother's death. However, when a sinister talking heron informs him that…
Difficult Year, A (2023)
- Dir. Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Feat. Pio Marmaï, Noémie Merlant, Mathieu Amalric
- A pair of compulsive over–spenders are up to their necks in debt. As pay–day looms, they seize an opportunity to scam a group of social…
Divertimento (2023)
- Dir. Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
Feat. Oulaya Amamra, Lina El Arabi, Niels Arestrup
- A biopic of Zahia Ziouani, one of the few worldwide renowned female conductors. Classical symphonic music is everything for 17–year–old…
Fallen Leaves (2023)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Jussi Vatanen, Alma Pöysti
- Director Aki Kaurismaki returns with a deadpan romantic crowd–pleaser about two lost souls in Helsinki on a bumpy road to finding each…
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
- Dir. Takashi Yamazaki
Feat. Ryunosuke Kamiki, Sakura Ando
- Hailed by some as the greatest Godzilla film since the monster's sombre genesis in 1954. As with the original, a wartime subtext and some genuinely…
Goodbye Julia (2023)
- An outstanding drama from Sudan about two women – a retired Muslim singer and a Southern Sudanese widow – who forge an unusual friendship…
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)
- Dir. Ariane Louis-Seize
Feat. Sara Montpetit, Félix-Antoine Bénard, Marie Brassard…
- A delightfully deadpan French–Canadian comedy about a doleful adolescent vampire who is too compassionate to kill for her special dietary…
La Chimera (2023)
- Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
- Another delight from dir. Alice Rohrwacher that completes a trilogy (after The Wonders and Happy as Lazzaro) about Italy's relationship with its…
Let the River Flow (2023)
- Dir. Ole Giaever
Feat. Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen, Ivar Beddari, Gard Emil
- A superbly–crafted and moving indigenous rights drama about a young teacher whose repressed Sami heritage is awakened by a protest group who…
Mars Express (2023)
- Dir. Jérémie Périn
- A high–concept animated sci–fi from France that depicts an ultra–sleek 23rd Century future with far–out ideas that seems…
Monster (Kaibutsu) (2023)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Soya Kurokawa
- Director Hirokazu Kore–eda returns home with his first Japanese film since the Palm d'Or–winning "Shoplifters" (2018) with this…
November (Novembre) (2023)
- Dir. Cédric Jimenez
Feat. Jean Dujardin, Anaïs Demoustier, Sandrine Kiberlain…
- A captivating thriller that dramatizes one of the most incredible manhunts in European history in the aftermath of the 2015 attacks across Paris. Led…
Perfect Days (2023)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Koji Yakusho
- The irrepressibly handsome Kôji Yakusho stars as a solitary man who cleans public lavatories for a living but seems to have a rich inner life…
Radical (2023)
- Dir. Christopher Zalla
Feat. Eugenio Derbez
- A quality, engaging drama based on the true story of a teacher in a neglected Mexican border town that tries a radical new method to unlock his…
The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan (2023)
- Dir. Martin Bourboulon
Feat. Romain Duris, Eva Green, Vincent Cassel…
- The first of the two–part French blockbuster treatment of Alexandre Dumas’ oft–filmed and beloved novel of 1844, set in early 17th…
The Three Musketeers: Milady (2023)
- Dir. Martin Bourboulon
Feat. Eva Green, Romain Duris, Vincent Cassel…
- A ravishing Eva Green takes centre stage in this follow–on from the events in THE THREE MUSKETEERS: D’ARTAGNAN, the second chapter of Martin…
There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
- Dir. Paola Cortellesi
Feat. Paola Cortellesi, Valerio Mastandrea, Vinicio Marchioni
- An audacious, bittersweet comedy–drama that swept the Italian Oscars and broke domestic box–office records.
Directed, co–written…
Zone of Interest, The (2023)
- Dir. Jonathan Glazer
Feat. Christian Friedel, Sandra Huller
- A Holocaust film quite unlike any other, The Hoss family have moved into their new home in Poland. The camera objectively documents their daily life…
Annie's Fire (Annie Colère) (2022)
- Dir. Blandine Lenoir
Feat. Laure Calamy, Pascale Arbillot, Josiane Balasko…
- Laure Calamy again proves she's one of the most likeable actresses in French cinema as a working mother who finds her people among those offering…
Between Two Worlds (2022)
- Dir. Emmanuel Carrere
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Helene Lambert, Louise Pociecka
- Juliette Binoche plays a well–known author who goes to live in northern France to research her new book on the subject of job insecurity.…
Blue Caftan, The (2022)
- Dir. Maryam Touzani
Feat. Lubna Azabal, Saleh Bakri, Ayoub Missioui
- A rare peek into Moroccan culture, and the dying craft of hand–made caftans that are painstakingly embroidered with a needle and thread. And…
Both Sides Of The Blade (Avec amour et acharnement) (2022)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lindon, Grégoire Colin
- Jean and Sara have been living together for 10 years. When they first met, Sara was living with François, Jean’s best friend and an admirer from…
Broker (2022)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Doona Bae
- Master Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore–eda turns to South Korea for the first time for this drama starring Cannes–winning actor Song…
Close (2022)
- Dir. Lukas Dhont
Feat. Eden Dambrine, Léa Drucker, Kevin Janssens
- Another closely–observed Belgian drama that, along with "Playground", explores a traumatic rite–of–passage. Here the protagonists…
Decision To Leave (2022)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Hae-il Park, Wei Tang
- An exquisite and mysterious melodrama from Korean maestro Park Chan–Wook (Old Boy, Thirst, The Handmaiden), ostensibly about a detective who…
EO (2022)
- Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski
- Veteran Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski returns with this Cannes Jury Prize–winner — a unique, visually expressive and sometimes bleak…
Godland (2022)
- Dir. Hlynur Pálmason
Feat. Elliott Crosset Hove, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson
- A masterly work of slow cinema from Iceland, inspired by 19th–Century period photography in both narrative and style, and the contemporary…
Holy Spider (2022)
- Dir. Ali Abbasi
Feat. Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Mehdi Bajestani, Arash Ashtiani
- An astonishing new film from Ali Abbasi, who makes good on the promise of his head–turning Danish troll drama “Border” (2018). This one…
Kompromat (2022)
- Dir. Jérôme Salle
Feat. Gilles Lellouche, Joanna Kulig
- Mathieu is a gregarious and dedicated diplomat who accepts a posting to Irkutsk as the head of Siberia’s Alliance Française. He hopes the change…
Maigret (2022)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Jade Labeste, Aurore Clement…
- Gérard Depardieu brings to remarkable life one of the most beloved characters from 20th–century crime fiction in this crime drama from…
Night of the 12th, The (La Nuit du 12) (2022)
- Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Anouk Grinberg
- Another intelligent and thought–provoking French crime drama from the director of Aro Favourite, “Only the Animals” (2019).
It’s more…
Notre Dame on Fire (2022)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud
- A documentary retracing how on April 15, 2019, heroic men and women put their lives on the line to accomplish the awe–inspiring rescue of…
One Fine Morning (Un Beau Matin) (2022)
- Dir. Mia Hansen-Love
Feat. Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Melvil Poupaud…
- Lea Seydoux is French movie star royalty but she keeps it real in this sublime film from Mia Hansen–Løve (Bergman Island), one of Europe’s…
Prison 77 (2022)
- Dir. Alberto Rodriguez
Feat. Miguel Herrán, Javier Gutiérrez, Fernando Tejero
- Spanish prison drama set in Barcelona's Modelo prison (and filmed in the real location), during Spain's transition to democracy in the 1970s. The…
Project Wolf Hunting (2022)
- Whist being transported across international waters inside a locked cargo ship, a group of infamous criminals unites to stage a coordinated escape.…
Saint Omer (2022)
- Dir. Alice Diop
Feat. Guslagie Malanda, Kayije Kagame
- Inspired by real events, this devastating fictional drama from French–Senegalese director Alice Diop delivers a formally brilliant treatise on…
Shin Ultraman (2022)
- Feat. Hidetoshi Nishijima, Takumi Saito, Masami Nagasawa
- When the SSSP kaiju defence taskforce finds itself in the midst of a particularly ghastly kaiju encounter, a giant silver robot descends from the sky…
The Origin of Evil (2022)
- Dir. Sebastien Marnier
Feat. Laure Calamy
- A black comedy thriller from France about riches, bitches and patriarchal pricks, because when it comes to money all bets are off and all knives come…
The Teachers' Lounge (Des Lehrerzimmer) (2022)
- Dir. Ilker Catak
Feat. Leonie Benesch
- A bracing drama about an idealistic maths teacher caught in the pressure–cooker environment of a contemporary German high school.
Leonie…
Two Tickets To Greece (2022)
- Dir. Marc Fitoussi
Feat. Laure Calamy, Olivia Cote, Kristin Scott Thomas
- A sunlit escapist comedy set in Les Cyclades (the original French title) starring Laure Calamy and Olivia Côte as long–estranged childhood…
Another World (2021)
- Dir. Stéphane Brizé
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anthony Bajon
- Vincent Lindon plays a factory boss going through a painful divorce while managing a painful downsize at his company which has been taken over by a…
Big Hit, The (Un Triomphe) (2021)
- Dir. Emmanuel Courcol
Feat. Kad Merad, David Ayala, Lamine Cissokho
- Inspired by remarkable true events, this French Film Festival favourite follows a dedicated out–of–work actor (indelibly played by the…
Drive My Car (2021)
- Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Feat. Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masaki Okada, Toko Miura…
- This winner of the Best International Feature at the 2022 Academy Awards is a slow–burn, methodical drama about a grieving stage actor and…
Eiffel (2021)
- Dir. Martin Bourboulon
Feat. Romain Duris, Emma Mackey, Pierre Deladonchamps…
- Handsomely mounted biopic set in the 1880's, telling the story of Parisian civil engineer Gustave Eiffel (Romain Duris) and his design of the Eiffel…
Escape from Mogadishu (2021)
- Dir. Ryoo Seung-Wan
Feat. Yoon-seok Kim, In-sung Zo, Joon-ho Huh
- A gritty action–thriller based on true events following a diplomatic skirmish between North and South Korea that breaks out on the African…
Flee (2021)
- Dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen
- Stunning animated documentary based on the story of Amin Nawabi, an Afghan refugee who grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20…
Full Time (A Plien Temps) (2021)
- Dir. Eric Gravel
Feat. Laure Calamy, Genevieve Mnich, Anne Suarez
- A cracker of a French drama that teeters on the edge of a thriller throughout because it’s all about the pressure cooker that is modern life.…
Hatching (2021)
- Dir. Hanna Bergholm
Feat. Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Jani Volanen
- Hanna Bergholm's feature debut has finally put Finland on the horror film map – an enchanting pubescent allegory about a 12–year–old…
I'm Your Man (2021)
- Dir. Maria Schrader
Feat. Dan Stevens
- A fabulously entertaining high concept comedy from Germany about a skeptical scientist who agrees to a three week product test of a humanoid robot…
Lamb (2021)
- Dir. Valdimar Johannsson
Feat. Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson…
- An Icelandic folk horror of haunting, pastoral beauty with Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason playing a couple who live on a remote farm with…
Lost Illusions (2021)
- Dir. Xavier Giannoli
Feat. Benjamin Voisin, Xavier Dolan, Cecile De France…
- An all–star cast dazzles in the spectacular adaptation of Balzac’s classic novel about a young idealist who learns that anything can be…
Next Door (2021)
- Dir. Daniel Bruhl
Feat. Daniel Bruhl, Peter Kurth, Rike Eckermann…
- A dark and witty German comedy exploring gentrification and social inequality in Berlin, marking the directorial debut of accomplished actor Daniel…
Paris, 13th District (Les Olympiades, Paris 13e) (2021)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Noémie Merlant, Makita Samba, Lucie Zhang…
- Jacques Audiard’s film charts the interwoven relationships between four twenty–somethings, beautifully played by Lucie Zhang, Makita Samba,…
Passengers of the Night, The (Les passagers de la nuit) (2021)
- Dir. Mikhaël Hers
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Noée Abita, Emmanuelle Beart…
- Left by her husband, Elisabeth finds herself alone, responsible for the day–to–day care of her two children. She picks up a job on a…
Petite Maman (2021)
- Dir. Céline Sciamma
Feat. Nina Meurisse, Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz
- Master filmmaker Céline Sciamma is back with a captivating coming of age story that explores childhood and a mother–daughter relationship that…
Tale of Love and Desire, A (2021)
- Dir. Leyla Bouzid
Feat. Sami Outalbali, Zbeida Belhajamor
- Ahmed, an 18–year old Frenchman of Algerian origin, meets Farah, a young Tunisian girl. He discovers a collection of sensual and erotic Arab…
Three Floors (Tre Piani) (2021)
- Dir. Nanni Moretti
Feat. Alba Rohrwacher, Riccardo Scamarcio, Nanni Moretti…
- Nanni Moretti's all–star ensemble drama about three families who reside in the same apartment complex in Rome’s stylish Prati neighbourhood.
To Chiara (A Chiara) (2021)
- Dir. Jonas Carpignano
Feat. Swamy Rotolo, Claudio Rotolo, Giorgia Rotolo…
- A rites–of–passage drama in the Italian neo–realist tradition that examines the impact of Mafia activity on those in the close…
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Guzen to Sozo) (2021)
- Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
- An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding, the director of DRIVE MY CAR explores…
Worst Person in the World, The (2021)
- Dir. Joachim Trier
Feat. Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum
- Gloriously provocative and richly perceptive comedy drama from talented Norwegian director Joachim Trier (THELMA), which follows an unpredictable,…
A Friendly Tale (Le bonheur des uns) (2020)
- Dir. Daniel Cohen
Feat. Bérénice Bejo, Vincent Cassel, François Damiens…
- A charming four–hander from the director of LE CHEF in which a sparkling cast play two forty–something couples whose professional and…
Another Round (Druk) (2020)
- Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang…
- Another cheeky yet bittersweet provocation from Dogme 95 alumni Thomas Vinterberg that won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
The…
Antoinette in the Cevennes (2020)
- Dir. Caroline Vignal
Feat. Laure Calamy, Benjamin Lavernhe, Olivia Cote…
- A warm hearted French comedy from writer director Caroline Vignal, starring Laure Calamy as a school teacher on a journey of self–discovery in…
Appearances (Les apparences) (2020)
- Dir. Marc Fitoussi
Feat. Karin Viard, Benjamin Biolay, Lucas Englander
- French–Belgian psychological thriller about a happily married couple living in Vienna whose lives are disrupted when one suspects the other of…
Beginning (Dasatskisi) (2020)
- Dir. Déa Kulumbegashvili
Feat. Ia Sukhitashvili, Rati Oneli
- A devout women of the Jehovah's Witness faith undergoes a profound personal crisis in this triumphant cinematic achievement for Georgian…
Botticelli, Florence and the Medici (2020)
- Dir. Marco Pianigiani
- A documentary exploring Renaissance Florence and its astonishing art and culture, centering around the life of revolutionary artist Sandro Botticelli…
Bye Bye Morons (2020)
- Dir. Albert Dupontel
Feat. Virginie Efira, Albert Dupontel, Nicolas Marie…
- A French black comedy about a 43–year–old hairdresser who goes looking for her adopted son after finding out she is terminally ill.…
County, The (2020)
- Dir. Grimur Hakonarson
Feat. Arndis Hronn Egilsdottir, Sveinn Olafur Gunnarsson
- A quintessentially Icelandic serio–comedy from the director of RAMS about one woman’s fight against a monopolistic co–op stifling the…
De Gaulle (2020)
- Dir. Gabriel Le Bomin
Feat. Lambert Wilson, Tim Hudson, Isabelle Carré…
- Spectacularly mounted biographical drama depicting a crucial period in the life of French army officer Charles de Gaulle, a famous figure in modern…
Everything Went Fine (2020)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Andre Dussollier, Géraldine Pailhas…
- When André, 85, has a stroke, Emmanuelle hurries to her father’s bedside. Sick and half–paralyzed in his hospital bed, he asks Emmanuelle to…
How to Be a Good Wife (2020)
- Dir. Martin Provost
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Yolande Moreau, Noemie Lvovsky…
- Feather lite French comedy set in 1968, with the predictably scene–stealing Juliette Binoche playing an immaculate and morally upright teacher…
Limbo (2020)
- Dir. Ben Sharrock
Feat. Amir El-Masry, Vikash Bhai, Ola Orebiyi…
- A moving cross–cultural comedy about the refugee experience, set on a remote Scottish island where a promising young Syrian musician is waiting…
Man in the Hat, The (2020)
- Dir. Stephen Warbeck, John-Paul Davidson
Feat. Ciaran Hinds, Stephen Dillane, Maïwenn …
- Road–trip comedy–musical about a man who sets off from Marseilles in a small Fiat 500, with five angry men in a Citroën Dyane…
Minari (2020)
- Dir. Lee Isaac Chung
Feat. Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Alan Kim…
- Winner of the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Sundance, this delicately drawn, sweeping story follows a Korean–American family in search of…
Never Gonna Snow Again (2020)
- Dir. Malgorzata Szumowska
Feat. Alec Utgoff, Maja Ostaszewska, Agata Kulesza…
- Assured Polish Oscar contender about a Ukrainian immigrant who unexpectedly develops a cult–like following while working as a masseur in a…
Painter and the Thief, The (2020)
- Dir. Benjamin Ree
- A astonishing art documentary about the Czech painter Barbora Kysilkova, who tracked down and met the criminal who stole her paintings.
What…
Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020)
- Dir. Jasmila Zbanic
Feat. Jasna Djuricic, Johan Heldenbergh
- A devastating, personal account of a nightmarish dilemma for a wife and mother working as a translator between the UN, the Serbian aggressors and…
Rosa's Wedding (2020)
- Feat. Candela Pena, Sergi Lopez, Nathalie Poza…
- Delightful Spanish comedy about a hard–working seamstress in her mid–40's who decides to turn her life around after spending years…
Rose Maker, The (La fine fleur) (2020)
- Dir. Pierre Pinaud
Feat. Catherine Frot, Olivia Cote, Rukkmini Ghosh
- Gentle French comedy with Catherine Frot (THE MIDWIFE) playing a rose maker on the verge of financial ruin, who hires three hapless misfits with no…
Stray (2020)
- Dir. Elizabeth Lo
- A companion piece of sorts to KEDI (2016), the popular film about the stray cats of Istanbul, that this time presents the dog’s eye–view of…
Ties, The (Lacci) (2020)
- Dir. Daniele Luchetti
Feat. Alba Rohrwacher, Luigi Lo Cascio, Laura Morante…
- Naples, early 1980s. The once–happy union between Aldo and his wife Vanda is ruptured one evening when Aldo admits, unprompted, that he has…
Tigers (2020)
- Dir. Ronnie Sandahl
Feat. Erik Enge, Alfred Enoch, Johannes Bah Kuhnke…
- Sports biopic telling the true story of Swedish football talent Martin Bengtsson, an 18–year–old whose dreams turned into nightmares when…
Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula (2020)
- Dir. Sang-ho Yeon
Feat. Dong-won Gang, Jung-hyun Lee, Re Lee
- A standalone sequel to the 2016 action–horror hit TRAIN TO BUSAN, with director Yeon Sang–ho returning for a less focused but no less…
Translators, The (Les Traducteurs) (2020)
- Dir. Régis Roinsard
Feat. Riccardo Scamarcio, Lambert Wilson, Olga Kurylenko…
- A multi–lingual literary thriller centering around nine international translators, one of whom may be leaking pages of a highly anticipated…
Wedding Speech, The (Le discours) (2020)
- Dir. Laurent Tirard
Feat. Kyan Khojandi, Sara Giraudeau, Benjamin Lavernhe…
- Smart and sophisticated crowd–pleaser from French director Laurent Tirard (NICHOLAS ON HOLIDAY), following an anxiety–ridden man who is…
Wildland (2020)
- Dir. Jeanette Nordahl
Feat. Sandra Guldberg Kampp, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Joachim Fjelstrup
- Powerful coming–of–age Scandi–noir about a Danish teenager who becomes embroiled in the ruthless criminal life of her aunt and…
1917 (2019)
- Dir. Sam Mendes
Feat. Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Daniel Mays
- Immersive epic war film from director Sam Mendes (JARHEAD) which evokes the impression of a continuous take to follow two British soldiers on a…
A White, White Day (2019)
- Dir. Hlynur Pálmason
Feat. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason…
- Aesthetically striking Icelandic drama which plunges the viewer deep into the psyche of a tortured former police officer who suspects a neighbour…
All the Sins (TV Series) (2019)
- Dir. Mika Ronkainen
Feat. Johannes Holopainen, Maria Sid, Matti Ristinen
- Compulsive Nordic noir miniseries following a detective who returns to his home town in Northern Finland to investigate two murders, while…
An Unexpected Love (El amor menos pensado) (2019)
- Dir. Juan Vera
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Mercedes Morán
- Argentinian romantic comedy exploring the lives of a couple who, after 25 years of marriage, decide to explore being single, with hilarious and…
Bacurau (2019)
- Dir. Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juliano Dornelles
Feat. Sonia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen…
- Fiercely political and utterly distinctive film blending elements of neo–western, ethnography, gonzo and horror, set in a fictional Brazilian…
Berlin, I Love You (2019)
- Dir. Peter Chelsom, Fernando Eimbcke, Claus Clausen
Feat. Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke…
- Anthology film continuing the "Cities of Love" franchise (PARIS, JE T'AIME, NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU) set in the German capital where ten sugary stories…
Buoyancy (2019)
- Dir. Rodd Rathjen
Feat. Sarm Heng, Mony Ros, Thanawut Kasro
- A 14–year old who works in the Cambodian rice fields with his family decides to escape illegally to Thailand, but finds instead that he has…
Collective (2019)
- Dir. Alexander Nanau
- A blistering Romanian documentary following a heroic team of journalists from the newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor who attempt to uncover the country's…
Dogs Don't Wear Pants (Koirat eivät käytä housuja) (2019)
- Dir. J.-P. Valkeapää
Feat. Krista Kosonen
- Finnish erotic drama about a lonely dad who is traumatized by the loss of his wife in a drowning accident, and stumbles into ecstasy via a powerful…
Ema (2019)
- Dir. Pablo Larrain
Feat. Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael Garcia Bernal, Santiago Cabrera…
- A bold and distinctive film from director Pablo Larrain (NO), with newcomer Mariana Di Girolamo playing a young dancer who is coping with an adoption…
Extraordinary, The (The Specials, Hors normes) (2019)
- Dir. Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Reda Kateb, Helene Vincent
- From the French directing team behind THE INTOUCHABLES comes this astute dramatisation of the true story of Stephane Benhamou (played by Vincent…
Farewell to the Night (L'adieu à la nuit) (2019)
- Dir. Andre Techine
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Kacey Mottet Klein, Oulaya Amamra
- Catherine Deneuve anchors this French drama about a horse farmer whose grandson comes to visit, revealing that he has been radicalised by Islamic…
First Love (Hatsukoi) (2019)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Masataka Kubota, Nao Omori, Shota Sometani…
- Crime thriller from prolific Japanese auteur director Takashi Miike set over a single night in Tokyo, where a down–on–his luck boxer and…
Hermitage: The Power of Art (Ermitage. Il potere dell'arte) (2019)
- Dir. Michele Mally
- A documentary about the Hermitage in St Petersburg, a vast museum boasting the largest collection of paintings in the world. Explores the daily life…
Heroic Losers (2019)
- Dir. Sebastian Borensztein
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Luis Brandoni, Chino Darin…
- Winning underdog comedy from Argentinian director Sebastian Borensztein (CHINESE TAKEAWAY) based on the novel by Eduardo Sacheri (THE SECRET IN THEIR…
Honeyland (2019)
- Dir. Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov
Feat. Hatidže Muratova
- Sublime environmental documentary set in the remote mountainous village of Bekirlija, North Macedonia, where a wild bee keeper is quietly observed…
I Feel Good (2019)
- Dir. Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Feat. Jean Dujardin, Yolande Moreau
- Oscar winner Jean Dujardin (THE ARTIST) stars in this quirky French comedy about a man with a ridiculous get–rich–quick scheme involving…
In the Name Of The Land (2019)
- Dir. Edouard Bergeon
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Veerle Baetens, Anthony Bajon…
- Following the life of a stoic farmer across four decades, this bittersweet and deeply moving drama marks the directorial debut of French…
Ip Man 4: The Finale (2019)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Danny Kwok-Kwan Chan
- Grand finale to ground breaking and beloved martial arts series, with Donnie Yen reprising his role as the legendary Wing Chun master, who travels to…
It Must Be Heaven (2019)
- Dir. Elia Suleiman
Feat. Elia Suleiman, Tarik Kopty, Kareem Ghneim…
- Brilliantly absurdist comedy of errors following a Palestinian filmmaker who leaves his country for the West and the promise of a new and better…
Jean Paul Gaultier: Freak and Chic (2019)
- Dir. Yann L’Henoret
- An all access look behind the scenes into the glamorous world of visionary French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, as he prepares an outrageous…
Les Miserables (2019)
- Dir. Ladj Ly
Feat. Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti, Djebril Zonga…
- This impressive feature debut from French director Ladj Ly is set in the French criminal underworld in aftermath of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, when…
Martin Eden (2019)
- Dir. Pietro Marcello
Feat. Luca Marinelli, Carlo Cecchi, Jessica Cressy…
- A dazzling adaptation of Jack London's semi–autobiographical 1909 novel about a sailor who abandons his working class roots to pursue an…
Monos (2019)
- Dir. Alejandro Landes
Feat. Julianne Nicholson, Moises Arias, Sofía Buenaventura…
- A dark contemporary fable inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, set in a remote and mountainous region of Columbia, where a group of teenage…
My Days of Glory (Mes jours de gloire) (2019)
- Dir. Antoine de Bary
Feat. Vincent Lacoste, Emmanuelle Devos, Christopher Lambert
- French comedy about a self–absorbed, unemployed twenty–something who shamelessly sponges off his parents after his promising career as a…
Mystery of Henri Pick, The (Le mystère Henri Pick) (2019)
- Dir. Rémi Bezançon
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Camille Cottin, Alice Isaaz…
- Delectable literary–themed French comedy caper based on the book of the same name by David Foenkinos.
The titular Henri Pick is a…
Of Love and Lies (2019)
- Dir. Julien Rappeneau
Feat. François Damiens, Andre Dussollier, Maleaume Paquin
- Uplifting French dramedy about a diminutive but spirited 12–year old boy who challenges his lonely disillusioned dad into embracing life again…
Only the Animals (Seules les bêtes) (2019)
- Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Denis Ménochet, Laure Calamy, Damien Bonnard…
- A superb psychological thriller set in rural France that uncovers a twisted web of deceit concerning five people who are all linked to the…
Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) (2019)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Antonio Banderas, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Penelope Cruz…
- A more restrained, but no less pretty and witty outing for septuagenarian director Pedro Almodóvar, which narrates evocative vignettes from the life…
Parasite (2019)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Cho…
- An unemployed family with a bleak future systematically ingratiate themselves into the lives of a wealthy family in this brilliant,…
Perfumes (2019)
- Dir. Gregory Magne
Feat. Emmanuelle Devos, Gregory Montel
- Anne (Emmanuelle Devos) was once the star of her industry – a perfumer whose ability to produce enticing new fragrances was second to none. She…
Pinocchio (2019)
- Dir. Matteo Garrone
Feat. Federico Lelapi, Roberto Benigni, Rocco Papaleo
- A new, live–action imagining of the iconic fairytale that focuses on the authentic roots of the Carlo Collodi story. Shot in stunning Italian…
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
- Dir. Céline Sciamma
Feat. Noémie Merlant, Adele Haenel
- Céline Sciamma (GIRLHOOD) directs this devastatingly good, exquisitely executed lesbian period drama. Set in France in the 18th century, where a…
Proxima (2019)
- Dir. Alice Winocour
Feat. Eva Green, Matt Dillon, Lars Eidinger…
- Eva Green plays a French astronaut enrolled in a demanding program at the European Space Agency in Cologne, struggling to maintain a relationship…
Room 212 (Chambre 212, On a Magical Night) (2019)
- Dir. Christophe Honore
Feat. Chiara Mastroianni, Vincent Lacoste, Camille Cottin…
- Playful French rom–com from acclaimed writer–director Christophe Honore (MA MERE, DAN PARIS).
Set over the course of one night, where…
Seberg (2019)
- Dir. Benedict Andrews
Feat. Kristen Stewart, Jack O'Connell, Margaret Qualley…
- Kristen Stewart is riveting as French New Wave actress Jean Seberg, in this drama set in the 1960's, when she passionately involved herself in the…
Spread Your Wings (Donne-moi des ailes) (2019)
- Dir. Nicolas Vanier
Feat. Jean-Paul Rouve, Mélanie Doutey, Louis Vazquez
- A gorgeous boys' own eco–adventure from France, based on the true story of a visionary scientist and his 14–year–old son who bond…
Truth, The (2019)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke…
- Dazzling modern family drama from master auteur Kore–eda Hirokazu (SHOPLIFTERS), pairing French screen icons Catherine Deneuve and Juliette…
Twin (TV Series) (2019)
- Feat. Kristofer Hivju, Rebekka Nystabakk
- Intriguing eight–part Norwegian crime drama series starring "Game of Thrones" actor Kristofer Hivju as identical twin brothers living…
We'll End Up Together (Nous finirons ensemble) (2019)
- Dir. Guillaume Canet
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Marion Cotillard, Gilles Lellouche…
- From the writer/director of the LITTLE WHITE LIES comes another chic French take on the formula of THE BIG CHILL, with the entire cast returning to…
Weathering with You (2019)
- Dir. Makoto Shinkai
- Touching Japanese animated romance doubling as an eco–fable, about a high school boy who befriends a girl who can manipulate the weather. From…
While at War (2019)
- Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
Feat. Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernandez, Santi Prego
- From Alejandro Amenabar, acclaimed director of THE SEA INSIDE, comes this drama set in Spain in 1936 on the cusp of the Spanish Civil…
Who You Think I Am (Celle que vous croyez) (2019)
- Dir. Safy Nebbou
Feat. Juliette Binoche, François Civil, Nicole Garcia…
- Juliet Binoche is outstanding at the helm of this elegant psychological thriller, playing a French literature professor and middle–aged…
Wild Goose Lake, The (Nan fang che zhan de ju hui) (2019)
- Dir. Diao Yinan
Feat. Ge Hu, Fan Liao, Lun-Mei Kwei
- Chinese noir thriller with impeccable visual flair, following the fates of a rogue gangster and the prostitute he meets whilst on the run from the…
A Faithful Man (L'homme fidèle) (2018)
- Dir. Louis Garrel
Feat. Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp
- Romantic farce with a whimsical, French new–wave sensibility directed by and starring Louis Garrel. A dashing journalist finds his life…
A Man in a Hurry (Un homme pressé) (2018)
- Dir. Hervé Mimran
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Leïla Bekhti
- French comic–drama based on the life of the former head of Peugeot, Christian Stieff, a high profile businessman who has let his personal life…
Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion (2018)
- Dir. Alexandre Astier, Louis Clichy
- Another delightful Roman–era adventure adapted from the beloved French comic books. Asterix and Obelix embark on a quest across Gaul to find a…
Birds of Passage (2018)
- Dir. Ciro Guerra, Cristina Gallego
Feat. Natalia Reyes, Carmina Martinez, Jose Acosta
- Intelligent and engrossing narco–thriller set in Columbia in the 1960's, following an indigenous Wayuu man and his family as they turn to drug…
Border (Gräns) (2018)
- Dir. Ali Abbasi
Feat. Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jörgen Thorsson
- Remarkable Swedish black comedy about a customs officer with an extraordinary sense of smell who sniffs out a suspicious–looking traveller with…
Burning (2018)
- Dir. Chang-Dong Lee
Feat. Yoo Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo, Steven Yeun
- Beautifully crafted film following a young aspiring novelist who reconnects with a childhood neighbour, before events take an unexpectedly sinister…
By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu) (2018)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud
- Hard–hitting French–Belgian drama about three sexual abuse victims who attempt to the to justice the Catholic priest who was…
Capharnaum (2018)
- Dir. Nadine Labaki
Feat. Zain Al Rafeea
- A uniquely humanistic portrayal of tragic poverty in Beirut from the perspective of an extraordinarily gutsy 12 year old Lebanese boy. After…
Claire Darling (La dernière folie de Claire Darling) (2018)
- Dir. Julie Bertuccelli
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Alice Taglioni
- Catherine Deneuve plays a reclusive millionaire who unexpectedly decides to get rid of all her belongings in a yard sale on the lawn of her mansion.…
Climax (2018)
- Dir. Gaspar Noe
Feat. Sofia Boutella, Kiddy Smile, Roman Guillermic
- A dance movie like you're never seen, legendary provocateur Gaspar Noe helms this brilliant and intoxicating ensemble piece. Set in an abandoned…
Cold War (2018)
- Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
Feat. Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot
- The director of 'Ida' (2013) follows up with a deeply romantic, immaculately composed tale of a Polish concert pianist and a charismatic singer who…
Divine Order, The (2018)
- Dir. Petra Biondina Volpe
Feat. Marie Leuenberger
- A passionate drama set in Switzerland, following a mother and housewife who campaigns for a referendum on the right of women to vote – in 1971…
Dogman (2018)
- Dir. Matteo Garrone
Feat. Edoardo Pesce, Marcello Fonte
- The director of GOMORRAH and TALE OF TALES expertly helms this gripping urban Italian crime noir about a mild mannered and diminutive dog groomer who…
Donbass (2018)
- Dir. Sergey Loznitsa
Feat. Tamara Yatsenko, Irina Zayarmiuk, Grigory Masliuk
- A 13–part exploration of the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian–supported Donetsk People's Republic throughout the…
Everybody Knows (Todos Lo Saben) (2018)
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darín
- Iranian maestro Asghar Farhadi assembles a powerhouse cast for this Spanish–language about a mother–of–two who returns from Buenos…
Girl (2018)
- Dir. Lukas Dhont
Feat. Victor Polster
- This Belgian drama was a hit at Cannes owing to it's grace and emotional depth. Transsexual teenager Lara is committed to becoming a professional…
Girls of the Sun (Les filles du soleil) (2018)
- Dir. Eva Husson
Feat. Golshifteh Farahani
- Powerful wartime film following a Kurdish female battalion who are fighting against ISIS extremists to take back control of their village. Stars…
Guilty, The (Den skyldige) (2018)
- Feat. Jakob Cedergren, Jessica Dinnage
- A nail–biting Danish thriller that maximises tension from minimal means in which a desk–bound police officer answers an emergency call…
Happy as Lazzaro (2018)
- Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
Feat. Adriano Tardiolo, Nicoletta Braschi, Sergi Lopez…
- It's summer at Inviolata, an isolated rural estate, where an extended family of tobacco farmers toil under the rule of a domineering marchesa, and…
Heiresses, The (2018)
- Dir. Marcelo Martinessi
Feat. Ana Brun, Margarita Irún, Anna Ivanova
- Slow–burn drama from Paraguay about a privileged middle–aged lesbian couple whose new found financial hardship results in one being…
Ideal Palace, The (L'incroyable histoire du facteur Cheval) (2018)
- Dir. Nils Tavernier
Feat. Jacques Gamblin, Laetitia Casta, Florence Thomassin
- Affectionate biographical drama based on the extraordinary real–life story of a simple French postman who spent 33 years building a magnificent…
In The Aisles (In den Gängen) (2018)
- Dir. Thomas Stuber
Feat. Franz Rogowski, Sandra Huller
- A German wholesale supermarket is the setting for this gentle romantic drama following a reclusive blue–collar shelf stacker (Andreas Leupold,…
In Your Hands (Au bout des doigts) (2018)
- Dir. Ludovic Bernard
Feat. Lambert Wilson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jules Benchetrit
- A young delinquent with a talent for the piano captures the attention of the Director of the National Conservatory of Music in this feel–good…
Keeper, The (Trautmann) (2018)
- Dir. Markus Rosenmüller
Feat. David Kross, Freya Mavor
- Biographical drama telling the story of Bert Trautmann, the German soldier who escapes a POW camp to become a footballing icon, marrying the daughter…
Loro (2018)
- Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Feat. Toni Servillo, Elena Sofia Ricci, Riccardo Scamarcio…
- The director of THE GREAT BEAUTY returns with another tale of Italian decadence and corruption, this time based on the life and times of the infamous…
Mother is Wrong (TV Mini-series) (Maman a tort) (2018)
- Feat. Anne Charrier, Pascal Elbé
- French thriller following a detective who, despite being already consumed by a major robbery, takes on the chilling case of a child who tells her his…
My Big Gay Italian Wedding (2018)
- Dir. Alessandro Genovesi
Feat. Cristiano Caccamo, Salvatore Esposito, Monica Guerritore…
- Enjoyable silly comedy adaptation of the off–Broadway play about a gay couple in Berlin who decide to get married in a small village in Italy,…
My Brilliant Friend (TV Mini-series) (L'amica geniale) (2018)
- Dir. Saverio Costanzo
Feat. Valentina Acca, Annarita Vitolo
- Evocative Neapolitan drama adapted from the international best–selling novel by Elena Ferrante, following an elderly woman as she recounts her…
Never Look Away (Werk ohne Autor) (2018)
- Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Feat. Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer
- The director of THE LIVES OF OTHERS helms this drama spanning three eras of German history to tell the story of an artist who survives the Nazi…
Non-Fiction (Non Fiction) (2018)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne…
- Buoyant drama set in the Parisian publishing world, with acclaimed director Olivier Assayas reuniting with actors Juliette Binoche and Guillaume…
Normandy Nude (Normandie nue, Naked Normandy) (2018)
- Dir. Phillippe Le Guay
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Toby Jones, François-Xavier Demaison…
- Francois Cluzet leads a sizeable cast of mostly non–actors in this warm–hearted French comedy from the dir. of THE WOMEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR…
Photograph (2018)
- Dir. Ritesh Batra
Feat. Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra
- A charming romance from the director of THE LUNCHBOX set in Mumbai, where a struggling street photographer convinces a shy stranger to pose as his…
Plague, The (TV Series) (La Peste) (2018)
- Dir. Alberto Rodriguez
Feat. Pablo Molinero, Paco Leon, Manolo Solo
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Purity of Vengeance, The (Journal 64) (2018)
- Dir. Christoffer Boe
Feat. Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares
- The fourth and final installment in the Danish 'Department Q' detective series initiated by The KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES is a conspiracy thriller…
Roma (2018)
- Dir. Alfonso Cuaron
Feat. Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira
- Another masterclass in storytelling from Mexican maestro Alfonso Cuarón, about a year in the life of a middle–class family's maid in Mexico…
Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku) (2018)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka
- Charming, funny and heartbreaking all at once, this drama from the Japanese master of humanism Kore–eda is set in Tokyo and follows a group of…
Sink or Swim (Le grand bain) (2018)
- Dir. Gilles Lellouche
Feat. Mathieu Amalric, Guillaume Canet, Benoit Poelvoorde…
- A group of 40–something guys, all on the verge of a mid–life crisis, decide to form their local pool's first ever synchronized swimming…
Sorry Angel (2018)
- Dir. Christophe Honore
Feat. Pierre Deladonchamps, Vincent Lacoste, Denis Podalydes
- Articulate and powerful love story set in Paris in the 90's, where a worldly writer falls for a younger, carefree university student.
Third Wife, The (2018)
- Dir. Ash Mayfair
Feat. Tran Nu Yen-Khe
- Haunting and devastating period drama set in 19th century rural Vietnam, where a 14–year old girl is married off to a wealthy landowner and…
Transit (2018)
- Dir. Christian Petzold
Feat. Franz Rogowski
- Distinguished wartime melodrama from Christian Petzold (BARBARA, PHOENIX) following the plight of a holocaust survivor who assumes the identity of a…
Trouble With You, The (En liberté!) (2018)
- Dir. Pierre Salvadori
Feat. Adele Haenel, Pio Marmaï, Audrey Tautou
- Sparkling, action filled rom–com from director Pierre Salvadori (PRICELESS, WILD TARGET) where a principled detective on the French Riviera is…
Water Lilies of Monet: The Magic of Water and Light (2018)
- A journey through the masterpieces and obsessions of the "Genius of Impressionism", with Ross King, author of Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the…
Woman at War (2018)
- Dir. Benedikt Erlingsson
Feat. Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir
- A droll yet heroic tale of a fifty–year–old environmental activist who is secretly waging a one–woman–war on the local…
Working Woman (2018)
- Dir. Michal Aviad
Feat. Liron Ben-Shlush
- Workplace drama capturing the spirit of the "Me Too" movement to tell the story of a smart and capable mother of three who returns to the workforce…
World Is Yours, The (Le monde est à toi) (2018)
- Dir. Romain Gavras
Feat. Karim Leklou, Isabelle Adjani, Vincent Cassel…
- French comedy thriller about a small time drug dealer who attempts to go straight by becoming the official distributor of Mr. Freeze ice pops in…
Yuli (2018)
- Dir. Iciar Bollain
Feat. Carlos Acosta, Santiago Alfonso, Keyvin Martinez
- Rousing biopic of the Cuban ballet superstar Carlos Acosta, nicknamed Yuli by his father, who saw recognised his talent for dance and sent him to…
A Bag of Marbles (Un sac de billes) (2017)
- Dir. Christian Duguay
Feat. Dorian Le Clech, Batyste Fleurial
- The experience of the French occupation during WWII is told uniquely using a child's perspective in this latterday adaptation of the book by Joseph…
A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (2017)
- Dir. Sebastián Lelio
Feat. Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco
- Another supremely elegant, substantive and compassionate character study from the director of GLORIA that this time focuses on a transgender woman in…
Aurore (I Got Life!) (2017)
- Dir. Blandine Lenoir
Feat. Agnes Jaoui, Thibault de Montalembert, Pascale Arbillot
- Actress and co–writer Jaoui is the heart and soul of this witty if overly–familiar rom–com as the eponymous 50–year–old…
Babylon Berlin (TV Series) (2017)
- A German neo–noir television series based on novels by Volker Kutscher that takes place in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, starting in 1929.…
Back to Burgundy (Ce qui nous lie) (2017)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Pio Marmaï, Ana Girardot, François Civil
- Sumptuous French family saga which will be a special treat for oenophiles, as three siblings attempt to save the family vineyard in picturesque…
Belle and Sebastian: Friends for Life (Belle et Sebastien 3) (2017)
- Dir. Clovis Cornillac
Feat. Félix Bossuet, Tcheky Karyo, Clovis Cornillac
- Third installment of the delightful French film series about an orphan and his friendship with a wild mountain dog during the upheaval of WWII.
Blade of the Immortal (2017)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Takuya Kimura, Sugisaki Hana, Fukushi Sota…
- Japanese uber–director Miike Takashi’s 100th feature, based on a popular manga series about a vengeful swordsman with an uncanny ability to…
Bolshoi, The (Bolshoy) (2017)
- Dir. Valery Todorovsky
Feat. Margarita Simonova, Alisa Freindlikh, Valentina Telichkina…
- Russian drama about a young and talented ballet dancer from the provinces who is determined to find success on stage at the Bolshoi Theatre in…
BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017)
- Dir. Robin Campillo
Feat. Nahuel Pérez Biscayar, Arnaud Valois, Adele Haenel
- Remarkable and inspiring drama by the director of EASTERN BOYS, set in 1990's France and following a group of passionate AIDS activists who take on…
Bridge, The - Series 4 (TV Series) (Bron/Broen) (2017)
- Feat. Sofia Helin, Thure Lindhardt
- Fourth series of the enormously popular Danish–Swedish murder mystery is set two years after the conclusion of Series 3 with the central…
C'est La Vie (Le sens de la fête) (2017)
- Dir. Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Feat. Jean-Pierre Bacri, Gilles Lellouche, Jean-Paul Rouve…
- An archetypically bubbly, if not quite champagne quality, French comedy from the creators of THE INTOUCHABLES in which an irritable veteran wedding…
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
- Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Feat. Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg…
- Completing the "Desire" trilogy with I AM LOVE and A BIGGER SPLASH, this coming–of–age drama is set in Northern Italy in 1983, where a 17…
Captain, The (Der Hauptmann) (2017)
- Dir. Robert Schwentke
Feat. Max Hubacher, Frederick Lau, Bernd Holscher
- Gripping historical drama about German soldier Willi Herold, who was fighting for survival against the Nazis until he found the uniform of a Nazi…
Custody (Jusqu'à la garde) (2017)
- Dir. Xavier Legrand
Feat. Léa Drucker, Denis Ménochet
- Astonishing French drama charting a family struggling with the embittered fallout of divorce, and the resulting impact on the two children. The…
Double Lover (L'amant double) (2017)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Jacqueline Bisset, Jeremie Renier, Marine Vacth…
- Sexually–charged, stylized thriller from director Francois Ozon about a fragile young model who moves in with her psychoanalyst, only to…
Dr. Knock (Doctor Knock) (2017)
- Dir. Lorraine Levy
Feat. Omar Sy
- Popular French actor Omar Sy (THE INTOUCHABLES) stars in this feelgood comedy about a former thug turned doctor who moves to a small French town and…
Faces Places (2017)
- Dir. Agnes Varda, JR
Feat. Agnes Varda, JR
- Charming French documentary created by and starring beloved new wave director Agnes Varda, who recruits a charismatic young photographer/muralist…
Fireworks (Fireworks: Should We See It from the Side or The Bottom?) (2017)
- Dir. Nobuyuki Takeuchi
- Beautifully romantic Japanese anime set during a school summer vacation, based on Shunji Iwai’s 1993 TV series, “Fireworks”. Refreshingly…
Foxtrot (2017)
- Dir. Samuel Maoz
Feat. Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler
- The impressive sophomore effort of director Samuel Maoz (LEBANON) is a perceptive and bold exploration of war and grief. An affluent couple living in…
Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti (2017)
- Dir. Edouard Deluc
Feat. Vincent Cassel
- Vincent Cassel delivers a committed, absorbing performance as French painter Paul Gauguin. Set in 1891, when Gauguin exiled himself to Tahiti to…
Good Manners (2017)
- Dir. Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra
Feat. Isabél Zuaa, Marjorie Estiano
- A genre–defying Portuguese film which artfully blends social satire and horror to tell the story of a nanny called Clara, who works for Ana, a…
Happy End (2017)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz…
- Michael Haneke lends his impeccably chilly style to this blackest of comedies about the disintegration of family relationships amidst the enduring…
I Am Not a Witch (2017)
- Dir. Rungano Nyoni
- Full of joy and tragedy in the equal measure, this assured debut from Zambian writer–director Rungano Nyoni follows the story of 9–year…
I Know Who You Are (TV Series) (Sé quién eres) (2017)
- Feat. Francesc Garrido, Blanca Portillo, Aida Folch…
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
In the Fade (2017)
- Dir. Fatih Akin
Feat. Diane Kruger, Johannes Krisch
- Diane Kruger's momentous performance is central to this drama about a woman called Katja from Hamburg, whose husband and son are killed in a…
Insult, The (2017)
- Dir. Ziad Doueiri
Feat. Adel Karam, Kamel El Basha
- An exchange on a Beirut street between a Palestinian construction worker and a Lebanese Christian escalates into a passionate dispute that opens…
Ismael's Ghosts (2017)
- Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Feat. Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marion Cotillard…
- The always impressive Mathieu Amalric (DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) anchors this ambitious and narratively complex story of a film maker whose life…
Jeune Femme (Montparnasse Bienvenüe) (2017)
- Dir. Léonor Sérraille
Feat. Lætitia Dosch
- Drama set in Paris, following a spirited yet struggling woman in her 30's in the wake of a difficult break up with her wealthy boyfriend. A…
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable (2017)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Ryunosuke Kamiki, Kento Yamazaki
- Frenetic and boundlessly wacky live–action adaptation of the manga, with a head spinning plot involving psychic avatars who plot to bring down…
Just To Be Sure (Otez-moi d'un doute) (2017)
- Dir. Carine Tardieu
Feat. François Damiens, Cecile De France, Andre Wilms
- A delightful French comedy–of–errors following a grounded 45–year old widower whose life changes abruptly when he learns that the…
Le Redoutable (Godard, Mon Amour) (2017)
- Dir. Michel Hazanavicius
Feat. Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin
- Louis Garrel is perfectly cast as the giant of the French New Wave, in this whimsical biopic of Jean–Luc, set during the shoot for LA CHINOISE.…
Legacy, The - Series 3 (TV Series) (Arvingerne) (2017)
- Feat. Trine Dyrholm, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Lene Maria Christensen…
- The excellent Danish family saga continues with the four siblings – Gro, Signe, Frederick and Emil entangled in emotional and financial…
Let the Sunshine In (2017)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine…
- Juliette Binoche is radiant as a Parisian artist and divorced mother who bravely searches for sexual fulfillment and companionship in middle age.…
Loveless (2017)
- Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev
Feat. Matvey Novikov, Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin
- Exquisitely austere Russian drama by modern master Zvyagintsev (LEVIATHAN, ELENA) which offers a dissection of a failed relationship against the…
Mary and the Witch's Flower (2017)
- Dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi
- Beautiful Japanese animation telling the coming–of–age story of a boisterous girl whose summer holiday with her great aunt leads her to…
Midwife, The (Sage femme) (2017)
- Dir. Martin Provost
Feat. Catherine Frot, Catherine Deneuve
- Two of French cinema's most beloved actors, Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot, team up in this rich character study by the director of SERAPHINE.…
Mr. Stein Goes Online (Un profil pour deux) (2017)
- Dir. Stéphane Robelin
Feat. Pierre Richard
- Old–fashioned French farce where a reclusive widower enters the world of online dating, using the profile photo of his young computer tutor to…
One Cut of the Dead (Kamera wo tomeruna!) (2017)
- Dir. Shinichiro Ueda
Feat. Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama
- Ridiculously fun and gleefully inventive movie–within–a–movie where the crew of a low–budget zombie film are terrorised by…
Other Side of Hope, The (2017)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Sakari Kuosmanen, Sherwan Haji, Ville Virtanen…
- This Finnish take on the European migrant crisis – proclaimed to be last directed by auteur Aki Kaurismäki – is a poignant yet typically…
Pop Aye (2017)
- Dir. Kirsten Tan
Feat. Thaneth Warakulnukroh
- Quietly uplifting road trip dramedy following a disillusioned Bangkok architect who embarks on a trek across the idyllic Thai countryside with the…
Rodin (2017)
- Dir. Jacques Doillon
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Izia Higelin
- Austere drama set in Paris in 1880, where Auguste Rodin, widely considered the founder of modern sculpture, received his first state commission and…
Screwed (Pihalla) (2017)
- Dir. Nils-Erik Ekblom
Feat. Mikko Kauppila, Sanna Majuri, Valtteri Lehtinen
- Sweet–natured Finnish coming–of–age drama about two teenage boys who fall in love during a summer in the countryside.
See You Up There (Au revoir là-haut) (2017)
- Dir. Albert Dupontel
Feat. Albert Dupontel, Nahuel Pérez Biscayar, Laurent Lafitte…
- French film adaptation of the ambitious novel set a few days before the 1918 Armistice, where, among the ruins of WWI, a genius draftsman and a…
Square, The (2017)
- Dir. Ruben Östlund
Feat. Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
- A smart and ambitious art world satire from the director of FORCE MAJEURE set in and around a cutting–edge contemporary art museum, where a…
Summer 1993 (2017)
- Dir. Carla Simón
Feat. Laia Artigas, Paula Robles, Bruna Cusí
- An evocative and affecting autobiographical depiction of Catalan writer–director Carla Simón's childhood. Set in 1993, 6–year old Frida…
Terrified (Aterrados) (2017)
- Dir. Demián Rugna
Feat. Maxi Ghione, Elvira Onetto, Norberto Gonzalo…
- Supremely creepy yet thoughtful Argentine horror–drama set in a Buenos Aires neighbourhood plagued by paranormal occurrences. Stacked with…
Thelma (2017)
- Dir. Joachim Trier
Feat. Eili Harboe, Henrik Rafaelsen, Kaya Wilkins…
- A gracefully unsettling Nordic thriller about a painfully shy young woman whose oppressed, conservative upbringing and burgeoning passion for a…
Tokyo Ghoul (2017)
- Dir. Kentaro Hagiwara
Feat. Masataka Kubota, Fumika Shimizu
- A live–action adaptation of the manga series by Sui Ishida. In modern day Tokyo, flesh–eating ghouls live among humans, and after…
Valkyrien (TV Series) (2017)
- Feat. Sven Nordin, Pål Sverre Hagen
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Wajib - The Wedding Invitation (Wajib) (2017)
- Dir. Annemarie Jacir
Feat. Mohamed Bakri
- Wryly comedic drama set in Nazareth in the lead–up to Christmas, where a conservative father and his estranged hipster son attempt to reconcile…
Western (2017)
- Dir. Valeska Grisebach
Feat. Meinhard Neumann, Reinhardt Wetrek, Syuleyman Alilov Letifov
- As foreign construction workers build a dam in a rural Bulgarian village, a German man has a series of personal encounters with the local landscape…
Wound, The (Inxeba) (2017)
- Dir. John Trengove
Feat. Nakhane Toure
- An unforgettable South African drama following a closeted relationship between two Xhosa men participating in a coming–of–age initiation…
A Conspiracy of Faith (2016)
- Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Pål Sverre Hagen, Fares Fares, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
- Following THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES and THE ABSENT ONE, this third entry in the coal–black "Department Q" series of feature films has cold case…
A Silent Voice (Koe no katachi) (2016)
- Dir. Naoko Yamada
Feat. Miyu Irino
- Unique Japanese anime following a deaf girl called Shoko, who is bullied at school by a boy who grows up to be tormented by his past behavior, and…
After the Storm (Umi yori mo mada fukaku) (2016)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Hiroshi Abe, Kirin Kiki, Yôko Maki
- After the death of his father, a morally bankrupt private detective struggles to find child support money and reconnect with his son and…
Age of Shadows, The (2016)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Gong Yoo, Han Ji-min
- Elegantly crafted spy thriller set in Japanese occupied Seoul in the 1920's, in which a Korean–born police captain in the Japanese police force…
Aquarius (2016)
- Dir. Kleber Mendonca Filho
Feat. Sonia Braga, Maeve Jinkings, Irandhir Santos…
- Gratifying portrait of a 65–year–old widow and retired music critic who battles a development company to retain her residency at the…
Country Doctor, The (Irreplaceable) (2016)
- Dir. Thomas Lilti
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Marianne Denicourt
- Genteel drama starring François Cluzet (THE INTOUCHABLES) as a devoted doctor in a rural French town who himself is diagnosed with a serious illness…
Dancer, The (La danseuse) (2016)
- Dir. Stéphanie Di Giusto
Feat. Soko , Gaspard Ulliel, Mélanie Thierry…
- Dazzling rags–to–riches biopic following the true story of Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan, two dancers who together pioneered modern…
Death of Louis XIV, The (La mort de Louis XIV) (2016)
- Dir. Albert Serra
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud
- A master of minimalist portraits of historical figures, Albert Serra directs French New Wave doyen Jean–Pierre Léaud as Louis XIV during the…
Dheepan (2016)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Antonythasan Jesuthasan
- A Sri Lankan refugee in France finds himself posing as the father and husband of two other refugees in order to gain asylum status. An unflinchingly…
Eagle Huntress, The (2016)
- A 13–year–old nomadic Mongolian girl breaks a 2,000 year–old gender barrier to follow her father and train hunting eagles in this…
Elle (2016)
- Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny…
- Controversial, unflinching drama closely following the perspective of a woman who is repeatedly raped by the same masked intruder, but whose…
Frantz (2016)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Pierre Niney, Paula Beer
- A young woman in small–town Germany is mourning the death of her fiance in the wake of WWI, and forms an unexpected bond with an enigmatic and…
Frozen Dead, The (TV Series) (Glacé) (2016)
- Feat. Charles Berling, Julia Piaton, Pascal Greggory
- Chilly crime thriller set in the French Pyrenees that unravels after the discovery of a headless body of a horse hanging suspended from the edge of a…
Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2016)
- Dir. Cristian Mungiu
Feat. Adrian Titieni, Maria-Victoria Dragus
- Subtly engrossing drama follows the moral dilemmas of a well–meaning and respected doctor who succumbs to Romania's endemic corruption in order…
Handmaiden, The (2016)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Min-hee Kim, Tae-ri Kim, Jung-woo Ha…
- Delicious erotic thriller from the brilliant Park Chan–Wook, who lends his impeccable style to a provocative potboiler of lesbian love and…
Happy Hour (2016)
- Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Feat. Tanaka Sachie, Kikuchi Hazuki, Mihara Maiko…
- Intelligent and novelistic drama exploring the private and professional lives of four Japanese women in their 30's across an ambitious, but…
Headshot (2016)
- Dir. Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto
Feat. Iko Uwais, Chelsea Islan
- Iko Uwais (star of THE RAID) returns in this impossibly violent Indonesian martial arts feast. An overused plot device of an elite fighter who wakes…
Innocents, The (Agnus Dei) (2016)
- Dir. Anne Fontaine
Feat. Lou de Laâge, Agata Kulesza, Agata Buzek…
- In Poland after World War II, a young French Red Cross intern who is sent to assist the survivors of the German camps discovers several nuns in…
Julieta (2016)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Emma Suarez, Adriana Ugarte
- The complexities of a woman's past are unraveled after a chance encounter, in this loose adaptation of three short stories by Alice Munro. More…
Kedi (2016)
- Dir. Ceyda Torun
- An enchanting profile of an ancient city of Istanbul and its people, as told through the separate stories of seven roaming cats whose mysterious,…
King's Choice, The (2016)
- Dir. Erik Poppe
Feat. Jesper Christensen, Anders Baasmo
- Vibrant war–time drama set during the three days in 1940 when German forces occupied Oslo and King Haakon VII and his family went into hiding.…
Like Crazy (La Pazza Gioia) (2016)
- Dir. Paolo Virzi
Feat. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Micaela Ramazzotti
- Gratifying comedy–drama following two women, one a troubled introvert, one an impassioned mythomaniac, who break out of a psychiatric facility…
Lost in Paris (Paris pieds nus) (2016)
- Dir. Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
Feat. Emmanuelle Riva, Pierre Richard, Dominique Abel…
- Another gem from husband–and–wife team, Abel & Gordon, featuring a roster of typically clever sight gags that follows the trail of a…
Mermaid, The (2016)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Chao Deng, Lin Yun, Zhang Yuqi…
- Madcap comic fantasy that marks a return to form for director Chow tells the tale of a beautiful mermaid who falls for the property developer she was…
My Life as a Zucchini (Ma Vie de Courgette) (2016)
- Dir. Claude Barras
- Expressive, bittersweet French stop–motion animated feature about a boy (Courgette) who must adjust to life in a foster home of orphans, who…
Neruda (2016)
- Dir. Pablo Larrain
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Mercedes Morán
- Universally acclaimed biographical drama about poet and communist senator Pablo Neruda, who was forced into hiding with his artist wife when the Cold…
Odyssey, The (L'odyssée) (2016)
- Dir. Jérôme Salle
Feat. Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney, Audrey Tautou
- A shimmering yet unvarnished biopic of pioneering Frenchman Jacques Cousteau, who invented the aqualung and went on to become a world–famous…
Olive Tree, The (El olivo) (2016)
- Dir. Iciar Bollain
Feat. Anna Castillo, Javier Gutiérrez, Pep Ambros
- Spanish actor–director Iciar Bollain and Ken Loach's regular screenwriter Paul Laverty join forces for this warm and sometimes humorous road…
Penny Pincher (Radin!) (2016)
- Dir. Fred Cavaye
Feat. Dany Boon, Laurence Arné, Noémie Schmidt…
- Farcical French comedy starring Dany Boon as a gifted violinist and secret "penny pincher" – obsessed with saving money at all costs, he leads…
Perfect Strangers (Perfetti sconosciuti) (2016)
- Dir. Paolo Genovese
Feat. Giuseppe Battiston, Anna Foglietta, Marco Giallini…
- A clever comedy of manners for the iphone–era, this Italian award–winner follows a dinner party debacle that unfolds after seven…
Personal Shopper (2016)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Anders Danielsen Lie…
- Utterly beguiling psychological horror closely following a troubled personal shopper to a fashion–world celebrity, who attempts to make contact…
Planetarium (2016)
- Dir. Rebecca Zlotowski
Feat. Natalie Portman, Lily-Rose Depp, Emmanuel Salinger
- Natalie Portman and Lily–Rose Depp play two American sisters in pre–war France with apparent psychic abilities that engage the interest…
Polina (2016)
- Dir. Valérie Müller, Angelin Preljocaj
Feat. Anastasia Shevtsova, Veronika Zhovnytska, Juliette Binoche
- Elegant, methodical drama about a gifted Russian dancer who gives up the chance to join the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet when she moves to France to…
Rams (2016)
- Dir. Grimur Hakonarson
Feat. Sigurour Sigurjonsson, Theodor Juliusson
- Distinctively woolly Nordic tale of two estranged sheep–farming brothers as they attempt to save their flocks from pending eradication in a…
Raw (Grave) (2016)
- Dir. Julia Ducournau
Feat. Garance Marillier , Ella Rumpf
- A bright young veterinary student and ardent vegetarian is unexpectedly subjected to a series of cruel hazing rituals in her first week at college,…
Red Turtle, The (2016)
- Dir. Michaël Dudok de Wit
- The first non–Japanese film to be produced by Studio Ghibli follows a nameless shipwrecked man who meets a giant red turtle on a deserted…
Rosalie Blum (2016)
- Dir. Julien Rappeneau
Feat. Noemie Lvovsky, Alice Isaaz, Kyan Khojandi
- An intriguing and relatable French rom–com that tells the same story of romantic serendipity from three different points of view. Based on a…
Saint Amour (2016)
- Dir. Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Gerard Depardieu
- Warm–hearted road movie following a disheartened cattle breeder who embarks on a wine trail through France with his father (Depardieu) and a…
Salesman, The (Forusande) (2016)
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti
- Another subtle yet powerful drama from the celebrated director of THE SEPARATION and THE PAST that replays his signature themes of fear, guilt and…
Sami Blood (2016)
- Dir. Amanda Kernell
Feat. Lene Cecilia Sparrok , Hanna Alström
- Emotionally powerful female coming–of–age movie set in 1930's Sweden, where a reindeer–herding teenager, an indigenous Sami child,…
Shin Godzilla (2016)
- Dir. Hideaki Anno
Feat. Hiroki Hasegawa, Satomi Ishihara, Yutaka Takenouchi
- Terrifying resurgence of the Godzilla franchise from director Hideaki Anno (EVANGELION), taking inspiration from the Fukushima and Tōhoku…
Slack Bay (Ma Loute) (2016)
- Dir. Bruno Dumont
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Juliette Binoche, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
- In a Northern French coastal town in 1910, a family of bourgeois eccentrics are holidaying in a picturesque cliff–top villa. But when tourists…
Teacher, The (Ucitelka) (2016)
- Dir. Jan Hrebejk
Feat. Zuzana Mauréry
- Black comedy set in 1983 Bratislava, where a school teacher takes advantage of Communist traditions, manipulating the parents of her students into…
Terraformars: The Movie (2016)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Rinko Kikuchi, Rila Fukushima, Kane Kosugi…
- A team of human exterminators are on a mission to wipe out a ridiculous cockroach infestation that plagues the red planet, after a terraforming…
Things to Come (L'avenir) (2016)
- Dir. Mia Hansen-Love
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Andre Marcon, Roman Kolinka
- A passionate and intelligent philosophy professor experiences a crisis of identity in this exquisitely detailed drama with Huppert terrific in the…
Toni Erdmann (2016)
- Dir. Maren Ade
Feat. Peter Simonischek, Sandra Huller, Ingrid Bisu
- Brilliant, unclassifiable German comedy where a stern, career–focused woman is followed around a series of mundane board meetings and vapid…
Train to Busan (2016)
- Dir. Sang-ho Yeon
Feat. Gong Yoo, Kim Soo-Ah, Jung Yu-mi
- Breakout Korean zombie–thriller sensation in which a group of terrified passengers fight their way through a viral outbreak while trapped on a…
Two is a Family (Demain tout commence) (2016)
- Dir. Hugo Gélin
Feat. Omar Sy, Clemence Poesy
- An elegantly crafted, crowd–pleasing comedy–drama in fine French tradition, following a bachelor (Omar Sy, THE INTOUCHABLES) who enjoys a…
Under the Shadow (2016)
- Dir. Babak Anvari
Feat. Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi
- As a mother and daughter struggle to cope with the terrors of the post–revolution, war–torn Tehran of the 1980s, a mysterious, oppressive…
Untamed, The (La región salvaje) (2016)
- Dir. Amat Escalante
Feat. Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza
- Unforgettable psycho–sexual horror featuring a multi–tentacled alien which becomes the source of obsession for members of a Mexican…
Up For Love (Un homme à la hauteur) (2016)
- Dir. Laurent Tirard
Feat. Jean Dujardin, Virginie Efira
- Warm hearted French rom–com about a lawyer who unexpectedly falls for a man with short stature (Jean Dujardin, star of THE ARTIST and the OSS…
Wailing, The (Goksung) (2016)
- Dir. Hong-jin Na
Feat. Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee
- A bumbling police officer in a rural South Korean town investigates a series of horrific murders in this deeply immersive occultist thriller by the…
War, A (Krigen) (2016)
- Dir. Tobias Lindholm
Feat. Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling
- The director and leading cast of A HIJACKING turn their attention to the dilemmas of modern warfare in this gripping account of an unexpected tragedy…
Where Am I Going? (Quo vado?) (2016)
- Dir. Gennaro Nunziante
Feat. Checco Zalone
- Currently the highest grossing film in Italian cinema history, this refreshing comedy follows the fate of a comfortable middle–aged slacker…
Witnesses (TV Mini-series) (2016)
- Dir. Herve Hadmar
Feat. Thierry Lhermitte, Marie Dompnier, Laurent Lucas
- Crime drama set in the north of France centred around a resilient female cop who investigates a wave of strange murders linked to a retired crime…
Your Name (Kimi no na wa) (2016)
- Dir. Makoto Shinkai
- Another exquisite animated drama from Makoto Shinkai, an increasingly beloved and notable voice in the world of Japanese anime. The story is based on…
13 Minutes (2015)
- Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Feat. Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaussner
- The director of DOWNFALL returns to World War Two with this tense depiction of Georg Elser's efforts to assassinate Hitler, and the aftermath of his…
A Man Called Ove (En man som heter Ove) (2015)
- Dir. Hannes Holm
Feat. Rolf Lassgard, Bahar Pars, Filip Berg
- Endearing Swedish hit about a grumpy 59–year–old widower who was deposed as president of the condominium association, but still presides…
Acquitted (TV Series) (Frikjent) (2015)
- Feat. Nicolai Cleve Broch, Lena Endre, Anne Marit Jacobsen
- High quality Norwegian crime drama centred around a high–flying executive who returns to his hometown twenty years after he was cleared of the…
Angelby (TV Series) (Ängelby) (2015)
- Feat. Mia Skaringer, Goran Ragnerstam, Amanda Ooms
- Unsettling Swedish mystery series about a wife–and–mother who is forced to take a job in a small remote city of Ängelby where she…
Arabian Nights (2015)
- Dir. Miguel Gomes
Feat. Crista Alfaiate
- Wildly original and ambitious triptych of films set in modern–day Portugal but structured on the sprawling Arabic fairy–tale collection…
As it is in Heaven 2: Heaven on Earth (Heaven on Earth) (2015)
- Dir. Kay Pollak
Feat. Frida Hallgren, Niklas Falk, Jacob Oftebro
- Sequel to the beloved Swedish classic, follows on after the death of conductor Daniel Darius, where the soprano and love of his life expects his…
Assassin, The (2015)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Shu Qi, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki
- Acclaimed director Hou Hsiao–Hsien returns with a breathtaking martial–arts epic in which an assassin accepts a dangerous mission to kill…
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) (2015)
- Dir. Eva Husson
Feat. Finnegan Oldfield
- A refreshingly non–judgemental account of female promiscuity, following a group of adolescents in a sleepy French town who start a sex party…
Baskin (2015)
- Dir. Can Evrenol
Feat. Mehmet Cerrahoglu, Görkem Kasal, Ergun Kuyucu…
- A police squad inadvertently wander into hell in this terrifying tour–de–force feature debut from Turkish director Can Evrenol, which…
Belle and Sebastian: The Adventure Continues (Belle et Sebastien 2 - L'aventure Continue) (2015)
- Dir. Christian Duguay
Feat. Félix Bossuet, Tcheky Karyo, Thierry Neuvic
- Sequel to the delightful 2013 French adventure about an orphan and his friendship with a wild mountain dog during the upheaval of WWII.
Blind Date (2015)
- Dir. Clovis Cornillac
Feat. Melanie Bernier, Clovis Cornillac, Philippe Duquesne…
- Frothy French comedy follows the escalating conflict between two lonely neighbours whose thin walls give them plenty of opportunity to annoy each…
Boomerang (2015)
- Dir. François Favrat
Feat. Laurent Lafitte, Mélanie Laurent, Audrey Dana…
- Proficient French thriller from the author of SARAH'S KEY concerns a pair of siblings and their pursuit for the truth behind their mother's death.
Brand New Testament, The (2015)
- Dir. Jaco Van Dormael
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Catherine Deneuve, François Damiens…
- Fantastical comedy in which God's teenage daughter gets fed up up with her overbearing father – who never gets off the computer – and…
Bridge, The - Series 3 (TV Series) (Bron/Broen) (2015)
- Feat. Sofia Helin, Thure Lindhardt
- Third series of the steely Danish–Swedish murder mystery finds the partnership broken up and the killing of a prominent gender activist leads…
Bureau, The (TV Series) (Le Bureau des Legendes) (2015)
- Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz
- After six years of undercover work in Syria, French intelligence officer Malotru returns home, where he struggles to forget his undercover identity,…
Cemetery of Splendour (2015)
- Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Feat. Jenjira Pongpas Widner
- Mesmerising film in the director's indefinable style, set in and around a rural Thai hospital which may be haunted.
A group of soldiers…
Clan, The (2015)
- Dir. Pablo Trapero
Feat. Guillermo Francella, Peter Lanzani, Lili Popovich
- Swaggering portrait of the Argentina's notorious Puccio Clan who's ruthless kidnap and ransom operation that both terrorized and fascinated the…
Courted (2015)
- Dir. Christian Vincent
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Sidse Babett Knudsen
- Denmark's Sidse Babett Knudsen (BORGEN) stars in this quietly accomplished French romantic drama as a juror who's shared past with a judge is…
Decadence (Decadencia) (2015)
- Dir. Joaquin Rodriguez
Feat. Nataly Umaña, Alejandro Estrada
- Over–heated eroticism from Mexico with a young woman falling for a rich entrepreneur after he nearly runs her over with his car.
Desierto (2015)
- Dir. Jonás Cuarón
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Diego Cataño…
- Tense B–movie style thriller set in the borderlands between Mexico and the U.S.A, with Bernal as an illegal immigrant who must find a way to…
Deutschland 83 (TV Series) (2015)
- Feat. Jonas Nay, Maria Schrader, Ulrich Noethen
- Compelling German television series about a 24–year–old native of East Germany who in 1983 is sent to West Germany as an undercover spy…
Disappearance, The (TV Series) (Disparue) (2015)
- Dir. Charlotte Brändström
Feat. François-Xavier Demaison, Pierre-François Martin-Laval, Alix Poisson
- French whodunnit crime series based around the disappearance of a 17–year–old girl, the trauma faced by the family and the slowly…
Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente) (2015)
- Dir. Ciro Guerra
Feat. Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar
- A breathtaking cinematic odyssey through the Amazon, following the quests of two European explorers (one in 1909 and the other in the 1940s).…
Fencer, The (Miekkailija) (2015)
- Dir. Klaus Haro
Feat. Märt Avandi
- An accomplished Estonian fencer returns to his homeland after fleeing from the Russian secret police during WWII. He quickly becomes a role model and…
Francisco: The Man Behind The Pope (Francis:Pray for Me) (2015)
- Dir. Beda Docampo Feijóo
Feat. Darío Grandinetti, Silvia Abascal, Leticia Bredice
- Somewhat fawning look at the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, form his early childhood days in Argentina to his becoming Pope Francis.
Francofonia (2015)
- Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
Feat. Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Benjamin Utzerath
- A richly evocative and insightful historical cine–essay from celebrated dir. Alexander Sokurov (RUSSIAN ARK) that charts the relationship…
God Willing (Se Dio Vuole) (2015)
- Dir. Edoardo Maria Falcone
Feat. Marco Giallini, Alessandro Gassmann, Laura Morante
- Hit Italian comedy about a heart surgeon whose staunch atheism is challenged when his family comes under the influence of a charismatic young priest.
Heat Wave (Coup de chaud) (2015)
- Dir. Raphaël Jacoulot
Feat. Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gregory Gadebois
- A peaceful French hamlet is turned upside down when a deranged local starts harassing the the villagers and causing hostilities to rise dangerously.…
Heavy Water War, The (The Saboteurs) (2015)
- Dir. Per-Olav Sørensen
Feat. Espen Klouman-Høiner, Soren Pilmark, Anna Friel…
- Thrilling Norwegian mini–series tells the story behind Hitler's plan for obtaining the atomic bomb during WW2, and the heavy water sabotages in…
Idealist, The (2015)
- Dir. Christina Rosendahl
Feat. Peter Plaugborg, Søren Malling
- An intriguing and methodical Cold War thriller based on a book by Poul Brink, a Danish radio journalist who exposed an international 20–year…
Idol, The (Ya tayr el tayer) (2015)
- Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
Feat. Tawfeek Barhom, Kais Attalah, Hiba Attalah
- Comedy–drama based on the true story of an aspiring Palestinian musician who sets about overcoming the extraordinary goal of competing on the…
In the Shadow of Women (L'ombre des femmes) (2015)
- Dir. Philippe Garrel
Feat. Clotilde Courau, Stanislas Merhar, Lena Paugam
- Romantic drama from Philippe Garrel, a prolific French auteur whose work is rarely available outside of France and often deal with the subject of…
Ip Man 3 (2015)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Donnie Yen, Lynn Hung, Mike Tyson
- Bone–crunching continuation of the blockbuster martial art series has Donnie Yen fighting to save the city from evil property developer Mike…
It's Only the End of the World (2015)
- Dir. Xavier Dolan
Feat. Nathalie Baye, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard…
- French–Canadian prodigy Xavier Dolan returns with this Cannes–winning melodrama about a terminally ill gay writer who returns to his…
Ixcanul (Volcano) (2015)
- Dir. Jayro Bustamante
Feat. Maria Mercedes Coroy, Maria Telon
- Rare Guatemalan drama set on the slopes of an active volcano, where a marginalised Mayan community prepare for the arranged marriage of a…
Jordskott (TV Series) (2015)
- Feat. Moa Gammel, Goran Ragnerstam
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Seasons 1 and 2 are not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of…
Klown Forever (Klovn Forever) (2015)
- Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Casper Christensen, Frank Hvam, Mia Lyhne
- Sequel to the Danish bromance KLOWN which doubles down on the same schtick, with both original comedians returning to play fictionalised versions of…
La Belle Saison (Summertime) (2015)
- Dir. Catherine Corsini
Feat. Cecile De France, Izia Higelin, Noemie Lvovsky
- Two women strike up a passionate affair against a backdrop of the feminist movement in early–1970's France, but struggle to reconcile of…
Land of Mine (Under sandet) (2015)
- Dir. Martin Zandvliet
Feat. Roland Møller, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
- Multi award–winning historical drama following a unit of captured German soldiers who are put to work disabling Hitler's munitions by an…
Legacy, The - Series 2 (TV Series) (Arvingerne) (2015)
- Feat. Trine Dyrholm, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Lene Maria Christensen…
- Second season of the gripping drama in which the death of a matriarch brings forgotten secrets out into the open and causes a prolonged battle for…
Line of Separation (TV series) (Tannbach) (2015-2018)
- Feat. Heiner Lauterbach, Nathalia Worner, Martina Gedeck
- A German village attempts to cope with the new world during the post–war years of 1945 to 1961.
Long Way North (Tout en haut du monde) (2015)
- Dir. Rémi Chayé
Feat. Christa Theret, Féodor Atkine
- Beautiful hand–drawn animation by the director of THE SECRET OF KELLS, telling the story of a 15–year old Russian aristocrat called Sasha…
Love (Love 3D) (2015)
- Dir. Gaspar Noe
Feat. Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman, Klara Kristin
- French cinema's enfant–terrible Gaspar Noe finds some more envelopes to push in this explicit adult drama. An American living in Paris enters a…
Lure, The (2015)
- Dir. Agnieszka Smoczynska
Feat. Marta Mazurek
- Utterly beguiling musical horror set in Poland in the 1980's, following the fate of a pair of mermaid sisters as they struggle to integrate into a…
Made in France (2015)
- Dir. Nicolas Boukhrief
Feat. Malik Zidi, Dimitri Storoge, François Civil
- Eerily predicting the November 2015 Paris attacks, this crime–thriller follows a journalist infiltrating a jihadist cell that plans to…
Marguerite (2015)
- Dir. Xavier Giannoli
Feat. Catherine Frot, Andre Marcon, Michel Fau…
- Touching French version of the story inspired by the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, a socialite who believed she was in possession of a beautiful…
Modus (TV Series) (2015-2017)
- Feat. Melinda Kinnaman, Greg Wise, Kim Cattrall…
- Swedish psychological thriller series following the work of a criminal psychologist and profiler who has previously assisted both the Swedish police…
Murders at BarLume (TV Series) (2015)
- Feat. Filippo Timi, Carlo Monni, Massimo Paganelli…
- Crime series set on the Tuscan sea–side featuring a glamorous cop, a cynical bar–owner and a priceless cast of old Italian men who hang…
Mustang (2015)
- Dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Feat. Gunes Senoy, Doga Doguslu, Elit Iscan…
- Sublime female coming–of–age story set in a remote Turkish village, where five sisters face the stifling expectations of their…
My Mother (Mia Madre) (2015)
- Dir. Nanni Moretti
Feat. Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Nanni Moretti…
- Affecting character study of a director in the middle of an film–making crisis who has to deal with the inevitable yet still unacceptable loss…
Neon Bull (Boi neon) (2015)
- Dir. Gabriel Mascaro
Feat. Vinícius de Oliveira, Juliano Cazarré
- Transgressive and beguiling drama set in the Brazilian world of the vaquejada, a traditional style of rodeo, as seen through the eyes of a gender…
No Second Chance (TV Series) (Une chance de trop) (2015)
- Feat. Alexandra Lamy, Pascal Elbé
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Norskov (TV Series) (2015)
- Feat. Thomas Levin, Claus Riis Ostergaard, Jacob Lohmann
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Season 1 is not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film &…
One Wild Moment (2015)
- Dir. Jean-François Richet
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Francois Cluzet, Alice Isaaz…
- Exotic romantic comedy with Cassel and Cluzet as two friends who bring their daughters with them on a beach vacation and find themselves in an…
Our Little Sister (Umimachi Diary) (2015)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho …
- Another exquisite domestic drama from Kore–eda Hirokazu that revolves around the loves and working lives of three sisters who accommodate their…
Passion of Augustine, The (2015)
- Dir. Lea Pool
Feat. Céline Bonnier, Lysandre Ménard, Valérie Blais
- A warm, intelligent drama set in a convent school in Quebec in the late 1960's, where women are given the opportunity to learn music regardless of…
Professor T. (TV Series) (2015)
- Feat. Koen De Bouw
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Second Mother, The (Que Horas Ela Volta?) (2015)
- Dir. Anna Muylaert
Feat. Regina Case
- An intelligent, touching and funny film exploring the complexities of class structure in Brazil. Tensions arise when a wealthy family allows their…
Son of Saul (2015)
- Dir. László Nemes
Feat. Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn
- Masterful, but deeply disturbing glimpse into the horror of Auschwitz seen through the perspective of a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his…
Suburra (2015)
- Dir. Stefano Sollima
Feat. Pierfrancesco Favino, Elio Germano, Claudio Amendola…
- Enthralling crime saga follows a gangster named Samurai as he attempts to turn the waterfront of Rome into an Italian Las Vegas.
Team, The (TV Series) (2015)
- Feat. Lars Mikkelsen, Veerle Baetens, Jasmin Gerat
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Tehran Taxi (2015)
- Dir. Jafar Panahi
- Ingenious documentary from Iranian director Jafar Panahi who, while banned from making movies by his government, poses as a taxi driver to reflect on…
Trapped (TV Series) (2015)
- Dir. Baltasar Kormakur
Feat. Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Ilmur Kristjánsdóttir
- Icelandic television mystery series created by Baltasar Kormákur (JAR CITY, EVEREST) that follows a chief of police in a remote town who tries to…
Truman (2015)
- Dir. Cesc Gay
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Javier Camara
- Spanish cinema stars Ricardo Darin and Javier Camara team up for this sensitive comedy as childhood friends who reunite after many years when one of…
Umrika (2015)
- Dir. Prashant Nair
Feat. Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Prateik Babbar
- Gently satisfying comedy set in a small village in 1970's India where the inhabitants hear tales of life in America ("Umrika") through letters sent…
Victoria (2015)
- Dir. Sebastian Schipper
Feat. Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Max Mauff
- Dazzling, propulsive thriller shot entirely in one continuous 134 minute take through multiple locations in the city of Berlin has a Spanish woman's…
Wait, The (L'attesa) (2015)
- Dir. Piero Messina
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Lou de Laâge, Giorgio Colangeli
- Juliette Binoche plays a mother who slowly draws a connection to her son's fiancée while they await his arrival at a beautiful Sicilian villa.
Wave, The (2015)
- Dir. Roar Uthaug
- Classy Norwegian entry into the catastrophe drama genre, this white knuckle thriller mines the beauty and terror of Norway's Northwestern fjord land…
Zoom (2015)
- Dir. Paulo Morelli
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Alison Pill, Jason Priestley…
- A multi–dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a…
1864 (TV Series) (2014)
- Dir. Ole Bornedal
Feat. Pilou Asbæk, Jacob Oftebro, Sidse Babett Knudsen…
- The most expensive Danish TV series made to date, this lavish historical war drama is based on two books by Tom Buk–Swienty about the Second…
A Chance Encounter (Quantum Love) (2014)
- Dir. Lisa Azuelos
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Francois Cluzet, Lisa Azuelos…
- High–concept romantic comedy which blends fantasy with reality as a a married man's encounter with another woman develops into a mutual…
Absent One, The (2014)
- Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares, Pilou Asbæk
- Diverting second entry in the Department Q series, following on from THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES. This time Mørck and Assad are investigating the…
Beauty And The Beast (2014)
- Dir. Christophe Gans
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux, Andre Dussollier…
- Opulent re–telling of the fairytale romance that blossoms between the youngest daughter of a merchant who has fallen on hard times and the…
Belier Family, The (2014)
- Dir. Eric Lartigau
Feat. François Damiens, Karin Viard, Louane Emera…
- Heart–warming French comedy about a hearing–impaired couple who's teenage daughter displays a remarkable flair for music.
Beloved Sisters (2014)
- Dir. Dominik Graf
Feat. Hannah Herzsprung, Henriette Confurius, Florian Stetter…
- Acclaimed period drama depicts the unconventional romance between two aristocratic sisters and a rebellious poet who took the European literary world…
Connection, The (2014)
- Dir. Cédric Jimenez
Feat. Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Celine Sallette…
- Stylish French thriller that doubles a knowing throwback to the Belmondo crime flicks of the seventies as well as many American antecedents. Jean…
Court (2014)
- Dir. Chaitanya Tamhane
Feat. Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber
- A strikingly confident directorial debut that exposes the antiquity of the Indian legal system through the court trial of an ageing protest singer…
Crow's Egg, The (Kaakkaa Muttai) (2014)
- Dir. M. Manikandan
Feat. Ramesh , J. Vignesh, Iyshwarya Rajesh
- Affecting Tamil comedy set in a Chennai slum follows two mischievous and resourceful brothers as they witness the opening of a local pizza shop, and…
Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)
- Dir. Tommy Wirkola
Feat. Vegar Hoel, Martin Starr
- Direct sequel to the wintery zombie hit features more undead Nazis, Russkie POWs and other WWII foes.
Diplomacy (2014)
- Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. Andre Dussollier, Niels Arestrup, Burghart Klaussner…
- A thematically rich and expertly staged historical drama that depicts the relationship between Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military governor of…
Eden (2014)
- Dir. Mia Hansen-Love
Feat. Félix de Givry, Pauline Etienne, Vincent Macaigne…
- Peculiarly affecting drama set in the underground "garage" dance subculture of early–nineties Paris, where a teenager forms a DJ collective…
Eyewitness (TV Series) (Øyevitne) (2014)
- Dir. Jarl Emsell Larsen
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Far from Men (2014)
- Dir. David Oelhoffen
Feat. Viggo Mortensen, Reda Kateb
- Viggo Mortensen stars in this existential western adapted from an Albert Camus' short story. Set in Algeria in the fifties, Mortensen is charged with…
Folies Bergère (Paris Follies) (2014)
- Dir. Marc Fitoussi
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Michael Nyqvist…
- Isabelle Huppert stars in this lighty comic French tale as a as a farmer’s wife who takes off to Paris on a whim and finds romance in unexpected…
Fool, The (Durak) (2014)
- Dir. Yuri Bykov
Feat. Artyom Bystrov, Boris Nevzorov, Natalia Surkova
- An idealistic Russian plumber discovers a building is about to collapse, and when he alerts the authorities of the need to evacuate the residents…
Force Majeure (Turist) (2014)
- Dir. Ruben Östlund
Feat. Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju…
- A barbed and incisive Swedish black comedy of gender politics, centred around a family on a skiing holiday in the French Alps who face a recognizable…
Get Well Soon (2014)
- Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Gerard Lanvin, Fred Testot, Jean-Pierre Darroussin
- Gentle French comedy about a middle–aged curmudgeon whose enforced stay in hospital forces him to re–evaluate his life.
Giovanni's Island (2014)
- Dir. Mizuho Nishikubo
- Affecting anime drama in the mould of GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES set in the Kuril Islands during the aftermath of WWII where a friendship blossoms…
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, A (2014)
- Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour
Feat. Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Marshall Manesh
- A languid and luscious Iranian immigrant take on the vampire myth set in the ghost–town of Bad City (filmed in California), where the remaining…
Girlhood (2014)
- Dir. Céline Sciamma
Feat. Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh…
- Potent coming–of–age drama set on the margins of Paris that follows a 16–year–old girl whose poor prospects tempt her to join…
Gomorrah (TV Series) (2014)
- Feat. Marco DAmore, Salvatore Esposito, Maria Pia Calzone…
- Euro–crime TV series set in the Scampia neighbourhood of Naples, where a brutal war breaks out between rival gangs in the criminal underworld.…
Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh ich seh) (2014)
- Dir. Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Feat. Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz, Susanne Wuest
- A sleek, uncompromising psycho–thriller from the Michael Haneke school of Austrian austerity centred around twin boys whose perception of their…
Haemoo (2014)
- Dir. Sung-Bo Shim
Feat. Yun-seok Kim, Yoo-chun Park, Ye-ri Han
- Harrowing account of a fishing–boat crew that takes on a dangerous commission to smuggle a group of illegal immigrants from China to Korea.
Hidden Away (A escondidas) (2014)
- Dir. Mikel Rueda
Feat. German Alcarazu, Adil Koukouh, Joseba Ugalde
- Spanish romantic drama filmed in neighbourhoods throughout Bilbao, exploring themes of sexual awakening, racism and deportation through the story of…
Hour of the Lynx, The (I lossens time) (2014)
- Dir. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Feat. Sofie Grabol, Frederik Christian Johansen, Signe Egholm Olsen…
- Nordic thriller following a priest (Sofie Gråbøl of THE KILLING) and a psychology student who team up to solve the mystery behind a deranged…
I Am Happiness on Earth (2014)
- Dir. Julien Hernandez
Feat. Hugo Catalan, Gabino Rodriguez, Andrea Portal
- Gay–themed Mexican film about the infatuation a commitment–phobic film director has for a talented dancer. Director Julian Hernandez…
In Order of Disappearance (2014)
- Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Bruno Ganz, Pål Sverre Hagen…
- Stellan Skarsgård reunites with the director of ZERO KELVIN and A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN for this blackly comic Nordic noir.
He plays a somewhat…
Killers (2014)
- Dir. Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto
Feat. Oka Antara, Rin Takanashi, Katzuo Kitamura
- A serial killer from Japan and Indonesia compete in a twisted game of one–upmanship by posting their latest sadistic crimes online in this…
Labyrinth of Lies (2014)
- Dir. Giulio Ricciarelli
Feat. Alexander Fehling, Johannes Krisch, Friederike Becht…
- Thought–provoking drama set in 1950's Germany in which an ambitious young prosecutor's pursuit of an Auschwitz commandant exposes the…
Last Diamond, The (2014)
- Dir. Eric Barbier
Feat. Yvan Attal, Bérénice Bejo, Jean-Francois Stevenin
- Slick heist film with an ex–con battling gangsters and ruthless killers in the race to pull off a daring diamond heist.
Legacy, The - Series 1 (TV Series) (Arvingerne) (2014)
- Feat. Trine Dyrholm, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Lene Maria Christensen…
- From the creators of BORGEN and THE KILLING comes this gripping drama in which the death of a matriarch brings forgotten secrets out into the open…
Leviathan (2014)
- Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev
Feat. Aleksey Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, Vladimir Vdovichenkov…
- A bleak but compelling allegory of modern Russia is lensed through a fisherman's struggle against bureaucracy, corruption and demons of his own as he…
Love at First Fight (Les Combattants) (2014)
- Dir. Thomas Cailley
Feat. Adele Haenel, Kevin Azais, Antoine Laurent…
- An intensely physical take on the romantic comedy, with an awkward summer romance taking place at a French survivalist camp between a…
Mafia Kills Only in Summer, The (2014)
- Dir. Pierfrancesco Diliberto
Feat. Cristiana Capotondi, Pierfrancesco Diliberto, Alex Bisconti…
- Italian black comedy set in Palermo follows a young boy from childhood to maturity, and examines the pervasive influence the Cosa Nostra holds over…
Mammon (TV Series) (2014)
- Feat. Jon Øigarden, Terje Strømdahl, Ingjerd Egeberg
- Norwegian thriller in which a newspaper journalist revealing fraud in a large multinational company, finds his family involved, ruining his career…
Marshland (2014)
- Dir. Alberto Rodriguez
Feat. Javier Gutiérrez, Raúl Arévalo, Maria Varod
- A brooding, exceptionally controlled thriller set in an unsettled post–Franco Spain of 1980 in which two homicide detectives who appear to be…
Mommy (2014)
- Dir. Xavier Dolan
Feat. Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, Antoine-Olivier Pilon…
- Xavier Dolan directs this piercing account of a widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, who finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor…
Mystery of Happiness, The (2014)
- Dir. Daniel Burman
Feat. Guillermo Francella, Ines Estevez, Fabián Arenillas…
- Light comedy that charts the shock waves that result when an outwardly content businessman abandons his wife and best friend.
New Girlfriend, The (Une Nouvelle Amie) (2014)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
- Playful and stylish exploration of gender identity and eroticism based on a short story by Ruth Rendell, in which a grieving widower begins dressing…
Nicholas on Holiday (2014)
- Dir. Laurent Tirard
Feat. Valérie Lemercier, Kad Merad, Mathéo Boisselier…
- Delightful Gallic family comedy based on the popular series of Little Nicholas children's books. This time our titular hero gets caught up in a…
Over Your Dead Body (Kuime) (2014)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Ko Shibasaki, Ebizo Ichikawa, Miho Nakanishi…
- Takashi Miike takes his cues from the art of Kabuki in this chilly tale of how fiction begins to bleed into reality for actors as they rehearse a…
Parasyte: Part One (2014)
- Dir. Takashi Yamazaki
Feat. Shota Sometani, Eri Fukatsu, Ai Hashimoto…
- Based on a long running Manga, this horror–comedy offers up Cronenbergian thrills in a world under attack from parasitic worm–like…
Phoenix (2014)
- Dir. Christian Petzold
Feat. Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf
- The director of YELLA and BARBARA reunites with his ingenue Nina Hoss for this romantic tale of deception about a concentration camp survivor who…
Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, A (2014)
- Dir. Roy Andersson
Feat. Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom
- Absurdist comedy that follows two hapless novelty salesman on a picaresque tour of the human condition.
Raid 2, The (2014)
- Dir. Gareth Evans
Feat. Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Julie Estelle…
- Picking up from where it last left off, this epic sequel to the best martial arts movie in recent memory combines gangland melodrama (reminiscent of…
Ronja, The Robber's Daughter (TV Series) (2014-2015)
- Dir. Goro Miyazaki
- Goyo Miyazaki, son of Hayao, directs this Ghibli animated TV series based on the novel by Astrid Lindgren (Creator of Pippi Longstockings).
A ten…
Saint Laurent (2014)
- Dir. Bertrand Bonello
Feat. Gaspard Ulliel, Jeremie Renier, Louis Garrel…
- A decadent alternate portrait of the iconic fashion designer covering the peak of his career from 1967 to 1976. From the dir. of HOUSE OF PLEASURES.
Samba (2014)
- Dir. Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Feat. Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim…
- The creative force behind THE INTOUCHABLES return with this inspirational drama centered on the redeeming relationship between a Senegalese…
Second Chance, A (2014)
- Dir. Susanne Bier
Feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Thomas Bo Larsen…
- Susanne Bier directs a haunting melodrama about the contrasting lives of two police officers, whose lives take a dark turn after finding a neglected…
Sex, Love and Therapy (The Missionaries) (2014)
- Dir. Tonie Marshall
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Patrick Bruel, Andre Wilms
- Frothy sex comedy with Patrick Bruel as a marriage counsellor and recovering sex addict whose abstinence is tested by the discovery that his new…
Silent Heart (2014)
- Dir. Bille August
Feat. Ghita Norby, Paprika Steen, Jens Albinus…
- Earnest chamber drama about three generations of a family coming together over a weekend. A sick mother's wish to die before her disease worsens gets…
Someone You Love (2014)
- Dir. Pernille Fischer Christensen
Feat. Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen
- Danish drama about an aging singer whose recording process is interrupted by the arrival of a grandson he's never met.
Thicker Than Water (TV Series) (Tjockare än vatten) (2014)
- Feat. Björn Bengtsson, Joel Spira, Aliette Opheim
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Timbuktu (2014)
- Dir. Abderrahmane Sissako
Feat. Abel Jafri, Hichem Yacoubi
- A powerful and subtle drama set in the city of Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa. The city has been occupied by Jihadists, and the citizens are suffering…
Tokyo Tribe (2014)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Akihiro Kitamura, Ryôhei Suzuki, Hitomi Katayama
- Dystopian action–musical set in an alternate Japan where territorial street gangs form opposing factions collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes.
Two Days, One Night (2014)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salee
- Marion Cotillard stars as a young mother, discovers that her workmates have opted for a significant pay bonus, in exchange for her dismissal. She has…
What Now? Remind Me (2014)
- Dir. Joaquim Pinto
- Extraordinary documentary portrait written, directed by and staring the acclaimed Portuguese director, producer and sound designer Joaquim Pinto. At…
Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) (2014)
- Dir. Damian Szifron
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Darío Grandinetti
- Exhilarating anthology film combining six tales of revenge provides an ambitious smorgasbord of thrills, spills and blackly humorous gags that are…
Winter Sleep (2014)
- Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Feat. Haluk Bilginer, Melisa Sozen, Demet Akbag
- Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes this provocative drama follows a local celebrity who runs a small hotel with his wife. In winter…
Wonders, The (Le Meraviglie) (2014)
- Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
Feat. Alba Rohrwacher, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck
- A Tuscan family of beekeepers find their household disrupted by the arrival of a silently troubled teenage boy and a reality TV show intent on…
Yves Saint Laurent (2014)
- Dir. Jalil Lespert
Feat. Pierre Niney, Charlotte Le Bon, Guillaume Gallienne
- A look at the life and loves of famed French designer Yves Saint Laurent.
100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, The (Hundred Year Old Man, the) (2013)
- Dir. Felix Herngren
Feat. Robert Gustafsson
- A spirited Swedish comedy – think a twilight FORREST GUMP – about a plucky 100–year–old man whose addiction to blowing things…
11.6 (2013)
- Dir. Philippe Godeau
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Bouli Lanners
- A bitter security guard makes off with an armoured van carrying 11.6 million euros in this everyman heist movie. Based on a true story.
A Touch of Sin (2013)
- Dir. Jia Zhang-ke
Feat. Wu Jiang, Baoqiang Wang, Zhao Tao
- Another striking modern tale of urban discontent from leading Chinese auteur Jia Zhang–ke, one which remains as perceptive and…
Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas (2013)
- Dir. Arnaud des Pallières
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Mélusine Mayance, David Kross…
- Mads Mikkelsen plays a Robin Hood–esque horse trader who rallies against an oppressive regime in 16th century France.
A stern medieval tale…
Attila Marcel (2013)
- Dir. Sylvain Chomet
Feat. Guillaume Gouix, Bernadette Lafont, Anne Le Ny…
- Offbeat French comedy about a thirty–something pianist who forms a bond with his eccentric neighbour which results in long buried memories…
Back in Crime (2013)
- Dir. Germinal Alvarez
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Mélanie Thierry, Philippe Berodot
- Offbeat police thriller with Anglade as an obsessive cop who finds himself inexplicably transported back in time.
Berlin File, The (2013)
- Dir. Ryoo Seung-Wan
Feat. Jung-woo Ha, Gianna Jun
- After an illegal arms deal in Berlin is disrupted by unknown assailants, a South Korean intelligence agent finds himself embroiled in a vast…
Blind Detective (2013)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng, Yuanyuan Gao
- Dir. Johnnie To has a bob each way with this entertaining policier, effortlessly combining action, comedy and slapstick romance. Andy Lau plays the…
Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013)
- Dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
Feat. Léa Seydoux, Adele Exarchopoulos
- The Cannes Palm D'Or–winning drama that explores, in a series of elongated sequences, a young woman's blossoming sexuality and maturity when…
Borgen - Series 3 (TV Series) (2013)
- Feat. Sidse Babett Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Pilou Asbæk
- Further episodes from the Bafta–winning Danish political drama in which an idealistic prime minister's rise to power brings with it a web of…
Borgman (2013)
- Dir. Alex Van Warmerdam
Feat. Jan Bijvoet, Jeroen Perceval , Hadewych Minis
- Unforgettably creepy home–invasion thriller from Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam, where a rural vagrant preys on an arrogant upper class…
Brats, The (Les gamins) (2013)
- Dir. Anthony Marciano
Feat. Alain Chabat, Max Boublil, Sandrine Kiberlain…
- Something of a French take on the Judd Apatow school of middle–aged stupor, this finds a dissatisfied married man bromancing his daughter's…
Bridge, The - Series 2 (TV Series) (Bron/Broen) (2013)
- Feat. Sofia Helin, Kim Bodnia, Dag Malmberg
- Further episodes in this steely Danish–Swedish murder mystery, with series two investigating the mystery surrounding an abandoned coastal…
Broken Circle Breakdown, The (2013)
- Dir. Felix Van Groeningen
Feat. Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh, Nell Cattrysse
- Dynamic and sexy musical romance set in the Flemish region of Belgium over seven years of poignant love and loss, and featuring a magnificent…
Camille Claudel, 1915 (2013)
- Dir. Bruno Dumont
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Jean-Luc Vincent
- Another acting masterclass from the formidable Juliette Binoche intensifies this clear–sighted portrait of misunderstood sculptress Camille…
Child's Pose (2013)
- Dir. Calin Peter Netzer
Feat. Luminita Gheorghiu, Vlad Ivanov
- A manipulative mother contrives to keep her adult son out of prison following a manslaughter charge in this gripping character drama from the…
Chinese Puzzle (2013)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Cecile De France…
- Cédric Klapisch's cosmopolitan trilogy wraps up with this breezy reunion of the characters first introduced in THE SPANISH APARTMENT, now…
Crimes of Passion (TV Series) (2013)
- Feat. Linus Wahlgren, Ola Rapace, Tuva Novotny
- Scandi–crime goes period! Post–war Sweden is the backdrop for this immaculately dressed series of mysteries and whodunnits, based on the…
Cupcakes (2013)
- Dir. Eytan Fox
Feat. Efrat Dor, Dana Ivgy
- Six Tel Aviv friends who delight in ridiculing the Eurovision song contest video a parody of themselves performing a make–believe number, only…
Death of a Pilgrim (TV Mini-Series) (2013)
- Feat. Rolf Lassgard
- Fascinating Scandi–conspiracy thriller centred on the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, a murder that to this day…
Dicte (TV Series) (2013-2016)
- Feat. Iben Hjejle
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Eastern Boys (2013)
- Dir. Robin Campillo
Feat. Olivier Rabourdin, Kirill Emelyanov, Danil Vorobyev
- Unconventional thriller explores the shifting dynamics in a relationship between an older man and a young immigrant male hustler.
Father Brown (TV Series) (2013)
- Feat. Mark Williams, Hugo Speer, Sorcha Cusack
- A reboot of the 1970's British television detective period drama about the eponymous Roman Catholic priest who solves crimes in a fictional Cotswold…
Finishers, The (De toutes nos forces) (2013)
- Dir. Nils Tavernier
Feat. Jacques Gamblin, Alexandra Lamy, Fabien Héraud
- Inspiring tale of a father's attempt to bond with his cerebral palsy–afflicted son by participating in an Ironman endurance contest. A real…
Firestorm (2013)
- Dir. Alan Yuen Kam-Lun
Feat. Andy Lau, Yao Chen
- Exhilarating action thriller where a crew criminals manage to pull off a car heist in broad daylight on the streets of Honk Kong, and a hardboiled…
French Minister, The (Quai d'Orsay) (2013)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Thierry Lhermitte, Niels Arestrup, Julie Gayet…
- A cutting political satire set in the world of French diplomacy, about the relationship between a young speechwriter and the Minister of Foreign…
Friends From France (Les interdits) (2013)
- Dir. Philippe Kotlarski, Anne Weil
- Two cousins pose as an engaged couple on a tour to Odessa in order to help liberate persecuted Jews in this suspenseful Iron Curtain thriller.
Garden of Words, The (2013)
- Dir. Makoto Shinkai
Feat. Miyu Irino, Kana Hanazawa
- Another gorgeous animated romance from the director of 5 CENTIMETRES PER SECOND, centred on the poignant relationship between a sensitive teenager…
German Doctor, The (2013)
- Dir. Lucía Puenzo
Feat. Àlex Brendemühl, Natalia Oreiro
- Chilling domestic thriller centred on the Argentine family who lived unknowingly with Josef Mengele, the notorious Auschwitz physician, after he fled…
Gilded Cage, The (2013)
- Dir. Ruben Alves
Feat. Rita Blanco, Joaquim De Almeida, Roland Giraud
- A beloved migrant family who service an exclusive apartment block in Paris decide to return to Portugal, though not if the residents have a say in…
Gloria (2013)
- Dir. Sebastián Lelio
Feat. Paulina García, Sergio Hernández
- Another superb Chilean drama in the wake of the previous year's NO, Paulina Garcia plays a free–spirited 58–year–old divorcee who…
Grandmaster, The (Yi dai zong shi) (2013)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Zhang Ziyi
- Wong Kar–Wai's typically sumptous version of the life of martial–arts master Ip Man, the man who trained Bruce Lee.
Great Beauty, The (2013)
- Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Feat. Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli…
- This Academy–Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film has dir. Paolo Sorrentino's regular frontman Toni Servillo as an aging Roman…
Hard To Be A God (2013)
- Dir. Aleksey German
Feat. Leonid Yarmolnik
- A group of scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to give aid to the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, in…
Heart of a Lion (2013)
- Dir. Dome Karukoski
Feat. Laura Birn, Peter Franzén
- Thoughtful character study of an ultranationalist skinhead whose racist attitudes soften through his desire for a family – specifically his…
Homeland (2013)
- Dir. Mohamed Hamidi
Feat. Tewfik Jallab, Jamel Debbouze
- In this affecting tale of self–discovery, a French law student visits his father’s village in Algeria for the first time, only to have his…
Hunting Elephants (2013)
- Dir. Reshef Levi
Feat. Sasson Gabai, Moni Moshonov, Patrick Stewart
- Three old timers, with the aid of a genius grandson, plot to rob a bank in this enjoyable Israeli heist comedy.
I'm So Excited! (Los amantes pasajeros) (2013)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Javier Camara, Cecilia Roth, Lola Dueñas…
- This campy, featherweight sex comedy set almost entirely on an aeroplane is but a mere footnote in the career of living legend, Pedro Almodovar.
Ida (2013)
- Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
Feat. Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza
- The ghosts of the Holcaust and Stalinism haunt this modern masterpiece about a young nun, who on the verge of taking her vows, visits her only…
In Bloom (2013)
- Dir. Nana Ekvtimishvili
Feat. Lika Babluani, Mariam Bokeria
- Set in the newly independent state of Georgia in the wake of the Soviet regime, this powerful story follows two young girls as they courageously…
Ip Man: The Final Fight (2013)
- Dir. Herman Yau
Feat. Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Anita Yuen…
- The most authentic Ip Man film yet recounts the legendary grandmaster's exploits as a revered teacher of Wing Chun in Hong Kong during the 50s and…
Jappeloup (2013)
- Dir. Christian Duguay
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Marina Hands, Daniel Auteuil…
- A workmanlike rendering of the feats of Jappeloup, a diminutive horse who went to triumph against the odds at the 1988 Seoul games, becoming a French…
Journey to the West (Conquering The Demons) (2013)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao), Chi-kin Kwok
Feat. Shu Qi, Zhang Wen, Bo Huang
- Stephen Chow directs this entertaining Monkey legend spoof with imagination and an eye for the ridiculous. Centred on a Buddhist's unpredictable road…
Just a Sigh (2013)
- Dir. Jérôme Bonnell
Feat. Emmanuelle Devos, Gabriel Byrne
- Emmanuelle Devos and Gabriel Byrne experience a brief encounter as an actress and a professor who trade glances on a Paris–bound train. A…
Keeper of Lost Causes, The (Kvinden i buret) (2013)
- Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Troels Lyby, Per Scheel Kruger…
- Danish thriller that finds a cynical detective, put in charge of the "Department Q"– devoted to "filing" cold cases, investigating the…
Like Father, Like Son (2013)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yôko Maki…
- Two divergent families struggle to cope with the revelation that their young sons were swapped at birth in this moving domestic drama from dir.…
Living is Easy with Eyes Closed (2013)
- Dir. David Trueba
Feat. Javier Camara, Natalia de Molina, Francesc Colomer…
- Award–winning Spanish comedy concerning a Beatles–obsessed school teacher on a quest to meet John Lennon, picking up two teenage runaways…
Mood Indigo (2013)
- Dir. Michel Gondry
Feat. Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh…
- Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris star in this wild interpretation of Boris Vian’s cult novel 'Froth on the Daydream' from dir. Michel Gondry.
New World (2013)
- Dir. Hoon-jung Park
Feat. Jung-Jae Lee, Min-sik Choi
- Essentially INFERNAL AFFAIRS transposed to the Korean underworld, this brutal gangster flick revolves around an undercover cop whose loyalty to the…
Nightingale, The (2013)
- Dir. Phillippe Muyl
Feat. Baotian Li, Xiaoran Li, Xin Yi Yang
- Gentle drama that draws together an elderly farmer and his spoiled urban grand–daughter on a lengthy pilgrimage through beautiful…
Noble Family, The (2013)
- Dir. Gary Alazraki
Feat. Gonzalo Vega, Luis Gerardo Mendez, Karla Souza
- The most successful Mexican film of all time is a broad comedy of familial dysfunction. Three privileged adult children must fend for themselves…
Norte, The End of History (2013)
- Dir. Lav Diaz
Feat. Sid Lucero
- Epic Dostoyevskian themes of cultural memory, national guilt and the origin of evil are translated to a modern–day Phillipines setting in this…
Nymphomaniac (Nymphomaniac: Vol. I & II) (2013)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Stacy Martin…
- The controversy–baiting director Lars Von Trier's wild and poetic opus detailing a woman’s erotic journey from birth to middle age as told by…
Of Horses and Men (2013)
- Dir. Benedikt Erlingsson
Feat. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Charlotte Bøving, Kristbjörg Kjeld
- A series of comic vignettes of life in a rural Icelandic community, which shows the intertwined lives of humans and horses in sometimes awkward…
Omar (2013)
- Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
Feat. Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany
- This gripping new film from the dir. of PARADISE NOW concerns a Palestinian freedom fighter who is tricked into becoming an informant for the Israeli…
On My Way (2013)
- Dir. Emmanuelle Bercot
Feat. Catherine Deneuve
- A fine late–life outing for the ageless Catherine Deneuve, here playing a free–spirited grandmother who takes to the road with her…
On the Job (2013)
- Dir. Erik Matti
Feat. Joel Torre
- A hard–hitting, hard–edged Filipino thriller reminiscent of THE RAID (particularly its sequel), based on a real life scandal concerning…
Paradise: Hope (Paradise Hope) (2013)
- Dir. Ulrich Seidl
Feat. Melanie Lenz, Joseph Lorenz
- Austrian provocateur Ulrich Seidl dispatches a typically unvarnished portrait of institutional ritual with this concluding chapter to his PARADISE…
Past, The (2013)
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Bérénice Bejo, Tahar Rahim, Ali Mosaffa
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi's follow–up to the acclaimed A SEPARATION centres on a man who must face the complications of divorce after he leaves his…
Protector 2, The (Tom yum goong 2) (2013)
- Dir. Prachya Pinkaew
Feat. Tony Jaa, Marrese Crump, RZA
- ONG–BAK superstar Tony Jaa punches below his weight in this undercooked sequel to the 2005 Sydney–set action romp about a country boy who…
Real (2013)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Takeru Sato, Haruka Ayase, Joe Odagiri…
- A misstep, though an interesting one, from dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (CURE), here crafting an uneven story of a grieving man who employs a neurosurgical…
Rock the Casbah (2013)
- Dir. Laïla Marrakchi
Feat. Morjana Alaoui, Nadine Labaki, Lubna Azabal…
- Culturally–specific family comedy in which three women reunite in Morocco to mourn in accordance with Muslim tradition following the death of…
Rocket, The (2013)
- Dir. Kim Mordaunt
Feat. Sitthiphon Disamoe
- The uplifting story of a cursed boy who strives to prove himself by building a giant rocket for the occasion of Laos' famous Rocket Festival.
Salamander (TV Series) (2013-2018)
- Dir. Frank van Mechelen
Feat. Filip Peeters, Koen De Bouw, Mike Verdrengh
- A compelling Flemish–Belgian spin on the Euro–crime template in which an incorruptible, old–school police inspector becomes the…
Say Yes! (2013)
- Dir. Leste Chen
Feat. Godfrey Gao, Hailu Qin, Bo Huang
- A Mainland spin on popular Japanese television series “101st Proposal”, about an eternally unsuccessful blind dater who finally meets the girl of…
Shield of Straw (2013)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Takao Ohsawa, Nanako Matsushima, Kishitani Goro…
- The prolific Takashi Miike returns with a tale of a team of cops who must protect an accused killer with a billion–yen bounty on his head.
Shooter, The (2013)
- Dir. Annette K. Olesen
Feat. Trine Dyrholm, Kim Bodnia, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
- The Scandinavian crime wave continues with this high tension thriller about an eco–terrorist whose grand designs are incited by a journalist…
Siddharth (2013)
- Dir. Richie Mehta
Feat. Rajesh Tailang, Tannishtha Chatterjee
- Another bracing neo–realist drama from the director of AMAL about a tea–seller from Delhi who travels across India in search of his…
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
- Dir. Alain Guiraudie
Feat. Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, Patrick d'Assumçao
- An unnerving, sexually frank thriller set around an idyllic gay cruising spot, where two lovers strike up a heated romance that threatens to turn…
Suspect, The (Yong-eui-ja) (2013)
- Dir. Won Shin-yun
Feat. Gong Yoo, Park Hee-soon
- Explosive action film following a betrayed North Korean special agent who defects to the South to seek revenge on his family's killer.
Tangerines (2013)
- Dir. Zaza Urushadze
Feat. Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nüganen
- Immeasurably moving drama set durng the war in Georgia in which an Estonian man stays behind to harvest tangerines and care for a wounded fighter.
Tattoo (Tatuagem) (2013)
- Dir. Hilton Lacerda
Feat. Irandhir Santos, Jesuíta Barbosa, Rodrigo Garcia
- Singular Brazilian film set in the 70's, where the leader of a debaucherous cabaret theatre troupe falls in love with a soldier, and is torn between…
Tour de Force (2013)
- Dir. Laurent Tuel
Feat. Clovis Cornillac, Bouli Lanners, Elodie Bouchez
- French cycling comedy tells the unlikely tale of a forlorn cycling fanatic attempting to win back his wife's affections by entering the Tour de…
Turning Tide (2013)
- Dir. Christophe Offenstein
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Samy Seghir, Virginie Efira…
- Francois Cluzet stars as an intrepid solo round–the–world yacht racer battling the elements, a crippled ship, and an immigrant boy…
Venus in Fur (2013)
- Dir. Roman Polanski
Feat. Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
- Roman Polanski masterfully adapts David Ives' play–within–a–play about an actress who goes to great lengths to convince a director…
Violette (2013)
- Dir. Martin Provost
Feat. Emmanuelle Devos, Sandrine Kiberlain, Olivier Gourmet
- Emmanuelle Devos is hypnotic as Violette Leduc, the French writer whose fearless memoirs, championed by Simone de Beauvoir, broke new boundaries for…
Vive la France (2013)
- Dir. Michael Youn
Feat. Michael Youn, Jose Garcia
- This on–the–nose French farce centres on two naive country shepherds who have been ordered by their government to blow up the Eiffel…
Volcano, The (Eyjafjallajökull) (2013)
- Dir. Alexandre Coffre
Feat. Dany Boon, Valérie Bonneton
- When the eruption of an Icelandic volcano diverts their flight plans to Greece, a squabbling ex–couple must hit the road together if they are…
We Are the Best (Vi är bäst!) (2013)
- Dir. Lukas Moodysson
Feat. Mira Grosin, Mira Barkhammar, Liv LeMoyne
- Endearing portrait of teenage experimentation set in early '80s Stockholm where two decidedly unmusical 13–year–old girls decide to form…
Wetlands (2013)
- Dir. David Wnendt
Feat. Carla Juri, Christoph Letkowski, Marlen Kruse
- Provocative comic tale of an eccentric girl who has strange attitudes towards hygiene and sexuality longs for the reunion of her divorced parents.
Why Don't You Play in Hell? (Jigoku de naze warui) (2013)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Kunimura Jun, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Fumi Nikaido
- Described by its creator as "an action film about the love of 35mm", this frenzied fanboy fiction from Shion Sono bears his trademark excess and…
Wrestling Queens (Les Reines du Ring) (2013)
- Dir. Jean-Marc Rudnicki
Feat. Marilou Berry, Nathalie Baye, Andre Dussollier…
- Broad French sports spoof with Nathalie Baye as an under–appreciated mother who recruits her working class friends to train to be wrestling…
1612 (2012)
- Dir. Vladimir Khotinenko
Feat. Pyotr Kislov
- Bloated Russian 'historical' epic renders the 17th century civil war that ravaged the divided country as a Peter Jackson–esque battle fantasy.…
7 Boxes (2012)
- Dir. Juan Carlos Maneglia, Tana Schembori
Feat. Celso Franco, Victor Sosa, Lali Gonzalez
- Well–plotted chase movie follows a young delivery boy who receives an unusual proposal to carry seven boxes of unknown content through Market…
A Gun in Each Hand (2012)
- Dir. Cesc Gay
Feat. Javier Camara, Ricardo Darín, Jordi Molla…
- A talk–em–up as opposed to a shoot–em–up, this lively portmanteau follows the dissatisfied lives of eight middle–aged…
A Hijacking (2012)
- Dir. Tobias Lindholm
Feat. Mikkel Hartmann, Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling
- A Danish cargo ship is hijacked off the coast of Somalia in this gripping, intense maritime adventure that cuts out all the action heroics usually…
A Lady in Paris (2012)
- Dir. Ilmar Raag
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Laine Mägi, Patrick Pineau
- An Estonian woman bereft of loved ones moves to France to care for an elderly expatriate who still obsessively pines for a former younger lover. An…
A Royal Affair (2012)
- Dir. Nikolaj Arcel
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Alicia Vikander, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
- 18th Century Denmark is the backdrop for this high–costumed drama about the love affair between Queen Caroline Matilda and her royal physician…
Ace Attorney (2012)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Hiroki Narimiya, Takumi Saito
- Takashi Miike churns out this preposterous video game adaptation, about a cocksure lawyer who agrees to defend his courtroom rival in a murder trial,…
After May (Something in the Air) (2012)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Lola Créton, Clément Métayer
- Hatched from dir. Olivier Assayas' personal experiences, this bittersweet evocation of the leftist fervour that caught hold of young Europeans in the…
Amour (2012)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert
- An octogenarian couple find their love put to the ultimate test when one of them suffers a stroke in this devastating humanist drama from master…
Another Woman's Life (2012)
- Dir. Sylvie Testud
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Mathieu Kassovitz, Aure Atika…
- Juliette Binoche is typically radiant in this otherwise slight variation on the time–leap genre. She plays a well–to–do woman who…
Asterix and Obelix in Britain (God Save Britannia) (2012)
- Dir. Laurent Tirard
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Edouard Baer, Valérie Lemercier…
- Another big–budget, live action outing for the Franco comic duo, here aligning with the British to repel the Julius Caesar's invading Roman…
Augustine (2012)
- Dir. Alice Winocour
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Soko , Chiara Mastroianni…
- Romantic drama speculating on a relationship (that in reality did not occur) between the 19th Century French neurologist Jean–Martin Charcot…
Barbara (2012)
- Dir. Christian Petzold
Feat. Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rainer Bock
- A doctor who dreams of defecting from 1980's East Germany is banished to a country medical clinic under the possible watch of Stasi informants in…
Bekas (2012)
- Dir. Karzan Kader
Feat. Zamand Taha, Sarwar Fazil
- Two Iraqi orphans fantasize about travelling to America and summoning the help of Superman in this simple yet stirring childhood adventure, one that…
Beyond Outrage (2012)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Ryo Kase
- A straightforward sequel to Takeshi Kitano's late return to the yakuza genre, continuing the bloody battle between police and rival gangs.
As with…
Beyond the Hills (2012)
- Dir. Cristian Mungiu
Feat. Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur
- Cristian Mungiu directs this engrossing companion piece to his Cannes–winning 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, about the test of closeness between…
Black's Game (2012)
- Dir. Óskar Thór Axelsson
Feat. Thor Kristjansson, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson
- A young opportunist is drawn into Reykjavik's underworld of gangsters and drug pushers in this hardcore Scandi–crime, an eye–catching if…
Blancanieves (2012)
- Dir. Pablo Berger
Feat. Daniel Giménez Cacho, Angela Molina, Maribel Verdu…
- The legend of Snow White is transposed to the bullfighting, flamenco dancing netherworld of the Spanish provinces in this beautiful and beguiling…
Bullet Vanishes, The (2012)
- Dir. Chi-Leung Law
Feat. Nicholas Tse, Lau Ching-wan
- In 1930s China, two eccentric detectives are summoned to solve a series of murders caused by a phantom killer in a bullet factory. A superb Holmesian…
Camille Rewinds (2012)
- Dir. Noemie Lvovsky
Feat. Noemie Lvovsky, Yolande Moreau, Denis Podalydes…
- A jilted 40–something woman drowns her sorrows to the point of oblivion, sending herself back in time to her sixteenth birthday where she gets…
Dangerous Liaisons (2012)
- Dir. Jin-ho Hur
Feat. Cecilia Cheung, Jang Dong-Gun, Zhang Ziyi
- A sumptuous new adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' famous novel, relocating the grand sexual conspiracy to opulent 1930s Shanghai, where two wealthy…
Dead Sushi (2012)
- Dir. Noboru Iguchi
Feat. Rina Takeda
- An innkeeper proficient in both karate and sushi making must fend off a hoard of flesh–eating California Rolls after one of her guests injects…
Doomsday Book (2012)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim, Pil-Sung Yim
Feat. Doona Bae, Joon-ho Bong, Kang-woo Kim
- A trilogy of short sci–fi stories imagining mass extinction on planet earth, directed by two of Korean cinema's leading lights.
Oscillating…
Drug War (2012)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, Yi Huang…
- Another great Johnnie To suspenser, with the master director at the top of his game helming this exciting police procedural set around an elaborate…
Escape (2012)
- Dir. Roar Uthaug
Feat. Isabel Christine Andreasen, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal
- A thrilling medieval chase movie, set in the aftermath of the Black Plague, about a captive teenage girl who escapes a bloodthirsty clan. Pursed…
Everybody Has a Plan (2012)
- Dir. Ana Piterbarg
Feat. Viggo Mortensen, Soledad Villamil
- A man dissatisfied with his life assumes the identity of his twin brother in this brooding Argentinian thriller.
Farewell, My Queen (2012)
- Dir. Benoît Jacquot
Feat. Diane Kruger, Léa Seydoux, Virginie Ledoyen…
- Benoît Jacquot’s film goes behind the scenes of Louis XVI and — more specifically — Marie Antoinette’s court during…
Fill the Void (2012)
- Dir. Rama Burshtein
Feat. Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein
- A young woman negotiates the fraught rite of arranged marriage in this austere insight into rituals of an Orthodox Hassidic family in Tel Aviv.
Fly Me to the Moon (Un plan parfait) (2012)
- Dir. Pascal Chaumeil
Feat. Diane Kruger, Dany Boon, Alice Pol
- The French churn out another dispensable yet dishy rom–com, this time centred on a woman (Diane Kruger, she of the supermodel looks) who…
Fourth State, The (2012)
- Dir. Dennis Gansel
Feat. Moritz Bleibtreu, Kasia Smutniak, Max Riemelt…
- Another stylish outing from the dir. of THE WAVE and WE OWN THE NIGHT, this time involving a journalist who gets caught up in a terrorist plot in…
Granny's Funeral (2012)
- Dir. Bruno Podalydes
Feat. Denis Podalydes, Valérie Lemercier
- A pharmacist's mid–life crisis is deepened when his grandmother kicks the bucket in this routine French comedy.
Hamilton: In the Interests of the Nation (2012)
- Dir. Kathrine Windfeld
Feat. Mikael Persbrandt, Pernilla August, Jason Flemyng…
- Scandi–crime goes gung–ho in this Swedish espionage thriller centred on a special agent who infiltrates the Russian mafia to bust a…
Hamilton: Not if it Concerns Your Daughter (2012)
- Dir. Tobias Falk
Feat. Mikael Persbrandt
- Scandi super agent Carl Hamilton returns for a second mission of international intrigue and deep espionage. Here, he must go rogue to track down the…
Hannah Arendt (2012)
- Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
Feat. Barbara Sukowa, Janet McTeer, Julia Jentsch…
- Barbara Sukowa portrays famed German–American political theorist Hannah Arendt during her response to the 1961 trial of ex–Nazi Adolf…
Happiness Never Comes Alone (2012)
- Dir. James Huth
Feat. Gad Elmaleh, Sophie Marceau
- French romantic fodder, with Gad Elmaleh as a commitment–phobic playboy who, against his constitution, falls head over heels for a divorced…
Haute Cuisine (2012)
- Dir. Christian Vincent
Feat. Catherine Frot, Hippolyte Girardot
- A heavenly food biopic of the life of Danièle Delpeuch, celebrated private chef to the French president, François Mitterrand.
Hellfjord (TV Series) (2012)
- Feat. Zahid Ali, Stig Frode Henriksen, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal
- Off–beat Scandi original from the writer of DEAD SNOW centres around the misfortunes a policeman who, after an unfortunate incident involving…
Holy Motors (2012)
- Dir. Leos Carax
Feat. Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes…
- Leos Carax's first feature in over a decade is an unclassifiable romp through the streets of Paris, led by a world–weary actor (Denis Lavant)…
Hunt, The (2012)
- Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen
- A hard–hitting moral drama of everyday persecution from dir. Thomas Vinterberg, starring Mads Mikkelsen as a teacher whose life is shattered by…
Hypnotist, The (2012)
- Dir. Lasse Hallstrom
Feat. Tobias Zilliacus, Mikael Persbrandt, Lena Olin
- Dir. Lasse Hallström returns to Sweden to helm this knotty thriller centred on a detective and a psychologist who team up to extract vital…
In the Fog (2012)
- Dir. Sergey Loznitsa
Feat. Vladislav Svirskiy, Vladislav Abashin
- Intense, slow burning Russian drama exploring the moralities of war through the story of a man wrongly accused of collaboration with the German…
In the House (2012)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner…
- Set in a literary milieu, this deliciously warped meta drama from dir. Francois Ozon concerns the writings of a precocious 16–year–old…
Inch'Allah (2012)
- Dir. Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette
Feat. Evelyne Brochu, Sabrina Ouazani, Sivan Levy
- A French Canadian doctor working in Ramallah experiences the conflict of the Israel–Palestine divide firsthand in this powerful…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2012: Volume One (2012)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 16 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2012' spread over 5 discs.
Films…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2012: Volume Two (2012)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 14 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2012' spread over 5 discs.
Films…
Jackie (2012)
- Dir. Antoinette Beumer
Feat. Carice Van Houten, Jelka van Houten, Holly Hunter
- Two Dutch sisters (played by real life siblings Carice and van Houten) trek from the Netherlands to mid–west America in aid of a mother they've…
Killing, The - Series 3 (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2012)
- Feat. Sofie Grabol, Søren Malling
- Final episodes in the ripping, immensely popular Danish homicide serial weaves a third plot exploring a death linked to the global financial crisis…
Kon-Tiki (2012)
- Dir. Espen Sandberg, Joachim Roenning
Feat. Pål Sverre Hagen
- A rousing dramatisation of the 1947 voyage of the legendary Kon–Tiki, a balsa–wood raft lead across the Pacific by Norwegian explorer…
Last Dragon Master, The (The Last Tycoon) (2012)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Sammo Hung, Francis Ng
- Chow Yun–Fat lends his charismatic presence to this sumptuous gangster picture detailing the rise of a legendary Shanghai mobster at the turn…
Last Sentence, The (2012)
- Dir. Jan Troell
Feat. Jesper Christensen, Pernilla August
- Anchored by a superb Jesper Christensen, this serious and sombre biopic accurately reflects Swedish journalist Jesper Christensen's stubborn…
Last Will (Nobel's Last Will) (2012)
- Dir. Peter Flinth
Feat. Malin Crepin, Bjorn Kellman, Leif Andree…
- Based on the novel by Liza Marklund, this brisk addition to the "Scandi–crime" canon has unfortunate journalist Annika Bengtzon witnessing a…
Laurence Anyways (2012)
- Dir. Xavier Dolan
Feat. Melvil Poupaud, Suzanne Clément, Nathalie Baye…
- Young French–Canadian actor/director Xavier Dolan stays behind the camera of his third film (made at 23 years of age, no less), an assured…
Le Chef (Comme un chef) (2012)
- Dir. Daniel Cohen
Feat. Jean Reno, Michael Youn, Santiago Segura…
- Tangy French comedy, with Jean Reno as a pretentious culinary master whose renowned restaurant is threatened by a young chef specializing in…
Le Grand Soir (The Big Night) (2012)
- Dir. Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Albert Dupontel, Yolande Moreau…
- A wrinkling middle–aged punk and his soon–to–be–unemployed middle–class brother attempt to spark a cultural revolution…
Lesson of Evil (Lesson of the Evil) (2012)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Yamada Takayuki, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Hideaki Ito
- Another manga adaption from director cult Takashi Miike based on the seinen manga on the same name.
A successful English teacher who is secretly a…
Looking for Hortense (2012)
- Dir. Pascal Bonitzer
Feat. Jean-Pierre Bacri, Kristin Scott Thomas, Isabelle Carré…
- This bittersweet comedy of manners finds familiar May–December pleasures in the mid–life journey of an unhappily married professor who…
Lore (2012)
- Dir. Cate Shortland
Feat. Saskia Rosendahl
- A satisfyingly ambitious and haunting drama from the Australian dir. of SOMERSAULT, set in Europe in the aftermath of WWII.
Following the arrest…
Man Who Laughs, The (2012)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Améris
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Marc-André Grondin, Emmanuelle Seigner…
- Victor Hugo's classic tale of two orphans – one disfigured, one blind – who become popular entertainers compels in this handsomely…
Masquerade (2012)
- Dir. Chang-min Choo
Feat. Byung-hun Lee
- A Chosun Dynasty monarch under threat of assassination recruits a jester who specialises in satrising royals to impersonate him in this richly…
Morden: The Fjallbacka Murders (TV Series) (Fjällbackamorden) (2012)
- Feat. Claudia Galli, Richard Ulfsäter
- In the wake of a brutal murder, secrets and lies are unearthed by a mystery writer with a nose for the suspicious in this moody Scandi–crime…
Motorway (2012)
- Dir. Pou-Soi Cheang
Feat. Anthony Wong, Shawn Yue, Josie Ho
- China's answer to DRIVE retains much of the crisp understatement and effortless style of its stateside predecessor, pairing the electric nightlife of…
My Straight Son (Azul y no tan rosa) (2012)
- Dir. Miguel Ferrari
Feat. Guillermo Garcia, Nacho Montes, Hilda Abrahamz
- Venezuelan drama about a successful gay photographer living in Caracas whose teenage son from a past relationship comes to stay. Unfamiliar with the…
Neighboring Sounds (Neighbouring Sounds) (2012)
- Dir. Kleber Mendonca Filho
Feat. Irandhir Santos, Maeve Jinkings, Gustavo Jahn
- The striking feature debut of Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (BACURAU) depicting life on a sheltered prosperous street adjacent to a poor…
Nightfall (2012)
- Dir. Roy Chow
Feat. Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Janice Man
- Grisly thriller with a celebrity found brutally murdered, a recently paroled rapist becomes the leading suspect.
No (2012)
- Dir. Pablo Larrain
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Alfredo Castro
- Gael Garcia Bernal plays an ad executive who conceives a campaign to defeat Augusto Pinochet in Chile's 1988 referendum in this unique celebration of…
Oh Boy (A Coffee in Berlin) (2012)
- Dir. Jan Ole Gerster
Feat. Tom Schilling, Katharina Schüttler
- A college dropout wanders the streets of Berlin contemplating his place in the world in this ironic portrait of early adulthood.
On Air (Parlez-moi de vous) (2012)
- Dir. Pierre Pinaud
Feat. Karin Viard, Nicolas Duvauchelle
- A solid character vehicle for French mainstay Karin Viard, here playing the sophisticated host of a radio talkback show, whose knack for delivering…
Other Son, The (2012)
- Dir. Lorraine Levy
Feat. Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbé, Jules Sitruk…
- Two families on either side of the Israeli–Palestinian divide learn that their sons were switched at birth in this moving human drama.
Paradise: Faith (Paradise Faith) (2012)
- Dir. Ulrich Seidl
Feat. Maria Hofstatter, Nabil Saleh, Natalija Baranova
- The second installment of Ulrich Seidl's PARADISE trilogy follows Anna Maria, the sister of Teresa (in PARADISE: LOVE), a single woman in her 50s…
Paradise: Love (Paradise Love) (2012)
- Dir. Ulrich Seidl
Feat. Margarethe Tiesel
- The first chapter of the Ulrich Seidl's PARADISE trilogy is a provocative take on exotic romance in which a middle–aged Austrian woman plays…
Paris-Manhattan (2012)
- Dir. Sophie Lellouche
Feat. Alice Taglioni, Patrick Bruel
- A Woody Allen–obsessed pharmacist employs the philosophies of her nebbish movie hero in life and in love. Typically, inconsequentially French,…
Patience Stone, The (2012)
- Dir. Atiq Rahimi
Feat. Golshifteh Farahani, Hami Djavadan
- Atiq Rahimi's adapts his own bestselling novel about a Muslim woman whose paralyzed husband offers quiet relief amid the sorrows of life in a…
Pieta (2012)
- Dir. Kim Ki-Duk
Feat. Min-soo Jo, Jung-Jin Lee
- Kim Ki–Duk directs this controversial Golden Lion winner, about a debt–collecting thug who is forced to confront his violent ways when a…
Populaire (2012)
- Dir. Régis Roinsard
Feat. Romain Duris, Deborah Francois, Bérénice Bejo
- Full of colour and quick–witted style, this French period comedy plays up the vintage appeal of the 1950s through rose tinted glasses. Deborah…
Reality (2012)
- Dir. Matteo Garrone
Feat. Aniello Arena, Loredana Simioli, Nando Paone
- A working class scam artist tries out for 'Big Brother' in this bustling, Fellini–esque satire of unrealised dreams from dir. Matteo Garrone…
Red Eagle (2012)
- Dir. Jose Ramon Ayerra Diaz
Feat. David Janer
- Based on a popular Spanish TV show about a dashing teacher, who by night is a sort of Ninja–Zorro, fighting injustice and saving King and…
Renoir (2012)
- Dir. Gilles Bourdos
Feat. Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, Vincent Rottiers…
- Sumptuous, sun–kissed art biopic based on the last years of impressionist painter Auguste Renoir (Bouquet) during World War I, and the…
Rita (TV Series) (2012-2015)
- Feat. Mille Dinesen, Lise Baastrup, Carsten Bjørnlund…
- Danish comedy series following the life of a defiantly outspoken school teacher and single mother who excels in her teaching but struggles in her…
Rurouni Kenshin (2012)
- Dir. Keishi Otomo
Feat. Takeru Sato, Emi Takei, Teruyuki Kagawa…
- A gracefully violent adaptation of the popular manga series, about a brilliant shogun who retreats from society during an era of decline for samurai,…
Rust and Bone (2012)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Celine Sallette…
- Jacques Audiard (A PROPHET) directs this searing drama of a broken woman (Marion Cotillard) who rediscovers the will to live through an itinerant man…
Shadow Men, The (Spin; Les Hommes De L'Ombre) (2012)
- Feat. Nathalie Baye, Philippe Magnan, Bruno Wolkowitch…
- Political drama series follows the actions of a group of spin doctors who each advance their own cause after the assassination of the French…
Shahid (2012)
- Dir. Hansal Mehta
Feat. Rajkummar Rao, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Kay Kay Menon
- Indian biopic about the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, who was assassinated in 2010 by four right wing assailants.
Known…
Silent War, The (2012)
- Dir. Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Xun Zhou, Mavis Fan…
- Engaging espionage thriller with Tony Leung as a blind piano tuner for a spy mission because of his exceptional hearing.
Silent Youth (2012)
- Dir. Diemo Kemmesies
Feat. Martin Bruchmann, Josef Mattes, Linda Schule
- Low key German indie drama offering a story of gay first love, replete with palpable sexual tension and interesting, honest performances. Like so…
Sister (2012)
- Dir. Ursula Meier
Feat. Léa Seydoux, Kacey Mottet Klein, Martin Compston…
- On the slopes of a Swiss ski resort, a resourceful 12–year–old boy steals to support his troubled older sister in this fine…
Suskind (2012)
- Dir. Rudolf van den Berg
Feat. Karl Markovics, Jeroen Spitzenberger
- A serious, respectful historical dramatisation of the deeds of Walter Sueskind, a Jewish industrialist in Amsterdam who used his leverage as an…
Tabu (2012)
- Dir. Miguel Gomes
Feat. Teresa Madruga, Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira…
- A retired woman seeks out a man with a secret connection to her past life as a plantation owner in Africa in this a beguiling black and white mystery.
Taped (2012)
- Dir. Diederik Van Rooijen
Feat. Barry Atsma, Susan Visser
- Exciting Dutch thriller set in Argentina, where a travelling couple witness an execution by a corrupt cop, capture the incident on camera, and are…
Taste of Money, The (2012)
- Dir. Sang-soo Im
Feat. Kang-woo Kim, Yoon-sik Baek, Yuh-jung Youn
- The dir. of THE HOUSEMAID buffs this heady class critique of Korea's impudent elite to a high sheen, with the lust and corruption of a wealthy family…
Teddy Bear (10 Timer til Paradis) (2012)
- Dir. Mads Matthiesen
Feat. Kim Kold
- Real life body–builder Kim Kold stars as a shy and awkward 38 year–old Danish bodybuilder who still lives with his mum, but decides to…
Thale (2012)
- Dir. Aleksander Nordaas
Feat. Silje Reinåmo, Erlend Nervold
- An artful, serious–minded horror fantasy based on the Norwegian legend of the Hydra – a seductive, shape–shifting Scandanavian…
Thérèse Desqueyroux (Therese Desqueyroux) (2012)
- Dir. Claude Miller
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Gilles Lellouche, Anaïs Demoustier
- In pre–war France, a free–spirited woman joins a wealthy landowner in a loveless marriage. Audrey Tautou dials down the cute to deliver…
Thieves, The (2012)
- Dir. Dong-hun Choi
Feat. Gianna Jun, Hye-su Kim, Yun-seok Kim…
- This slickly engineered Korean blockbuster (the second highest earning in the country's box office history) plays all the right cards in its…
Third Half, The (2012)
- Dir. Darko Mitrevski
Feat. Katarina Ivanovska, Sasko Kocev
- A Macedonian football club hires a German coach to galvanize the team as Nazis prepare to enter the country in this wartime occupation drama.
Two Lives (2012)
- Dir. Georg Maas, Judith Kaufmann
Feat. Juliane Kohler, Liv Ullmann, Rainer Bock
- A "war child" of the Nazi regime – the name given to children conceived by German officers and Norwegian women, who were subsequently taken…
Viral Factor, The (2012)
- Dir. Dante Lam
Feat. Jay Chou, Nicholas Tse
- Dante Lam brings the fire once more in this out–and–out grunt fest of special forces action. As to be expected, the corny dramatic…
Vulgaria (2012)
- Dir. Pang Ho-Cheung
Feat. Chapman To, Dada Chan, Suet Lam
- Amusingly scattershot showbiz satire of a struggling film producer who turns to making pornography under the financing of a twisted triad…
Wadjda (2012)
- Dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour
Feat. Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah
- This humanist triumph is the first ever feature to be shot in Saudi Arabia, centering on a plucky young girl who attempts to raise money for a…
War Witch (Rebelle) (2012)
- Dir. Kim Nguyen
Feat. Rachel Mwanza
- A remarkable magical realist portrayal of the tragedy of child soldiering in one of Africa’s many civil wars, with the phenomenal Rachel Mwanza as…
Welcome Aboard (2012)
- Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Patrick Chesnais, Jeanne Lambert, Miou-Miou
- No stranger to movies about unlikely friendships, dir. Jean Becker balances sentiment with pathos in this finely drawn character study of a…
Werewolf Boy, A (2012)
- Dir. Sung-Hee Jo
Feat. Joong-ki Song, Bo-yeong Park, Young-nam Jang
- One of a kind fantasy in which a teenage girl is sent to the country for her health, where she befriends and attempts to civilize a feral boy she…
What's in a Name? (2012)
- Dir. Matthie Delaporte, Alexandre de La Patellière
Feat. Patrick Bruel, Valerie Benguigui, Charles Berling
- A French "dinner party" comedy par excellence that interrogates the anxiety of impending parenthood and bourgeois politics when a liberal couple find…
White Elephant (2012)
- Dir. Pablo Trapero
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Jeremie Renier, Martina Gusman
- Two priests determined to build a hospital in a Buenos Aires shantytown encounter violent resistance from local drug lords in this superb social…
White Tiger (2012)
- Dir. Karen Shakhnazarov
Feat. Aleksey Vertkov, Vitaliy Kishchenko, Valeriy Grishko
- A Red Army sergeant becomes obsessed with a mysterious white Tiger tank responsible for the destruction of his battalion.
Wu Dang (2012)
- Dir. Patrick Leung
Feat. Vincent Zhao
- A rambunctious, action–packed throwback to '80s martial arts flicks and strapping Indiana Jones–style adventure, centred on a famed…
Yossi (2012)
- Dir. Eytan Fox
Feat. Ohad Knoller
- A satisfying, exploratory follow–up to Israeli gay drama YOSSI AND JAGGER, this catches up with the titular Yossi, now ten years older and no…
33D Invader, The (2011)
- Dir. Man Kei Chin
Feat. Macy Wu
- A trio of socially inept dweebs hit the jackpot when they encounter a buxom beauty sent from the future; her mission to return to the year 2046…
A Gang Story (2011)
- Dir. Olivier Marchal
Feat. Gerard Lanvin, Tcheky Karyo, Daniel Duval
- French cop–turned–filmmaker Olivier Marchal (36 QUAI DES ORFEVRES, MR73) steps over to the other side of the law with this…
A Happy Event (Un Heureux Evenement) (2011)
- Dir. Rémi Bezançon
Feat. Louise Bourgoin, Pio Marmaï, Josiane Balasko…
- Keenly felt depiction of the baby blues as a young couple struggle to come to grips with parenthood.
Against the Wind (Headwinds) (2011)
- Dir. Jalil Lespert
Feat. Benoit Magimel, Isabelle Carré, Bouli Lanners…
- Quality French drama explores the emotional wreck of a widower who tries to rebuild his life and make sense of his loss in the aftermath of his…
Ages of Love (Manual of Love 3) (2011)
- Dir. Giovanni Veronesi
Feat. Robert De Niro, Monica Bellucci, Riccardo Scamarcio…
- Third installment in the fluffy romantic series has benefits from the presence of De Niro as a visiting professor seduced by his neighbour's…
All Our Desires (2011)
- Dir. Philippe Lioret
Feat. Marie Gillain, Vincent Lindon
- Well–meaning social melodrama from the dir. of WELCOME follows the determined fight by a judge to defend an impoverished woman from ruthless…
American Translation (2011)
- Dir. Jean-Marc Barr
Feat. Pierre Perrier, Lizzie Brochere, Jean-Marc Barr
- Drama exploring the dark and violent obsessions of a sexually ambiguous Frenchman. Plenty of casual sex and casual murder, and a truly memorable lap…
And If We All Lived Together (2011)
- Dir. Stéphane Robelin
Feat. Guy Bedos, Daniel Brühl, Geraldine Chaplin…
- Five 70–something friends resolve to move in together when faced with life in a retirement home, much to the fascination of a ethnology student…
Arne Dahl (TV Series) (2011)
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Art of Love, The (2011)
- Dir. Emmanuel Mouret
Feat. Emmanuel Mouret, Pascale Arbillot, Ariane Ascaride…
- The French try their hand at the ensemble romantic comedy with this episodic insight into the dramas, dilemmas, and delights of love between a cast…
Back to Stay (2011)
- Dir. Milagros Mumenthaler
Feat. María Canale, Martina Juncadella , Ailín Salas…
- A spare, melancholic film that languidly reveals its narrative secrets as three bickering sisters clash in their neglected Buenos Aires family…
Beginning of the Great Revival (The Founding of a Party) (2011)
- Dir. Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang
Feat. Andy Lau, Chow Yun-Fat, Daniel Wu…
- In the tradition of unashamedly jingoistic cinema comes this state–sanctioned celebration of ninety years of Chinese Communist Party rule.…
Beloved (2011)
- Dir. Christophe Honore
Feat. Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Ludivine Sagnier…
- An expressive, cosmopolitan musical about the life and loves of a mother and daughter spanning four decades, played by the Real McCoy, Catherine…
Bomber, The (Ballada o bombere (Ballad Of A Bomber)) (2011)
- Dir. Vitaliy Vorobyov
Feat. Nikita Efremov, Ekaterina Astakhova, Aleksandr Davydov
- Hum–drum war film – originally a television series – has a Russian aircraft crashing in Nazi occupied territory and the three…
Borgen - Series 2 (TV Series) (2011)
- Feat. Sidse Babett Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Pilou Asbæk
- Further episodes from the Bafta–winning Danish political drama in which an idealistic prime minister's rise to power brings with it a web of…
Bridge, The - Series 1 (TV Series) (Bron/Broen) (2011)
- Feat. Sofia Helin, Kim Bodnia, Dag Malmberg
- The Scandi–crime wave continues with this steely Danish–Swedish murder mystery, centred on the discovery of a body straddling the…
Bunohan (Return to Murder) (2011)
- Dir. Dain Said
Feat. Zahiril Adzim, Faizal Hussein, Wan Hanafisu…
- Somber martial–arts flick with three estranged brothers returning to their hometown to care for their ailing father. Interesting hybrid of…
Café de Flore (2011)
- Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée
Feat. Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent
- Two parallel stories of love and hope transcend their time difference in this fantastical juggling act from French–Canadian filmmaker…
Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Journey to Agartha) (2011)
- Dir. Makoto Shinkai
- This eye–watering love letter to the godfather of anime, Hayao Miyazaki, not only replicates, but in many ways surpasses Studio Ghibli's…
Chinese Ghost Story, A (2011)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Louis Koo, Yifei Liu, Shao-gun Yu…
- A lowly scholar falls in love with a beautiful ghost, but in order to win her freedom must do battle with the supernatural. Kinetic remake of the…
Chinese Takeaway (2011)
- Dir. Sebastian Borensztein
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Muriel Santa Ana, Ignacio Huang…
- Wry comedy of clashing cultures centres on an unlikely friendship between a curmudgeonly hardware store–owner and a young immigrant.
Circumstance (2011)
- Dir. Maryam Keshavarz
Feat. Sarah Kazemy, Nikohl Boosheri, Reza Sixo Safai…
- A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession in this courageous, if…
Corpo Celeste (2011)
- Dir. Alice Rohrwacher
Feat. Salvatore Cantalupo, Anita Caprioli
- A thirteen–year–old girl moves back to southern Italy with her mother and older sister and struggles to find her place, restlessly…
Declaration of War (2011)
- Dir. Valérie Donzelli
Feat. Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaïm
- A young couple go to war for their cancer–stricken child in this galvanizing drama, based on dir. Valérie Donzelli's fight for the life of her…
Delicacy (2011)
- Dir. David Foenkinos, Stéphane Foenkinos
Feat. Audrey Tautou, François Damiens
- Audrey Tautou breezes through yet another whimsical French souffle, here playing a widowed gamine beauty who rediscovers love in the form of a…
Dum Maaro Dum (2011)
- Dir. Rohan Sippy
Feat. Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Bipasha Basu…
- "Gritty" Bollywood policier with a corrupt cop given permission to clean up drug–infested Goa however he sees fit. Sluggish plot and insipid…
Elena (2011)
- Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev
Feat. Nadezhda Markina, Andrey Smirnov, Aleksey Rozin
- An old fashioned mortality play told through the eyes of Russia's new monied class, centred on the wife of a wealthy businessman whose sudden death…
Elles (2011)
- Dir. Malgorzata Szumowska
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Anaïs Demoustier, Joanna Kulig
- Juliette Binoche plays an investigative reporter who becomes entangled in the world of student prostitution in this serious erotic thriller.
Escort in Love (Nessuno mi può giudicare) (2011)
- Dir. Massimiliano Bruno
- Riches–to–rags comedy about a superficial, wealthy Italian woman whose husband dies suddenly and leaves her unexpectedly…
Eva (2011)
- Dir. Kike Maillo
Feat. Daniel Bruhl, Marta Etura, Alberto Ammann…
- Sensitive Sci–fi drama stars Daniel Brühl as a scientist grappling with the task and the ethics of creating a line of robot children.
Fairy, The (La Fée) (2011)
- Dir. Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy
Feat. Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy
- Third feature collaboration for husband–and–wife acting/directing team Abel & Gordon is the story of a hotel clerk searching all over the…
Fall of the Innocent (The Butcher of Prague) (2011)
- Dir. Petr Nikolaev
Feat. Karel Roden, Zuzana Fialova, Zuzana Bydzovska
- WWII drama about the Nazi massacre and destruction of the Czech village of Lidice.
The main protagonist is a man from the village who is sent to…
Flowers of War, The (2011)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Paul Schneider
- Dir. Zhang Yimou tackles the Nanking massacre with equal parts grim realism and stylish melodrama – befitting of a lavish wartime epic, less so…
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Jet Li, Xun Zhou
- Tsui Hark is in late–career form, directing this sequel–of–sorts to the oft–filmed 'Dragon Gate Inn' legend with gusto and…
Footnote (2011)
- Dir. Joseph Cedar
Feat. Shlomo Bar-Aba, Lior Ashkenazi, Micah Lewnsohn
- A father and son's complicated relationship is tested over the award of a vaunted academic prize in their shared field of Talmudic studies in this…
Forgiveness of Blood, The (2011)
- Dir. Joshua Marston
Feat. Tristan Halilaj, Refet Abazi, Zana Hasaj
- Dir. Joshua Marston (MARIA FULL OF GRACE) helms this engrossing Albanian drama of family blood feuds and the tensions between tradition and…
Four (2011)
- Four cutting–edge tales of horror from the creators of ONG BAK and 13: GAME OF DEATH.
Clean–up Day
Four friends are discussing the…
Front Line, The (2011)
- Dir. Hun Jang
Feat. Ha-kyun Shin, Soo Go
- Big battles clash with big themes in this sizable war epic set during the last days of the Korean war, where soldiers from both the North and South…
Gantz 2: Perfect Answer (2011)
- Dir. Shinsuke Sato
Feat. Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Kazunari Ninomiya
- Satisfying finale to the Gantz universe sees protagonists Kei and Masaru edge closer to their kill target, which will liberate them from their…
Giants, The (2011)
- Dir. Bouli Lanners
Feat. Zacharie Chasseriaud, Martin Nissen, Paul Bartel
- The misadventures of two teenage brothers and a local misfit are engagingly recounted in this balmy Belgium picaresque.
Goodbye, First Love (2011)
- Dir. Mia Hansen-Love
Feat. Lola Créton, Sebastian Urzendowsky
- The director of FATHER OF MY CHILDREN turns her nuanced lens on the passionate but slow–maturing romance between a couple who break up in their…
Greetings to the Devil (2011)
- Dir. Juan Felipe Orozco
Feat. Édgar Ramírez, Ricardo Vélez, Carolina Gómez
- Fast and aggressive Colombian thriller stars the charismatic Édgar Ramírez, fresh off CARLOS, as a former guerrilla forced to hunt down and kill…
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Naoto Takenaka
- The ever–versatile Takashi Miike changes tack from his rollicking samurai adventure, 13 ASSASSINS, to deliver a restrained and resonant tale of…
Harvest (Stadt Land Fluss) (2011)
- Dir. Benjamin Cantu
Feat. Lukas Steltner, Kai Michael Müller
- Muted romance set against a documentary esque background, that tracks the tentative relationship between two young apprentices training on a farm…
Headhunters (2011)
- Dir. Morten Tyldum
Feat. Aksel Hennie, Synnove Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau…
- Jo Nesbo's blockbusting crime novel about a corporate headhunter moonlighting as an art thief gets an appropriately energetic treatment, and with its…
Headshot (2011)
- Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Nopachai Chaiyanam
- Thai new waver Pen–ek Ratanaruang directs this zen–like "Buddist noir" about a hitman who seeks enlightenment after a bullet to the head…
Hell (2011)
- Dir. Tim Fehlbaum
Feat. Hannah Herzsprung, Stipe Erceg, Angela Winkler
- Earth has been parched by solar flares in this resourceful variation on the oft–told post–apocalyptic survival tale. Swiss–German…
Himizu (2011)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Shota Sometani, Tetsu Watanabe, Fumi Nikaido
- Bleak coming–of–age story with two teens scraping out an existence in post–tsunami Japan and embarking on a campaign of violence…
House of Pleasures (House of Tolerance) (2011)
- Dir. Bertrand Bonello
Feat. Hafsia Herzi, Jasmine Trinca, Noemie Lvovsky…
- Richly designed elegy set in a Parisian bordello at the end of the 18th century follows the working lives of its varied inhabitants. Bonello's…
I Wish (2011)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Koki Maeda, Ohshiro Maeda, Yui Natsukawa…
- Two brothers living in different cities because of their parents' separation conspire to reunite them through a mythical 'wish' in this delicate,…
Immature, The (2011)
- Dir. Paolo Genovese
Feat. Raoul Bova, Barbora Bobulova, Ambra Angiolini…
- A breezy, feel–good comedy about a group of friends reunited after twenty years, after a formal error forces them to resit their…
In Darkness (2011)
- Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Feat. Robert Wieckiewicz, Agnieszka Grochowska, Kinga Preis
- A stirring, endlessly suspenseful wartime resistance drama from dir. Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA, EUROPA), about the ordinary men and women surviving…
Intouchables, The (2011)
- Dir. Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Omar Sy, Anne Le Ny…
- Exemplary feel–good French comedy that details the unlikely friendship between an aristocratic quadriplegic and a young French–African…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2011 (2011)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 11 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2011' spread over 5 discs.
Film…
Italy: Love It or Leave It (2011)
- Dir. Gustav Hofer, Luca Ragazzi
- This thoroughly engaging road trip throughout picturesque Italy doubles as a serious critique of a nation beset by various social, economic, and…
Jackpot (Jo Nesbo's Jackpot) (2011)
- Dir. Magnus Martens
Feat. Kyrre Hellum, Mads Ousdal, Henrik Mestad…
- This second helping of Jo Nesbo's blackly comic tales has the hapless sole survivor of a strip club massacre taken in for questioning where his…
Jewel, The (2011)
- Dir. Andrea Molaioli
Feat. Toni Servillo, Remo Girone, Sarah Felberbaum
- Mordant morality tale set in the world of big–business with Servillo as a very 'creative' accountant trying everything to keep his company…
Juan of the Dead (2011)
- Dir. Alejandro Brugués
Feat. Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Jorge Molina
- A direct and surprisingly inspired Hispanic take on the SHAUN OF THE DEAD zom–com model that makes nifty use of its unique Cuban locale and…
Kid with a Bike, The (2011)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Thomas Doret, Cecile De France, Jeremie Renier…
- Yet another impressive work of contemporary social realism from Belgian duo Jean–Luc and Pierre Dardenne, this time observing the growing pains…
King of Pigs, The (2011)
- Dir. Sang-ho Yeon
- A tough, hard–glancing Korean anime about two adults who recall their violent school days as both purveyors and victims of systemic bullying.…
Kiss Me (Kyss mig, aka With Every Heartbeat) (2011)
- Dir. Alexandra-Therese Keining
Feat. Ruth Vega Fernandez, Liv Mjönes, Krister Henriksson
- Heartfelt romantic drama about a woman who is engaged to be married when she finds herself falling for her soon–to–be stepmother's…
Lan Kwai Fong (2011)
- Dir. Wilson Chin
Feat. Shiga Lin
- Hong Kong's answer to SEX AND THE CITY set in its central nightlife district, where lust is rampant and love elusive for an ensemble of handsome…
Las Acacias (2011)
- Dir. Pablo Giorgelli
Feat. Germán de Silva, Hebe Duarte
- An improbable gem of the road movie genre, about the slow–forming relationship between a long–haul truck driver and the woman (and…
Le Havre (2011)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Andre Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin…
- An old–time shoe–shiner befriends a young African refugee in hiding from immigration authorities in this soft–centred comedy from…
Legend of the Millennium Dragon (2011)
- Dir. Hirotsugu Kawasaki
- An impressively animated young–adult fantasy, centred on a 15–year–old school kid who is transported back to medieval Japan, and…
Life Without Principle (2011)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Terence Yin, Richie Ren
- Hong Kong's master of suspense crafts this swirling triumvirate of stories centred on unraveling lives amidst the global financial crisis.
Combing…
Livid (2011)
- Dir. Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
Feat. Chloé Colloud, Catherine Jacob, Marie Claude-Pietragalla
- The directors of the revered French horror film 'Inside' try their hand at the haunted house genre, with predictably savage but also surprisingly…
Lost Bladesman, The (2011)
- Dir. Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Feat. Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang
- Yet another big screen reinvention of the 'Three Kingdoms' legend, this time from the perspective of talismanic figure Guan Yu, whose exploits on the…
Love Exposure (2011)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima
- Notorious cinematic oddity from Japanese director Sion Sono (WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL), following the adventures of a Catholic teenage boy who…
Man from Beijing, The (2011)
- Dir. Peter Keglevic
Feat. Michael Nyqvist, Suzanne von Borsody
- A straightforward Scandi–thriller with a German accent, about the mystery behind the massacre of 18 people in a small Swedish town –…
Manipulation (2011)
- Dir. Pascal Verdosci
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer, Sebastian Koch
- Sweaty Cold War thriller centred on the cat–and–mouse game between a special agent investigating possible spy moves by a top PR advisor.
Medianeras (Sidewalls) (2011)
- Dir. Gustavo Taretto
Feat. Javier Drolas, Pilar López de Ayala
- Two mournful souls destined for each other conspire to never cross paths despite living directly across from one another in this inventive modern…
Michael (2011)
- Dir. Markus Schleinzer
Feat. Michael Fuith
- Brilliant and disturbingly macabre directorial debut from Markus Schleinzer, observing a man who has imprisoned a 10–year old boy in his…
Minister, The (2011)
- Dir. Pierre Schöller
Feat. Olivier Gourmet, Michel Blanc, Zabou Breitman…
- Nuanced political drama follows the daily process of governance from the vantage point of of the French Transport Minister as he negotiates the…
Miss Bala (2011)
- Dir. Gerardo Naranjo
Feat. Stephanie Sigman, Irene Azuela, Jose Yenque
- A beauty pageant contestant becomes entangled in a Tijuana drug cartel killing spree in this electric Mexican thriller.
Monk, The (2011)
- Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Deborah Francois, Sergi Lopez
- A devout monk (Cassell) experiences a crisis of faith which in turn manifests into a malevolent force in this abstract, atmospheric horror adapted…
Monsieur Lazhar (2011)
- Dir. Philippe Falardeau
Feat. Mohamed Fellag, Sophie Nelisse, Emilien Neron…
- An asylum seeking Algerian attempts to pass himself off as teacher in a Canadian school bereft after the suicide of a popular teacher.
My Best Enemy (2011)
- Dir. Wolfgang Murnberger
Feat. Moritz Bleibtreu, Georg Friedrich, Ursula Strauss
- A Jewish man switches places with his Nazi best friend in order to survive, in this dark WWII drama.
My Kingdom (2011)
- Dir. Xiaosong Gao
Feat. Chun Wu, Geng Han
- A commercial, action–inflected rendering of Peking Opera (a la Tsui Hark's PEKING OPERA BLUES), centred on the rivalry between two…
My Piece of the Pie (2011)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Karin Viard, Gilles Lellouche
- A Capra–esque satire shot in the mode of a French romantic comedy, replete with clunky political statements and glossy Euro visuals. Karin…
My Way (2011)
- Dir. Kang Je-Gyu
Feat. Jang Dong-Gun, Joe Odagiri, Bingbing Fan
- The director of BROTHERHOOD OF WAR raises the stakes with this louder, bloodier, more spectacular WWII epic, centred on the true story of rival…
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
- Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Feat. Muhammet Uzuner, Firat Tanis, Yilmaz Erdogan
- Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan directs this masterful long–haul road movie about a convoy of policemen searching for a body on the…
Play (2011)
- Dir. Ruben Östlund
- Ruban Östlund (THE SQUARE) directs this acute observation of bullying based on true events, in which a group of adolescent boys robbed other…
Policeman (2011)
- Dir. Nadav Lapid
Feat. Yiftach Klein
- With contemporary Israel as its disquieting backdrop, this sharp and incisive account of revolutionary action, witnessed through the eyes of a…
Polisse (2011)
- Dir. Maïwenn
Feat. Karin Viard, Marina Fois, Nicolas Duvauchelle …
- A tough, unglamorous insight into the police work of a Parisian Juvenile Protection Unit, whose officers grapple with the moral and personal dilemmas…
Quick (2011)
- Dir. Beom-gu Cho
Feat. Min-Ki Lee, Ye-won Kang
- A motorcycle courier must complete a series of near–impossible deliveries in order to save his girlfriend whose cycle helmet has been rigged…
Raid, The (The Raid: Redemption) (2011)
- Dir. Gareth Evans
Feat. Iko Uwais
- The finest Asian action export since ONG–BAK, pitting an out–of–their–depth SWAT team against a tenement of drug dealers,…
Rebellion (2011)
- Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz, Iabe Lapacas, Malik Zidi…
- A proficient, airtight geopolitical thriller from dir. Kassovitz, who also stars as the captain of a counterterrorist division sent to New Caledonia…
Salt of Life, The (2011)
- Dir. Gianni Di Gregorio
Feat. Gianni Di Gregorio
- Gianni Di Gregorio's delightful follow–up to MID–AUGUST LUNCH, about a house husband at the whim of his wife, daughter, neighbour, and…
Sector 7 (2011)
- Dir. Ji-hun Kim
Feat. Ji-won Ha, Sung-kee Ahn
- Produced by the director of tidal wave catastrophe HAEUNDAE, this big budget monster movie (Korea's first in 3D) lurches between hokey character…
Separation, A (2011)
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat…
- Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this masterfully layered domestic drama sees the wheels of justice turn slowly against a…
Sex and Zen - Extreme Ecstasy (2011)
- Dir. Christopher Sun Lap Key
Feat. Hiro Hayama, Leni Lan, Saori Hara…
- Touted as "the first 3D erotic movie", this Ming Dynasty bonk–fest under–performs as both a porny period spectacle, and a randy sex…
Shaolin (2011)
- Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Jackie Chan…
- Feuding warlords threaten to tear China apart and only a group of Shaolin monks stand in the way of annihilation.
Silence, The (Das letzte Schweigen) (2011)
- Dir. Baran bo Odar
Feat. Ulrich Thomsen, Katrin Sass, Wotan Wilke Möhring
- German thriller set in 2009, 23 years after the unsolved rape and murder of an 11–year old girl, when a remarkably similar crime attracts the…
Skin I Live In, The (2011)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes…
- Over twenty years after their last collaboration, a gracefully middle–aged Antonio Banderas returns for Spanish maestro Pedro Almodovar to play…
Skylab (2011)
- Dir. Julie Delpy
Feat. Bernadette Lafont, Emmanuelle Riva, Eric Elmosnino…
- Julie Delpy directs this nostalgic crowd–pleaser, set around a rowdy family gathering in the summer of 1979, whose youngest member believes…
Sleep Tight (2011)
- Dir. Jaume Balaguero
Feat. Luis Tosar, Marta Etura, Alberto San Juan…
- Unsettling portrait of a concierge who's romantic obsession with one of the tenants involves slowly sabotaging every aspect of her life.
Sleepless Night (2011)
- Dir. Frederic Jardin
Feat. Tomer Sisley, Serge Riaboukine, Julien Boisselier…
- A stonking, white–knuckle French action picture, smartly and tightly wound around a cop's frantic search for a stolen drug stash in order to…
Smuggler (2011)
- Dir. Katsuhito Ishii
Feat. Satoshi Tsumabuki, Masatoshi Nagase, Yasuko Matsuyuki…
- An entertainingly schizophrenic black comedy by way of cult Japanese dir. Katsuhito Ishii, whose penchant for the wacky and surreal drives this…
Source, The (La Source des femmes) (2011)
- Dir. Radu Mihaileanu
Feat. Leïla Bekhti, Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass
- A dashing feminist dramedy sprung from the male bias in the Middle East, about a village of women who take up a 'sex strike' after their husbands…
Spark of Life, The (As Luck Would Have It) (2011)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Jose Mota, Salma Hayek, Blanca Portillo…
- An aggressive media satire centred around the frenzied bidding war that erupts for a permanently and publicly immobile man's story, with the man…
This Girl is Badass!! (2011)
- Dir. Mum Jokmok
Feat. JeeJa Yanin
- Jija Yanin (CHOCOLATE) stars in this martial arts comedy about a girl whose family life is turned upside–down when she gets mixed up with…
This is Not a Film (2011)
- Dir. Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
- Persecuted Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi turns the camera on himself in this galvanizing protest film about the physical and creative imprisonment of…
Those Who Kill (TV Series) (Den som dræber) (2011)
- Feat. Laura Bach, Jakob Cedergren, Lars Mikkelsen
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Tomboy (2011)
- Dir. Céline Sciamma
Feat. Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana
- An androgynous ten–year–old girl passes herself off as a boy during the summer holidays in this tender coming–of–age tale.
Turin Horse, The (2011)
- Dir. Bela Tarr
Feat. Janos Derzsi, Erika Bok
- A final, uncompromising vision from Hungarian master Bela Tarr, whose ominous vision of two deathly souls hunkered down during a windstorm takes its…
Turn Me On, Goddamit! (2011)
- Dir. Jannicke Systad Jacobsen
Feat. Helene Bergsholm, Beate Stofring, Malin Bjorhovde
- Deadpan sex comedy in a sleepy Norwegian hamlet with a hormone ravaged teen determined to lose her virginity.
War of the Arrows (2011)
- Dir. Han-min Kim
Feat. Hae-il Park, Ryoo Seung-beom
- A fast–paced period epic centred on the resistance of a group of villagers against the Manchurian invasion of Korea. Like THE HUNGER GAMES, an…
War of the Buttons, The (2011)
- Dir. Yann Samuell
Feat. Eric Elmosnino, Mathilde Seigner, Alain Chabat
- A spirited adaptation of Louis Pergaud's classic novel, relocated to the 60s where two rival factions of children wage war in provincial…
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011)
- Dir. Te-Sheng Wei
Feat. Ching-Tai Lin, Umin Boya, Masanobu Ando
- An indigenous clan–based people living in harmony with nature find their way of life threatened when violent interlopers from another culture…
We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam) (2011)
- Dir. Nanni Moretti
Feat. Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Margherita Buy
- Michel Piccoli plays a reluctant successor to the recently deceased pope in this comic look inside the Vatican Church.
Well-Digger's Daughter, The (2011)
- Dir. Daniel Auteuil
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Kad Merad, Sabine Azema…
- Daniel Auteuil covets the art house with his directorial debut, a bright, old–fashioned adaptation of a Marcel Pagnol novel centred on a feud…
What Women Want (2011)
- Dir. Daming Chen
Feat. Andy Lau, Gong Li, Russell Wong…
- Amiable Chinese remake with Andy Lau stepping into Mel Gibson's shoes as a chauvinistic executive who gains the ability to hear what women are really…
Whatsoeverly (Qualunquemente) (2011)
- Dir. Giulio Manfredonia
Feat. Antonio Albanese, Sergio Rubini
- Irrepressibly Italian satirical comedy film starring comedian Antonio Albanese as his famous character Cetto La Qualunque – a corrupt…
Where Do We Go Now? (2011)
- Dir. Nadine Labaki
Feat. Nadine Labaki
- Nadine Labaki (CARAMEL) directs and stars in this heartfelt Lebanese tale of tensions between Christians and Muslims villagers, and the women who…
Whore, The (2011)
- Dir. Hansjörg Thurn
Feat. Alexandra Neldel, Thure Riefenstein
- A young woman falsely accused of harlotry on the eve of her wedding, takes up with a group of traveling whores and seeks revenge on those who've…
Woman in the Fifth, The (2011)
- Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
Feat. Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas
- Intriguing, if ultimately baffling Parisian thriller about a struggling American writer (Ethan Hawke) who embarks on a passionate affair with an…
Women on the 6th Floor, The (2011)
- Dir. Phillippe Le Guay
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Sandrine Kiberlain, Natalia Verbeke…
- An immensely entertaining comedy of the classes, about an uptight Parisian couple who welcome a gaggle of Spanish maids into their lives for the…
Wu Xia (Swordsmen) (2011)
- Dir. Peter Chan
Feat. Donnie Yen, Wei Tang, Takeshi Kaneshiro…
- Oddball homage to ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN, set on the cusp of China's transition to a republic, with a Yen as a gentle papermaker who's killing of two…
Wunderkinder (2011)
- Dir. Markus Rosenmüller
Feat. Gedeon Burkhard, Natalia Avelon
- A history of Germany in broad strokes, this heartrending coming–of–age tale charts the upheaval of WWII through the eyes of three child…
You Will Be My Son (2011)
- Dir. Gilles Legrand
Feat. Niels Arestrup, Lorànt Deutsch
- An intense, boldly flavoured father–son melodrama centred on a prestigious French wine label, whose arrogant owner (Arestrup) begins to groom…
13 Assassins (2010)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Yamada Takayuki, Yusuke Iseya…
- Takashi Miike turns in perhaps his most entertaining and accomplished film yet with this rollicking SEVEN SAMURAI–inspired adventure, centred…
14 Blades (2010)
- Dir. Daniel Lee
Feat. Donnie Yen, Chun Wu, Sammo Hung…
- A secret agent of the emperor’s court is betrayed by his colleagues in this spectacular Ming Dynasty–set thriller. Something of a return to…
18 Years Later (Diciotto anni dopo) (2010)
- Dir. Edoardo Leo
Feat. Edoardo Leo, Marco Bonini
- Picturesque road trip movie following two estranged brothers (played by writer and co–writer/director Marco Bonini and Edoardo Leo) who take a…
20 Cigarettes (2010)
- Dir. Aureliano Amadei
Feat. Vinicio Marchioni, Carolina Crescentini, Giorgio Colangeli
- Wry autobiographical story about an assistant director who receives an offer to fly to Iraq in order to shoot a film, surprisingly sincere.
22 Bullets (L' Immortel) (2010)
- Dir. Richard Berry
Feat. Jean Reno, Marina Fois, Richard Berry…
- Violent gangland thriller has Jean Reno out for revenge after his former friend shoots 22 bullets into him.
3 (Three) (2010)
- Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Sophie Rois, Sebastian Schipper, Devid Striesow
- Dir. Tom Tykwer energises this simple love story of a forty–something couple who fall for the same man with the frenetic visual and narrative…
A Cat in Paris (Une Vie De Chat) (2010)
- Dir. Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Felicioli
- A delightful, roughly hewn French animation about a mild–mannered family cat who moonlights with a crafty cat burglar via the rooftops of Paris…
A Family on the Verge (La bellezza del somaro; Love & Slaps) (2010)
- Dir. Sergio Castellitto
Feat. Sergio Castellitto, Laura Morante, Barbora Bobulova…
- A wry updating of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER has a successful couple nervously awaiting the arrival of their daughter's new boyfriend. Much…
A Quiet Life (2010)
- Dir. Claudio Cupellini
Feat. Toni Servillo, Marco D'Amore, Francesco Di Leva…
- Moody thriller with Servillo –outstanding once again– as a restauranteur who's past resurfaces after a chance encounter with two…
A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010)
- Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Bjorn Floberg, Gard B. Eidsvold…
- A dry, deadpan delight, about a gentle but explosive ex–con (Skarsgard) whose efforts to go straight after a long stint in prison are thwarted…
Abel (2010)
- Dir. Diego Luna
Feat. Christopher Ruíz-Esparza, Jose Maria Yazpik
- Sweet and satisfyingly unpredictable child fantasy about an imaginative young boy who returns from a psychiatric ward to declare himself the father…
Africa United (2010)
- Dir. Debs Paterson
Feat. Eriya Ndayambaje, Roger Nsengiyumva
- An aspiring Rwandan footballer attracts a throng of like–minded soccer fans on a road trip to Johannesburg for the opening ceremony of the 2010…
Aftershock (2010)
- Dir. Feng Xiaoning
Feat. Xu Fan, Daoming Chen, Chen Li…
- Tear duct busting melodrama of a young mother forced to make a horrifying decision in the wake of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake.
Maintaining…
Age of Reason, The (With Love... from the Age of Reason) (2010)
- Dir. Yann Samuell
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Marton Csokas, Michel Duchaussoy
- A frazzled career woman at breaking point reconnects with her childhood in this soul–searching romantic comedy.
More melodramatic, and less…
Angele and Tony (2010)
- Dir. Alix Delaporte
Feat. Clotilde Hesme, Gregory Gadebois, Evelyne Didi
- This quality, character–driven courtship between a prostitute with a past and a plainspoken fisherman successfully plays down obvious emotion…
Angels of Evil (2010)
- Dir. Michele Placido
Feat. Kim Rossi Stuart, Filippo Timi, Valeria Solarino…
- Taking a leaf from MESRINE's rap sheet, Italy simultaneously glorifies and moralises the story of its own criminal rock star, Renato…
Another World (Un altro Mondo) (2010)
- Dir. Silvio Muccino
Feat. Silvio Muccino, Isabella Ragonese, Michael Rainey Jr…
- Glossy dramedy in which a wealthy slacker who after the death of his father finds himself the legal guardian of a half–brother he never new…
Ao: The Last Neanderthal (Ao: The Last Hunter) (2010)
- Dir. Jacques Malaterre
Feat. Simon Paul Sutton, Aruna Shields
- Grounded in a semblance of reality and anthropology, this dramatic reimagining of the lives of Neanderthals speculates on the behaviors of homo…
Attenberg (2010)
- Dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari
Feat. Ariane Labed, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou…
- Highly original Greek oddity following the surreal antics of two young women who take life inspiration from the wildlife documentaries of David…
Bangkok Knockout (BKO) (2010)
- Dir. Panna Rittikrai
Feat. Chatchapol Kulsiriwoottichai, Sarawoot Kumsorn, Sorapong Chatree
- Ordinary production values and mediocre performances are beside the point in this off–the–wall Thai martial arts, centred on a motley…
Basilicata: Coast to Coast (2010)
- Dir. Rocco Papaleo
Feat. Alessandro Gassman, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Paolo Briguglia
- Energetic musical about a band and a music journalist who decide to cross the region of Basilicata by foot to attend a music festival.
Beautiful Lies (2010)
- Dir. Pierre Salvadori
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Nathalie Baye, Sami Bouajila
- Sweet and scenic Audrey Tautou confection, about a mother and daughter competing for the same secret admirer.
Beck (TV Series) (2010-2016)
- Feat. Peter Haber, Mikael Persbrandt, Kristofer Hivju
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Series 5 & 6 are not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of…
Bedevilled (2010)
- Dir. Chul-soo Jang
Feat. Yeong-hie Seo, Seong-won Ji
- Nasty, though serious–minded Korean horror about a city dweller who, upon returning to the remote island of her youth, discovers her childhood…
Beyond (2010)
- Dir. Pernilla August
Feat. Noomi Rapace, Ville Virtanen, Outi Maenpaa…
- Bruising family drama of a young woman's childhood (played by the Millennium Trilogy's Noomi Rapace) in a family torn apart by alcoholism and…
Big Picture, The (2010)
- Dir. Eric Lartigau
Feat. Romain Duris, Marina Fois, Niels Arestrup…
- Romain Duris plays a well–off, happily married lawyer whose life is turned upside down with the discovery that his wife is having an affair…
Big Tits Zombie (The Big Tits Dragon) (2010)
- Dir. Takao Nakano
Feat. Saori Andô, Sola Aoi
- Big, dumb fun born from Japan's recent spate of outrageous splatter comedies, centred on three air–headed strippers who unwittingly unleash an…
Biutiful (2010)
- Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Feat. Javier Bardem, Maricel Álvarez
- Proffering a seldom–seen, distinctly un–beautiful view of the city of Barcelona, a dishevelled Javier Bardem ambles its streets as…
Black Heaven (L'autre monde) (2010)
- Dir. Gilles Marchand
Feat. Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louise Bourgoin, Melvil Poupaud
- An innocent young man becomes entangled with a suicidal beauty and is lured into a "Black Hole" – an eerie cyberworld of avatars with deadly…
Blades of Blood (2010)
- Dir. Jun-ik Lee
Feat. Seong-hyeon Baek, Seung-Won Cha
- The dir. of THE KING AND THE CLOWN returns to the Chosun era with an energetic tale of working class uprising in the shadow of Japanese invasion. A…
Blood Fight: Bang Rajan 2 (2010)
- Dir. Tanit Jitnukul
- Though not quite on the scale of the battle–heavy original, this fiery sequel nonetheless charges forth with another succession of brutal,…
Borgen - Complete Series Boxset (TV Series) (2010-2013)
- Feat. Sidse Babett Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Pilou Asbæk
- Complete series boxset of the outstanding Danish political drama, in which an idealistic prime minister's rise to power brings with it a web of…
Borgen - Series 1 (TV Series) (2010)
- Feat. Sidse Babett Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Pilou Asbæk
- Bafta–winning Danish political drama in which an idealistic prime minister's rise to power brings with it a web of consequences, sacrifices and…
Bruce Lee My Brother (2010)
- Dir. Manfred Wong, Yip Wai-Man
Feat. Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Aarif Rahman, Christy Chung
- A rambunctious, rose–tinted chronicle of Bruce Lee’s child and teenhood before departing for the USA to cement his screen legend.
Doubling…
Caged (Captifs) (2010)
- Dir. Yann Gozlan
Feat. Zoé Félix, Eric Savin, Arié Elmaleh
- Standard–issue captivity horror revolves around a humanitarian aid worker who is kidnapped by a group of masked assailants while in Eastern…
Carlos (Carlos the Jackal) (2010)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Édgar Ramírez, Nora von Waldstätten, Alexander Scheer
- An explosive, globe–trotting biopic of Venezuelan terrorist and fugitive Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – aka Carlos the Jackal – whose exploits…
Certified Copy (2010)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Feat. Juliette Binoche, William Shimell
- Juliette Binoche steals the company of an erudite author for an afternoon of conversation and consternation in this breezy, yet cerebral stroll…
Chicas (2010)
- Dir. Yasmina Reza
Feat. Carmen Maura, Emmanuelle Seigner, Andre Dussollier
- Carmen Maura plays a gracefully aging widower who finds love in the twilight of her life, only for her new companion to be met with cold disapproval…
Chico & Rita (Chico and Rita) (2010)
- Dir. Tono Errando, Javier Mariscal, Fernando Trueba
- A date move with a difference, this sensuous animated tale for adults traces the love affair of a big–dreaming piano player and a gifted singer…
City Under Siege (2010)
- Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Aaron Kwok, Colin Chou, Wu Jing…
- One–of–a–kind Hong Kong mash–up has a group of criminals gaining super powers after being infected with a biological weapon,…
Cold Fish (2010)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Denden , Asuka Kurosawa
- Japanese 'enfant terrible' Sion Sono's violent (and typically lengthy) tale of a quiet owner of a tropical fish shop whose life and family are taken…
Copacabana (2010)
- Dir. Marc Fitoussi
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Aure Atika, Lolita Chammah
- Free–spirited and perpetually unemployed Isabelle Huppert must get with the program after learning her newly engaged daughter (played by her…
Dark Love (L'amore buio) (2010)
- Dir. Antonio Capuano
Feat. Luisa Ranieri, Irene de Angelis, Gabriele Agrio
- Drama set in contemporary Naples in the aftermath of a brutal rape of a young woman by three teenage boys. Follows the experiences of both survivor…
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Andy Lau, Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Carina Lau…
- Historical–whodunit, breathlessly paced, with Andy Lau as the dissident detective racing to hunt down a team of mysterious assassins attempting…
Door, The (2010)
- Dir. Anno Saul
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Jessica Schwarz, Heike Makatsch…
- Ethereal time–travel drama with Mikkelsen as a grieving father who discovers a tunnel that leads him back to the day his daughter died and a…
Draquila - Italy Trembles (2010)
- Dir. Sabina Guzzanti
- Sabina Guzzanti returns once more to do battle with Silvio Berlusconi in this incendiary doc that examines his administration's handling of the…
Easy Money (Snabba Cash) (2010)
- Dir. Daniel Espinosa
Feat. Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic…
- High–flying Swedish thriller centres on a Stockholm business student who moonlights as a drug runner in order to maintain the illusion of…
El Narco (2010)
- Dir. Luis Estrada
Feat. Damian Alcazar, Joaquin Cosio, Ernesto Gomez Cruz…
- Intense crime drama that offers a hellish version of Mexico and the drug war seen through the eyes of a man returning to his home country after…
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (Elite Squad 2) (2010)
- Dir. José Padilha
Feat. Wagner Moura, Andre Ramiro
- This riveting sequel to dir. Padilha's blockbuster policier features a more politically engaged storyline, with plenty of new angles on the…
Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, The (Adèle Blanc-Sec) (2010)
- Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Louise Bourgoin, Mathieu Amalric, Gilles Lellouche…
- Luc Besson helms this outlandish female–scented romp, centred on the tomb raiding escapades of a writer (a fetching Louise Bourgoin) whose…
Fire Of Conscience (For Lung) (2010)
- Dir. Dante Lam
Feat. Leon Lai, Richie Ren, Baoqiang Wang
- It’s all guns blazing in this bang bang throwback to the glory days of Hong Kong cinema, about a violent detective and a sly inspector’s efforts…
First Assignment, The (2010)
- Dir. Giorgia Cecere
Feat. Isabella Ragonese, Francesco Chiarello, Alberto Boll
- A young teacher who posted to a provincial town struggles to connect with the local children and pines for her aristocratic boyfriend.
First Beautiful Thing, The (2010)
- Dir. Paolo Virzi
Feat. Valerio Mastandrea, Micaela Ramazzotti, Stefania Sandrelli
- Winsome melodrama with a misanthropic professor returning to his home town to assist his dying mother. Delicately performed but perhaps overly…
Gainsbourg (2010)
- Dir. Joann Sfar
Feat. Eric Elmosnino, Lucy Gordon, Sara Forestier…
- Freewheeling biographical account of singer/composer/actor Serge Gainsbourg, an enduring iconic figure of French popular culture.
Serves the…
Gallants (2010)
- Dir. Chi-kin Kwok, Clement Sze-Kit Cheng
Feat. Siu-Lung Leung, Kuan Tai Chen
- An exuberant homage to the Shaw Brothers films of yesteryear, this kung–fu comedy delights as an old–school actioner, replete with…
Gantz (2010)
- Dir. Shinsuke Sato
Feat. Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Kazunari Ninomiya
- Part one of a riveting, action–packed remake of the ultra–violent anime series, in which a group of deceased individuals must engage in a…
Gorbaciof (2010)
- Dir. Stefano Incerti
Feat. Toni Servillo, Yang Mi
- Italian drama about a shy prison accountant with a passion for poker who turns to crime when the father of his Chinese girlfriend cannot pay off a…
Happy Family (2010)
- Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Fabrizzio Bentivoglio, Margherita Buy, Valeria Bilello…
- Wafer thin meta–comedy with a struggling author writing himself into the tale of two disparate families who come together when their teenagers…
Happy, Happy (2010)
- Dir. Anne Sewitsky
Feat. Agnes Kittelsen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Joachim Rafaelsen…
- Sharp comedy with a woman trapped in a loveless marriage finding her life taking an exciting turn for the better when an exciting new couple move in…
Haunters (2010)
- Dir. Min-suk Kim
- Two brooding pretty boys with unexplained superpowers battle it out in what is a familiar, if distinctly Korean spin on the anarchic superhero…
Heartbeats (2010)
- Dir. Xavier Dolan
Feat. Xavier Dolan, Niels Schneider, Monia Chokri
- A quick turnaround for precocious French Canadian dir. Xavier Dolan; his sophomore feature an equally painful and amusing bifurcated romance, in…
Heartbreaker (L'arnacoeur) (2010)
- Dir. Pascal Chaumeil
Feat. Romain Duris, Vanessa Paradis
- Romain Duris exploits his handsome charms as a professional heartbreaker hired to ruin relationships – that is, until he strikes upon a woman…
Henry The 4th (Henri 4, Henry of Navarre) (2010)
- Dir. Jo Baier
Feat. Julien Boisselier, Joachim Krol
- Henry IV (of France) is the subject of this grand and involving German–produced epic, originally conceived as a mini–series framed by the…
House by the Medlar Tree, The (2010)
- Dir. Pasquale Scimeca
Feat. Giusepe Firullo, Antonio Curcia, Omar Noto
- Striking drama follows a family of fishermen struggling for survival in the face of harsh economic realities. Drawing from the same novel that…
Housemaid, The (2010)
- Dir. Sang-soo Im
Feat. Do-yeon Jeon, Jung-Jae Lee, Seo Woo
- A sleek, sexual thriller of manipulation and revenge, centred on the consequences of a torrid affair between a wealthy industrialist and his newly…
How I Ended This Summer (2010)
- Dir. Aleksey Popogrebskiy
Feat. Grigoriy Dobrygin, Sergey Puskepalis
- Two Russian meteorologists isolated at polar station on the Arctic fringes put each other in jeopardy in this tense, slow–burn adventure.
An…
Human Resources Manager, The (2010)
- Dir. Eran Riklis
Feat. Mark Ivanir
- An absurdist odyssey from the director of LEMON TREE, about an Israeli bakery manager who must accompany the body of one of his employees back to…
Hunter, The (Shekarchi) (2010)
- Dir. Rafi Pitts
Feat. Rafi Pitts
- Spare, lyrical drama with a low–paid security guard on the run from authorities after gunning down two police officers. Unfolding against the…
I Saw the Devil (2010)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik Choi
- Terrifying revenge thriller following a man on a hunt for the serial killer who murdered his pregnant wife. Exceedingly brutal, this makes for a…
Illusionist, The (2010)
- Dir. Sylvain Chomet
- Sylvain Chomet's long awaitied follow–up to THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE is another exquisite animation, this time based on an unfilmed script by…
In a Better World (2010)
- Dir. Susanne Bier
Feat. Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen
- This Oscar–winner for Best Foreign Language Film 2011 is another searing melodrama from celebrated Danish auteur Susanne Bier in which two…
Incendies (2010)
- Dir. Denis Villeneuve
Feat. Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette…
- Twin siblings, against their better judgment, dig deeper into the backstory of their recently deceased mother in this powerful French Canadian…
Ip Man 2 (2010)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Donnie Yen, Lynn Hung, Simon Yam…
- The kick–ass legend of Ip Man continues with the wushu grandmaster immigrating to Hong Kong to school other Kung Fu practitioners in the art of…
Ip Man: The Legend is Born (2010)
- Dir. Herman Yau
Feat. To Yue Hong, Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen…
- Worthy prequel to the popular IP MAN series centres on our hero's early life as he studies the martial art Wing Chun. Unpretentious film–making…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2010 (2010)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 11 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2010' spread over 5 discs.
Films…
Jo's Boy (2010)
- Dir. Philippe Guillard
Feat. Gerard Lanvin, Olivier Marchal, Karina Lombard
- Very undemanding French fare set amongst a family of rugby legends whose legacy is under threat by their particularly unsporty progeny.
Julia's Eyes (2010)
- Dir. Guillem Morales
Feat. Belen Rueda, Lluís Homar, Pablo Derqui…
- Produced by Guillermo Del Toro this atmospheric chiller with a woman who is slowly losing her sight trying to investigate the mysterious death of…
Kidnapped (Secuestrados) (2010)
- Dir. Miguel Ángel Vivas
- Brutally authentic Spanish horror in which three hooded criminals break into a family home in a gated community, holding the others hostage whilst…
King of Devil's Island (2010)
- Dir. Marius Holst
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Kristoffer Joner, Benjamin Helstad…
- The boys of an early 20th century reform school revolt against an abusive regime in this stirring, snow–swept Norwegian drama. Featuring music…
Kiss Me Again (Baciami ancora) (2010)
- Dir. Gabriel Muccino
Feat. Stefano Accorsi, Vittoria Puccini, Pierfrancesco Favino…
- The lives of young Italians struggling with issues of marriage, parenthood, and relationships are revisited in this pleasant sequel to THE LAST KISS.…
Kites (2010)
- Dir. Anurag Basu
Feat. Hrithik Roshan, Bárbara Mori
- Overheated even by Bollywood standards, this outlandish Las Vegas–set border romp pits a lovelorn hunk (Roshan) against police, bounty hunters,…
Klown (2010)
- Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Frank Hvam, Casper Christensen, Marcuz Jess Petersen
- Danish comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen play debauched versions of themselves on a weekend canoe trip away with their long–suffering…
La Nostra Vita (Our Life) (2010)
- Dir. Daniele Luchetti
Feat. Elio Germano, Raoul Bova, Luca Zingaretti…
- A construction worker's discovery of an illegal immigrant's body on site sets off a chain of events that radically alters his own life. An absorbing…
Last Circus, The (2010)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Carlos Areces, Antonio de la Torre, Carolina Bang
- Clown rivalries collide in this violent, OTT genre riot from Spanish trash auteur, Alex de la Iglesia, set at both ends of Franco's dictatorship…
Le Quattro Volte (2010)
- Dir. Michelangelo Frammartino
Feat. Giuseppe Fuda
- This mesmerizing blend of wordless narrative fiction and spontaneous nature documentary – about the 'cycle of life' in a rugged valley in Italy’s…
Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
- Dir. Andrew Lau
Feat. Donnie Yen, Shu Qi, Anthony Wong…
- Belated sequel to Bruce Lee's FIST OF FURY (remade with Jet Li as FIST OF LEGEND) picks up well after the Dojo–busting triumphs of those films,…
Let the Bullets Fly (2010)
- Dir. Wen Jiang
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Ge You, Wen Jiang…
- Cocksure 'noodle' western – best described as a Chinese variation on Kurosawa's YOJIMBO – pits a notorious bandit against the mob boss of…
Little Big Soldier (2010)
- Dir. Sheng Ding
Feat. Jackie Chan, Lee-Hom Wang
- Charismatic anti–war comedy stars Jackie Chan as a lowly foot soldier who strikes it lucky when he captures a wanted enemy General (Wang).…
Little White Lies (Les petits mouchoirs) (2010)
- Dir. Guillaume Canet
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Marion Cotillard, Benoit Magimel…
- Airy ensemble from the dir. of TELL NO ONE about a group of French sophisticates whose annual seaside reunion is disturbed when one of them is badly…
Longlasting Youth (TV Mini-series) (Le cose che restano) (2010)
- Dir. Gianluca Maria Tavarelli
Feat. Lorenzo Balducci, Daniela Giordano
- A four–part mini–series about a Roman family who take separate paths after the death of their youngest son.
Loose Cannons (2010)
- Dir. Ferzan Ozpetek
Feat. Riccardo Scamarcio
- An cheerfully overstuffed family comedy of a gay young man who attempts to come out to his ultra traditionalist parents in the south of Italy.
Lope (The Outlaw) (2010)
- Dir. Andrucha Waddington
Feat. Alberto Ammann, Leonor Watling, Pilar López de Ayala
- Splendid biopic of Lope de Vega, the Spanish playwright who dominated Spain's early Golden Age of theare.
Lost Kisses (I baci mai dati) (2010)
- Dir. Roberta Torre
Feat. Carla Marchese, Donatella Finocchiaro
- A 13–year–old girl in the deprived outskirts of a sprawling Sicilian city becomes a local celebrity to her needy community when word…
Love Crime (2010)
- Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Ludivine Sagnier, Olivier Rabourdin
- Kristin Scott–Thomas sinks her teeth into the bitchiest role of her career as a ruthless, high–flying executive whose attempts at…
Love Like Poison (2010)
- Dir. Katell Quillévéré
Feat. Clara Augarde, Michel Galabru, Stefano Cassetti…
- A potent variation on an oft–told theme, this carefully observed drama considers the fraught adolescence of a 14–year–old girl torn…
Mammuth (2010)
- Dir. Gustave Kervern, Benoit Delepine
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Yolande Moreau, Isabelle Adjani…
- Slyly subversive comic tale with Gerard Depardieu in fine fettle as a retiree battling to secure his state pension.
Man From Nowhere, The (Ajeossi) (2010)
- Dir. Jeong-beom Lee
Feat. Won Bin, Sae-ron Kim
- Korean action movie following a former special agent who is living a quiet life as a pawnshop owner after his wife dies in a tragic accident, when a…
Marriage and Other Disasters (Weddings and Other Disasters) (2010)
- Dir. Nina Di Majo
Feat. Fabio Volo, Margherita Buy, Luciana Littizzetto…
- Likeable rom–com with romantically disillusioned woman finds herself organising her sister's wedding. Cue romantic mismatching and shenanigans.
Martino's Summer (L'estate di Martino) (2010)
- Dir. Massimo Natale
Feat. Treat Williams
- Italian drama set in the summer of 1980 and following the adventures of a 15 year old boy, who has a romance with a girl from the North, and learns…
Monga: Gangs of Taipei (Báng-kah) (2010)
- Dir. Doze Niu
Feat. Ching-Tien Juan, Mark Chao, Ju-Lung Ma
- Pungent youth drama set in 1980s Taiwan, after the end of military dictatorship, concerns the intertwined fate of five troubled friends.
Mozart's Sister (2010)
- Dir. Rene Feret
Feat. Marie Feret, Marc Barbe, David Moreau…
- Exuberant romp through pre–revolutionary France following the life of Mozart's talented older sister who was soon sidelined as her family's…
Mutant Girls Squad (2010)
- Dir. Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tak Sakaguchi
Feat. Yumi Sugimoto, Tak Sakaguchi
- Japan's outlandish splatter–comedy phase reaches its logical end point with this three–chapter collaboration between the most notorious…
My Afternoons With Margueritte (2010)
- Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus
- Gerard Depardieu plays an illiterate man who forges an unlikely friendship with a elderly writer in this gentle new film from the dir. of…
My Name is Khan (2010)
- Dir. Karan Johar
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Kajol , Christopher B. Duncan
- Well–meaning plea for racial tolerance with an Aspergers–afflicted Muslim detained in the U.S. as a terrorist and undertaking a journey…
Mysteries of Lisbon (Mistérios de Lisboa) (2010)
- Dir. Raul Ruiz
Feat. Adriano Luz, Clotilde Hesme, Maria Joao Bastos…
- Sprawling, utterly beguiling tribute to the power of stories set in 19th century Lisbon where an orphan boy discovers the truth about his birth and…
Names of Love, The (2010)
- Dir. Michel Leclerc
Feat. Jacques Gamblin, Sara Forestier, Zinedine Soualem…
- Witty cocktail of sex and politics about an extroverted left–wing activist who sleeps with her political opponents to convert them to her cause.
Norwegian Wood (2010)
- Dir. Tran Anh Hung
Feat. Rinko Kikuchi, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Kiko Mizuhara
- Yearning, visually rapturous adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s widely read novel, about a devoted college student in the 60s whose relationships are…
Nostalgia for the Light (2010)
- Dir. Patricio Guzmán
- Famed documentarian Patricio Guzmán directs this mesmerizing journey into Chile’s recent and faraway past through the annals of astronomy,…
Nothing to Declare (2010)
- Dir. Dany Boon
Feat. Dany Boon, Benoit Poelvoorde, Karin Viard…
- Actor–director Dany Boon follows up his hit regional comedy WELCOME TO THE STICKS with another lite French farce founded in stubborn parochial…
Of Gods and Men (2010)
- Dir. Xavier Beauvois
Feat. Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin
- Residing peacefully in a North African monastery, eight French Christian monks must confront the threat of an Islamic fundamentalist group in this…
On Tour (Tournee) (2010)
- Dir. Mathieu Amalric
Feat. Miranda Colclasure, Mathieu Amalric
- A consistently funny and inventive comedy from actor–director Mathieu Amalric, here playing a washed up TV producer who leads a troupe of…
Once a Gangster (2010)
- Dir. Felix Chong
Feat. Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Alex Fong
- Nimble action–comedy with two jaded gangsters urged by their elders to fight for the position of Dragon Head of the Hong Kong Underworld.…
Outrage (2010)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Renji Ishibashi, Ryo Kase
- Aging Japanese hard–man Takeshi Kitano returns to the turf of his international film celebrity – the minimalist Yakuza movie – in…
Outside the Law (2010)
- Dir. Rachid Bouchareb
Feat. Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem
- Dir. Bouchareb (DAYS OF GLORY) re–frames the revolutionary tactics of Algerian nationalists against the French post–WWII as a…
Passion, The (2010)
- Dir. Carlo Mazzacurati
Feat. Silvio Orlando, Giuseppe Battiston, Kasia Smutniak…
- Routine comedy in which a film director reluctantly agrees to set up and direct the Good Friday celebrations in a small Tuscan town.
Passione (John Turturro's Passione) (2010)
- Dir. John Turturro
Feat. John Turturro, Max Casella, Lina Sastri
- Exuberant celebration of the musical roots and traditions of Naples, Italy, as well as its influence on the rest of the world.
Perfect Date, The (L'amour, c'est mieux à deux) (2010)
- Dir. Dominique Farrugia, Arnaud Lemort
Feat. Clovis Cornillac, Virginie Efira, Manu Payet
- A derivative French rom–com nonetheless delivered in good spirits, this focuses on the ingrained patterns of two male friends whose wildly…
Point Blank (2010)
- Dir. Fred Cavaye
Feat. Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gerard Lanvin…
- Literally breathless French thriller centred on the exploits of a nurse who becomes entangled with a wounded gunman on the run from the law. Higher…
Potiche (2010)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini…
- Bubbly satire has 60–something Catherine Deneuve transform from trophy wife to a strong–headed businesswoman after her chauvinist husband…
Princess of Montpensier, The (2010)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Mélanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Gaspard Ulliel
- French veteran Bertrand Tavernier tackles the period costume drama with a firm classical and intellectual grip, shifting effortlessly between the…
Question in Details (2010)
- Dir. Zsombor Dyga
Feat. Ferenc Elek, Roland Raba, Katya Tompos
- Dark romantic drama with two strangers having their blind date take an odd turn when the woman's brother turns up.
Raavan (2010)
- Dir. Mani Ratnam
Feat. Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan
- Bullish, jungle–set spectacular, based on the Indian legend of 'The Ramayan', is both a vanity project for glamour couple Abhishek Bachchan and…
Rare Exports - A Christmas Tale (2010)
- Dir. Jalmari Helander
Feat. Onni Tommita, Jorma Tommila
- A wicked brew of 80s adventure movie and twisted horror comedy, centred on an archaeological discovery which may prove to be the remains of the real…
Reign of Assassins (2010)
- Dir. Chao-Bin Su
Feat. Michelle Yeoh, Woo-sung Jung, Kelly Lin…
- Classy John Woo–produced swordplay, with Kelly Lin as a feared wuxia assassin who, seeking a new life, surgically alters her appearance (to…
Revenge (Shadow Boxing 2) (2010)
- Dir. Anton Megerdichev
Feat. Denis Nikiforov, Andrey Panin, Victor Lopez…
- Punchy crime thriller with a Russian boxer taking on a Mexican mafia boss after mortally injuring his son in the ring. Leave your brain parked in…
Revenge: A Love Story (2010)
- Dir. Ching-po Wong
- 'Hammer and tong' serial killer potboiler centres on a lowly store clerk who begins murdering policemen (and their pregnant wives) after his…
Rise and Fall (Jew Suss) (2010)
- Dir. Oskar Roehler
Feat. Tobias Moretti, Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu
- Wrenching true story about German actor Ferdinand Marian who, despite being married to a Jewish woman chose to play lead in the antisemitic…
Romantics Anonymous (2010)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Améris
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Isabelle Carré
- Two would–be lovers must overcome their timidness via a mutual passion for chocolate in this sweet–toothed romantic comedy.
Room in Rome (Habitación en Roma) (2010)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Elena Anaya, Natasha Yarovenko, Enrico Lo Verso…
- Erotic chronicle of a brief encounter between two women set almost entirely within the confines of a hotel room. More porno–profundity from…
Round Up, The (La Rafle) (2010)
- Dir. Rose Bosch
Feat. Jean Reno, Mélanie Laurent, Gad Elmaleh…
- A sensitive recreation of the tragic events and personal stories surrounding the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of 1942, where some 13,000 French Jews were…
Sarah's Key (2010)
- Dir. Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup…
- Kristen Scott Thomas plays an American journalist whose life and work becomes entwined with a young Jewish girl whose family was torn apart during…
School is Over (2010)
- Dir. Valerio Jalongo
Feat. Fulvio Forti, Valeria Golino, Vincenzo Amato
- Documentary–like account of a bored, and frequently stoned, teenager who comes to the attention of his science teacher, who believes she can…
Sebastian Bergman (TV Series) (Den fördömde) (2010)
- Feat. Rolf Lassgard
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Simple Simon (2010)
- Dir. Andreas Öhman
Feat. Bill Skarsgård, Martin Wallström
- Sensitive feel–good romantic–comedy of an Asperger's sufferer whose brother sets out to find him a new girlfriend. Eccentric Swedish…
Six Venice (Sei Venezia) (2010)
- Dir. Carlo Mazzacurati
- Documentary portrait of the city of Venice as told through the stories of six Venetian locals: a hotel cleaner, an archaeologist, a pensioner from…
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2010)
- Dir. Wayne Wang
Feat. Gianna Jun, Bingbing Li, Russell Wong…
- Wayne Wang (THE JOY LUCK CLUB) directs this unsubtle but sweeping multi–generational weepie, framed around the enduring bond between two women…
Solitude of Prime Numbers (2010)
- Dir. Saverio Costanzo
Feat. Alba Rohrwacher, Luca Marinelli, Martina Albano…
- Mournful tale of two misfits whose awkward life paths never quite cross. Spanning from childhood into their forties this melancholic mosaic is…
Sorelle Mai (2010)
- Dir. Marco Bellocchio
Feat. Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Elena Bellocchio
- A nostalgic "fantasy" documentary depicting six episodes of a family story in Bobbio filmed between 1999 and 2008 and featuring many members of the…
Space Battleship Yamato (2010)
- Dir. Takashi Yamazaki
Feat. Takuya Kimura, Meisa Kuroki
- Hulking sci–fi blockbuster sees the survivors of a radioactive Earth pin their hopes on a massive spaceship outfitted with all the…
Special Treatment (2010)
- Dir. Jeanne Labrune
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Bouli Lanners
- Playing a high class prostitute, Isabelle Huppert gets cosy with one her clients, a psychoanalyst, in this occasionally titillating, comically…
Troll Hunter (2010)
- Dir. André Øvredal
Feat. Otto Jespersen
- Three college kids who set out to make a documentary about illegal bear hunters encounter more than bargained for in this thrilling Norwegian…
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
- Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Feat. Thanapat Saisaymar
- Weerasethakul's most acclaimed and accessible film to date centres on a man dying of kidney failure, whose twilight hours are spent joyously with…
Vincent Wants to Sea (2010)
- Dir. Ralf Huettner
Feat. Florian David Fitz, Karoline Herfurth, Heino Ferch…
- Likeable though lightweight road comedy in which a Tourette's sufferer escapes from a clinic with two others (an obsessive and an anorexic) and…
Viva Riva (2010)
- Dir. Djo Munga
Feat. Patsha Bay, Manie Malone, Diplome Amekindra
- Torrid, violent thriller with a small–time hustler discovering a stockpile of gasoline during a fuel crisis, and struggling to stay alive long…
We Are the Night (Wir sind die Nacht) (2010)
- Dir. Dennis Gansel
Feat. Karoline Herfurth, Nina Hoss, Jennifer Ulrich
- A fraulein vampire flick of sleek, urbane sensibility, centred on an alpha–female vamp (Nina Hoss) who descends on Germany in search of a soul…
We Believed (Noi credevamo) (2010)
- Dir. Mario Martone
Feat. Luigi Lo Cascio
- Period drama set during the repressive Bourbon reign in Italy in 1828, where two aristocrats and a young peasant join Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy…
Welcome to the South (2010)
- Dir. Luca Miniero
Feat. Claudio Bisio, Aleesandro Siani, Angela Finocchiaro…
- Spirited remake of the French hit 'Welcome to the Sticks' has a hapless postal employee dispatched to the Mezzogiorno.
What More Do I Want (Come Undone) (2010)
- Dir. Silvio Soldini
Feat. Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino, Teresa Saponangelo…
- Adroitly helmed exploration of infidelity with the two lovers juggling their hectic schedules around their clandestine meetings. Nothing new here,…
Woman of My Dreams, The (La donna della mia vita) (2010)
- Dir. Luca Lucini
Feat. Alessandro Gassman, Luca Argentero
- Astute romantic comedy about the big and little lies people tell in their search for love, following the fallout of a friendship between two brothers…
Yellow Sea, The (2010)
- Dir. Hong-jin Na
Feat. Jung-woo Ha, Yoon-seok Kim
- High–tension Korean noir–style thriller from the director of THE WAILING about a down–on–his–luck Korean taxi driver…
1000 Euro Generation (2009)
- Dir. Massimo Venier
Feat. Alessandro Tiberi, Valentina Lodovini, Carolina Crescentini…
- Affable comedy about the life of a young underemployed physicist struggling with romantic entanglements and just managing to eke out a living in…
3 Idiots (2009)
- Dir. Rajkumar Hirani
Feat. Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Sharman Joshi
- Lively college romp is a fine vehicle for Indian superstar Aamir Khan, here playing one of three larrikin engineering students on campus, whose…
5150 Elm's Way (5150 Rue des Ormes) (2009)
- Dir. Éric Tessier
Feat. Marc-André Grondin, Normand D'Amour, Sonia Vachon…
- A man unwittingly places himself in the hands of a righteous, psychopathic chess player when he falls off his bike on a quiet suburban street and…
A Matter of Size (2009)
- Dir. Erez Tadmor, Sharon Maymon
Feat. Itzik Cohen, Dvir Benedek, Alon Dohan…
- Sweet comedy about four overweight men fed up with the pressure of losing weight who decide to take their girth where it's appreciated, into the…
A Million (2009)
- Dir. Min-Ho Cho
Feat. Hae-il Park, Min-Ah Shin, Min-Ki Lee
- Slavishly entertaining Reality TV spin–off pits eight Korean contestants against each other and the Australian Outback in a race for the…
About Elly (2009)
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti…
- Though something of a dress rehearsal for Farhadi's Oscar–winning A SEPARATION, this tense and absorbing account of a beach holiday tainted by…
Above the Street Below the Water (Over gaden under vandet) (2009)
- Dir. Charlotte Sieling
Feat. Sidse Babett Knudsen, Anders W. Berthelsen, Mohammed Al-Bakier
- Light ensemble drama set in Copenhagen with Sidse Babett Knudsen (BORGEN) leading a cast of Danes in their 40's whose relationship complications are…
Accident (Yi ngoi) (2009)
- Dir. Pou-Soi Cheang
Feat. Louis Koo, Richie Ren, Shui-Fan Fung
- A number of skillfully choreographed set–pieces are at the centre of this top–notch Hong Kong thriller, about a league of assassins who…
Adrift (À Deriva) (2009)
- Dir. Heitor Dhalia
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Camilla Belle, Laura Neiva
- Delicately captivating drama set in an ’80s Brazilian beach resort, with a young teenager discovering her father's infidelity as her own sexuality…
Afghan Star (2009)
- Dir. Havana Marking
- Islamic fundamentalism and pop music commericalism make uneasy bedfellows in this vital, eye–opening documentary that follows the fortunes of…
Albert Schweitzer (2009)
- Dir. Gavin Millar
Feat. Jeroen Krabbe, Barbara Hershey, Judith Godreche
- Admirable biopic of German medical missionary and philosopher Schweitzer (regarded for his text on the "Reverence for Life"), whose deed treating…
All's Well, End's Well (Ga Yau Hei Si 2009 ) (2009)
- Dir. Vincent Tak-Chiu
Feat. Sandra Ng, Raymond Wong Pak-Ming, Louis Koo
- Passable remake of the 1992 rom–com follows the a girl who, frustrated at the stubborn temperament of her older sister, employs a 'Casanova' to…
Amer (2009)
- An experimental journey inside the mind of a sociopathic woman. Isolated chapters cover the details of her bizarre surreal childhood and sexually…
Army of Crime, The (2009)
- Dir. Robert Guediguian
Feat. Simon Abkarian, Virginie Ledoyen
- Part of a recent wave of prestigious WWII resistence dramas, this one reconstructs events around a group of Paris–based resistance fighters,…
Baaria (2009)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Raoul Bova, Margareth Made, Francesco Scianna…
- Giuseppe Tornatore directs an autobiographical saga covering sixty years of turmoil through the eyes of three generations of a peasant family. Those…
Besouro (The Assailant) (2009)
- Dir. Joao Daniel Tikhomiroff
Feat. Ailton Carmo, Flavio Rocha, Jessica Barbosa
- Set against the backdrop of the Brazilian civil rights struggle Invigorating tale told at breakneck pace of a young man's rise to folk hero status…
Betrayal (2009)
- Dir. Hakon Gunderson
Feat. Lene Nystrøm, Götz Otto, Kåre Conradi
- Deceit and opportunism are the currencies traded in this passable wartime thriller, recommended for fans of MAX MANUS. Lene Nystrøm (of 90’s pop…
Bodyguards and Assassins (2009)
- Dir. Teddy Chen
Feat. Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Tony Leung (Kar-fai)…
- A hefty, star–studded take on turn of the century events in Hong Kong, in which the assassination of famous revolutionary figure Sun Yat Sen…
Broken Embraces (2009)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Blanca Portillo, Lluís Homar…
- Typically juicy Almodovar number again features the gorgeous Penelope Cruz, here playing a mistress cast in the lead role of a movie her millionaire…
Cell 211 (Celda 211) (2009)
- Dir. Daniel Monzon
Feat. Alberto Ammann, Luis Tosar, Vincente Romero…
- A substantial hit in its native Spain, this brutal thriller doubles as an intelligent critique of the Spanish penal system, with a young prison guard…
Cezanne Affair, The (2009)
- Dir. Sergio Rubini
Feat. Sergio Rubini, Riccardo Scamarcio, Valeria Golino…
- Sentimental comedy–drama with a son returning home to his dying father who's thwarted artistic ambitions cast a dark shaodw over his childhood.
Change of Plans (Le code a changé) (2009)
- Dir. Daniele Thompson
Feat. Dany Boon, Karin Viard, Emmanuelle Seigner…
- Stacked Gallic dramedy stars Karin Viard and Dany Boon as a swanky French couple who invite six equally wealthy Parisians to dinner – their evening…
City of Life and Death (2009)
- Dir. Chuan Lu
Feat. Ye Liu, Yuanyuan Gao, Hideo Nakaizumi
- This first serious depiction of the atrocities wrought on Chinese refugees and soldiers during the occupation of Nanking is a harrowing, expertly…
City of War (John Rabe) (2009)
- Dir. Florian Gallenberger
Feat. Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Bruhl, Steve Buscemi…
- Riveting dramatisation of an unlikely true story in which a Nazi industrialist conspires to save the lives of 200,000 Chinese during the infamous…
Coco (2009)
- Dir. Gad Elmaleh
Feat. Gad Elmaleh, Gerard Depardieu
- The hapless soul of many a French Farce, comedian Gad Elmaleh stars and directs in this feature–length adaptation of one of his popular…
Coco Avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel) (2009)
- Dir. Anne Fontaine
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola…
- Fittingly stylish and appealing biopic of legendary couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, tracing her early life from the rags of an orphaned childhood…
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (Coco & Igor) (2009)
- Dir. Jan Kounen
Feat. Anna Mouglalis, Mads Mikkelsen
- Fashion icon Coco Chanel and composer Igor Stravinsky share a passionate, illicit love affair in this lavish period romance, which more or less takes…
Concert, The (Le Concert) (2009)
- Dir. Radu Mihaileanu
Feat. Alexeï Guskov, Mélanie Laurent, Dmitry Nazarov…
- A band of out–of–work Moscow musicians travels to Paris posing as the celebrated Bolshoi Orchestra in this lavish, shamelessly popular…
Dead Snow (Død Snø) (2009)
- Dir. Tommy Wirkola
Feat. Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Charlotte Frogner
- Nordic splatter comedy pitches a group of fresh–faced medical students against a hoard of re–animated Nazis in the snowy highlands.…
Diamond 13 (2009)
- Dir. Gilles Behat
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Asia Argento, Olivier Marchal
- Downbeat and convoluted thriller with a dying cop roping in his loyal partner in a scheme to steal a shipment of cocaine from a drug…
District 13: Ultimatum (2009)
- Dir. Patrick Alessandrin
Feat. Cyril Raffaelli, David Belle
- Cash–in sequel to the Luc Besson–produced sci–fi thriller whose action was shaped creatively around Parkour, an athletic pursuit…
Dogtooth (Kynodontas) (2009)
- Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Feat. Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis…
- An astringent, blackly comic tale of a modern Greek family whose adult children have been imprisoned in their home since birth.
Something of a…
Double Hour, The (La Doppia Ora) (2009)
- Dir. Giuseppe Capotondi
Feat. Kseniya Rappoport, Filippo Timi, Antonia Truppo…
- A high–concept, twisty Euro–thriller plays out after a chambermaid and an ex–cop meet at a speed dating event.
As is par for the…
Eagle Hunter's Son, The (2009)
- Dir. René Bo Hansen
Feat. Bazarbai Matei, Mardan Matei
- Wistful Mongolian adventure follows a 12–year–old boy and his rite–of–passage between the lure of city life, and the…
East West East (2009)
- Dir. Gjergj Xhuvani
Feat. Ervin Bejleri, Helidon Fino, Gentiano Hazizi
- An amateur cycling team from Albania heads to France to take part in a tournament only to discover on the way that revolution has broken out back…
Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl (2009)
- Dir. Manoel de Oliveira
Feat. Ricardo Trepa, Leonor Silveira, Catarina Wallenstein
- Bewitching tale of a young man's obsessive love for his blonde–haired neighbour. Elegant and gently surreal adaptation of José Maria Eça de…
Eden is West (2009)
- Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Riccardo Scamarcio
- A pictorial offering from Costa–Gavras – usually at the helm of taut political thrillers – here directing a travelogue centered around…
Eden of the East (TV Series) (2009)
- Dir. Kenji Kamiyama
- A sprawling, suspenseful anime series in the wake of popular narrative arc serials (i.e. LOST, FLASH FORWARD), this centres on an amnesiac man who…
Empire of Silver (2009)
- Dir. Christina Yao
Feat. Aaron Kwok, Tielin Zhang, Lei Hao…
- A family banking empire begins to crumble when father and son come to grief over the country's transition from silver to paper money. Visually…
Farewell (2009)
- Dir. Christian Carion
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Emir Kusturica, Gary Lewis…
- This riveting Cold War yarn from the dir. of JOYEUX NOEL brings to light the little–known true story of a disillusioned KGB colonel (played by…
Father of My Children (2009)
- Dir. Mia Hansen-Love
Feat. Chiara Caselli, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Alice de Lencquesaing…
- A convincing dramatic study of grief in the family, centred on a workoholic movie producer who leaves behind a legacy of financial burden to his wife…
Fortapasc (Fort Apache) (2009)
- Dir. Marco Risi
Feat. Libero de Rienzo, Valentina Lodovini, Michele Riondino…
- Poignant account of the last days in the life of a young Italian journalist who's investigations into the Neapolitan Mafia resulted in his murder.
Founding of a Republic, The (Jian guo da ye) (2009)
- Dir. Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang
Feat. Guoqiang Tang, Guoli Zhang, Qing Xu…
- The People’s Republic of China rolls out the big guns for this 60th anniversary epic, chronicling in big, sweeping gestures, the uprising of Mao…
French Kissers, The (Les Beaux Gosses) (2009)
- Dir. Riad Sattouf
Feat. Vincent Lacoste, Anthony Sonigo, Alice Trémolière…
- Gallic hormonal comedy about two unkempt, sex–obsessed adolescents and their wavering exploits with the school's most popular girl.
Is quite…
From Beginning to End (Do Começo ao Fim) (2009)
- Dir. Aluizio Abranches
Feat. João Gabriel Vasconcellos, Rafael Cardoso, Júlia Lemmertz
- Controversial Brazilian ode to incestuous half–brothers that's evocatively shot and titillatingly steamy but strangely coy on the consequences.
Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, The (2009)
- Dir. Daniel Alfredson
Feat. Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre
- Satisfying conclusion to the trilogy features some lengthy courtroom scenes as Salander and Nyqvist fight to clear her name and unravel the…
Girl Who Played with Fire, The (2009)
- Dir. Daniel Alfredson
Feat. Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre
- Part two of Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium Trilogy' sees the return of touch–as–nails Lisbeth Salander, who must clear her name of murder…
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The (2009)
- Dir. Niels Arden Oplev
Feat. Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre
- One of the highest–grossing foreign language hits at the NZ box office, this riveting, full–bodied Swedish thriller follows an escalating…
Giulia Doesn't Go Out at Night (2009)
- Dir. Giuseppe Piccioni
Feat. Valerio Mastandrea, Valeria Golino, Sonia Bergamasco
- Understated romantic drama with an enigmatic Golina as the titular character, a swimming instructor with a dark secret who embarks on a romance with…
Goemon (2009)
- Dir. Kazuaki Kiriya
Feat. Yosuke Eguchi, Takao Osawa
- The dir. of CASSHERN helms this visionary medieval spectacle, based on a 16th century bandit whose Robin hood–style exploits are steeped in…
Haeundae (Tidal Wave) (2009)
- Dir. Je-gyun Yun
Feat. Kyung-gu Sol, Ji-won Ha
- Corny, king–sized Korean blockbuster of a mega–tsunami bound for Busan, and the marine geologist in a race against time to save the…
Hedgehog, The (Le hérisson) (2009)
- Dir. Mona Achache
Feat. Josiane Balasko, Togo Igawa, Garance Le Guillermic…
- Charming, melancholy comedy in which a precocious, jaded 11–year–old from a well–to–do family decides to commit suicide on…
Human Zoo (2009)
- Dir. Rie Rasmussen
Feat. Rie Rasmussen, Hiam Abbass
- Gritty, naval–gazing immigrant story of a Serbian refugee (writer/dir. Rasmussen) who escapes the ethnic violence of her worn–torn…
I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) (2009)
- Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Feat. Tilda Swinton, Edoardo Gabbriellini
- Tilda Swinton stars as the Russian–born matriarch of a wealthy Milanese family in this fabulously opulent Italian drama, centred around her…
I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mère) (2009)
- Dir. Xavier Dolan
Feat. Xavier Dolan, Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément…
- An angst ridden teen grapples with growing up gay and his neurotic, overbearing mother in this feisty first feature from young French Canadian…
I, Don Giovanni (2009)
- Dir. Carlos Saura
Feat. Lorenzo Balducci, Lino Guanciale, Emilia Verginelli…
- Veteran Spanish director Carlos Saura conducts this lavish, darkly–tinged story behind the making of Mozart's opera masterpiece, 'Don Giovanni'.
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2009 (2009)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 11 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2009' spread over 6 discs.
Films…
Ju-On: White Ghost / Jun-On: Black Ghost (2009)
- Dir. Ryuta Miyake
Feat. Hiroki Suzuki, Natsuki Kasa, Ichirota Miyakawa
- Two inclusions to the Japanese supernatural horror JU–ON series, released simultaneously. Both are a series of chronologically inconsistent…
Kamui (2009)
- Dir. Yoichi Sai
Feat. Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Koyuki
- High adventure and spectacular fight sequences energize this otherwise inadequate period piece about fugitive ninjas in Japan.
Killing, The - Series 2 (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2009)
- Feat. Sofie Grabol, Søren Malling
- Further episodes from the ripping, immensely popular Danish homicide serial weaves a secondary plot of intrigue, corruption, and bureaucracy…
Kung Fu Chefs (Gong fu chu shen) (2009)
- Dir. Wing Kin Yip
Feat. Sammo Hung, Vanness Wu, Cherrie Ying
- This gastronomic spin on the martial arts movie lacks the invention or absurdist comedy of GOD OF COOKERY, however still delivers plenty of chopsocky…
Leaving (Partir) (2009)
- Dir. Catherine Corsini
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi Lopez, Yvan Attal
- Doctor's wife and mother–of–two Kristin Scott Thomas falls unrelentingly for a blue–collar ex–con in this steamy, captivating…
Lebanon (2009)
- Dir. Samuel Maoz
Feat. Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen…
- Intense, multi–faceted battle thriller set during the height of the Israeli–Lebanon conflict in 1982 in which four young soldiers sent by…
Letters to Father Jacob (2009)
- Dir. Klaus Haro
Feat. Kaarina Hazard, Jukka Keinonen, Heikki Nousiainen…
- Gently engrossing character study with a pardoned convict finding employment helping a blind pastor answer letters from his troubled parishioners.
Life Coach, The (Le Coach) (2009)
- Dir. Olivier Doran
Feat. Jean-Paul Rouve, Richard Berry, Annie Marivin…
- Affable comedy with a business coach, up to his eyeballs in debt, taking on a most difficult assignment help an irredeemable miquetoast close an…
Look For A Star (Yau lung hei fung) (2009)
- Dir. Wai-keung Lau
Feat. Shu Qi, Andy Lau
- Andy Lau plays an eligible bachelor who can't seem to keep a wife in this captivating rom–com. Despite a convoluted third act, old romantics…
Lourdes (2009)
- Dir. Jessica Hausner
Feat. Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Elina Lowensohn
- A subdued, open–ended account of pilgrimage and the credibility of miracles, this measured drama stars the always–excellent Sylvie Testud…
Lulu and the Bank Robber (TV Mini-Series) (2009)
- Feat. Lene Maria Christensen, Lars Brygmann, Nicole Johansen
- An independent mother and small business owner is drawn into the dodging dealings of her habitual criminal husband in this pulpy Danish crime…
Mademoiselle Chambon (2009)
- Dir. Stéphane Brizé
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Kiberlain, Aure Atika
- Though familiar bourgeois territory for the French, this softly finessed chamber drama of a blue–collar mason (Lindon) who contemplates an…
Man Who Will Come, The (L'uomo che verrà) (2009)
- Dir. Giorgio Diritti
Feat. Maya Sansa, Alba Rohrwacher, Greta Zuccheri Montanari
- Moving Italian war drama told through the eyes of an eight–year–old mute, who witnesses the brutal struggle between Italian partisans and…
Many Kisses Later (Ex) (2009)
- Dir. Fausto Brizzi
Feat. Claudia Gerini, Flavio Insinna, Silvio Orlando
- Breezy rom–com –a smash hit in Italy– follows six couples from Chistmas to Valetine's Day and their various entanglements.…
Matter of Heart, A (Questione di cuore) (2009)
- Dir. Francesca Archibugi
Feat. Antonio Albanese, Kim Rossi Stuart, Micaela Ramazzotti…
- Two men recovering from heart attacks strike up an unlikely friendship in this enjoyably sentimental farce, with much of the humour derived from…
Me Too (Yo, Tambien) (2009)
- Dir. Antonio Naharro, Alvaro Pastor
Feat. Lola Dueñas, Isabel Garcia Lorca, Antonio Naharro
- Affecting tale of a bittersweet friendship between an office worker with Down syndrome and his restless, free–spirited colleague.
Me, Them & Lara (2009)
- Dir. Carlo Verdone
Feat. Carlo Verdone, Laura Chiatti, Anna Bonaiuto…
- Screwy comedy captures the messy familial predicaments a priest encounters upon his return from Africa, his father's new love, his brother's drug…
Merantau (2009)
- Dir. Gareth Evans
Feat. Iko Uwais
- Indonesia's riposte to ONG–BAK stars newcomer Iko Uwais as a young man from a Jakarta tribe whose rite of passage via the big city exposes him…
Message, The (2009)
- Dir. Kuo-fu Chen, Qunshu Gao
Feat. Bingbing Li, Xun Zhou, Zhiwen Wang…
- Sino–Japanese tensions are foregrounded in this enthralling cat and mouse thriller, set in a clifftop mansion during the height of World War…
Micmacs (2009)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Feat. Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Jean-Pierre Marielle…
- The dir. of AMELIE and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN stays true to form(ula) with his visual chutzpah lavished upon another idealised scenario that this time…
Milk of Sorrow, The (La Teta Asustada) (2009)
- Dir. Claudia Llosa
Feat. Magaly Solier, Susi Sanchez, Efrain Solis…
- Beguiling allegorical drama with a young woman afflicted with a rare disease passed down through the breast milk of a rape victim.
Mother (2009)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Hye-ja Kim, Won Bin, Ku Jin
- Cavalier Korean dir. Bong Joon–ho (THE HOST) contorts a regulation murder mystery, centred on a mother's campaign to clear her deadbeat son's…
Mulan (2009)
- Dir. Jingle Ma, Wei Dong
Feat. Zhao Wei, Jaycee Chan
- The legend of Mulan (previously tackled by Disney) is given the big screen treatment in this sweeping historical costume epic, a current specialty of…
Murderer (2009)
- Dir. Roy Chow
Feat. Aaron Kwok, Ning Chang, Tam Chun Yat
- Serial killer convention receives an enjoyable, shameless workout with this Hong Kong policier, centred on a police investigator framed for a series…
My Tehran for Sale (2009)
- Dir. Granaz Moussavi
Feat. Marzieh Vafamehr, Amir Chegini, Asha Mehrabi
- Marzieh is a young female actress living in Tehran. The authorities ban her theatre work and she is forced to lead a secret life in order to express…
No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009)
- Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Feat. Negar Shaghaghi, Ashkan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad
- Unprecedented pseudo–documentary exploring Iran’s forbidden underground music scene, starring Tehranian rockers Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan…
Ong-Bak 3 (2009)
- Dir. Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai
Feat. Tony Jaa
- Cliffhanger ending to the ONG–BAK legend sees Thai martial arts phenom Tony Jaa return to battle his arch nemesis (from Part II’s prequel…
OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009)
- Dir. Michel Hazanavicius
Feat. Jean Dujardin
- Bumbling intelligence officer and shameless chauvinist, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, returns for Brazilian adventures in this bright and breezy spy…
Over the Hill Band, The (Meisjes) (2009)
- Dir. Geoffrey Enthoven
Feat. Marilou Mermans, Jan Van Looveren
- A modest old age delight centred on recently widowed mother who resolves to kick start her middle–aged son's music career by recruiting the…
Overheard (Qie ting feng yun) (2009)
- Dir. Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Louis Koo, Daniel Wu
- The directors of INFERNAL AFFAIRS reel in their sleek, sprawling urbane sensibility, changing tack with this compact character study about three…
Plan B (2009)
- Dir. Marco Berger
Feat. Manuel Vignau, Lucas Ferraro, Mercedes Quinteros
- Languid drama where a man's efforts to sabotage his ex–girlfriends new relationship – with a half baked plan of seducing her boyfriend,…
Please Please Me! (Fais-moi plaisir!) (2009)
- Dir. Emmanuel Mouret
Feat. Emmanuel Mouret, Judith Godreche, Deborah Francois
- Boudoir laughs a–plenty in this sexy farce from the 'French Woody Allen' as a goofy inventor's date with the President's daughter descends into…
Police, Adjective (2009)
- Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu
Feat. Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Irina Saulescu…
- An ingenious, pared–back police procedural in the droll tradition of the Romanian New Wave that at once deconstructs the genre, and wittily…
Prisoners of War (TV Series) (Hatufim) (2009)
- Dir. Gideon Raff
Feat. Yoram Toledano, Ishai Golan, Adi Ezroni…
- The source material for HOMELAND, this Israeli series is a more serious–minded and nuanced drama than its American successor, dealing with the…
Prophet, A (Un Prophet) (2009)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif…
- Dir. Jacques Audiard betters the accomplished storytelling of THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED, situating an immersive world of cloistered gangsters and…
Puzzle (Rompecabezas) (2009)
- Dir. Natalia Smirnoff
Feat. María Onetto, Arturo Goetz, Gabriel Goity
- Low–key charmer with a bored housewife discovering her freakish aptitude for puzzles and partnering with a rich bachelor for an international…
Raging Phoenix (2009)
- Dir. Rashane Limtrakul
Feat. JeeJa Yanin
- The female star of CHOCOLATE returns with break dancing moves to complement her sick martial arts skills, in this over–the–top kickboxing…
Red Nights (2009)
- Dir. Julien Carbon, Laurent Courtiaud
Feat. Frédérique Bel, Carrie Ng
- This tantalizing far East giallo offers both gruesome kill sequences and flamboyant erotic style in its story of a sadistic patron of the arts (NAKED…
Ricky (2009)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Sergi Lopez, Alexandra Lamy, Mélusine Mayance
- Intriguing fusion of kitchen–sink drama and magical realism by the mercurial Ozon with a young baby afflicted by an alarming physiological…
Road, Movie (2009)
- Dir. Dev Benegal
Feat. Abhay Deol, Tannishtha Chatterjee
- A literal road movie inspired by the flickering image, this Indian travelogue follows a ragtag group across the country, whose mode of transport…
Robogeisha (2009)
- Dir. Noboru Iguchi
Feat. Aya Kiguchi
- Two sisters, recruited as assassins in a robotic geisha army, fight from the inside to take down the head of an evil corporation. More cartoonish,…
Sea Purple, The (2009)
- Dir. Donatella Maiorca
Feat. Valeria Solarino, Isabella Ragonese, Ennio Fantastichini
- Solid lesbian bodice–ripper centres on the eternal romance between two 19th century Sicilian women, destined to suffer for their forbidden…
Secret in Their Eyes, The (El Secreto de sus Ojos) (2009)
- Dir. Juan José Campanella
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Carla Quevedo
- Arresting, well–rounded Argentine crime drama sees a retired court employee become obsessed with a 25–year–old murder case that he…
Shinjuku Incident (San suk si gin) (2009)
- Dir. Derek Yee
Feat. Jackie Chan, Naoto Takenaka, Daniel Wu
- Jackie Chan turns serious for this gritty, nocturnal gangland drama centered around a Chinese immigrant who is unintentionally drawn into Tokyo’s…
Sicilian Girl, The (La siciliana ribelle) (2009)
- Dir. Marco Amenta
Feat. Veronica D'Agostino, Gerard Jugnot
- A vivid, level–headed account of Mafiaso intrigue, based around real events surrounding a young woman’s testimony in court against Sicilian…
Sister Smile (2009)
- Dir. Stijn Coninx
Feat. Cecile De France, Sandrine Blancke
- The poignant, still resonant true story of 60s popstar The Singing Nun, vividly played by actress Cécile de France.
Sniper, The (Sun cheung sau) (2009)
- Dir. Dante Lam
Feat. Edison Chen, Richie Ren, Xiaoming Huang…
- Macho, ADD shoot ‘em up follows an elite sniper unit from Hong Kong who, with the aid of a brash young rookie, must take down an…
Someone I Loved (2009)
- Dir. Zabou Breitman
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Marie-Josee Croze, Florence Loiret Caille…
- Nuanced romantic drama with Auteuil reflecting on his great lost love while attempting to console his jilted daughter–in–law.
Soul Kitchen (2009)
- Dir. Fatih Akin
Feat. Adam Bousdoukos, Pheline Roggan, Moritz Bleibtreu…
- Light but hearty food comedy from the dir. of THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, about a soulful Greek immigrant who sets about relaunching his failed restaurant…
Storm (2009)
- Dir. Hans-Christian Schmid
Feat. Kerry Fox, Anamaria Marinca, Stephen Dillane
- Accomplished international courtroom drama sees a determined prosecutor (Fox) risk life and limb in order to prove that the former commander of the…
Storm Warriors, The (Storm Riders II) (2009)
- Dir. Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Feat. Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng, Simon Yam
- The Pang brothers helm this flamboyant, effects–heavy sequel to the OTT Hong Kong hit, delivering a mixture of wushu and wizardry with…
Ten Winters (2009)
- Dir. Valerio Mieli
Feat. Isabella Ragonese, Michele Riondino
- Engaging portrait of a decidedly rocky relationship spanning ten years between two university students is well–made and unassuming, and free of…
Thin Match Man, The (L'uomo fiammifero) (2009)
- Dir. Marco Chiarini
Feat. Francesco Pannofino, Marco Leonzi, Gabriele Manfredi
- Modern fairy–tale about a house–bound boy determined to find the thin–match man, a figure his mother once created who lights the…
Thirst (Bakjwi) (2009)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Kim Ok-bin, Ha-kyun Shin
- A voracious vampire movie not afraid to explore the corrupting and liberating power of being undead, starring THE HOST’s burly Song Kang–ho…
Tracing Shadow (Zhui ying) (2009)
- Dir. Marco Mak, Francis Ng
Feat. Jaycee Chan, Hao Dang, Francis Ng
- This batty Ming Dynasty comedy is a worthy throwback to Hong Kong’s campy martial arts movies of the early 90s, with an extravagant blend of…
Treasure Hunter, The (2009)
- Dir. Yen-ping Chu
Feat. Jay Chou, Chiling Lin, Eric Tsang…
- Madcap fusion of Indiana Jones and martial arts mayhem, with Mandarin popstar Jay Chou leading the charge as a protector of relics on the hunt for a…
Turning Point (2009)
- Dir. Herman Yau
Feat. Michael Tse, Anthony Wong, Francis Ng…
- A triad gangster wrestles with conflicting loyalties after being selected by his boss to become a mole within the police force, then being recruited…
Un Village Francais (TV Series) (2009-2017)
- Feat. Robin Renucci, Audrey Fleurot
- Confronting the difficult subject of French collaboration with the Germans during WW2, this series details the lives of the people of a fictional…
Undertow (Contracorriente) (2009)
- Dir. Javier Fuentes-Leon
Feat. Cristian Mercado, Manolo Cardona
- A beguiling drama set in a remote seaside Peruvian village, where a fisherman mourns for his deceased lover and experiences his ghost lingering in…
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009)
- Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura, Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Feat. Yukie Nakama, Eri Otoguro
- Another enjoyable stock effort from the makers of TOKYO GORE POLICE et. al, this combines home–brewed splatter, ropey special effects, and…
Vengeance (2009)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Testud, Anthony Wong…
- French tough guy Johnny Hallyday returns to China to exact revenge on his family's killers in another high class shoot 'em up from Hong Kong's action…
Vincere (VIctory) (2009)
- Dir. Marco Bellocchio
Feat. Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi, Fausto Russo Alesi…
- Provocative portrait of Benito Mussolini's spurned first wife and their brief romance as Il Duce begins ascent to Italy's leadership. Stylistically…
Welcome (2009)
- Dir. Philippe Lioret
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Audrey Dana, Firat Ayverd
- An illegal Iraqi immigrant is befriended by a dispirited swim coach, who agrees to help smuggle the teenager into England by way swimming the English…
White Material (2009)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Lambert, Isaach de Bankole…
- Isabelle Huppert stars as a woman who refuses to abandon her plantation in Claire Denis' disquieting depiction of an African country on the verge of…
White Ribbon, The (Das weisse Band) (2009)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur…
- Michael Haneke’s intellectual rigour is paired with a mesmerising sociological drama in this award–winning exploration of the roots of…
Wind Journeys, The (2009)
- Dir. Ciro Guerra
- A Colombian accordion player makes the long trek to return his instrument – believed to be cursed by the devil – to a former mentor, in…
Wolf's Mouth, The (Mouth of the Wolf; La bocca del lupo) (2009)
- Dir. Pietro Marcello
- Impressive hybrid of documentary and actuality chronicles the unlikely romance between a macho ex–con and a transsexual former…
Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop, A (2009)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Honglei Sun, Shen-Yang Xiao, Ni Yan
- Dir. Zhang Yimou weaves a tale of adultery and revenge in 19th century China, based on the Coen brothers' classic neo–noir, BLOOD SIMPLE.
Woochi: Goblin Wizard (Jeon Woochi : The Taoist Wizard) (2009)
- Dir. Dong-hun Choi
Feat. Dong-won Kang, Yun-seok Kim, Su-jeong Lim…
- Mayhem is unleashed in contemporary Seoul when Taoist wizards do battle with time traveling goblins.
Yatterman (2009)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Shô Sakurai, Saki Fukuda, Kyoko Fukada
- Fantastical live–action anime serves kids and kidults alike with its tale of mild–mannered shop keepers who don jaunty costumes to fight…
[REC 2] (REC 2) (2009)
- Dir. Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza
Feat. Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza
- Sequel to the smash Spanish fright fest has a Special Ops team heading into the quarantined apartment at the same time three teenagers let their…
25 Carat (25 Kilates) (2008)
- Dir. Patxi Amezcua
Feat. Francesc Garrido, Aida Folch, Manuel Moron…
- Relentless thriller set in the Barcelona underworld where a loan enforcer and a car thief pair up for a particularly dangerous heist.…
35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums) (2008)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Nicole Dogue…
- A gorgeous meditation on child–parental devotion, centred on a middle–aged widower (Descas) who, in the tradition of Yasujiro Ozu (which…
5 Centimetres Per Second (Five Centimetres Per Second) (2008)
- Dir. Makoto Shinkai
- Sublimely romantic animated feature divided into three separate episodes tracing the emotional journey of a teenage boy through to manhood, and the…
A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël) (2008)
- Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny…
- KINGS AND QUEEN dir. Arnaud Desplechin spins another whirlwind tale of family relations, with Catherine Deneuve the terminally ill matriarch to a…
Admiral, The (2008)
- Dir. Andrei Kravchuk
Feat. Konstantin Khabensky, Elizaveta Boyarskaya, Sergey Bezrukov
- Sweeping war time biopic of Russian war hero Admiral Kolchak covers the last years of his life focusing on his bravery in the face of insurmountable…
An Empress and the Warriors (Kong saan mei yan) (2008)
- Dir. Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Donnie Yen, Xiaodong Guo, Zhenghai Kou…
- Jazzed up historical drama with a young woman thrust into the role of Empress upon her father's death, and fight for her kingdom.
Conventional…
Anything for Her (Pour Elle) (2008)
- Dir. Fred Cavaye
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Diane Kruger, Lancelot Roch…
- Cracking French thriller sees a happy couple's marriage torn apart when the wife is sent to prison for murder. Convinced of her innocence, her…
As God Commands (2008)
- Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Filippo Timi, Elio Germano, Alvaro Caleca
- Bracing character study follows a teenager and his Neo–nazi father dealing with their outsider status in their small town. Second collaboration…
Asterix at the Olympic Games (Astérix Aux Jeux Olympiques) (2008)
- Dir. Frederic Forestier, Thomas Langmann
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, Benoit Poelvoorde…
- Fairly loose adaptation of the original comic follows the oddball duo as they try to win the Olympic Games in order to set their friend up with a…
Baader Meinhof Complex, The (2008)
- Dir. Uli Edel
Feat. Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek…
- A big–budget, pulse–pounding account of terrorism and political protest in 1960s and 70s Germany, centred on the notorious Red Army…
Beaches of Agnes, The (2008)
- Dir. Agnes Varda
- A wonderfully light–footed collection of memories and monologues in documentary essay form from the queen of the French New Wave, Agnes…
Bride Flight (2008)
- Dir. Ben Sombogaart
Feat. Karina Smulders, Waldemar Torenstra, Anna Drijver…
- New Zealand in the 1950's from a Dutch perspective makes this melodrama an intriguing, unique experience for Kiwi audiences, which also has the…
Bridge, The (Die Brücke) (2008)
- Dir. Wolfgang Panzer
Feat. Franke Potente, François Goeske, Lars Steinhöfel
- Inferior remake of the 1959 film based on the true story of a group of German teenagers who fight to defend a bridge from the approaching allied…
Butterfly Lovers (2008)
- Dir. Jingle Ma
Feat. Charlene Choi, Chun Wu, Ge Hu…
- Martial arts 'M Butterfly' charts the afflictions that befall two lovers destined to always be parted. Gaudy, gender–bending romance from Hong…
Camino (2008)
- Dir. Javier Fesser
Feat. Nerea Camacho, Carme Elias
- An absorbing, sensationally–told true story of a devoutly Catholic Spanish schoolgirl whose willing death at the age of 14 – brought about by…
Chanbara Beauty (2008)
- Dir. Yôhei Fukuda
Feat. Eri Otoguro, Chise Nakamura
- Fan–servicing bikini swashbuckler, with two scantily clad babes slashing their way through zombie hoards. A crummy, if entertaining hodgepodge…
Chaser, The (Chugyeogja) (2008)
- Dir. Hong-jin Na
Feat. Yun-seok Kim, Jung-woo Ha, Yeong-hie Seo
- As much concerned with criticizing the police force as it is deftly juggling plot twists, murders, and other serial killer conventions, this Korean…
Chasing World, The (2008)
- Dir. Issei Shibata
Feat. Mitsuki Tanimura, Takuya Ishida
- A high school student discovers a portal into a parallel universe, where those with the surname "Sato" are marked for elimination in a public…
Cherry Blossoms (2008)
- Dir. Doris Dorrie
Feat. Elmar Wepper, Hannelore Elsner, Aya Irizuki…
- Tender cross–cultural tale with a German widower travelling to Japan to honour his wife's wishes to see the famed cherry blossom festival.…
Chocolate (2008)
- Dir. Prachya Pinkaew
Feat. JeeJa Yanin, Hiroshi Abe, Pongpat Wachirabunjong
- Impressive newcomer Jeeja Yanin plays a butt kicking autistic girl (!) in this exhilarating revenge movie, a standout amongst Thailand’s recent…
CJ7 (Cheung Gong 7 hou) (2008)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
- Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow turns his directing talents to the family–friendly fantasy, playing a dirt–poor father who surprises his…
Class, The (Entre les murs) (2008)
- Dir. Laurent Cantet
Feat. François Bégaudeau, Agame Malembo-Emene, Angélica Sancio
- This stimulating Palm d’Or winner engages with the toil and trouble of a multi–ethnic, inner–city French classroom, and the headstrong…
Cloud 9 (Wolke 9) (2008)
- Dir. Andreas Dresen
Feat. Ursula Werner, Horst Rehberg, Horst Westphal
- A frank yet sensitive depiction of a passionate love affair between a man and a married woman in their autumn years.
Using a methodology similar…
Country Wedding (Sveitabrúðkaup) (2008)
- Dir. Valdís Óskarsdóttir
Feat. Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Nanna Kristín Magnúsdóttir
- Two busloads of wedding guests get lost on their way to the church in this lively Icelandic comedy, improvised and shot on the fly. Farcical and…
Dead in 3 Days (Dead in Three Days) (2008)
- Dir. Andreas Prochaska
- Chilling Austrian slasher involving a group of teenagers who must discover a serial killer’s identity in order to save themselves from getting…
Departures (2008)
- Dir. Takita Yojiro
Feat. Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
- Poignant Oscar–winner that’s won over many hearts with its affecting tale of self–discovery, centered on a failed cellist whose career…
Early Bird Catches the Worm, The (2008)
- Dir. Francesco Patierno
Feat. Elio Germano, Laura Chiatti, Martina Stella
- Leaden portrait of the rise and fall of popular Italian disc jockey Marco Baldini who's gambling addiction leads him tom make some decidedly rash…
Everlasting Moments (2008)
- Dir. Jan Troell
Feat. Maria Heiskanen, Mikael Persbrandt, Jesper Christensen
- A touching, delicately shot memoir told from the perspective of a Finnish immigrant in Sweden who finds relief from her abusive husband in the art of…
Female Agents (Les femmes de l'ombre) (2008)
- Dir. Jean-Paul Salome
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain…
- Substantial, exciting WWII espionage thriller following an all–female commando unit of the French Resistance recruited to rescue a British…
First Day of the Rest of Your Life, The (Le Premier Jour du Reste de ta Vie) (2008)
- Dir. Rémi Bezançon
Feat. Jacques Gamblin, Zabou Breitman, Deborah Francois…
- Five days in the life of an average, functional family form the basis of this universally appealing French comedy spanning the decade of the…
Flame and Citron (2008)
- Dir. Ole Christian Madsen
Feat. Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade…
- Lavishly–appointed wartime thriller based on the true story of contrasting Danish resistance fighters as they take vengeance on the occupying…
Forbidden Legend, The - Sex & Chopsticks 1 & 2 (2008-2009)
- Dir. Man Kei Chin
Feat. Hikaru Wakana, Kaera Uehara, Tam Kon Chung…
- Oriental comedy smut by way of the SEX AND ZEN legacy is a hilarious tale of an ancient sexologist's son whose 'iron dick' must remain firmly in his…
Fred Vargas Collection (TV Series) (2008-2010)
- Dir. Josee Dayan
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Helene Fillieres, Charlotte Rampling
- Four excellent French TV adaptations of crime fiction novelist Fred Vargas' popular policiers, with her famous protagonist, Detective Adamsberg, a…
Giovanna's Father (2008)
- Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Silvio Orlando, Francesca Neri, Alba Rohrwacher…
- Set during the second world ward this is a sad character study of a naive father who covers for his daughter's terrible crime.
Go Fast (2008)
- Dir. Olivier Van Hoofstadt
Feat. Roschdy Zem, Olivier Gourmet
- An exciting, if standard issue Gallic policier set around the high–stakes world of narcotics, where an Arab police officer goes undercover to…
Gomorrah (2008)
- Dir. Matteo Garrone
Feat. Toni Servillo, Gianfelice Imparato, Maria Nazionale
- Justifiably celebrated, this ruthless expose of the Camorra underworld in Naples paints a stark and brutal picture of organised crime through five…
Good, the Bad, the Weird, The (2008)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Byung-hun Lee, Woo-sung Jung
- The high–end stylist behind Korean box office hits A BITTERSWEET LIFE and A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, dir. Kim Ji–woon flavours this eastern…
Headless Woman, The (2008)
- Dir. Lucrecia Martel
Feat. María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón…
- A mystery surrounding a woman's hit and run accident – and whether she in fact killed someone – is the riveting hook of this oblique,…
Her Whole Life Ahead (Tutta La Vita Davanti) (2008)
- Dir. Paolo Virzi
Feat. Isabella Ragonese, Micaela Ramazzotti, Giulia Salerno…
- A brilliant recent graduate struggles to find work. After falling into a babysitting job, she is introduced by the child's mother to the world of the…
Honey (Bal) (2008)
- Dir. Semih Kaplanoglu
Feat. Bora Altas, Erdal Besikçioglu, Tülin Özen
- A gorgeous, contemplative coming–of–age tale, centred on a young boy and his father, a rural beekeeper, in an idyllic mountainous region…
I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime) (2008)
- Dir. Philippe Claudel
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius
- Gratifying, melancholy French drama featuring a career–best performance by Kristen Scott–Thomas as an enigmatic woman struggling to fit…
Ichi (2008)
- Dir. Fumisiko Sori
Feat. Haruka Ayase, Shido Nakamura, Yôsuke Kubozuka
- ZATOICHI spin–off turns tradition on its head by casting a woman in the role of a blind singer who also happens to be handy with a samurai…
Il Divo (The Deity) (2008)
- Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Feat. Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto, Flavio Bucci
- Dazzling, high–end political intrigue from dir. of CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE speculates on the years following Giulio Andreotti’s seventh term as…
Ip Man (2008)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Siu-Wong Fan…
- Kung fu stalwart Donnie Yen assumes the legend of Ip Man, celebrated master of the rare and deadly form of martial arts, Wing Chun (later adopted by…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2008 (2008)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 13 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2008' spread over 6 discs.
Films…
Jerusalema (2008)
- Dir. Ralph Ziman
Feat. Daniel Buckland, Robert Hobbs
- A punchy, gun–toting gangland epic following the rise to two Soweto teenagers seduced by crime and violence in South Africa.
Although…
K-20 - Legend Of The Mask (2008)
- Dir. Shimako Sato
Feat. Takeshi Kaneshiro, Takako Matsu, Tôru Nakamura
- An adventurous Japanese swashbuckler spun around a flamboyant mtaster thief who steals from the rich, and the unassuming acrobat (Kaneshiro) who is…
Krabat (2008)
- Dir. Marco Kreuzpaintner
Feat. David Kross, Daniel Bruhl, Christian Redl
- Faustian fantasy centred around a teenager who is lured into joining an elite circle of black magic practitioners in 18th Century Germany.
A…
L Change the World (2008)
- Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Youki Kudoh
- Sugar–rushing spinoff of the Japanese sci–fi DEATH NOTE films, from the director of THE RING, picking up with detective 'L' attempting to…
Lady Cop and Papa Crook (Daai Sau cha Ji Neui) (2008)
- Dir. Siu Fai Mak, Felix Chong
Feat. Eason Chang, Sammi Cheng, Tak-bun Wong…
- An oil kingpin (Chang) finds himself in alliance with a cop (Cheng) when his son is kidnapped, resulting in an uneasy relationship between the law…
Last Pulcinella (L'ultimo Pulcinella) (2008)
- Dir. Maurizio Scaparro
Feat. Massimo Ranieri, Adriana Asti, Jean Sorel…
- A struggling actor travels to France to find his estranged son who has fled after witnessing a mob crime.
Last Stop 174 (2008)
- Dir. Bruno Barreto
Feat. Michel Gomes, Cris Vianna, Marcello Melo Junior
- Adrenalised dramatisation of the infamous bus–hijacking examines the life of the troubled young hijacker. As an action film this is…
Lemon Tree (Etz Limon) (2008)
- Dir. Eran Riklis
Feat. Hiam Abbass, Doron Tavory, Ali Suliman…
- An out–of–bounds lemon tree poses as a metaphorical olive branch in this heartfelt Israeli–Palestinian fable.
When a…
Let The Right One In (2008)
- Dir. Tomas Alfredson
Feat. Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar
- Sending many critics into raptures as a vampire flick to finally get excited about, this frost–bitten Swedish entry mixes social realism with…
LOL (2008)
- Dir. Lisa Azuelos
Feat. Christa Theret, Sophie Marceau
- Sassy French comedy stars Sophie Marceau as the loving, long–suffering mother of a rebellious teen lass.
Louise - Michel (2008)
- Dir. Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Feat. Yolande Moreau, Bouli Lanners, Benoit Poelvoorde…
- A black comedy treasure about a newly redundant factory worker who hires a dodgy hit man to take out her rich employers. The trouble starts when the…
M.W. (2008)
- Dir. Hitoshi Iwamoto
Feat. Hiroshi Tamaki, Yamada Takayuki
- Osamu Tezuka’s manga about plot to unleash nerve gas on Japan receives a big–budget makeover. Simple–minded action vehicle is all about…
Machine Girl, The (2008)
- Dir. Noboru Iguchi
Feat. Minase Yashiro, Asami Miyajima
- Brainless ultra–violence combines straighforward revenge narrative with a novelty twist: a plucky schoolgirl, whose stand against local…
Maid, The (2008)
- Dir. Sebastián Silva
Feat. Catalina Saavedra
- The complex emotional attachment of a loyal live–in maid to the family she's served for more than twenty years is at the heart of this sly,…
Man Who Loves, The (2008)
- Dir. Maria Sole Tognazzi
Feat. Pierfrancesco Favino, Monica Bellucci, Kseniya Rappoport…
- Melodramatic exploration of a heterosexual man's troubled relationships in comparison to his gay brother's blissful monogamy.
Martyrs (2008)
- Dir. Pascal Laugier
Feat. Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin
- You, the viewer, may feel martyred after enduring this unremittingly bleak French horror focused on a pair of unhinged women who seek revenge on the…
Max Manus: Man of War (2008)
- Dir. Joachim Roenning, Espen Sandberg
Feat. Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Nicolai Cleve Broch…
- Rousing wartime actioner chronicles the exploits of irrepressible Norwegian resistance hero Max Manus, whose sabotaging of the Nazi’s stampede…
Me Two (La Personne Aux Deux Personnes) (2008)
- Dir. Bruno Lavaine, Nicolas Charlet
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Alain Chabat
- This French farce sets up a straight–laced, friendless accountant for possession by the spirit of an 80s one–hit–wonder, with…
Mesrine (Killer Instinct, Public Enemy Number 1) (2008)
- Dir. Jean-François Richet
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Cecile De France, Gerard Depardieu…
- Effective, if at times highly sensationalised biopic of career criminal Jacques Mesrine – France’s ‘Public Enemy #1’ throughout the 1960s and…
Mid-August Lunch (2008)
- Dir. Gianni Di Gregorio
Feat. Gianni Di Gregorio, Valeria De Franciscis, Marina Cacciotti
- A comedy of manners and good taste in form and content, this soulful comedy sets up a middle–aged man forced to play host to a gaggle of…
Miracle of Berlin (Das Wunder von Berlin) (2008)
- Dir. Roland Suso Richter
Feat. Kostja Ullmann, Karoline Herfurth, Veronica Ferres
- Ambitious telemovie set in Berlin, 1988, where a rebellious young man is forced by his father – a high–ranking Stasi officer – to…
Modern Life (La vie moderne) (2008)
- Dir. Raymond Depardon
- A winding, mournful documentary on the stoicism and fading way of life of several generations of farmers and farmer families in contemporary rural…
MR 73 (The Last Deadly Mission) (2008)
- Dir. Olivier Marchal
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Olivia Bonamy, Philippe Nahon
- Rock solid policier stars Daniel Auteuil as a drunken, burnt–out cop whose shot at redemption comes in the form of a woman requiring protection…
My Friends My Loves (Mes amis, mes amours) (2008)
- Dir. Lorraine Levy
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Pascal Elbé, Virginie Ledoyen
- A buddy movie for middle–aged divorcees, this lightweight odd–coupling follows two Parisian single dads who decide to raise their…
Nazi Number One: Herman Göring (2008)
- Dir. Guido Knopp
- German director Guido Knopp continues his straightforward, biography–centric investigations into all things Nazi with this documentary on…
Necessities of Life, The (2008)
- Dir. Benoit Pilon
Feat. Natar Ungalaaq, Paul-André Brasseur, Eveline Gelinas
- This warmhearted tale of a consumptive Inuit hunter who gets sent to Quebec for treatment is an insightful celebration of Inuit tradtion, yet the…
North Face (Nordwand) (2008)
- Dir. Philipp Stölzl
Feat. Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas
- Exceptionally vivid, nerve–wracking mountaineering thriller in which two novice climbers attempt to be the first to scale the treacherous north…
Ong-Bak 2 (Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning) (2008)
- Dir. Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai
Feat. Tony Jaa, Sorapong Chatree, Sarunyu Wongkrachang
- Heavy–handed follow–up to the decade’s best martial arts movie, co–directed by and starring ONG–BAK’s Tony Jaa as a…
Otto; Or, Up With Dead People (Otto: Or Up With Dead People) (2008)
- Dir. Bruce LaBruce
- Watchably pretentious piece of repugnant fare from provocative director LaBruce, this time following a gay zombie who must de–code his sordid…
Our Beloved Month of August (Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto) (2008)
- Dir. Miguel Gomes
Feat. Sonia Bandeira, Fabio Oliveira
- Beautifully idiosyncratic film blending documentary with drama, from distinctive Portuguese director Miguel Gomes (TABU).
A summery and romantic…
Pain in the Ass, A (L'emmerdeur) (2008)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Richard Berry, Patrick Timsit, Pascal Elbé…
- Fast–paced black comedy arises out of an unlikely friendship between a hitman and a depressive who find themselves sharing hotels.
Based on…
Palermo Shooting (2008)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Campino , Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Dennis Hopper
- A wild–living, world renowned German photographer travels to Sicily seeking a break from his past and encounters a beautiful woman and Dennis…
Paris (2008)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Mélanie Laurent…
- A sweet–natured, if rather slight romantic dramedy, weaving in and out of the lives of a diverse set of heart–worn and heart–won…
Paris 36 (Faubourg 36) (2008)
- Dir. Christophe Barratier
Feat. Gerard Jugnot, Clovis Cornillac, Kad Merad
- This period 30s French drama is set in a struggling music hall that seems destined for closure until a new star comes along to save the day. A love…
Peaceful Times (Friedliche Zeiten) (2008)
- Dir. Neele Leana Vollmar
Feat. Katharina M. Schubert, Oliver Stokowski, Nina Monka
- A sweet, if slender trip back to 1960s West Germany, where a mother's mental health issues are remembered from the naive, but loving perspective of…
Protectors, The (TV Series) (2008)
- Feat. Cecilie Stenspil, Søren Vejby, André Babikian
- Stellar Danish production centred on a group of professional bodyguards assigned to protect VIPs, politicians, and heads of state out of Copenhagen.…
Red Baron, The (Der rote Baron) (2008)
- Dir. Nikolai Müllerschön
Feat. Maxim Mehmet, Til Schweiger, Joseph Fiennes…
- Biographical melodrama focused around Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the celebrated showboating WW1 pilot. Thrilling airborne set–pieces make up…
Red Cliff (The Battle of Red Cliff) (2008)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang…
- A gargantuan Han Dynasty epic from Hong Kong's action movie grandmaster, John Woo, in which two kingdoms must form an unlikely alliance to stave off…
Rest of the Night, The (Il resto della notte ) (2008)
- Dir. Francesco Munzi
Feat. Sandra Ceccarelli, Aurelien Recoing, Stefano Cassetti…
- When the depressed wife of a provincial industrialist becomes convinced that her young Romanian maid is swiping valuable objects from around the…
Revanche (2008)
- Dir. Gotz Spielmann
Feat. Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko, Andreas Lust
- A botched bank robbery resulting in the death of a prostitute compels an embittered ex–con to contemplate revenge in this steely, impressive…
Rosario + Vampire (TV Series) (Rozario To Banpaia) (2008)
- Tskune accidentally gets on a bus to a school of monsters.
Rudo and Cursi (Rudo y Cursi) (2008)
- Dir. Carlos Cuarón
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna
- The charismatic stars and co–writer of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN reunite in this biting satire about two brothers from rural stock who have an intense…
Rumba (2008)
- Dir. Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel
Feat. Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy
- Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel co–wrote, directed and star in this delightful film about a pair of rumba–loving weirdos whose lives…
Sauna (2008)
- Dir. Antti-Jussi Annila
Feat. Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko
- Something of a hybrid of the historical epic and ghost story, this unique genre entry from Finland concerns two brothers haunted by a young girl whom…
Scorsese: My Voyage Through Italian Cinema (2008)
- Dir. Martin Scorsese
- 7–disc collection of Italian films that continue to influence and inspire acclaimed director Martin Scorsese over the years. Includes Luchino…
Seraphine (2008)
- Dir. Martin Provost
Feat. Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent
- Intimate, Cesar–winning portrait of troubled French artist Seraphine de Senlis, a little–known painter who worked as an impoverished…
Shirin (2008)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Leila Hatami
- From Abbas Kiarostami's avant–grade phase, this non–narrative tableaux of Iranian actresses (and one Juliette Binoche) enthralled by a…
Silent Light (Stellet licht) (2008)
- Dir. Carlos Reygadas
- Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas (JAPON, BATTLE IN HEAVEN) helms his third feature with maturity and restraint, offering a striking, earthbound…
Silent Wedding (2008)
- Dir. Horatio Malaele
Feat. Meda Andreea Victor, Alexandru Potocean, Valentin Teodosiu
- Gentle comedy of a bride and groom whose wedding is interrupted by the death of Stalin, and the period of one weeks mourning effective immediately.…
Simone Young - To Hamburg From Downunder (2008)
- Dir. Ralf Pleger
- Perceptive documentary following renowned Australian conductor and Sydney Opera House Director Simone Young on her return journey from Europe to…
Sin Nombre (Without Name) (2008)
- Dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga
Feat. Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores
- Honduran teenagers brave Mexican gangs and border patrols as they attempt to illegally emigrate to the US in this superbly mounted,…
Sky Crawlers, The (2008)
- Dir. Mamoru Oshii
- Mamoru Oshii’s (GHOST IN THE SHELL) latest head–scratcher conceives an alternate World War II–reality around another conceptually dense…
Sleep Dealer (2008)
- Dir. Alex Rivera
Feat. Leonor Varela, Jacob Vargas, Luis Fernando Peña
- Ideas over special effects characterise this Mexican sci–fi sleeper, where in the not–to–distant future cheap Hispanic labour is…
Song of Sparrows, The (Âvâz-e gonjeshk-hâ) (2008)
- Dir. Majid Majidi
Feat. Reza Naji
- Iranian film following the life of a simple and contented ostrich farmer whose life changes dramatically when he loses his job and travels to Tehran…
Sorry If I Want to Marry You (2008)
- Dir. Federico Moccia
Feat. Raoul Bova, Michela Quattrociocche, Francesco Apolloni
- Supremely frothy comedy about with a man's increasing insecurity about his relationship leads him to propose marriage setting off a comic chain of…
Speak To Me of Love (Parlami d'amore ) (2008)
- Dir. Silvio Muccino
Feat. Silvio Muccino, Carolina Crescentini, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón…
- Sasha is a boy in his twenties, deeply loving the beautiful Benedetta, who doesn't seem to recognize his existence. Nicole is a French woman in her…
Still Walking (2008)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Hiroshi Abe, You , Yui Natsukawa…
- A recently remarried son (Abe) pays visit to his quietly disapproving parents in this exquisitely observed family drama, shot in the tradition of…
Summer Hours (2008)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jeremie Renier…
- Three siblings deliberate over the family estate following the death of their mother in this subtle, gorgeously rendered meditation on ‘moving…
Super Comet, The (Super Comet: After the Impact) (2008)
- Dir. Stefan Schneider
- This Discovery Channel special uses plenty of amazing FX and the helter–skelter tropes of docu–drama to explore the likely…
Sword Of The Stranger (Sutorenjia: Mukô Hadan) (2008)
- Dir. Masahiro Andô
- Ferocious feature–length anime sees a young boy and his dog accompany a nameless samurai as they try to escape relentless Ming warriors.
A…
Tears for Sale (Charleston and Vendetta) (2008)
- Dir. Uros Stojanovic
Feat. Katarina Radivojevic, Sonja Kolacaric
- The sombre title belies what is in fact a joyously bawdy Balkan fairytale that blends fantastical folklore, striking burlesque visuals and ample…
Three Kingdoms (Resurrection of the Dragon) (2008)
- Dir. Daniel Lee
Feat. Andy Lau, Sammo Hung, Maggie Q…
- Rousing take on a Chinese literary classic rehashes the legendary Han Dynasty power struggle between three warring kingdoms (recently given the royal…
Three Monkeys (2008)
- Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Feat. Yavuz Bingol, Hatice Aslan, Ahmet Rifat Sungar…
- A brooding detective story from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, about a wealthy businessman who bribes one of his underlings to take the wrap for a…
Tokyo Gore Police (2008)
- Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura
Feat. Eihi Shiina, Itsuji Ltao, Yukihide Benny
- Trashy, imaginative Japanese gore fest aims to out–splatter Peter Jackson’s BRAINDEAD with its outrageous hybrid of ROBOCOP and…
Tokyo Sonata (2008)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyôko Koizumi, Yû Koyanagi…
- A devastating contemporary drama from the master of modern malaise, this piercing study of social collapse focuses on an downsized Japanese corporate…
Tony Manero (2008)
- Dir. Pablo Larrain
Feat. Alfredo Castro, Paola Lattus, Héctor Morales
- Unsettling drama set against the Pinochet regime in Chile in 1978, where a psychopathic disco fan steals and kills in an effort to become the…
Treeless Mountain (2008)
- Dir. So Yong Kim
Feat. Hee-yeon Kim, Song-hee Kim, Mi-hyang Kim
- Korean–American So Yong Kim directs this moderate, heartfelt drama of two sisters, aged 3 and 6 respectively, who are abandoned by their mother…
Tulpan (2008)
- Dir. Sergey Dvortsevoy
Feat. Askhat Kuchinchirekov
- A goofy love story is eked out of this astonishing account of nomadic life, where a family not only survive but relish sheep and goat herding on the…
Ugly Melanie (Vilaine) (2008)
- Dir. Jean-Patrick Benes, Allan Mauduit
Feat. Marilou Berry, Frédérique Bel
- Mild black comedy set in a world of beauty or death, where ugly Melanie (Berry, not really ugly at all) plots a series of contrived punishments for…
Un Secret (2008)
- Dir. Claude Miller
Feat. Cecile De France, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu…
- Graceful, poignant French wartime drama centred on the son of a Jewish family who uncovers a piece of unsettling family history at the time of the…
Underdog Knight, The (Ying Han) (2008)
- Dir. Sheng Ding
Feat. Ye Liu, Yong You, Anthony Wong
- An offbeat, anti–heroic character study out of mainland China, in which a self–styled martial arts pretender lands a job as bodyguard for…
Wave, The (Die Welle) (2008)
- Dir. Dennis Gansel
Feat. Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt…
- Based on a true incident in the US in the early 1970's to practically illustrate the machinations of Nazi propaganda, a school teacher's unorthodox…
Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) (2008)
- Dir. Dany Boon
Feat. Kad Merad, Dany Boon, Zoé Félix…
- Actor Dany Boon, best known for MY BEST FRIEND, co–wrote and directed this similar comedy about a post–office manager who is, er, posted…
What No One Knows (Det som ingen ved) (2008)
- Dir. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Feat. Anders W. Berthelsen, Maria Bonnevie, Ghita Norby
- Knife–edged political thriller sees a middle–aged family man uncover his father’s shady involvement in military intelligence after his…
Wild Blood (Sanguepazzo) (2008)
- Dir. Marco Tullio Giordana
Feat. Monica Bellucci, Alessio Boni, Luca Zingaretti
- Compelling melodrama traces the rise and fall of two movie stars who embrace Fascism under Mussolini's Italy.
Wild Grass (Les Herbes Folles) (2008)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Andre Dussollier, Sabine Azema, Emmanuelle Devos…
- A masterful light–footed comedy of the surreal from veteran French dir. Alain Resnais, centered on a missing wallet responsible for triggering…
Winter in Wartime (2008)
- Dir. Martin Koolhoven
Feat. Martijn Lakemeier, Yorick van Wageningen, Jamie Campbell Bower…
- Sensitively handled account of a thirteen year old boy who joins the Dutch resistance at the tail end of World War II.
Wushu - The Young Generation (2008)
- Dir. Antony Szeto
Feat. Sammo Hung, Fengchao Liu, Wenjie Wang
- Under the auspices of genre legends Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan (in producing role), this standard–issue kung fu flick introduces a bevy a…
X-Plicit Films (X-Femmes) (2008)
- Dir. Lola Doillon, Mélanie Laurent, Helena Noguerra
- Ten erotic, female–friendly shorts commissioned as part of French TV series 'X–Femmes', with actress Melanie Laurent (INGLOURIOUS…
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007)
- Dir. Cristian Mungiu
Feat. Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu
- Two women risk seeking an illegal abortion under Ceausescu rule in this staggering, high tension Cannes–winner from Romania.
Reminiscent of…
After Him (Après lui) (2007)
- Dir. Gaël Morel
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Guy Marchand
- Unsettlingly intimate French drama stars Catherine Deneuve as a devastated mother who obsessively channels her dead son by using his best friend as a…
Amal (2007)
- Dir. Richie Mehta
Feat. Rupinder Nagra
- A stoic tale of hardship and humanity in New Dehli, centred on an upstanding rickshaw driver whose code of honesty and responsibility sees a dying…
An Old Mistress (Une vieille maîtresse/The Last Mistress) (2007)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Asia Argento, Fu’ad Ait Aattou, Caroline Ducey…
- Fervent, visually opulent costume drama finds feminist firebrand Catherine Breillat tempering her sexually explicit tendencies to present a…
Angel (2007)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Sam Neill, Lucy Russell…
- Pretty costume drama follows the fortunes of an aspiring lady writer in Edwardian England.
Based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor (MRS PALFREY AT…
Apartment 1303 (2007)
- Dir. Ataru Oikawa
Feat. Noriko Nakagoshi
- A woman is led to investigates a series of suicides in an apartment after her sister moves in and then throws herself off the balcony during her…
Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)
- Dir. Shinji Aramaki
- Propulsive, bulked–up sequel to the hi–tech APPLESEED movie, continuing the exploits of its kiss–ass female heroine, now deployed…
Assembly (2007)
- Dir. Feng Xiaoning
Feat. Hanyu Zhang
- Searing Chinese war drama set during the country's last days of Civil war, in which a courageous army captain fights tooth and nail to stave off a…
Band's Visit, The (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret) (2007)
- Dir. Eran Kolirin
- Sweet and sensitive Israeli comedy following an Egyptian police band who get way laid in a small Israeli town and unexpectedly break down cultural…
Banishment, The (2007)
- Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev
Feat. Konstantin Lavronenko, Maria Bonnevie
- A discordant marriage is framed against a breathtaking visual backdrop in this grand and elemental narrative from the dir. of the equally masterful…
Ben X (2007)
- Dir. Nic Balthazar
Feat. Greg Timmermans, Marijke Pinoy, Laura Verlinden
- A provocative Dutch drama of 21st century teen angst, centred on an Asperger’s Syndrome–afflicted gamer whose addiction to online…
Big Man Japan (Dai-Nipponjin) (2007)
- Dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto
Feat. Hitoshi Matsumoto
- A genuine inductee to the 'Incredibly Strange' hall of fame, this gonzo monster mash bounds between deadpan mock–u–mentary following the…
Black Belt (Kuro-obi) (2007)
- Dir. Shunichi Nagasaki
Feat. Akihito Yagi, Tatsuya Naka
- Defence meets attack in this measured martial arts drama set in 1930s Japan, in which two karate experts (played by real–life karate pros) take…
Blind Mountain (2007)
- Dir. Yang Li
Feat. Huang Lu
- A superbly executed kidnapping drama that’s also surprisingly achieved given its critical portrait of Chinese society, this concerns the heinous…
Caramel (Sukkar banat) (2007)
- Dir. Nadine Labaki
Feat. Nadine Labaki
- Charming Lebanese soap opera with a social conscience, the latest in an emerging wave of dissenting Middle Eastern dramas divulges the stifled lives…
Celebration: Yves Saint Laurent (2007)
- Dir. Olivier Meyrou
- Intimate portrait of Yves Saint–Laurent, focussing on the legendary fashion designer's final show, as well as his complex relationship with…
Chacun Son Cinema (To Each His Own Cinema) (2007)
- Dir. Theo Angelopoulos, Olivier Assayas, Bille August
- 35 auteurs convey the meaning of cinema in less than three minutes each, in this epic commission to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film…
Chaotic Ana (Caótica Ana) (2007)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Gerrit Graham, Manuela Vellés
- Spanish auteur Julio Medem (SEX AND LUCIA) returns with this abstractly ambitious, idiosyncratic undertaking, meshing the self–exploration of a…
Checkmate Provenzano (2007)
- Dir. Claudio Mariano Cirino, Paolo Santolini
- Detailed docu–drama recreates the last few months in hiding of notorious Mafia don Bernardo Provenzano whose capture after forty–three…
Chrysalis (2007)
- Dir. Julien Leclercq
Feat. Albert Dupontel, Marie Guillard, Marthe Keller…
- Relentless French sci–fi flick shot in gun–metal blue and packed with fine examples of classic and contemporary science–fictional…
City of Men (Cidade dos Homens) (2007)
- Dir. Paulo Morelli
Feat. Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha
- Salty Rio back–blocks melodrama from the producers of CITY OF GOD revolving around two orphaned street kids on the brink of adulthood faced…
Concrete Romance (Cemento armato) (2007)
- Dir. Marco Martani
Feat. Nicolas Vaporidis, Giorgio Faletti, Carolina Crescentini
- Brutal Italian thriller focused on a young petty crim unwittingly caught up in a deadly revenge plot by a Mafia kingpin after damaging his…
Counterfeiters, The (Die Fälscher) (2007)
- Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
Feat. Karl Markovics, Devid Striesow
- An Oscar–winner for Best Foreign Language film, this taut German thriller reconstructs the story of a Jewish fraudster forced to assist the…
Crows O (Kurôzu zero) (2007)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Shun Oguri, Kishitani Goro, Yamada Takayuki…
- Irresistibly entertaining manga adaptation from the genius director of ICHI THE KILLER, presenting the first in a series of Japanese action films…
Days and Clouds (2007)
- Dir. Silvio Soldini
Feat. Margherita Buy, Antonio Albanese, Giuseppe Battiston…
- Resonating drama about a well–heeled, sophisticated couple who struggle to stay together after the husband loses his job.
The dir. of BREAD…
Debt, The (Ha Hov) (2007)
- Dir. Assaf Bernstein
Feat. Gila Almagor, Yuriy Chepurnov, Oleg Drach
- Unsettling thriller with a retired Mossad agent, whose Nazi–hunting past comes back to haunt her and her fellow agents.
Dinner Guest, The (L'Invité) (2007)
- Dir. Laurent Bouhnik
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Valérie Lemercier, Thierry Lhermitte
- The side order of French fries to THE DINNER GAME’s comedic cassoulet, this overly contrived yet lightly amusing farce serves up a…
Disengagement (2007)
- Dir. Amos Gitai
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Jeanne Moreau, Liron Levo
- Juliette Binoche plays a French–Israeli settler in Gaza who must return to the West Bank following Israel’s pullout from the occupied…
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The (Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon) (2007)
- Dir. Julian Schnabel
Feat. Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze
- Justly celebrated adaptation of the autobiography of the late Jean–Dominique Bauby, who enjoyed the high life as editor of Elle magazine before…
Don't Touch the Axe (Duchess of Langeais, The) (2007)
- Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, Bulle Ogier…
- A duchess and a general play out an unusual courtship in this engrossing period chamber piece, elevated by the superb interplay between the two…
Dororo (2007)
- Dir. Akihiko Shiota
Feat. Ko Shibasaki, Satoshi Tsumabuki
- Electrifying action fantasy based on a manga comic by the grandfather of Anime – Osamu Tezuka (ASTRO BOY), in which an abandoned samurai's son…
Drummer, The (Zhan. gu) (2007)
- Dir. Kenneth Bi
Feat. Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Kenneth Tsang, Jaycee Chan
- Visually enticing martial arts drama of a self–indulgent son sent into the Taiwanese mountains to escape gangland city retribution, who ends up…
Edge of Heaven, The (Auf der anderen Seite) (2007)
- Dir. Fatih Akin
Feat. Hanna Schygulla
- Prompted by family upheaval, a university professor reconnects with his native Turkey, and other disparate lost souls, in this dramatic tapestry of…
Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite) (2007)
- Dir. José Padilha
Feat. Wagner Moura, Andre Ramiro, Caio Junqueira…
- Brawny South American policier centred on a special division of Brazilian drug enforcement at war with the drug lords of Rio de Janeiro.
Stacked…
Empties (Vratné lahve) (2007)
- Dir. Jan Sverak
Feat. Zdenek Sverak, Tatiana Vilhelmova, Daniela Kolarova
- This cheeky Czech favourite comically indulges the disobedience of its retirement–aged protagonist, who, after losing his teaching position and…
Ex Drummer (2007)
- Dir. Koen Mortier
Feat. Dries Van Hegen
- Ultra–violent Belgian black comedy mines similar territory to MAN BITES DOG and IRREVERSIBLE, albeit with a slightly higher dose of absurdity…
Exodus (Cheut ai kup gei) (2007)
- Dir. Pang Ho-Cheung
Feat. Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Annie Liu
- An indifferent Hong Kong detective slowly becomes convinced that women are conspiring to kill off the entire male species in this curious melange of…
Fear(s) of the Dark (Fears of the Dark, Peur(s) du noir) (2007)
- Dir. Blutch , Charles Burns, Marie Caillou
- Six dynamic and distinct graphic artists illustrate various primordial phobias using only 'light and dark' in this impressive compendium of animated…
Fermat's Room (La Habitación de Fermat) (2007)
- Feat. Frederico Luppi
- Four top mathematicians must solve a complex riddle in order to avoid being crushed to death by a shrinking room in this claustrophobic Spanish…
Fighter (2007)
- Dir. Natasha Arthy
Feat. Semra Turan, Nima Nabipour, Cyron Bjørn Melville
- Girls–can–do–anything drama focused around a young Turkish–Danish teenager who is determined to become a kung–fu…
Fighting Beat (2007)
- Dir. Piti Jaturaphat
- Agile martial arts action flick based in a Thai street fighting bar renowned for its local competitors, who find themselves in a deadly fight for…
Flight of the Red Balloon, The (Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge) (2007)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Juliette Binoche
- From Taiwanese grandmaster Hou Hsiao–hsien, this rhapsodic French sojourn evokes Albert Lamorisse’s enchanting 1956 short film, chronicling a…
Forever Vespa (2007)
- Dir. Pippo Cappellano, Marina Cappabianca
- Engaging study of the well loved scooter doubles as a social study of post–war Italy and Europe. There's also some priceless archival footage…
Frontier(s) (Frontiers) (2007)
- Dir. Xavier Gens
Feat. Samuel Le Bihan
- Bludgeoning sadistic fantasy, following in the footsteps of other French exponents of the rather unsavoury torture–porn mini–genre, this…
Genius Party (2007)
- Dir. Atsuko Fukushima, Soji Yoshikawa, Shinji Kimura
- Seven acclaimed contemporary anime directors direct seven shorts under the generous theme of 'The Spirit Of Creativity'. As with any short film…
Get Together Dinner, The (La Ceno per Farli Conoscere) (2007)
- Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Vanessa Incontrada, Diego Abatanthono, Violante Placido…
- Diverting comedy about three stepsisters playing cupid for their father, a jaded TV star whose career has seen better days. As lacerating as it is…
Girl by the Lake, The (La ragazza del lago) (2007)
- Dir. Andrea Molaioli
Feat. Toni Servillo, Denis Fasolo, Nello Mascia…
- A murder–mystery that swept Italy's Academy Awards set in an idyllic North Italian village where a beautiful young girl is found murdered.…
Grocer's Son, The (Le fils de l'épicier) (2007)
- Dir. Eric Guirado
Feat. Nicolas Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Daniel Duval…
- Gentle coming–of–age story following Antoine, a self–centered young man living in Paris, who is forced to return to his provincial…
Guru (2007)
- Dir. Mani Ratnam
Feat. Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakraborty, Abhishek Bachchan
- Rewarding rags–to–riches drama relates the story of an entrepreneurial young boy from a village in Gujarat who became the biggest…
Heartbeat Detector (La Question Humaine) (2007)
- Dir. Nicolas Klotz
Feat. Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale, Lou Castel…
- A dense, demanding corporate thriller woven around a German multinational, whose human resources expert (Amalric), in investigating the mental state…
Hellphone (2007)
- Dir. James Huth
Feat. Jean-Baptiste Maunier
- Smitten with the school babe, a spotty teenager acquires an all–important cellphone, only to discover the handset is possessed and capable of…
Hunting and Gathering (2007)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Guillaume Canet, Laurent Stocker…
- A waif–thin artist/cleaner (Tautou) gains a new lease on life after a chance encounter with a dignified stutterer in this heartwarming lost…
Il Dolce E L'Amaro (The Sweet and The Bitter) (2007)
- Dir. Andrea Porporati
Feat. Donatella Finocchiaro, Luigi Lo Cascio, Fabrizio Gifuni
- Compact underworld drama peddles a familiar crime–doesn’t–pay theme in its story of a young man seduced by the Mafia, only to become…
In the City of Sylvia (2007)
- Dir. José Luis Guerín
Feat. Xavier Lafitte, Pilar López de Ayala
- A bouquet of visual and aural pleasures, this sensually shot mood–piece follows an unnamed artist who in turn ‘stalks’ a fetching young…
Invisible Target (Naam yi boon sik) (2007)
- Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Nicholas Tse, Jaycee Chan, Shawn Yue…
- Unyielding martial arts thriller rumbles with a group of detectives commissioned to take out a local Hong Kong mercenary gang. The expected ass…
Joy Division (2007)
- Dir. Reg Traviss
Feat. Ed Stoppard, Tom Schilling, Bernadette Heerwagen…
- Ed Stoppard, son of Sir Tom, stars as a young German boy who becomes a KGB agent in this ambitious wartime saga that sweeps from WWII to swinging,…
Just Another Love Story (2007)
- Dir. Ole Bornedal
Feat. Anders W. Berthelsen, Rebecka Hemse, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
- An enjoyably overwrought Danish thriller with noir–ish aspirations, whose story revolves around a bored married man who assumes the identity of…
Kaidan (2007)
- Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Kumiko Aso
- Period J–horror from the director of THE RING relays the ghostly tale of a samurai’s son attempting to escape an ancient curse laid on his…
Katyn (2007)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Żmijewski, Pawel Malaszynski
- Andrzej Wajda cements himself as Poland’s greatest director with this late–career triumph, a war story addressing the eradication of some…
Killing, The - Complete Series Boxset (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2007-2012)
- Feat. Sofie Grabol
- The entire 40–episode story arc of the gripping Danish crime thriller – an immensely popular series synonymous with the 'Nordic Noir'…
Killing, The - Series 1 (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2007)
- Dir. Birger Larsen
Feat. Sofie Grabol, Søren Malling
- A ripping Danish homicide serial in the long–form tradition of THE WIRE, which weaves a plot of intrigue, corruption, and bureaucracy around a…
King of the Hill (El Rey de la montaña) (2007)
- Dir. Gonzalo López-Gallego
Feat. Leonardo Sbaraglia, Maria Valverde
- A well–crafted, believable take on the lost–in–the–woods genre, about a man who follows an attractive stranger into the…
Kite Runner, The (2007)
- Dir. Marc Forster
Feat. Khalid Abdalla, Homayon Ershadi, Shaun Toub…
- The ravages of Afghanistan and its effect on an American 'refugee' forms the basis of Khaled Hosseini's best–selling book, here given due…
Kung Fu Dunk (Gong fu guan lan) (2007)
- Dir. Yen-ping Chu
Feat. Charlene Choi, Jay Chou, Eric Tsang…
- Inane sporting comedy about a skilled martial artist recruited to play basketball at the local university in return for help in finding his birth…
La Vie en Rose (2007)
- Dir. Olivier Dahan
Feat. Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Emmanuelle Seigner…
- Marion Cotillard excels (and deservingly won a Best Actress Oscar) in this stunning new biopic of the life and times of French singer Edith…
La Zona (2007)
- Dir. Rodrigo Plá
Feat. Daniel Giménez Cacho, Carlos Bardem, Daniel Tovar…
- Award winning, intensely scripted and thought provoking drama set in a wealthy Mexican compound where the residents have formed a vigilante group to…
Lark Farm, The (La Messeria Delle Allodole) (2007)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Feat. Paz Vega, Arsinee Khanjian, Moritz Bleibtreu…
- One of a just a handful of film to deal with the Armenian Genocide, this matter–of–fact production bears witness to an upper–middle…
Lessons in Chocolate (Lezioni di Cioccolato) (2007)
- Dir. Claudio Cupellini
Feat. Luca Argentero, Violante Placido, Neri Marcore…
- A building contractor on the verge of closing his biggest deal to date finds his future jeopardized when an illegally hired worker is injured on the…
Let's Say (On dirait que... ) (2007)
- Dir. Françoise Marie
- A sweetly humble documentary in the vein of ETRE ET AVOIR, involving a group of French kids aged 8–13 asked to portray their parents’ jobs…
Like Stars on Earth (Taare Zameen Par) (2007)
- Dir. Aamir Khan
Feat. Darsheel Safary, Aamir Khan, Tisca Chopra
- Drama from Indian actor–director Aamir Khan (3 IDIOTS) following the life of an imaginative 8–year old boy with diagnosed dyslexia, who…
Lorna's Silence (Le Silence de Lorna) (2007)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Arta Dobroshi, Jeremie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione
- Further tales of hardship from the Cannes–winning Dardenne brothers, concerning the plight of an Albanian woman seeking Belgian citizenship…
Lust, Caution (Se, Jie) (2007)
- Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Joan Chen, Wei Tang…
- Dir. Ang Lee (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) returns to the mainland to present a slow–burn, psychologically dense and provocative spy thriller, based on…
Mad Detective (2007)
- Dir. Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Kelly Lin
- Flawed yet watchable policier in which a faultily–wired, one–eared detective with psychic leanings (Lau) is brought in to help on a cold…
Maiko Haaaan!!! (2007)
- Dir. Nobuo Mizuta
Feat. Sadao Abe, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi
- An oddball slice of Japanese farce following an obsessed fan of geisha who competes with a fellow fan to win the affections of the girls at a geisha…
Man from London, The (2007)
- Dir. Bela Tarr
Feat. Miroslav Krobot, Tilda Swinton
- Bela Tarr's dense, mesmeric imagery is married to the traditions of film noir in this strikingly opaque detective story, set on the weathered…
Manual of Love 2 (Capitoli successivi) (2007)
- Dir. Giovanni Veronesi
Feat. Carlo Verdone, Monica Bellucci, Riccardo Scamarcio
- Monica Bellucci climbs abroad in this wry sequel. Director Giovanni Veronesi delves once again into the mysterious recesses of the human heart and…
Metro (2007)
- Dir. Anurag Basu
Feat. Shilpa Shetty, Irfan Khan
- Talk–of–the–town Shilpa Shetty (of Big Brother and Richard Gere controversy) plays a dissatisfied housewife in this collective of…
Mind the Gap (Se upp för dårarna) (2007)
- Dir. Helena Bergstrom
- Feelgood coming–of–age comedy drama focused on two twenty–somethings from different backgrounds who form a solid friendship when…
Moliere (2007)
- Dir. Laurent Tirard
Feat. Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, Laura Morante…
- Jaunty period rom–com in the spirit of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE speculates on the creative catalysts for the comic masterpieces of famed French…
Mongol (2007)
- Dir. Sergei Bodrov
Feat. Tadanobu Asano
- A fiercely–mounted early history of Genghis Khan, from the Mongol leader’s childhood years through to his all–conquering warpath across…
Monkey Magic (2007)
- Enjoyable Japanese action based on the cult MONKEY! TV series, rejoining our adventurers as they travel into the mountains to recover a magical orb…
Muay Thai Chaiya Boxers (Chaiya) (2007)
- Dir. Kongkiat Khomsiri
Feat. Akara Amarttayakul, Sonthaya Chitmanee, Don Ferguson…
- Rough–and–tumble ONG–BAK impersonator centred on three country boys, trained in the unique ‘Chaiya’ Muay Thai discipline, who…
My Brother Is An Only Child (Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico) (2007)
- Dir. Daniele Luchetti
Feat. Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Angela Finocchiaro…
- The struggle between popular Communist and Fascist groups in 60's Italy is the stage for this tale of hot–headed sibling and filial conflict.…
Night Bus (Notturno Bus) (2007)
- Dir. Davide Marengo
Feat. Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Valerio Mastandrea
- Fast paced comedy/thriller follows the misadventures of a
petty thief, who gets more than she bargained for when she comes into possession of a…
Noodle (2007)
- Dir. Ayelet Menahemi
Feat. Mili Avital, BaoQi Chen
- Satisfying, well–realized tale of an Israeli flight attendant who becomes the reluctant guardian of a six–year–old Chinese boy…
O'Horten (2007)
- Dir. Bent Hamer
Feat. Baard Owe, Ghita Norby
- The director of KITCHEN STORIES follows up with another comic delicacy about a 67–year–old engineer and his oddly challenging quest to…
Om Shanti Om (2007)
- Dir. Farah Khan
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone
- From the dir. of MAIN HOON NA, this super–lush, mega–lavish Bollywood spectacular tells the story of a love that overcomes death (through…
One Hundred Nails (Centochidi) (2007)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi
Feat. Raz Degan, Luna Bendandi
- Quiet, thoughtful drama involving a jaded professor who in a fit of apostasy flees to the countryside only to be taken for Jesus by the locals.
Orphanage, The (El Orfanato) (2007)
- Dir. Juan Antonio Bayona
Feat. Belen Rueda, Geraldine Chaplin, Fernando Cayo
- Exemplary exercise in suggestive horror storytelling from first time feature director Bayona, with Belen Rueda superb as a woman who returns to her…
Persepolis (2007)
- Dir. Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
- Exceptional black–and–white animated feature for adults based on the autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, who grew up in…
Roman De Gare (Crossed Tracks) (2007)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Audrey Dana, Dominique Pinon, Fanny Ardant
- Playfully pulpy French thriller from veteran director Claude Lelouch (A MAN AND A WOMAN) depicts the intersecting lives of two strangers oddly…
Romance Of Astrea and Ceadon, The (2007)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Stéphanie Crayencour, Andy Gillet, Cécile Cassel…
- Eric Rohmer, master of the seasonal romantic tryst, steps out with this playful adaptation of a 17th century French novel, in which a handsome…
Rush Hour (The Trial Begins) (2007)
- Dir. Vincenzo Marra
Feat. Michelle Lastella, Fanny Ardant, Giulia Bevilacqua…
- Tightly directed drama about the temptation of amoral manipulation. Italian tax official Filippo makes himself guilty of fraud and bribery to join…
Saawariya (Beloved) (2007)
- Dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Feat. Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor
- Notable for being the first mainstream Hindi movie to be funded by a U.S. studio, this stylistically decadent romance of unrequited love and desire…
Saturn in Opposition (Saturno Contro) (2007)
- Dir. Ferzan Ozpetek
Feat. Stefano Accorsi, Margherita Buy, Pierfrancesco Favino
- Sensitive ensemble drama exploring the relationships of a group of friends who meet regularly for dinner.
Ozpetek brings his characters…
Secret of the Grain, The (Couscous) (2007)
- Dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
Feat. Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Farida Benkhetache…
- Acclaimed French film siphons the daily trials and tribulations of a working class Arab clan, whose patriarch dreams of opening a restaurant…
Severed Ways (2007)
- Dir. Tony Stone
Feat. Tony Stone, Fiore Tedesco, Gaby Hoffmann
- On the coast of North America in AD 1007, two Norsemen are stranded when their expedition is attacked and they are left for dead. As they struggle to…
Shall We Kiss? (Un baiser s'il vous plaît) (2007)
- Dir. Emmanuel Mouret
Feat. Virginie Ledoyen, Emmanuel Mouret, Julie Gayet
- Delicate French comedy focused on two strangers who share a romantic evening but stop short of a kiss on her opinion that there is no such thing 'as…
Siyama: Village of Warriors (2007)
- Dir. Preecha Songsakul
- Three teenagers travel back to the 18th century in their Toyota to lend a helping hand to villagers engaged in an epic battle with a callous Burmese…
Son Of A Lion (2007)
- Dir. Benjamin Gilmour
Feat. Niaz Khan Shinwari, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad
- Pertinent, courageous drama filmed entirely in the Pashtun tribal area, telling the story of a young Pakistani boy who yearns to go to school and…
Sovereign's Servant, The (2007)
- Dir. Oleg Ryaskov
Feat. Dmitriy Miller, Aleksandr Bukharov
- Two French aristocrats are sent by Louis XIV to observe the Swedish and Russian armies just before the Battle of Poltava in this sweeping Russian…
Story of Richard O, The (L' Histoire de Richard O) (2007)
- Feat. Mathieu Amalric
- Standing explicitly on the 'porn' side of the art–porn fence, sex addict Mathieu Amalric sates his carnal curiosity by getting off with a…
Stranded - The Andes Plane Crash Survivors (2007)
- Inspiring first–hand account of the devastating ordeal suffered by members of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane famously crashed in the Andes…
Strangers (2007)
- Dir. Guy Nattiv, Erez Tadmor
Feat. Patrick Albenque, Lubna Azabal, Mila Dekker
- Balancing hopeful romanticism with political realism, this fatalistic drama brings together an Israeli and Palestinian in Paris during the frenzy of…
Suso's Tower (La Torre de Suso) (2007)
- Dir. Tom Fernández
Feat. Javier Camara, Gonzalo de Castro, César Vea
- Forced to return to his native Spain following the death of a friend, a hard–living man decides to fulfill his dead mate’s dream of…
Sword Of Alexander (Taitei no ken) (2007)
- Dir. Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Feat. Hiroshi Abe, Riki Takeuchi
- Camp sword and sorcery pastiche mines the Japanese tradition for bizarre humour, genre–mincing, and spectacular overacting, with…
To The Limit (Am Limit) (2007)
- Dir. Pepe Danquart
- Extreme sport doco, from the director of HELL ON WHEELS, following the lofty ambitions of two speed rock–climbing brothers attempting to summit…
Tonight, I'll Sleep At Yours (Ce Soir, Je Dors Chez Toi) (2007)
- Dir. Olivier Baroux
Feat. Jean-Paul Rouve, Mélanie Doutey, Kad Merad
- Feather–light French comedy scripted around a stubborn commitment–phobe who goes to desperate extremes to retain both his freedom and…
Twice Upon a Time (Désaccord parfait) (2007)
- Dir. Antoine de Caunes
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Nanty…
- Agreeable Pan–Euro comedy recounting what happens when a former showbiz couple – a director and his actress muse – reunite thirty years…
Two Days in Paris (2 Days in Paris) (2007)
- Dir. Julie Delpy
Feat. Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg
- Delightful, self–starring directorial debut from Julie Delpy about an angsty Franco–American couple who drop in to visit her very…
Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) (2007)
- Dir. Patricia Riggen
Feat. Adrian Alonso, Kate del Castillo, Eugenio Derbez…
- Stirring drama following Carlitos (Alonso) a young boy living in Mexico and his mother Rosario (del Castillo) living in LA, and their epic journey to…
Vexille (2007)
- Dir. Fumisiko Sori
- Brawny sci–fi anime set in the year 2077, in which a special agent is sent to examine the capabilities of Japan’s robot technology, and its…
Warlords, The (Tau ming chong) (2007)
- Dir. Peter Chan
Feat. Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro…
- Spectacular, if now commonplace amongst a legion of Chinese historical epics, this tale of feuding warlords relays its angst, betrayal, and gory…
Witnesses, The (2007)
- Dir. Andre Techine
Feat. Michel Blanc, Emmanuelle Beart, Sami Bouajila…
- Told in three chapters, this matter–of–fact ensemble drama centred on the AIDS crisis as it hit Paris during the eighties, develops into…
XXY (2007)
- Dir. Lucía Puenzo
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Ines Efron, Martin Piroyanski
- Articulate portrayal of the life of an intersex teenager searching for identity and exploring the complexities of coming–of–age in a…
Yella (2007)
- Dir. Christian Petzold
Feat. Nina Hoss
- Engrossing metaphysical thriller set in a predatory corporate world in which a divorcee accountant (Hoss) decides to leave behind her redundant life…
You the Living (2007)
- Dir. Roy Andersson
Feat. Jessica Lundberg, Elisabeth Helander, Björn Englund
- Master of the painstaking, deadpan vignette, Roy Andersson, continues his singular and obsessive vision with this absurdist comedy of…
[REC] (REC) (2007)
- Dir. Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza
- Sinister Spanish horror, from European creepy movie maestro Jaume Balaguero, which follows a callout from a Barcelona fire station to an apartment…
13: Game Of Death (2006)
- Dir. Chukiat Sakveerakul, Stewart St. John
- Twisted Thai horror in which a down–and–out salesman, targeted by a mysterious phone call, is offered millions if he can complete 13…
After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) (2006)
- Dir. Susanne Bier
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen
- A rewarding drama with a political conscience and a romantic heart, Mads Mikkelsen plays a teacher at an Indian orphanage who returns to Denmark to…
Alatriste (2006)
- Dir. Agustin Diaz Yanes
Feat. Viggo Mortensen, Elena Anaya, Javier Camara
- Viggo Mortensen plays a Spanish noble warrior in this epic adaptation of Arturo Pérez–Reverte's best–selling books.
Lavished with the…
Along the Ridge (Anche libero va bene) (2006)
- Dir. Kim Rossi Stuart
Feat. Barbora Bobulova, Kim Rossi Stuart
- Italian actor Kim Rossi Stuart's directorial debut is a heart–rending drama told through the eyes of an 11 year old boy whose family must cope…
Anna Pihl (TV Series) (2006-2008)
- Feat. Charlotte Munck, Iben Hjejle
- Praised for its realism, this Danish police drama centres around a Copenhagen policewoman also having to deal with solo parenthood.
Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest (2006)
- Dir. Michel Ocelot
- Exotic story–book style adventure set in the Arabic world and following childhood friends Azur and Asmar as they become rivals on a quest to…
Bad Faith (Mauvaise foi) (2006)
- Dir. Roschdy Zem
Feat. Cecile De France, Roschdy Zem
- Likeable cross–cultural fare contemporizes the oft–told GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER predicament by throwing Judaism and Islam into the…
Ball, The (Liscio) (2006)
- Dir. Claudio Antonini
Feat. Laura Morante, Umberto Morelli
- Slender tale boasts a fine performance by Morante as a chanteuse and solo mother, whose son attempts to find her a boyfriend.
Bamako (The Court) (2006)
- Dir. Abderrahmane Sissako
Feat. Aissa Maiga
- A mock trial of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – whose representatives must defend charges of reckless lending and…
Bartali - The Iron Man (Mini-Series) (Gino Bartali - L'intramontabile) (2006)
- Dir. Alberto Negrin
Feat. Pierfrancesco Favino
- Spirited made–for–TV biopic of Italy’s indomitable road cyclist Gino Bartali, twice winner of the Tour de France.
Battle of Wits, A (Muk gong) (2006)
- Dir. Jacob Cheung
Feat. Andy Lau, Sung-kee Ahn, Zhiwen Wang…
- Broad, engrossing siege epic, in which a lone, resolute hero fights for a village overrun by a 25,000–strong army in 370 B.C. China.
Though…
Beauty In Trouble (Kráska v nesnázích) (2006)
- Dir. Jan Hrebejk
Feat. Anna Geislerova, Josef Abrhám, Jana Brejchová
- Exquisite Czech drama focused on a young woman living in Prague who, while struggling to care for her family after their home is destroyed by a…
Beyond Hatred (Au Dela de la Haine) (2006)
- Sensitive documentary following the aftermath of a hate crime in which a 30–year old gay man was beaten to death by a trio of skinheads in a…
Black Book (Zwartboek) (2006)
- Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Carice Van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman
- A Jewish singer goes deep undercover for the Dutch resistance in this splashy, larger–than–life WWII yarn set in Nazi–occupied…
Blame it on Fidel! (La Faute à Fidel!) (2006)
- Dir. Julie Gavras
Feat. Nina Kervel-Bey, Julie Depardieu, Stefano Accorsi
- A warm, wise and wryly observed evocation of a child's accelerated maturation in the midst of early 1970s social and political upheaval, Nina…
Boss Of It All, The (Direktøren for det hele) (2006)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Jens Albinus, Iben Hjejle, Benedikt Erlingsson…
- Crude, but refreshing change of pace from perennial troublemaker Lars von Trier sees the Danish renegade chance his arm at a corporate–styled…
Bothersome Man, The (2006)
- Dir. Jens Lien
Feat. Trond Fausa Aurvaag
- A black comedy with a typically Scandinavian sense of absurdity and style, in which an amnesiac finds himself in an unfamiliar city with a new job,…
Caiman, The (Il Camino) (2006)
- Dir. Nanni Moretti
Feat. Nanni Moretti, Margherita Buy, Jasmine Trinca…
- Unflinching Italian film–within–a–film concerning a producer attempting to make a film about former Italian prime minister Silvio…
Chronicle of an Escape (Buenos Aires 1977) (2006)
- Dir. Adrián Caetano
Feat. Rodrigo De la Serna
- An Argentinian goalkeeper is kidnapped and falsely imprisoned as a revolutionary in this gripping account of the “Buenos Aires, 1977”…
City of Violence, The (2006)
- Dir. Ryoo Seung-Wan
Feat. Doo-hong Jung, Kil-Kang Ahn
- A dazzling, action–fantastic revenger by way of Korea, this draws its considerable bloodletting from the aftermath of a funeral, where two…
Climates (Iklimler) (2006)
- Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Feat. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan
- The director of UZAK employs startlingly high definition photography and an Antonioni–inspired dissection of male–female relations to…
Coeurs (Private Fears in Public Places) (2006)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Sabine Azema, Laura Morante, Pierre Arditi…
- Romantic French drama with a vulnerable edge explores the modern dilemmas of loneliness and adoration through the lives of six alienated Parisians…
Colossal Youth (2006)
- Dir. Pedro Costa
- A major work of contemporary art cinema, this mesmerizing sleepwalk throughout the demolished slums of Lisbon, Portugal is seen through the eyes of…
Confession of Pain (Seung sing) (2006)
- Dir. Siu Fai Mak, Wai Keung Lau
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Takeshi Kaneshiro, Shu Qi
- The directorial duo behind INFERNAL AFFAIRS eek out this morose and melancholic policier about two troubled detectives tracking down a killer in…
Conversations with My Gardener (Dialogue avec mon jardinier) (2006)
- Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottencon
- Leisurely mateship comedy about a jilted artist (Auteuil) who retreats to his remote country home, forging a mid–life bond with a local…
Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou
- Another sumptuous Tang Dynasty epic in martial arts from the dir. of HERO, cast in the mould of a Shakespearian power struggle between an Emperor, an…
Dark Sea (Mare Nero) (2006)
- Dir. Roberta Torre
Feat. Luigi Lo Cascio, Anna Mouglalis
- Ice cold policier charts a lone cops descent into the sex underworld after the murder of a sexually adventurous teenager.
Full of Lynchian…
Darna Zaroori Hai (You Gotta Be Scared) (2006)
- Dir. Ram Gopal Varma
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Shetty
- Bollywood does horror in this six film omnibus told from the perspective of five children accosted by an old woman who begins to tell them stories…
Day Watch (Dnevnoi Dozor, Daywatch) (2006)
- Dir. Timur Bekmambetov
Feat. Konstantin Khabensky, Maria Poroshina, Dima Martinov
- The vampiric Muscovite forces of Good and Evil fight it out again in this frenetic, fantastic FX fantasy every bit as good as the first one (NIGHT…
Days of Glory (Indigènes) (2006)
- Dir. Rachid Bouchareb
Feat. Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Bernard Blancan…
- Epic Algerian WW2 drama focused on a determined group of Algerian soldiers fighting to defend France with little acknowledgement of their sacrifices…
Death Note / Death Note - The Last Name (2006)
- Dir. Shusuke Kaneko
Feat. Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Erika Toda…
- High–concept and precocious in attitude, this absurdly drawn battle–of–wits, based on a cult Manga, concerns the discovery of an…
Dirty Carnival, A (Biyeolhan geori) (2006)
- Dir. Ha Yoo
Feat. In-sung Zo, Ku Jin, Tae won Kwon
- Dynamite entry in the burgeoning Korean gangster genre explores the meteoric rise – and inevitable fall – of one Byung–du, a lowly…
Don (2006)
- Dir. Farhan Akhtar
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Om Puri
- Far–fetched story of a Mumbai man recruited by police to masquerade as the ruthless head of the Malaysian drug mafia, known as "the Don". When…
Don't Worry, I'm Fine (Je Vais Bien, Ne T'en Fais Pas) (2006)
- Dir. Philippe Lioret
Feat. Mélanie Laurent
- Understated French drama centres on a distraught young woman's search for her twin brother after being told he has run away from the family…
Dragon Tiger Gate (2006)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue, Donnie Yen…
- Flamboyant, off–the–hook actioner in which two estranged kung–fu masters must put aside their differences to overcome a marauding…
Dynamite Warrior (2006)
- Dir. Chalem Wongpim
Feat. Dan Chupong, Leo Putt
- As if to accommodate an escalating reputation for martial arts outrageousness, Thailand’s stunt extraordinaires risk life and limb in their most…
Eden (2006)
- Dir. Michael Hofmann
Feat. Josef Ostendorf, Charlotte Roche
- Charming romance revolves around an eccentric chef, and a random encounter with a mother trapped in a monotonous relationship.
Fans of…
Election 2 (Triad Election) (2006)
- Dir. Johnny To
Feat. Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Louis Koo
- Genre exponent Johnny To logically extends the gangland politics of his original film in this punchy, no–nonsense sequel concerning a fresh…
Etoile Du Soldat, L' (Star of the Soldier) (2006)
- Dir. Christophe de Ponfilly
Feat. Sacha Bourdo, Philippe Caubere, Hanns Zischler
- Maladroit war drama based on the true story of a Russian soldier captured by the Mujahedin in Afghanistan who becomes enthralled by his freedom…
Exiled (Fong juk) (2006)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Anthony Wong, Simon Yam, Richie Ren…
- Master exponent of genre Johnnie To pays homage to spaghetti westerns and the bygone era of John Woo in this energetic, skilfully dispatched action…
Exit (2006)
- Dir. Peter Lindmark
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Alexander Skarsgard
- Gripping Swedish corporate thriller stars the angular Mads Mikkelsen (CASINO ROYALE) as a family man on the run after he becomes the main suspect in…
Family Law (Derecho de familia) (2006)
- Dir. Daniel Burman
Feat. Daniel Hendler, Arturo Goetz, Eloy Burman…
- Fatherhood and career jitters converge in this wry comedy of family matters.
Promising young dir. Burman displays a dry wit in looking at three…
Few Days in September, A (Quelques jours en septembre) (2006)
- Dir. Santiago Amigorena
Feat. Juliette Binoche, John Turturro, Nick Nolte…
- Pre–September 11 spy–thriller dramatising events leading up to the fatal terrorist attack, with former spy (Binoche) being stalked…
Fireworks Wednesday (Chaharshanbe-soori) (2006)
- Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Taraneh Alidoosti, Matin Heydar-nia
- This earlier feature from the director of A SEPARATION similarly explores the mores of the urban middle and lower classes with depth and complexity.…
Four Minutes (Vier Minuten) (2006)
- Dir. Chris Kraus
Feat. Monika Bliebtreu, Hannah Herzsprung
- Unrelentingly gritty German drama of redemption details the hostile relationship between an incarcerated piano player and her emotionally chilly…
Freedom (TV Series) (2006)
- Dir. Joe Egender
- Katsuhiro Otomo's distinctive character designs flavour this beautifully rendered seven–part anime serial, originally devised as a marketing…
Golden Door, The (Nuovomondo) (2006)
- Dir. Emanuele Crialese
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vincenzo Amato
- Award–winning Italian drama from the dir. of RESPIRO follows the fortunes of a family of dirt–poor Sicilian peasants, from their homeland…
Gucha (Guca!; Distant Trumpet) (2006)
- Dir. Dusan Milic
Feat. Marko Markovic, Mladen Nelevic
- A catchy successor to Emir Kusturica's gypsy theatrics, this ingenious, musically–infused jive on Serbian ethnic tensions frames a…
Hey Good Looking! (Comme t'y es belle!) (2006)
- Dir. Lisa Azuelos
Feat. Aure Atika
- Frank French chick flick centred around a SEX AND THE CITYish cast of four gal pals who share with each other the trials of finding (and keeping) the…
Host, The (Gwoemul) (2006)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Doona Bae, Ah-sung Ko
- Colossal Korean blockbuster that single–handedly revives the generic monster movie: birthed from a batch of military–grade chemicals…
Hula Girls (2006)
- Dir. Sang-il Lee
Feat. Yasuko Matsuyuki, Yu Aoi
- Feel–good true story of a depleted coal–mining town in Japan, and its residents’ efforts to build a Hawaiian–themed tourist…
I Do: Or How to Get Married and Stay Single (Prete-moi ta main) (2006)
- Dir. Eric Lartigau
Feat. Alain Chabat, Charlotte Gainsbourg
- Under pressure from his nearest and dearest to wed, committed bachelor Alain Chabat solicits the gorgeous Charlotte Gainsbourg to become his faux…
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)
- Dir. Ming-liang Tsai
Feat. Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen
- This achingly serene, Kuala Lumpur–set fable is one of Tsai Ming–liang’s best, starring his alter ego Lee Kang–sheng as a…
I Served the King of England (2006)
- Dir. Jiri Menzel
Feat. Julia Jentsch, Oldrich Kaiser, Ivan Barnev
- Whimsical yet biting Czech farce centres on the exploits of an endearingly opportunistic waiter, whose thrifty wiles propel him into all manner of…
Inside Paris (Dans Paris) (2006)
- Dir. Christophe Honore
Feat. Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Guy Marchand…
- Sprinkled with the magic of the Nouvelle Vague, this hip and happening ode to big city Paris spends a night and day in the company of two brothers…
Invisible Waves (2006)
- Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Tadanobu Asano
- Moody and sophisticated dream–noir from the dir. of LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE again casts Japanese star Tadanobu Asano, here in the role of a…
Jar City (Mýrin) (2006)
- Dir. Baltasar Kormakur
Feat. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Agusta Eva Erlendsdóttir, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
- With dirt under its fingernails and ice on its breath, this forensic thriller harnesses the harsh, otherworldly elements of its Icelandic setting to…
Kiss Me Baby (Baciami Piccina) (2006)
- Dir. Roberto Cimapnelli
Feat. Neri Marcore, Vincenzo Salemme, Elena Russo
- Elegant blend of love–story, witty road movie and historical drama tells the story of a couple on their honeymoon at the most unlikely of times…
Lady Chatterley (2006)
- Dir. Pascale Ferran
Feat. Hippolyte Girardot, Marina Hands, Jean-Louise Coulloc'h
- Sensuous, heartrendingly tender French/Belgian adaptation of an alternate version of D.H. Lawrence's once notorious novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'…
Land, The (La Terra, Our Land) (2006)
- Dir. Sergio Rubini
Feat. Paolo Briguglia, Emilio Solfrizzi, Sergio Rubini
- Compulsive Italian dramedy depicting a man who returns to the home of his childhood to tie up the sale of the family estate, but is instead…
Lives of Others, The (2006)
- Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Feat. Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck…
- Compelling dramatisation of the political tensions between artists and authorities in 80's East Germany, this widely celebrated arthouse hit won the…
Love and Dance (Sipur Hatzi-Russi ) (2006)
- Dir. Eitan Anner
Feat. Jenya Dodina, Avi Kushnir, Oksana Korostyshevskaya…
- This "Middle Eastern BILLY ELLIOT" sees the young protagonist oppose the macho aspirations of his secretly soft–centred Israeli father to…
Love and Honor (Bushi no ichibun) (2006)
- Dir. Yoji Yamada
Feat. Takuya Kimura, Nenji Kobayashi, Ken Ogata
- Third chapter in dir. Yamada's revisionist samurai trilogy looks at a recently blinded samurai and the lengths his wife will go to protect his…
Marcello, A Sweet Life (Marcello, una vita dolce) (2006)
- Dir. Mario Canale, Annarosa Morri
- Sincere Italian documentary exploring the life of great Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni through archival footage and testimonials from his…
Melissa P. (2006)
- Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Feat. Marcello Mazzarella, Maria Valverde
- Saucy, if ultimately restrained memoir of sexual adolescence, concerning a promiscuous teenage girl who seeks solace from her troubled life by…
My Best Enemy (Il Mio miglior nemico) (2006)
- Dir. Carlo Verdone
Feat. Carlo Verdone, Silvio Muccino
- Capricious Italian comedy concerning a bitter rivalry between a father and his daughter's new lover – who also happens to be the son of a woman…
My Best Friend (2006)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Dany Boon
- Daniel Auteuil lends his lovable persona to this textbook French comedy as a frosty antique dealer who has 10 days to disprove his work colleagues'…
Nina's Journey (2006)
- Dir. Lena Einhorn
Feat. Agnieszka Grochowska
- Based on the captivating real–life story of writer–director Einhorn's mother, this restrained yet profoundly moving docudrama recaptures…
No Mercy For The Rude (2006)
- Dir. Cheol-hie Park
Feat. Ha-kyun Shin
- A mute hitman limits his contract killings to ‘rude’ individuals, saving up for a voice–restoring operation in this unconventional riff on…
Offside (2006)
- Dir. Jafar Panahi
- Filmed using non–professionals, in and around the unfolding events of an actual World Cup qualifier, Jafar Panahi expertly weaves a…
Orchestra Seats (Fauteuils d'orchestre) (2006)
- Dir. Daniele Thompson
Feat. Cecile De France, Sydney Pollack
- A fetching French soufflé with a keen eye for Parisian charms, this dainty bohemian offering follows an appealing ensemble cast headed by café…
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006)
- Dir. Michel Hazanavicius
Feat. Jean Dujardin
- Dusting off a little–known French spy spoof from the 1960's, this remake upgrades rather than updates the franchise, combining the Bond school…
Our Country (A Casa Nostra) (2006)
- Dir. Francesca Comencini
Feat. Valeria Golino, Giuseppe Battiston, Luca Zingaretti…
- Hard–nosed ensemble drama aims straight at the Italian big business jugular, levelling broadsides at capitalism and Big Brother as it critiques…
Page Turner, The (2006)
- Dir. Denis Drecourt
Feat. Catherine Frot, Deborah Francois
- A typically frosty, femme–centric French chamber–piece about a classical music prodigy whose career is sabotaged by a concert pianist,…
Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del fauno) (2006)
- Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Feat. Ariadna Gil, Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez…
- A stunning, sinister netherworld fantasy that parallels an equally compelling story of uprising against a fascist military unit in WWII Spain, this…
Paris, Je T'aime (Paris, I Love You) (2006)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet
Feat. Fanny Ardant, Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi…
- A prestige line–up of actors and filmmakers converge in this grand anthology of love letters to the city of romance. With each vignette…
Poltergay (2006)
- Dir. Eric Lavaine
Feat. Clovis Cornillac, Julie Depardieu
- Farcical French comedy sees a couple haunted by the ghosts of five gay guys, who died in their house when it used to be a gay disco.
This fluff…
Prague (Prag) (2006)
- Dir. Ole Christian Madsen
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade
- A journey to Prague to collect a deceased father's coffin turns into a prolonged, poignant and gruelling dissection of an estranged Danish couple's…
Priceless (2006)
- Dir. Pierre Salvadori
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh
- Ultra–glamorous French romantic comedy, in which one can gorge on (or gawp at) Riviera culture at its most opulent – the clothes, the…
Provoked (2006)
- Dir. Jag Mundhra
Feat. Aishwarya Rai, Miranda Richardson, Naveen Andrews…
- Provocative indeed, this is the true story of an Indian woman (played by Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai) who radically changed how the British public…
Rang De Basanti (2006)
- Dir. Rakesh Omprakash Mehra
Feat. Aamir Khan, Alice Patten
- Progressive Bollywood fare bypasses musical melodrama for an overarching tale of history and self–discovery, guided by a British–Indian…
Re-Cycle (Gwai Wik) (2006)
- Dir. Danny Pang, Oxide Pang
- Chinese gore connoisseurs Danny and Oxide Pang embark on another otherworldly excursion in this horror about an author who realises the supernatural…
Rebel, The (2006)
- Dir. Truc "Charlie" Nguyen
Feat. Dustin Nguyen
- This vigorous martial arts actioner set in 1920s Vietnam is unusually committed to the finer details of political turmoil and period recreation,…
Red Kebaya, The (2006)
- Dir. Oliver Knott
Feat. Ramli Hassan, Vanida Imran, Corinne Adri
- A lonely photographer with an excessive amount of haunting childhood baggage discovers the key to his past while recording abandoned houses in this…
Red Like the Sky (2006)
- Dir. Cristiano Bortone
Feat. Luca Carpriotti, Paolo Sassanelli, Marco Cocci
- Affecting drama testifies to a young boy's steely resolve after being blinded, after he discovers a newfound joy in sound. An understated narrative…
Reprise (2006)
- Dir. Joachim Trier
Feat. Anders Danielsen Lie, Espen Klouman-Høiner, Viktoria Winge…
- Touching, keenly perceptive Norwegian film fest favourite centres on two twenty–something writers whose vastly divergent personalities and…
Requiem (2006)
- Dir. Hans-Christian Schmid
Feat. Sandra Huller
- Tightly coiled within Sandra Huller’s commanding lead performance, this riveting account of a young woman’s struggle with epilepsy and religious…
Retribution (2006)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Manami Konishi, Tsuyoshi Ihara
- A skin–crawling 'mainstream' J–Horror from subtle spookmeister Kiyoshi Kurosawa, this trades heavily in established genre elements, but…
Robin-B-Hood (Bo bui gai wak) (2006)
- Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Louis Koo, Michael Hui…
- Chan hams it up in this big–budget action caper as a compulsive gambler who inadvertently ends up with a kidnapped baby as a means to pay off…
Science of Sleep, The (2006)
- Dir. Michel Gondry
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emma de Caunes…
- A delightfully self–conscious, self–indulged fantasy for cine–wizard Michel Gondry, the director's follow–up to ETERNAL…
Secret Journey (Viaggio Segreto) (2006)
- Dir. Roberto Ando
Feat. Marco Baliani, Alessio Boni, Emir Kusturica
- Leo, a psychoanalyst in his forties lives with his younger sister, Ale. When Harold , a famous and hugely successful artist, announces his intention…
Sheitan (2006)
- Dir. Kim Chapiron
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Roxane Mesquida
- A gaggle of young hedonists on a bender expend their energies at a disco and are invited by pouting barmaid Mesquida (A MA SOUER) to her remote…
Singer, The (Quand j'étais chanteur) (2006)
- Dir. Xavier Giannoli
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Cecile De France, Mathieu Amalric
- Gerard Depardieu works his rotund charm as a journeyman lounge singer, crooning his way through half–empty nightclubs while forging an unlikely…
Sinking of Japan, The (Nihon chinbotsu) (2006)
- Dir. Shinji Higuchi
Feat. Ko Shibasaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi
- Japan is posited as a submerging island nation in this cloying, ultra–earnest disaster movie, based on the (oft–told) theory that seismic…
Still Life (Dong) (2006)
- Dir. Jia Zhang-ke
Feat. Zhao Tao
- Another arresting globalisation story from China's leading contemporary filmmaker, situated on the banks of the Yangtze River, where once thriving…
Suddenly (Underbara älskade) (2006)
- Dir. Johan Brisinger
Feat. Michael Nyqvist, Anastasios Soulis, Moa Gammel…
- Quality Swedish drama explores themes of grief and solace in its portrait of a bereaved family man, who must come to terms with the sudden death of…
Syndromes and a Century (2006)
- Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Feat. Arkanae Cherkam, Jaruchai Iamaram, Nu Nimsomboon
- A rural hospital surrounded by Thailand's evergreen jungle is the setting for this blissful meditation on memory and desire, shot in the exquisite…
Taxidermia (2006)
- Dir. Gyorgy Palfi
Feat. Csaba Czene, Gergely Trócsányi
- Grostesque though exquisitely crafted oddity from the dir. of HUKKLE degenerates well beyond the threshold of bad taste in its history of three…
Tell No One (Ne le dis à Personne) (2006)
- Dir. Guillaume Canet
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Marie-Josee Croze, Andre Dussollier…
- Convoluted yet propulsive French thriller about a man whose deceased wife contacts him eight years after her supposed murder, triggering a quest to…
Them (Ils) (2006)
- Dir. Xavier Palud, David Moreau
Feat. Olivia Bonamy, Michael Cohen, Adriana Mocca…
- French horror that takes the 'home invasion' subgenre to chilling new heights, sees a young couple terrorized in their home by unseen intruders.…
Tiger and the Snow, The (2006)
- Dir. Roberto Benigni
Feat. Roberto Benigni, Jean Reno, Nicoletta Braschi…
- Italian jester Roberto Benigni unites comedy and tragedy within the throws of the Iraq war, playing a poet who follows his true love (real life…
Tiger Brigades, The (2006)
- Dir. Jerome Cornuau
Feat. Clovis Cornillac, Diane Kruger, Edouard Baer…
- Splashy French adventurism, in the spirit of THE UNTOUCHABLES, pits a high–minded inspector and his hard knocks 'Tiger Brigade' of crimebusters…
Time to Leave (2006)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi…
- Dir. Ozon expands on the theme of death and mourning, first explored in UNDER THE SAND, with this carefully composed, if somewhat underdeveloped male…
Times and Winds (Bes Vakit) (2006)
- Dir. Reha Erdem
Feat. Ozkan Ozen, Ali Bey Kayali, Elit Iscan
- Set in a remote Turkish village three friends on the cusp of adolescence struggle with both with their changing emotions and growing resentment of…
TranSylvania (2006)
- Dir. Tony Gatlif
Feat. Asia Argento, Birol Unel, Amira Casar
- Tony Gatlif tones his freewheeling musical romanticism down a notch, but doesn’t discard the ramshackle sensuality of his earlier films, in this…
Unknown Woman, The (La Sconosciuta) (2006)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Kseniya Rappoport, Michele Placido, Claudia Gerini
- Skillful Hitchcockian suspense hailed as a return to form for the director of CINEMA PARADISO, following a troubled Ukrainian immigrant in Italy who…
Valet, The (La Doublure) (2006)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Gad Elmaleh, Daniel Auteuil, Alice Taglioni…
- Another inspired comic concoction from Francis Veber (dir. of most everything French and funny), that this time follows a meek parking valet who…
Vanaja (2006)
- Dir. Rajnesh Domalpalli
Feat. Mamatha Bhukya
- Heartfelt story of empowerment centres around the rape and subsequent pregnancy of a 15–year–old Indian girl who aspires to be a…
Vengeance (Phairii phinaat paa mawrana) (2006)
- Dir. Preaw Sirisuwan
- Fast–paced jungle fantasy horror has a young man and his friends in pursuit of an escaped prisoner inside a fantastical forest populated by…
Vitus (2006)
- Dir. Fredi M. Murer
Feat. Julika Jenkins, Urs Jucker, Bruno Ganz…
- Sweet–natured chronicle of a young prodigy whose parents demand success as a pianist.
The problem of trying to foster a child’s talent but…
Volver (2006)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas
- Formidable Spanish brand–name dir. Almodovar re–embracing what he knows best – womanhood – in a vibrant and tempestuous tale of…
What is Love? (Quale Amore) (2006)
- Dir. Maurizio Sciarra
Feat. Giorgio Pasotti, Arnoldo Foa, Vanessa Incontrada…
- Sullen adaptation of Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata" has jealous Pasotti recount how he murdered his wife. Good looking film features some accomplished…
13 Tzameti (2005)
- Dir. Géla Babluani
Feat. Aurelien Recoing, Georges Babluani
- Coolly disturbing noir thriller tracks the fate of a struggling immigrant labourer who intercepts a package with instructions that lead him into a…
9th Company (2005)
- Dir. Fyodor Bondarchuk
Feat. Artur Smolyaninov, Aleksey Chadov , Konstantin Kryukov
- A muscular, at times brutal, war film set during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan follows a regiment from training to ill–fated combat with…
Accused (Anklaget) (2005)
- Dir. Jacob Thuesen
Feat. Troels Lyby, Sofie Grabol
- Unnerving Danish chamber–piece concerns the accusation by a 14–year–old girl that her father has sexually abused her – a…
Adam's Apples (2005)
- Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Paprika Steen…
- Roguishly sardonic Danish black comedy about a sanguine country vicar (CASINO ROYALE’s Mikkelsen) who encounters resistance from a neo–Nazi…
Airlift, The (2005)
- Dir. Dror Zahavi
Feat. Heino Ferch, Ulrich Tukur, Bettina Zimmerman
- Sweeping historical drama set in post–WWII Berlin with the love affair between a German single mother and an American General complicated by…
Allegro (2005)
- Dir. Christoffer Boe
Feat. Ulrich Thomsen, Helena Christensen
- Conceptually intriguing Danish sci–fi drama concerns a gifted concert pianist whose lack of intimacy leads to amnesia, forcing him to enter…
Always - Sunset on Third Street (Always san-chôme no yûhi ) (2005)
- Dir. Takashi Yamazaki
Feat. Koyuki, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Hiroko Yakushimaru
- A wistful Japanese drama, set against the backdrop of a developing Tokyo skyline in the 50's, centred on a handful of residents living in the…
Angel-A (2005)
- Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen
- This sleek, stylized departure for dir. Luc Besson dabbles in an unlikely romance between a statuesque blonde (Rassmusen), and a nebbish, diminutive…
Apnea (2005)
- Dir. Roberto Dordit
Feat. Claudio Santamaria, Elio De Capitani
- Involving socio–political thriller about a man who discovers that his best friend, was not who he thought he was.
Aura, The (2005)
- Dir. Fabian Bielinsky
Feat. Ricardo Darín
- A taxidermist indulges his criminal fantasies in this brooding, atmospheric wilderness thriller from the late dir. of NINE QUEENS.
Unfolding as a…
Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (2005)
- The BBC present a comprehensive visual and verbal account of the "Final Solution" phase of the Nazi Holocaust, focused on the most infamous of the…
Ax, The (Le Couperet) (2005)
- Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Jose Garcia, Karin Viard, Olivier Gourmet
- Dastardly satire from the always–edgy Costa Gavras plumbs the depths of a corporate downsizing victim (Garcia) who resorts to murderous ways in…
Azumi 2 (2005)
- Dir. Shusuke Kaneko
Feat. Aya Ueto, Shun Oguri, Ai Maeda…
- Samurai girl–power sweeps feudal Japan once more in this competent, but lesser installment (minus the original director) in the Azumi…
Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo) (2005)
- Dir. Carlos Reygadas
Feat. Marcos Hernández
- Heavyset follow–up to JAPON finds Mexican dir. Reygadas dealing in the spiritual and moral crises of two lost souls: one an underprivileged…
Beast in the Heart, The (La Bestia nel cuore, Don't Tell) (2005)
- Dir. Cristina Comencini
Feat. Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Stefania Rocca, Alessio Boni…
- Oscar–nominated Italian drama centred on the life of a successful career woman who finds herself haunted by nightmares of an abusive childhood…
Beat My Heart Skipped, The (De battre mon coeur s'est arrete) (2005)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Jonathan Zaccai…
- A star–turn by Romain Duris invigorates this deft remake of James Toback's 1978 thriller FINGERS, playing a reluctant young thug with a…
Beauty Remains (Mei ren yi jiu) (2005)
- Dir. Ann Hui
Feat. Vivian Wu, Xun Zhou
- Two sisters negotiate the turbulent rise of communism in China during the 1940s in this family melodrama.
Sensuously filmed in tones reminiscent…
Bittersweet Life, A (2005)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Byung-hun Lee
- A suave mob enforcer's mercy for one of his intended victims results in the full wrath of the Korean organised crime world in this slick, ultra…
Black Cat (TV Series) (Shonen Jump) (2005)
- Sven is your run–of–the–mill sweeper (a.k.a. bounty hunter): down on his luck, haunted by the perpetual grumbling of his stomach…
Bystanders (Diary of June) (2005)
- Dir. Kyung-Soo Im
Feat. Yunjin Kim
- Proficient Korean thriller grapples with a murder mystery of cryptic diary notes left inside the bodies of murder victims; the handwriting matched to…
Cave of the Yellow Dog, The (2005)
- Dir. Byambasuren Davaa
- The dir. of THE WEEPING CAMEL weaves an enchanting tale of nomads through the eyes of a young girl, using her friendship with a stray dog as a launch…
Child, The (L'enfant) (2005)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Jeremie Renier, Deborah Francois
- The latest humanist imprint from the Dardenne's is a gripping, logical extension of their socio–economic character studies, here following the…
Crime Novel (Romanzo criminale) (2005)
- Feat. Kim Rossi Stuart, Pierfrancesco Favino, Claudio Santamaria…
- Novel–based Italian crime drama concerning a group of small–town crims who went on to become Rome's most merciless crime family and a…
Dark Horse (Voksne mennesker) (2005)
- Dir. Dagur Kari
Feat. Jakob Cedergren, Nicolas Bro
- Charmingly offbeat slacker comedy from the director of NOI THE ALBINO, following a Copenhagen graffiti artist who spends his days dodging parking…
Days of Abandonment, The (I Giorni dell'abbandono) (2005)
- Dir. Roberto Faenza
Feat. Margherita Buy, Luca Zingaretti
- Shattering Italian drama with Margherita Buy in a breathtakingly brutal performance as a middle–age woman left by her husband who deteriorates…
Death of Mr Lazarescu, The (2005)
- Dir. Cristi Puiu
Feat. Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu
- Whirling, labyrinthine black comedy follows with interest the Kafkaesque plight of an ailing elderly drunk, whose stomach pains are met with…
Death Trance (2005)
- Dir. Yuji Shimomura
Feat. Tak Sakaguchi
- Another insane, neo–samurai fantasy from the VERSUS camp involving the battle over a mysterious coffin that, if opened, could destroy the…
Duelist (Hyeongsa) (2005)
- Dir. Lee Myung-Se
Feat. Ji-won Ha, Sung-kee Ahn, Dong-won Kang
- A restless, meta–revisionist sword epic from the dir. of NOWHERE TO HIDE places two undercover police officers in pursuit of an elusive…
El Violin (2005)
- Dir. Francisco Vargas
Feat. Angel Tavira
- A one–handed violinist commands this potent political history of Mexico’s 1970s Guerrero peasant revolt.
Plotting to befriend the…
Election (2005)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Kar-fai)
- A terrific gangland power tussle from genre exponent Johnnie To, this combative suspenser embarks on the shady underworld of triad politics in…
Elsa and Fred (2005)
- Dir. Marcos Carnevale
Feat. Manuel Alexandre, China Zorrilla
- Exquisitely acted romance between a pair of senior citizens expresses enough tenderness and fragility to overcome its rather prosaic storyline.…
Familia (2005)
- Dir. Lousie Archambault
Feat. Mylene St-Sauveur, Macha Grenon, Sylvie Moreau
- Multi–faceted, thoroughly entertaining drama centres on the frequently discordant child–rearing beliefs of two friends as they attempt to…
Fateless (Sorstalanság) (2005)
- Dir. Lajos Koltai
Feat. Marcell Nagy, Aron Dimeny, Daniel Craig
- Harrowing and distilled vision of the Holocaust adapted from a novel by concentration–camp survivor and Nobel prize–winning author Imre…
Ferpect Crime (Crimen Ferpecto) (2005)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Guillermo Toledo, Monica Cervera
- A spunky Spanish black comedy set almost entirely in a department store, where an obnoxious playboy salesman is blackmailed by a…
Fever, The (Febbre, La) (2005)
- Dir. Alessandro D'Alatri
Feat. Arnoldo Foa, Fabio Volo
- Multi–layered Italian comedy following a thirty–something drifter living at home with mummy dearest who is given the life–altering…
Gabrielle (2005)
- Dir. Patrice Chereau
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory
- Absorbing adaptation of a Joseph Conrad short story coolly dissects the disintegrating marriage of a bourgeois French couple.
Gorgeously framed…
Garam Masala (2005)
- Dir. Priyadarshan
Feat. Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal
- Frantically screwball Indian romcom juggles a plotline concerning the numerous female entanglements of a playboy photographer (Kumar) and his former…
Go For Zucker! (Alles auf Zucker!) (2005)
- Dir. Dani Levy
Feat. Henry Hubchen
- Oxymoronic ‘German–Jewish’ comedy that looks at the literal and metaphorical reconciliation of two estranged brothers; one an East German…
Great Yokai War, The (Yôkai daisensô) (2005)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Chiaki Kuriyama
- The latest cinematic mash–up from dir. Miike (AUDITION) is a family–orientated adventure in which a shy young boy from a broken family…
Habana Blues (2005)
- Dir. Benito Zambrano
Feat. Alberto Yoel, Roberto Sanmartín
- Two young cuban musicians, Ruy and Tito, share the same dream – to become famous and finally leave Havana. Facing what might be the chance of a…
Have No Fear (Non aver paura) (2005)
- Dir. Angelo Longoni
Feat. Laura Morante, Alessio Boni
- Isolating Italian thriller focused on a recent divorcee trying to make ends meet while fighting a custody battle and dealing with a persistent…
Heading South (Vers le sud) (2005)
- Dir. Laurence Cantet
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal
- Pensive women's drama from the dir. of TIME OUT, set on a Haitian beach resort frequented by wealthy westerners and male gigolos.
Set in the 70s…
Hidden (Cache) (2005)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Benichou…
- A disquieting modern thriller that pulls no punches, depositing a climate of terrorism and fear onto the lives of two French professionals and their…
House of Fury (2005)
- Dir. Stephen Fung
Feat. Anthony Wong, Stephen Fung, Gillian Chung…
- Teenage kung fu experts find that their father's far–fetched tales have a grain of truth to them in this madcap adventure featuring fight…
House of Sand, The (2005)
- Dir. Andrucha Waddington
Feat. Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres, Ruy Guerra
- Rapturous cinematography transforms this melodramatic saga of three generations of women stranded in Brazil’s inhospitable Maranhão region, into…
How Much Do You Love Me? (Combien tu m'aimes?) (2005)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Monica Bellucci, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Pierre Darroussin…
- Akin to THE VALET’s improbable live–in relationship, but offering entirely different results, this peculiar comedy–romance stars Monica…
In the Light of the Sun (Alla luce del sole) (2005)
- Dir. Roberto Faenza
Feat. Luca Zingaretti
- Grave Italian drama, set in a time of increased Mafia terrorism and based on the chain of events that led to the assassination of the Catholic priest…
Initial D (Tau Man Jid) (2005)
- Dir. Wai Keung Lau
Feat. Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, Anthony Wong…
- Sleak and light, this adaptation of the Shuichi Shigeno's famous 'manga' comic by the makers of INFERNAL AFFAIRS, concerns a boy–racer (played…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2007 (2005-2006)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 11 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2007' spread over 6 discs.
Films…
Italian, The (Italianetz) (2005)
- Dir. Andrei Kravchuk
Feat. Kolya Spiridonov, Nikolai Reutov, Maria Kuznetsova…
- Despite the title there is little Tuscan sunshine to be found here, but instead a frosty though warm–hearted tale from a Russian orphanage,…
Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) (2005)
- Dir. Christian Carion
Feat. Ian Richardson, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl
- Fact–based WWI drama centred around how, on Christmas Eve, 1914, opposing French, German and British soldiers called a temporary ceasefire amid…
Karol - A Man Who Became Pope (2005)
- Dir. Giacomo Battiato
Feat. Piotr Adamczyk
- A lavish TV biopic concerning the life of the Polish–born leader of the Roman Catholic church between 1978 and 2005, Karol Wojtyla or Pope John…
King and the Clown, The (2005)
- Dir. Jun-ik Lee
Feat. Woo-seong Kam
- Subversive yet broadly–appealing Korean comedy with a gay streak that turns the Chosun Dynasty on its head with its story of two bawdy court…
Koi Aap Sa (2005)
- Dir. Partho Mitra
Feat. Aftab Shivdasani
- Fruity Bollywood number with Aftab Shivdasani as a hunky football captain torn between his spunky girlfriend and coltish childhood sweetheart.
L'Enfer (Hell) (2005)
- Dir. Danis Tanovic
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain…
- Intense and twisting family psychodrama based on a script by Krystof Kieslowski (THREE COLOURS) has three French sisters finding their lives…
La Maison de Nina (2005)
- Dir. Richard Dembo
Feat. Agnes Jaoui, Sarah Adler, Katia Lewkowicz
- Quietly accomplished French drama focused on the relationships within the fragile structures of the 'houses of hope': houses run by surrogate mothers…
La Petite Jerusalem (2005)
- Dir. Karin Albou
Feat. Elsa Zylberstein
- Passion must be reconciled with faith for two sisters growing impatient with family and religious boundaries, while living in the drab Parisian…
Linda Linda Linda (2005)
- Dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita
Feat. Doona Bae, Aki Maeda, Yu Kashii…
- Guided by a rousing rock anthem, three high school seniors – and one gawky Korean exchange student – strive to have three Japanese punk classics…
Live and Become (Va, vis et deviens) (2005)
- Dir. Radu Mihaileanu
- Set against a little–known human catastrophe in which thousands of Ethiopian Jews (Falasha) were evacuated to Israel during civil unrest in the…
Lower City (Cidade Baixa) (2005)
- Dir. Sergio Machado
Feat. Lazaro Ramos, Jose Dumont
- Sensual, if sordid Latin American affair lustily relaying an ongoing threesome between two poverty–stricken ferrymen and a gorgeous Salvadorian…
Mangal Pandey (2005)
- Dir. Ketan Mehta
Feat. Aamir Khan, Toby Stephens
- Accomplished and stirring Hindi epic based on the life and times of Mangal Pandey (Khan), leader of the 1857 'Indian Mutiny' which severely…
Manual of Love, The (Manuale d'amore) (2005)
- Dir. Giovanni Veronesi
Feat. Jasmine Trinca, Sergio Rubini, Silvio Muccino
- Four couples experience the agony and ecstasy of modern love in this appealing romance of intertwining relationships.
An agreeable, attractive…
Mario's War (La Guerra di Mario) (2005)
- Dir. Antonio Capuano
Feat. Valeria Golino
- Confronting Italian drama focused on a young boy taken away from his abusive mother to be cared for by a generous upper–class couple attempting…
Method, The (El Método) (2005)
- Dir. Marcelo Pineyro
Feat. Eduardo Noriega, Najwa Nimri, Ernesto Alterio…
- This smart black comedy for the 21st century sees corporate ethics slyly dissected as seven candidates blindly compete for an executive position in a…
Murder Take One (The Big Scene) (2005)
- Dir. Jin Jang
Feat. Ha-kyun Shin, Seung-Won Cha
- Thwarted by a television agreement consigning an ongoing homicide investigation to the prying eyes of a Reality TV show, prosecutor Choi (Cha) must…
Myth, The (San Wa) (2005)
- Dir. Stanley Tong
Feat. Jackie Chan
- Alternating between past and present, Jackie Chan plays a warrior general during the Qing Dynasty and a modern day archaeologist respectively in this…
Once You're Born (Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti) (2005)
- Dir. Marco Tullio Giordana
Feat. Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti
- Frank Italian adventure by acclaimed director Marco Tullio Giordana (THE BEST OF YOUTH) telling the coming–of–age story of a wealthy…
One Stays, One Leaves (L' un reste, l'autre part) (2005)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nathalie Baye…
- Witty French comedy with an undercurrent of angst in which two philandering middle–aged husbands do their utmost to juggle fresh–faced…
P (The Possessed) (2005)
- Dir. Paul Spurrier
Feat. Suangporn Jaturaphut
- A youngster’s flirtation with witchery and the occult gives rise to an unspeakable evil in this humid Thai horror.
Part soft–core porn,…
Paradise Now (2005)
- Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
Feat. Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabal
- This extraordinarily brave film shadows the martyrdom of two Palestinian friends recruited by an extremist group to perpetrate a suicide bombing in…
Peekaboo! (Cache Cache) (2005)
- Dir. Yves Caumon
Feat. Bernard Blancan, Lucia Sanchez, Antoine Chappey
- Peculiar fable of a hermit who takes residence inside a well after being ousted from the abandoned farmstead he’s squatted in for many…
Princess Aurora (Orora gongju) (2005)
- Dir. Eun-jin Bang
Feat. Jeong-hwa Eom
- Korean revenge film concerns a scorned woman who commits a series of murders as part of an elaborate revenge scheme.
Far–fetched in that…
Princess Raccoon (Operetta tanuki goten) (2005)
- Dir. Seijun Suzuki
Feat. Zhang Ziyi, Joe Odagiri
- Wacky musical rumpus stars Zhang Ziyi as a 'raccoon dog' who falls in love with a prince banished to her enchanted forest.
A fanciful swansong for…
Princesses (Princesas) (2005)
- Dir. Fernando León de Aranoa
Feat. Candela Pena, Micaela Nevarez
- A raw, heartfelt slice of social realism on Spain's unforgiving streets, this authentic drama about the tenuous friendship between two women who…
Promise, The (Wu ji) (2005)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Hiroyuki Sanada, Dong-Kun Jang, Cecilia Cheung…
- Visually exquisite, if utterly frivolous Golden Globe–nominated romantic epic from the director of FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE relays the story of…
Protector, The (Tom yum goong, Warrior King) (2005)
- Dir. Prachya Pinkaew
Feat. Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao
- Muay Thai phenomenon Tony Jaa continues his reinvigoration of the martial arts genre with this hotly anticipated follow–up to ONG–BAK: a…
Pusher III (I'm The Angel Of Death: Pusher III) (2005)
- Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Marinela Dekic, Zlatko Buric
- Third instalment of the thoroughly gripping Pusher trilogy closes in on the Sisyphean struggle of drug kingpin Milo (Buric) as he desperately battles…
Quo Vadis, Baby? (2005)
- Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Angela Baraldi
- Oscar–winning–director Gabriele Salvatore's haughty thriller depicting a desperate private investigator who decides to re–examine…
Rampo Noir (Rampo jigoku) (2005)
- Dir. Hisayasu Sato, Suguru Takeuchi, Atsushi Kaneko
Feat. Tadanobu Asano
- Salacious quartet of horror segments all featuring actor Tadanobu Asano, with directing duties taken by four Japanese indie mavericks, crafting arty…
Red Shoes, The (Bunhongsin) (2005)
- Dir. Yong-gyun Kim
Feat. Hye-su Kim
- Asian horror's preoccupation with inanimate objects continues in this self–consciously stylish, blood–curdling spin on the Hans Christian…
Regular Lovers (Les Amants réguliers) (2005)
- Dir. Philippe Garrel
Feat. Louis Garrel, Clotilde Hesme
- A richly photographed, Nouvelle Vague–styled homage to the revolutionary spirit of protesters in 1968 Paris, dir. Garrel offers a lucid, at…
Reincarnation (2005)
- Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Feat. Yuka
- Another freak–out from the dir. of THE GRUDGE that manages to transport the flaccid J–horror template into a more interesting,…
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Ken Takakura
- An unmistakably poignant, tear–jerking chronicle of an elderly Japanese man’s pilgrimage to Mainland China in the hope of reconciling a…
Ring Finger, The (L'annulaire) (2005)
- Dir. Diane Bertrand
Feat. Olga Kurylenko, Marc Barbe, Stipe Erceg
- Ravishing to look at, if lacking so much as a storyline, this exquisite erotic fiction features Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko as a gorgeous laboratory…
Russian Dolls (Les Poupées russes) (2005)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Romain Duris, Cecile De France…
- A sequel of substance to the pan–Euro comedy THE SPANISH APARTMENT, which will again strike an entertaining chord with the young globetrotting,…
Sacred Heart (Cuore Sacro) (2005)
- Dir. Ferzan Ozpetek
Feat. Erika Blanc, Barbora Bobulova, Camille Dugay Comencini…
- Invigorating Italian drama of a successful businesswoman forced to re–assess her life by way of an encounter with a street kid after two of her…
Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 (2005)
- Dir. Masaaki Tezuka
Feat. Yosuke Eguchi, Kyoka Suzuki
- Flashy remake of Sonny Chiba's 'time slip' shogun fantasy G.I SAMURAI, with a unit of advanced Special Forces soldiers inadvertently transported back…
Secuestro Express (2005)
- Dir. Jonathan Jakubowicz
Feat. Mia Maestro, Ruben Blades
- Venezuela comes off second best in this exploitative thriller peddling the country's professional kidnapping trade, where a couple of wealthy young…
Seoul Raiders (2005)
- Dir. Jingle Ma
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Shu Qi, Richie Ren
- Hokey but fun pseudo–sequel to 'Tokyo Raiders' that finds Hong Kong special agent Lam (Tony Leung) on the hunt for counterfeiters in Seoul,…
Serge Gainsbourg - D'autres nouvelles des étoiles (2005)
- A definitive compilation of filmed songs by the phenomenal Frenchman Serge Gainsbourg, whose loquacious, witty and sometimes bawdy lyrics are matched…
Seven Swords (2005)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung
- Legendary Hong Kong dir. Tsui Hark returns with an action epic set among the brutal 17th Century Ching dynasty, as seven warriors come together to…
Shadowless Sword (Muyeong geom) (2005)
- Dir. Young-Jun Kim
Feat. Seo-Jin Lee, Yoon So-yi
- Spiffy Korean wuxia extravaganza grafting comedy, romance and action aplenty onto the skin of an ambitious historical epic.
Scaling the efforts of…
Shakugan No Shana (TV Series) (2005)
- Yuji is returning from school when suddenly time stops and monsters appear to devour people. He is not frozen, however. When one of the monsters…
Shinobi (2005)
- Dir. Ten Shimoyama
Feat. Joe Odagiri, Yukie Nakama
- Set in an ancient Japan complete with magical trappings, this action epic posits a forbidden love story between members (Odagiri and Nakama) of two…
Sisters in Law (2005)
- Dir. Kim Longinotto, Florence Ayisi
- Spirited portrait of two women working in the Cameroonian Judiciary – a State Prosecutor and a judge in the magistrate’s court, respectively –…
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
- Dir. March Rothemund
Feat. Julia Jentsch
- An interesting and worthy companion piece to the excellent DOWNFALL, this necessarily grim drama looks at the trial of 21–year–old…
Speer And Hitler: The Devil's Architect (2005)
- Dir. Heinrich Breloer
Feat. Sebastian Koch, Tobias Moretti
- Painstaking docu–drama attempts to reevaluate the war crimes of one Albert Speer, Third Reich celebrity and Hilter’s personal architect…
Spiral (TV Series) (Engrenages) (2005)
- Feat. Audrey Fleurot, Philippe Duclos, Caroline Proust
- Euro–crime TV series set in Paris and following the police officers, lawyers and judges surrounding various criminal investigations.
SPL (Sha Po Lang) (2005)
- Dir. Wilson Yip
Feat. Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Simon Yam…
- Intense cops–and–hoods thriller which clearly raises the bar for Hong Kong martial–arts by infusing its tale of an idealistic cop…
Stupid Boy (Garçon Stupide) (2005)
- Dir. Lionel Baier
Feat. Natacha Koutchoumov, Pierre Chatagny, Rui Pedro Alves
- Raw drama focused around Loic, a young gay swinger in Switzerland, and his attraction to an older man who offers unexpected emotional stability.…
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi) (2005)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Young-ae Lee, Min-sik Choi
- A visually dynamic endpoint to Park Chan–wook's feted vengeance trilogy, this final chapter in the saga emerges from a female perspective, and…
Takeshis' (2005)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi…
- Returning to his comedic roots, dir. Takeshi Kitano springs layer upon layer of self–reference and in this conceptually ambitious, though…
Tetsujin 28 (2005)
- Dir. Shin Togashi
- Wacky but earnest live–action update of the classic 1950s anime GIGANTOR, replotted to depict the struggle between a ferocious robot 'Black Ox'…
Three Times (2005)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Chen Chang, Shu Qi
- Taiwanese great Hou Hsiao–Hsien rekindles the memory of three of his finest films, linking a trio of elegant, erstwhile love stories (across…
Tickets (2005)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach
- Surprisingly succinct take on the "omnibus" film sees the trifecta of Olmi, Kiarostami and Loach intersect three eclectic stories on a…
Tiger Blade, The (Seua khaap daap) (2005)
- Dir. Theeratorn Siriphunvaraporn
Feat. Atsadawut Luengsuntorn
- Spiffy addition to the Thai martial arts boom, with action centered around the recovery of a magical ‘tiger blade’, by cops and robbers…
To Die in San Hilario (2005)
- Dir. Laura Mana
Feat. Lluís Homar
- A light, whimsical tale of redemption, in which an aging gangster on the run seeks refuge in a sleepy backwater, only to be mistaken for a wealthy…
Tokyo Zombie (2005)
- Dir. Sakichi Sato
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Tadanobu Asano, Arata Furuta…
- An enormous garbage dump in Tokyo begins to spawl hoards of the walking dead, prompting two dumb–and–dumber garage workers to unleash…
Tony Takitani (2005)
- Dir. Jun Ichikawa
Feat. Issey Ogata, Rie Miyazawa
- A small jewel of a drama, based on a story by Haruki Murakami, about a lonely illustrator (Ogata) who meets the woman of his dreams, only later…
Tsotsi (2005)
- Dir. Gavin Hood
Feat. Presley Chweneyagae
- Deserved winner of the 2006 Foreign Language Oscar, this gripping tale of a young homicidal street–thug ('tsotsi') in post–apartheid…
U-Carmen Ekhayelitsha (2005)
- Dir. Mark Dornford-May
Feat. Pauline Malefane
- An inspired contemporary rendition of George Bizet's classic opera, with events relocated to the rich cultural hotbed of modern day South Africa.…
Valley of Flowers (2005)
- Dir. Pan Nalin
Feat. Milind Soman, Mylène Jampanoï, Naseeruddin Shah
- Visually gorgeous, sprawling love story from the director of SAMSARA revises an epic Himalayan legend of a mischievous couple whose immortal love…
Van Veeteren (TV Series) (2005-2006)
- Feat. Sven Wollter
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Viva Zapatero (2005)
- Dir. Sabina Guzzanti
- Confronting Italian documentary made by comedian Sabina Guzzanti in response to her satirical TV show being axed after her scathing imitation of…
Wallander (TV Series) (2005)
- Feat. Krister Henriksson, Johanna Sällström
- Suspenseful Scandinavian procedural finds drama within the inner–workings of a police force in southern Sweden, chiefly between the series’…
Water (2005)
- Dir. Deepa Mehta
Feat. Seema Biswas
- The third and finest entry in dir. Deepa Mehta's 'Elements' trilogy (FIRE, EARTH) is an opulent depiction of the plight of a group of Hindu widows…
When Will the Girls Show Up? (Ma quando arrivano le ragazze?) (2005)
- Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Vittoria Puccini, Paolo Briguglia, Claudio Santamaria…
- Charming Italian drama, billed as semi–autobiographical by its director Pupi Avati (A HEART ELSEWHERE), centred on two polar opposite musos who…
White Masai, The (Die Weisse Massai) (2005)
- Dir. Hermine Huntgeburth
Feat. Nina Hoss
- A mysterious, well–textured tale of attraction concerns a young Swiss woman travelling in Africa with her boyfriend who becomes infatuated with…
Yacoubian Building, The (2005)
- Dir. Marwan Hamed
- A downtown apartment building is the main setting for this lively, ambitious cross–section of Egyptian life: a melting pot of social, political…
Zozo (2005)
- Dir. Josef Fares
Feat. Imad Creidi
- Sincere and occasionally dreamlike tale of displacement follows the plight of a 10–year old boy (Creidi) caught in the midst of Lebanon's civil…
2046 (2004)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li…
- A companion piece of sorts to IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, this has the seasoned stylist dir. Wong Kar–Wai sketch an impressionistic portrait of loss,…
3-Iron (Bin-jip) (2004)
- Dir. Kim Ki-Duk
Feat. Seung-yeon Lee, Hee Song Jae
- Odd, elliptical love story from the dir. SPRING, SUMMER concerns the blossoming romance between a domestic abuse victim and her savior, a…
36 Quai Des Orfevres (2004)
- Dir. Olivier Marchal
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil
- Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil partner again for this straight–faced policier as two veteran cops who compete for the top job while trying…
5x2 (Five Times Two) (2004)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Stephane Freiss
- Simple and powerful 'deconstruction' of modern marriage, which offers five widely–spaced scenes from the relationship of an average French…
6 AM (2004)
- Dir. Adrian Kwan
Feat. Kenny Kwan, Steven Cheung, Charlene Choi…
- Popular Canto–pop duo ‘The Boy’z’ star in this absurdist gangster tale, playing high school slackers ‘Bowl’ and ‘Noodle’ who…
Ab-Normal Beauty (Sei mong se jun) (2004)
- Dir. Oxide Pang
Feat. Race Wong, Rosanne Wong
- Dir. Oxide Pang's solo followup to THE EYE is also a voyeuristically themed nerve–shredder, set around a young and rich photography student…
Aftermath (2004)
- Dir. Paprika Steen
Feat. Sofie Grabol, Soren Pilmark, Mikael Birkkjaer
- A young couple struggle to cope following the death of their only daughter, in this somber Danish drama starring Sophie Grabol (THE…
Agatha and The Storm (Agata e la tempesta) (2004)
- Dir. Silvio Soldini
Feat. Licia Maglietta, Giuseppe Battiston, Emilio Solfrizzi
- Loosely woven tale of a middle–aged bookshop owner, who becomes embroiled in a surreal swirl of romance and family secrets of infidelity, her…
Arahan (2004)
- Dir. Ryoo Seung-Wan
Feat. Ryoo Seung-beom, Yoon So-yi, Ahn Sung-Ki
- Urban martial arts injected with supernatural pep, this effects–laden action comedy has an ultimately limited box of tricks, but provides more…
As it is in Heaven (Så som i himmelen) (2004)
- Dir. Kay Pollak
Feat. Michael Nyqvist
- A feelgood arthouse hit about a renowned classical music conductor who rediscovers his roots in the far north of Sweden.
Acquiring a rundown…
Bad Education (Mala Educación, La) (2004)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Fele Martinez, Javier Camara
- Another fascinating work from Almodovar who, after TALK TO HER, again matches his renowned taste in decor with adventurous yet controlled…
Barrio 13 (District B13) (2004)
- Dir. Pierre Morel
Feat. Cyril Raffaelli, David Belle
- Set in a near–future ghetto dystopia, this slightly–plotted action spectacle thrills as a vehicle for its martial art of choice: Parkour,…
Blade Of The Phantom Master - Shin Angyo Onshi (2004)
- Dir. Jôji Shimura
- An unknown hero appears in the terrorized land of Jushin to protect the empire from zombies, beasts and sadists – is he one of the legendary…
Blood and Bones (Chi to hone) (2004)
- Dir. Yoichi Sai
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Joe Odagiri
- Harrowing biopic about the life and times of an infamous first–generation Korean immigrant who came to Japan in the 1920s and by dint of his…
Bombon (El Perro) (2004)
- Dir. Carlos Sorin
Feat. Juan Villegas
- A middle–aged man (Villegas), struggling to maintain his meager lifestyle working as a mechanic in remote Patagonia, and selling knives on the…
Born to Fight (Kerd ma lui) (2004)
- Dir. Panna Rittikrai
Feat. Chattapong Pantanaunkul
- Created by the makers of the stupendous ONG BAK, this lesser action vehicle is contrived around a showdown in the Thai countryside between a…
Bride and Prejudice (2004)
- Dir. Gurinder Chadha
Feat. Martin Henderson, Naveen Andrews, Aishwarya Rai
- Bollywood meets Hollywood in this rather original Jane Austen adaptation, with ex–pat Kiwi Henderson playing a blueblood American who falls…
Brides (Nyfes) (2004)
- Dir. Pantelis Voulgaris
Feat. Damian Lewis, Victoria Haralabidou, Steven Berkoff
- Through the passages of unrequited love, this bittersweet tale set on board a ship en route to the United States evokes a universal story of…
Bridge of San Luis Rey, The (2004)
- Dir. Mary McGuckian
Feat. Robert De Niro, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne…
- This star–studded costume drama of interlinked fates is the third celluloid incarnation of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Thorton Wilder…
Brotherhood of War (Tae Guk Gi) (2004)
- Dir. Kang Je-Gyu
Feat. Jang Dong-Gun, Won Bin, Lee Eun-Joo
- Deemed as one of the most graphic and violent war films ever made, this tells the story of two South Korean brothers (Bin and Dong–Gun) who…
Brothers (2004)
- Dir. Susanne Bier
Feat. Connie Nielsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
- Dialing–up the Dogme–95 credentials of its creators, this melodrama proffers a dangerous family triangle between a career soldier…
C.R.A.Z.Y. (Crazy) (2004)
- Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée
Feat. Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx, Michel Côté
- Rockin' and colourful rites–of–passage drama evolves out an adolescent boy's (Grondin) experiences as part of an unusual family during…
Casshern (2004)
- Dir. Kazuaki Kiriya
Feat. Yusuke Iseya, Kumiko Aso, Akira Terao
- Set in a ravaged, post–nuclear war future, ruled by a fascist clique, this rearranges some familiar elements with a visually charged, epic…
Chorus, The (Les Choristes) (2004)
- Dir. Christophe Barratier
Feat. Gerard Jugnot, Francois Berleand, Jacques Perrin
- Crowd–pleasing drama set in post–WW2 France, where a sympathetic and patient music teacher strives to win over the troubled orphans in…
Clean (2004)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Maggie Cheung, Nick Nolte, Beatrice Dalle…
- An unorthodox drugs movie from the always–interesting Olivier Assayas (IRMA VEP), this distills with refreshing clarity the aftermath of…
Consequences of Love, The (2004)
- Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Feat. Toni Servillo, Olivia Magnani, Adriano Giannini…
- Icy but utterly involving, this Italian mood piece features Toni Servillo as a mysterious, lonesome resident of a Swiss hotel whose cool facade is…
Conversations with Mother (Conversaciones con mamá) (2004)
- Dir. Santiago Carlos Oves
Feat. China Zorrilla, Eduardo Blanco
- Chaotic, poignant and amusing, this Argentinian drama has a newly redundant man try and persuade his 80–year old mother to sell her apartment…
Crimson Rivers 2 - Angels of the Apocalypse (2004)
- Dir. Olivier Dahan
Feat. Jean Reno, Benoit Magimel, Christopher Lee
- Barely coherent, but mostly fun sequel to the serial–killer hunt of CRIMSON RIVERS, has detective Reno return to track a case of religious…
Cutie Honey (Kyûtî Hanî) (2004)
- Dir. Hideaki Anno
Feat. Eriko Sato
- Colourful cluster bomb romp pits a sexy supercharged heroine against an assembly line of comic book villains in a camp futuristic netherworld. Fun,…
Devilman (2004)
- Dir. Hiroyuki Nasu
Feat. Hisato Izaki
- Clunky live–action manga adaptation saddles a dorky teenager with the fate of mankind, forcing him to adopt the characteristics of a…
Don't Move (Non ti muovere) (2004)
- Dir. Sergio Castellitto
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Sergio Castellitto
- A sweaty reflection on lust and responsibility from actor Sergio Castellitto (MOSTLY MARTHA) in his second directorial outing, here playing a…
Downfall (Der Untergang) (2004)
- Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Feat. Bruno Ganz, Thomas Kretschmann, Juliane Kohler…
- Widely acclaimed for its claustrophobic intensity, intelligence and detail, this vivid re–enactment of the last ten days in the life of Adolf…
Duck Season (2004)
- Dir. Fernando Eimbcke
Feat. Enrique Arreola, Diego Cataño, Danny Miranda…
- Two videogame–mad teens find their lazy Sunday hijacked by a nosey neighbour and stubborn pizza delivery man in this breezy, flavoursome…
Dumplings (Gaau ji) (2004)
- Dir. Fruit Chan
Feat. Ling Bai, Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Miriam Yeung
- Grotesque feature length version of Fruit Chan’s submission to the THREE…EXTREMES Asian horror omnibus, this time expanding the deplorable fable…
Eagle, The (TV Series) (A Crime Odyssey) (2004)
- Feat. Jens Albinus
- An expert Danish thriller dealing in international terrorism and cross–border crime, this involves the usual task force machinations of special…
Edukators, The (The Educators) (2004)
- Dir. Hans Weingartner
Feat. Daniel Bruhl, Julia Jentsch, Stipe Erceg
- A compulsive slice of German youth angst about rebels struggling with their cause, this arthouse smash–hit concerns a trio of youthful…
Elfen Lied (2004)
- Dir. Mamoru Kanbe
- Anime TV series adapting the earlier part of a manga of the same name by Lynn Okamoto that was considered edgy in its time due to being pretty dark…
Enter the Phoenix (2004)
- Dir. Stephen Fung
Feat. Daniel Wu, Karen Mok, Nicholas Tse…
- The disowned gay son of a dying triad leader must inherit control of an organised crime family in this typically scattershot Hong Kong comedy…
Exils (Exiles) (2004)
- Dir. Tony Gatlif
Feat. Romain Duris
- Possibly dir. Gatlif's most exuberant and personal film yet, this observes a bohemian French couple's journey southwards to their family's respective…
Eye 2, The (Jian Gui 2) (2004)
- Dir. Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Feat. Shu Qi, Jesdaporn Pholdee
- Another venture into Asian horror for the Brothers Pang, here thematically sequelling their 2002 hit with the tale of an unhappy woman who gains the…
Familia Rodante (Rolling Family) (2004)
- Dir. Pablo Trapero
Feat. Graciana Chironi, Bernardo Forteza
- Argentinian comedy from the director of EL BONAERENSE, following a large family who embark on an epic road trip from Buenos Aires to a village in…
Fida (2004)
- Dir. Ken Ghosh
Feat. Kareena Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Fardeen Khan
- Typically likeable Bollywood item that intercrosses two love stories with the tale of an online bank heist. Treading lightly through the genre…
Gankutsuou (TV Series) (Count of Monte Cristo, The) (2004)
- Born into an aristocratic family in Paris, Albert sets out on a journey with his best friend, Franz, to escape his privileged yet dull life. They…
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
- Dir. Mamoru Oshii
- Visually emphatic, conceptually flummoxing sequel to Mamoru Oshii's cyberpunk touchstone GHOST IN THE SHELL.
Cybernetic detective Batou returns to…
Ghost, The (Ryeong) (2004)
- Dir. Tae-Kyeong Kim
Feat. Ha-Neul Kim, Sang-Mi Nam
- Modest, but reasonably unnerving ghost story in which an amnesiac university student is seemingly last on a list of friends being dispatched one by…
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
- Dir. Ryuhei Kitamura
Feat. Akira Takarada
- A 50th anniversary celebration of the GODZILLA movie franchise, with the big lizard coming up against a roll–call of old foes: Gigan, King…
Great Journey, The (Grand Voyage, Le) (2004)
- Dir. Ismaël Ferroukhi
Feat. Nicolas Cazalé
- A few weeks before his college entrance exams, a young man finds himself obligated to drive his stubborn father to Mecca. From France through Italy,…
Great Water, The (Golemata voda) (2004)
- Dir. Ivo Trajkov
Feat. Saso Kekenovski, Maja Stankovska, Mitko Apostolovski
- Serious–minded Macedonian drama traces the fortunes of an orphan (Kekenovski) after WW2, who despite religious repression struggles to become a…
Head-On (Gegen die Wand) (2004)
- Dir. Fatih Akin
Feat. Birol Unel, Sibel Kekilli
- Set in scungy working–class Hamburg, this constructs an unusual love story around two Turkish immigrants – a drunken janitor (Unel) and a…
Hidden Blade (Kakushi-ken: oni no tsume) (2004)
- Dir. Yoji Yamada
Feat. Masatoshi Nagase
- The fading glory of the Japanese feudal period in the Meiji Resoration is once again beautifully explored by the dir. of TWILIGHT SAMURAI through a…
House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu) (2004)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau
- The dir. of HERO follows up with an equally watchable oriental spectacle, inserting the same cartwheeling martial arts action, complete with torrents…
How We Ruined the Italian Movie Business (Come inguaiammo il cinema italiano) (2004)
- Sprawling Italian documentary telling the story of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, a treasured comedy duo from Sicily who began their careers as…
Hulchul (2004)
- Dir. Priyadarshan
Feat. Akshaye Khanna, Kareena Kapoor, Sunil Shetty…
- Snowballing tale of comic conspiracy between two families, one, mostly comprised of males who have sworn off "the women" and the other, more balanced…
In Your Hands (Forbrydelser) (2004)
- Dir. Annette K. Olesen
Feat. Jens Albinus, Trine Dyrholm, Ann Eleonora Joergensen
- Denmark’s latest Dogme dispatch concerns a prison priest whose faith is tested by a young inmate claiming to perform miracles of…
Infection (Kansen) (2004)
- Dir. Masayuki Ochiai
Feat. Michiko Hada, Shirô Sano
- A further twist on the vengeful spirit genre sees a burns patient return from the dead as a lethal infection, liquefying victims' internal organs in…
Innocence (2004)
- Dir. Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Feat. Zoé Auclair, Lea Bridarolli, Bérangère Haubruge…
- A strange and sinister – but also uttering beguiling – fantasy combining phantasmagorical imagery and a dewy atmosphere to metaphorically…
Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes) (2004)
- Dir. Luis Mandoki
Feat. Carlos Padilla, Leonor Varela
- The tumultuous upheaval of civil war is witnessed through the eyes of a terrified 12–year–old boy, whose approaching teenage years spell…
Intimate Strangers (Confidences trop intimes) (2004)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire, Fabrice Luchini, Anne Brochet
- Another stylish excursion into suspensful romanticism for dir. Leconte (MONSIEUR HIRE), here premised on a woman's mistaken assumption that she is…
Intruder, The (L' Intrus) (2004)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Michel Subor, Beatrice Dalle, Katia Golubeva…
- More sensory cinema from the dir. of BEAU TRAVAIL, lodged in a globally sprawling, free–associative narrative encircled loosely around one…
Italian Romance, An (L'amore Ritrovato) (2004)
- Dir. Carlo Mazzacurati
Feat. Stefano Accorsi, Maya Sansa, Marco Messeri
- Languid Italian melodrama set in 1936, where a pair of young ex–lovers rediscover one another and have a passionate fling, despite an…
Jasmine Women (Mo li hua kai; Blossoming Jasmine; Jasmine Flower) (2004)
- Dir. Yong Hou
Feat. Joan Chen, Wen Jiang, Zhang Ziyi
- Intergenerational Chinese weepie about women who are unlucky in love, set during the 1920s, '50s and '80s, and based on the book by Su Tong (also the…
Keys to the House, The (Chiavi di casa, Le) (2004)
- Dir. Gianni Amelio
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Kim Rossi Stuart
- Eloquent Italian drama directed by Gianni Amelio (OPEN DOORS) following a distant father attempting to reconnect with his disabled son by…
Khakee (2004)
- Dir. Rajkumar Santoshi
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan
- A Bollywood offering in which the song count is low but the body count is high, this twist–filled, often violent drama centres on the police…
King of Bollywood (2004)
- Dir. Piyush Jha
Feat. Kavita Kapoor, Sophie Dahl, Om Puri
- A tongue–in–cheek satire of the Bollywood movie industry, in which a star (Puri) with notions of his own timeless importance becomes…
Kings and Queen (Rois et reine) (2004)
- Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Feat. Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve…
- A tragicomedy of multiple layers and degrees untangles the complicated life of one Emmanuelle Devos, and the various men she calls her own.
Spun…
Koma (2004)
- Dir. Chi-Leung Law
Feat. Angelica Lee
- The attractive Lee plays a feckless young woman with kidney problems who gets caught up in a scandal involving a gang of organ thieves.
This…
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao), Wah Yuen
- Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow trumps all previous efforts (and that's saying something) with this dynamic, bust–a–gut funny…
Land Has Eyes, The (Pear ta ma 'on maf) (2004)
- Dir. Vilsoni Hereniko
Feat. Sapeta Taito, Rena Owen, Voi Fesaitu
- The first ever Fijian feature film, this evokes WHALE RIDER with its tale of a young woman (Taito) who aspires to transcend an existence…
Life I Want, The (Vita che vorrei, La) (2004)
- Dir. Giuseppe Piccioni
Feat. Luigi Lo Cascio, Sandra Ceccarelli
- Intriguing Italian romantic drama about two avid actors cast as lovers who begin to cross over the boundaries of stage–life and reality with an…
Life is a Miracle (Zivot je cudo) (2004)
- Dir. Emir Kusturica
Feat. Slavko Stimac, Natasa Solak
- Another feverish, frenetic and heartfelt vision from Balkan dir. Emir Kusturica (UNDERGOUND), attempting here to fathom and unknot the bloody Bosnian…
Light, The (L'Équipier) (2004)
- Dir. Philippe Lioret
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire, Philippe Torreton, Anne Consigny
- Impeccable Gallic melodrama of family history concerns the arrival of a stranger to a xenophobic Breton community in the ‘60s to work on a…
Look At Me (Comme une Image) (2004)
- Dir. Agnes Jaoui
Feat. Jean-Pierre Bacri, Agnes Jaoui
- Another diverting comedy of manners from the husband–wife creative team behind THE TASTE OF OTHERS, set among the fragile egos of the literary…
Love in Thoughts (2004)
- Dir. Achim von Borries
Feat. Daniel Bruhl, August Diehl, Anna Maria Muhe…
- Melancholic true story of two self absorbed teenagers who make a pact to kill themselves should they no longer feel love and kill those who robbed…
Ma Mere (My Mother) (2004)
- Dir. Christophe Honore
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel, Emma de Caunes
- A perverse Mediterranean sex–romp that manages to skirt regularly between tasteless debauchery and absurd immorality.
A heady Isabelle…
Machuca (2004)
- Dir. Andres Wood
Feat. Ariel Mateluna, Matias Quer
- Observing the onset of Augusto Pinochet's bloody coup d'etat in Chile in 1973, through the eyes of two boys who become friends across the…
Maria Full of Grace (2004)
- Dir. Joshua Marston
Feat. Catalina Sandino Moreno, Yenny Paola Vega, Guilied Lopez…
- An accomplished delve into the experience of a 'drug mule', a teenage Colombian girl who enlists to smuggle heroin into the United States, so as to…
Marriages! (2004)
- Dir. Valerie Guignabodet
Feat. Mathilde Seigner, Jean Dujardin, Miou-Miou
- A messy, if diverting marriage farce brings together three generations of couples at a picturesque wedding in southern France.
Masai - The Rain Warriors (2004)
- Dir. Pascal Plisson
- Simple and visually–sweeping, this African epic follows a group of teenage warriors from their drought–stricken village out into the…
Matando Cabos (2004)
- Dir. Alejandro Lozano
Feat. Tony Dalton, Ana Claudia Talancon, Pedro Jr. Armendariz
- Energetic Mexican 'farce of errors' in which two teenagers kidnap a coldly ruthless businessman, not realising he is also a coveted prize for a…
Me And My Sister (Les Soeurs Fachees) (2004)
- Dir. Alexandra Leclere
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Frot
- A deceptively simple French comedy, which has a bubbly and gauche rural–dwelling woman (Frot) visiting her arrogant and successful sister…
Mind Game (2004)
- Dir. Masaaki Yuasa
Feat. Koji Imada, Sayaka Maeda, Takashi Fujii
- Inventive Japanese animation based on the manga of the same by Robin Nishi, depicting the psychedelic self–discovery of a socially inept…
Moolaade (2004)
- Dir. Ousmane Sembene
Feat. Fatoumata Coulibaly
- A rare glimpse for New Zealanders of the work of elderly Sengalese dir. Sembene – novelist, newspaper editor and founder of the New African…
Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de Motocicleta) (2004)
- Dir. Walter Salles
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Rodrigo De la Serna, Mercedes Morán
- Sumptuously filmed two–wheeled road trip across 1950s South America with the youthful, asthmatic Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Bernal), and friend…
Mountain Patrol (Kekexili) (2004)
- Dir. Chuan Lu
Feat. Lei Zhang, Bujie Duo
- An enthralling eco–thriller which portrays the battle over the endangered Tibetan antelope between poachers and a hard–knit unit of…
Narco: Secret Adventures of Gustav Klopp (2004)
- Dir. Tristan Aurouet
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Benoit Poolevarde…
- A narcoleptic comic–book writer finds illusion and reality blurring between his fantastical imagination, a succession of dead–end day…
New Police Story (2004)
- Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu
- A groundbreaking fourth (or possibly fifth) entry in Jackie Chan's martial arts series about the life of a reckless Hong Kong policeman, here…
Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor, aka. Nightwatch) (2004)
- Dir. Timur Bekmambetov
Feat. Konstantin Khabensky, Maria Poroshina, Dima Martinov
- A mega–hit in its native Russia, this sci–fi–horror–action cocktail concerns a running battle on the mean streets of…
Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai) (2004)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Yuya Yagira, Ayu Kitaura, You
- Based on a notorious 1988 case where four abandoned children were found to have been living on their own devices out of a Japanese apartment for six…
Offbeat (Kammerflimmern) (2004)
- Dir. Hendrik Hölzemann
Feat. Matthias Schoenaerts, Jessica Schwarz, Florian Lukas
- Fitfully intense indie drama is set around the daily rounds of a paramedic (Schweighöfer) struggling with his own dreams, memories and a few lurking…
Old Boy (Oldboy) (2004)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yoo
- Wowing audiences wherever it's played (including being nominated for the Palm D'Or at Cannes), this achingly intense thriller from Korea raises the…
One Night in Mongkok (Wong gok hak yau) (2004)
- Dir. Derek Yee
Feat. Daniel Wu, Cecilia Cheung
- A bespectacled 'Mainland' Chinese man is recruited for the assassination of a triad boss in the lusciously seedy Hong Kong district of Mongkok, but…
Operation Valkyrie (Stauffenberg) (2004)
- Dir. Jo Baier
Feat. Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Hardy Kruger…
- Highly credible Germanic take on the failed 'Valkyrie' plot to assassinate Hitler favors sobering realism over Hollywood heroism. Made for German…
Ordeal, The (Calvaire) (2004)
- Dir. Fabrice du Welz
Feat. Laurent Lucas
- Less gruelling than its title suggests, this is a macabre, blackly humorous slice of "redneck gothic" from Belgium, in which a cabaret singer's…
Overture, The (Hom rong) (2004)
- Dir. Ittisoontorn Vichailak
Feat. Anuchit Sapanpong, Aratee Tanmahapran
- Biopic exploring the life of Thai musical master Luang Pradit Pairoh (Sorn Silapabanleng), who was a palace musician and ra–nad ek (Thai…
People (2004)
- Dir. Fabien Onteniente
Feat. Rupert Everett, Jose Garcia, Ornella Muti
- Raucous French comedy starring one Rupert Everett as the Parisian Jet Set's party organiser, who finds himself departing to Ibiza in order to retain…
Premonition (Yogen) (2004)
- Dir. Norio Tsuruta
Feat. Hiroshi Mikami, Noriko Sakai
- Competent J–Horror entry posits the intriguing, if unrealised premise of a man whose premonitions foresee the murderous acts of a killer,…
Pusher II (With Blood on my Hands) (2004)
- Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen
- Number two in the Danish thriller PUSHER series tracks a muddled Copenhagen thug fresh from prison who faces the scorn of his gangster father, past…
Queen of Sheba's Pearls, The (2004)
- Dir. Colin Nutley
Feat. Helena Bergstrom
- Set in post–WW2 England this centres its tale on a rural West Country family, whose members are on the cusp of various life passages, upset by…
Raincoat (2004)
- Dir. Rituparno Ghosh
Feat. Ajay Devgan, Aishwarya Rai
- Dramatically–ambitious dir. Ghosh here creates an understated chamber piece from the usual Bollywood melodramatics, staging a rainy–day…
Red Lights (Feux Rouges) (2004)
- Dir. Cedric Kahn
Feat. Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet
- A married couple bicker in a holiday traffic–jam, fueled by the husband's drunken irritability and his wife's haughty disregard, leading them…
Rhythm Is It! (2004)
- Dir. Thomas Grube
- The Berlin Philharmonic’s ambitious and dramatic undertaking – to school 250 children in a staging of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" – is…
Rice Rhapsody (Hainan ji fan) (2004)
- Dir. Kenneth Bi
Feat. Sylvia Chang, Mélanie Laurent, Maggie Q
- Light, good–natured familial farce about a sturdy single mother who, fearing a drought of grandchildren, plots to ‘straighten’ the…
Sea Inside, The (Mar Adentro) (2004)
- Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
Feat. Javier Bardem, Belen Rueda, Lola Dueñas…
- A deserving winner of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, this outstanding melodrama is based on the unique real–life story of Ramon Sampedro,…
Shadows Of Time (Scatten der Zeit) (2004)
- Dir. Florian Gallenberger
Feat. Prushant Narayanan, Tanishta Chaterjee
- Sumptuous romantic melodrama of a high order, following the bittersweet relations between two abandoned children, who graduate from working in a…
Spider Forest (2004)
- Dir. Il-gon Song
Feat. Suh Jung, Woo-seong Kam
- A refined and non–linear 'K–horror' concerns an amnesiac filmmaker whose foggy memories of the recent past concern a vast wild forest, a…
Story of My Life, The (Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinités) (2004)
- Dir. Laurent Tirard
Feat. Edouard Baer, Marie-Josee Croze, Clovis Cornillac…
- A ghostwriter’s charmed life is thrown into tailspin when he’s assigned the autobiography of a notoriously egotistical soccer star. Further…
Stray Dogs (Sag-haye velgard) (2004)
- Dir. Marziyeh Meshkini
Feat. Gol-Ghotai , Zahed , Agheleh Rezaie
- A wrenching, emotionally gripping tale of two children, orphaned after their parents are imprisoned, who must fend for themselves in…
Summer Storm (Sommersturm) (2004)
- Dir. Marco Kreuzpaintner
Feat. Robert Stadlober, Kostja Ullmann
- Two best friends – the pride of the local rowing club – find their loyalties and chances of winning threatened, as one gets serious about…
Sun, The (2004)
- Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
Feat. Robert Dawson, Issey Ogata
- A lucid, painstaking portrait of Emperor Hirohito, whose authority over Japanese troops during WWII is contrasted against intimate scenes of…
Survive Style 5+ (2004)
- Dir. Gen Sekiguchi
Feat. Tadanobu Asano, Hiroshi Abe, Vinnie Jones…
- Hitmen, hypnotists, murdered spouses, and a trio of oddball thieves converge in this delirious, unclassifiable comedy–mystery–drama by…
They Came Back (Les Revenants) (2004)
- Dir. Robin Campillo
Feat. Géraldine Pailhas, Jonathan Zaccai, Frédéric Pierrot…
- This disquieting, unconventional ‘zombie’ movie concerns a global phenomenon of returning dead, and their subsequent integration back into living…
Three Dancing Slaves (2004)
- Dir. Gaël Morel
Feat. Nicolas Cazalé, Stephane Rideau, Thomas Dumerchez…
- French romantic drama set in a working class Annecy neighbourhood where three brothers are in and out of the criminal world after their mother dies,…
Three...Extremes (3 Extremes) (2004)
- Dir. Takashi Miike, Park Chan-Wook, Fruit Chan
Feat. Ling Bai, Tony Leung (Kar-fai)
- Three prominent Asian maestros of terror serve up an intense and rewarding portmanteau of short horror works.
'Dumplings' (Dir. Fruit Chan)…
Trilogy 1: The Weeping Meadow (To Livadi pou dakryzei) (2004)
- Dir. Theo Angelopoulos
- The first part of an intended trilogy of films dealing with 20th century Greece, this monumental epic depicts the travails of a Greek refugee family…
Tropical Malady (2004)
- Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Feat. Banlop Lomnoi, Sakda Kaewbuadee
- A gorgeous two–hander from the dir. of BLISSFULLY YOURS begins as a tender romance between a farmer and a solider, before transforming into a…
Turtles Can Fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand) (2004)
- Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Feat. Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif
- The first widely–released film to emerge from post–Hussein Iraq, this wrenching tale concerns a raucous gang of children who scratch out…
Twenty Thirty Forty (20 30 40) (2004)
- Dir. Sylvia Chang
Feat. Sylvia Chang, Rene Liu, Lee Sinji
- The destinies of three women in contemporary urban Taiwan – aged 20, 30 and 40 – evolve in parallel as each feels their way through the…
Unconscious (Inconscientes) (2004)
- Dir. Joaquin Oristrell
- Boisterous 'Freudian farce' set amidst the extravagent architecture of Barcelona in 1913, where a disturbed psychiatrist suddenly adandons his…
Ushpizin (2004)
- Dir. Giddi Dar
- Respectful and dryly humorous parable of an ultra–Orthodox Jewish couple on the eve of the festival of Succoth, who invite two travellers…
Very Long Engagement, A (Long dimanche de fiançailles, Un) (2004)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Clovis Cornillac…
- Another crowd–pleasing favourite from the dir. of AMELIE, which uses the Great War as setting for the fairytale search by Audrey Tatou for her…
Walk on Water (2004)
- Dir. Eytan Fox
- An arresting drama based on the obsessive efforts of an Israeli Mossad hitman –in grieving over his wife's suicide – to search for and…
Wayward Cloud, The (2004)
- Dir. Ming-liang Tsai
Feat. Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen
- Eye–popping musical numbers burst forth from this outré Tsai Ming–liang offering, which couples the Taiwanese director’s usual…
Whisky (2004)
- Dir. Juan Pablo Rebella, Pablo Stoll
Feat. Jorge Bolani, Mirella Pascual, Andres Pazos
- From the vintage of Aki Kaurismaki and Jim Jarmusch, this low–key marriage charade stands as the driest comedy in years, accounting for a…
World Without Thieves, A (Tian xia wu zei) (2004)
- Dir. Feng Xiaoning
Feat. Andy Lau, Rene Liu
- Two thieves resolve to go straight, only to become entangled in high–stakes plot aboard a long haul train.
Starring the ever–watchable…
World, The (Shijie) (2004)
- Dir. Jia Zhang-ke
Feat. Zhao Tao
- The dir. of PLATFORM continues his perceptive and wry dissection of Chinese society reacting with surreal clumsiness to the forces of globalisation,…
Yesterday (2004)
- Dir. Darrell Roodt
Feat. Kenneth Khambula, Leleti Khumalo
- A groundbreaking drama set in a South African village, which depicts a woman's (Khumalo) struggles with health, family and local superstition when…
Youth, The (Yuva) (2004)
- Dir. Mani Ratnam
Feat. Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgan
- A Bollywood epic with debts to the likes of PULP FICTION and AMORES PERROS, structuring the storylines of three contrasting young men around a…
15 (2003)
- Dir. Royston Tan
Feat. Melvin Chen, Erick Chun
- Doing for the tiny island nation of Singapore what LA HAINE did for France, this box–office hit follows the misfiring antics of three teenagers…
3 is a Crowd (I'm Staying) (2003)
- Dir. Diane Kurys
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Vincent Perez, Charles Berling
- Farcical French romantic comedy about a wife, fed up with her stubborn husband's cycling obsession, who invites another man to move in. Unfortunately…
A Heart Elsewhere (Il Cuore Altrove) (2003)
- Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Neri Marcore, Vanessa Incontrada
- Seemingly a soft–centred drama set in 1930s Italy, this curious tale of blind love carries its own insinuating mood of melancholy. Marcore…
Anatomie 2 (2003)
- Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
- Competently staged sequel again set in a clinical German medical school, where a new student gradually uncovers a program of human experimentation…
Anatomy of Hell (Anatomie De L'enfer) (2003)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Amira Casar, Rocco Siffredi
- A queasily explicit sex drama about a suicidal woman who challenges (and pays) a promiscuous gay man to participate in an uneasy nightly ritual of…
Aragami (2003)
- Dir. Ryuhei Kitamura
Feat. Takao Osawa, Masaya Kato, Tak Sakaguchi
- Another confidently executed, blood–soaked samurai fantasy from dir. Kitamura (VERSUS), set in a remote medieval temple into which a wounded…
Armaan (2003)
- Dir. Honey Irani
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Gracey Singh
- A hospital soap–opera, Bollywood–style, centering around a doctor and his neurosurgeon son who dream of turning a private hospital into a…
As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (2003)
- Dir. Hardy Martins
- Based on the novel by Josef Martin Bauer, this film recounts the harrowing true story of Clemens Forell, the German POW who escaped a Siberian labour…
At Five in the Afternoon (Panj é asr) (2003)
- Dir. Samira Makhmalbaf
Feat. Agheleh Rezaie, Abdolgani Yousefrazi
- Delivering perhaps her most visually poetic, yet dramatically starkest work to date, the dir. of THE APPLE and BLACKBOARDS has a father and daughter…
Azumi (2003)
- Dir. Ryuhei Kitamura
Feat. Aya Ueto, Shun Oguri, Kenji Kohashi
- The dir. of VERSUS advances to a studio–scale budget for this historical action yarn, set around a skilled swords–woman in ancient feudal…
Baghban (2003)
- Dir. Ravi Chopra
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Paresh Rawal…
- A genial Bollywood family drama in which a middle–aged couple on the verge of retirement arrange for their four sons and…
Barbarian Invasions, The (2003)
- Dir. Denys Arcand
Feat. Remy Girard, Stephane Rousseau, Dorothee Berryman…
- Another finely–wrought drama from French–Canadian dir. Denys Arcand, who invests his keen sense of history, politics, literature and sex…
Battle Royale II: Requiem (Battle Royale 2) (2003)
- Dir. Fukasaku Kinji, Fukasaku Kenta
Feat. Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ai Maeda, Shugo Oshinari
- Bolder and bloodier sequel that introduces 9/11–style terrorist topicality into its violent, 'last teen standing' scenario, with overt…
Beautiful Boxer (2003)
- Dir. Ekachai Uekrongtham
Feat. Asanee Suwan
- Fact–based actioner which follows a gifted 'Muay Thai' martial artist rising from his poor, rural background into the champions' league of…
Best of Youth, The (La Meglio gioventù) (2003)
- Dir. Marco Tullio Giordana
- Sprawling and heady Italian saga tracks the lives of two brothers through the idealistic dreams of the 1960s and the long messy aftermath of…
Blind Shaft (2003)
- Dir. Yang Li
Feat. Li Yixiang, Wang Shuangbao, Baoqiang Wang
- Chinese crime drama set in the brutal world of illegal coal mining.
Follows two struggling coal miners who are running a side hustle in which they…
Blockade, Landscape, Revue: 3 Films by Sergei Loznitsa (2003-2008)
- Dir. Sergey Loznitsa
- Three documentaries from Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (DONBASS).
Landscape (2003, 60 mins) is set at a bus stop in a small village, with the…
Bon Voyage (2003)
- Dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Feat. Isabelle Adjani, Gerard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen…
- A plushly–mounted, grander–than–life romantic farce from director of "Cyrano De Bergerac".
It's June 1940, when a group of…
Cafe Lumiere (Kôhî jikô) (2003)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Tadanobu Asano, Yo Hitoto
- Luminous tribute to Japanese dir. Yasujiro Ozu from a Taiwanese admirer, which honours Ozu's aesthetic in a minimalist study of personal…
Carandiru (2003)
- Dir. Hector Babenco
- An expressionist series of tales set within the notorious titular prison in Sao Paolo, Brazil, as seen through the eyes of a benevolent doctor and…
Chalte Chalte (2003)
- Dir. Aziz Mirza
Feat. Shahrukh Khan
- Glossy Bollywood comic–romance that runs a typical gamut of emotions about a chalk–and–cheese yet glamourous couple, who against…
Chokher Bali (2003)
- Dir. Rituparno Ghosh
Feat. Aishwarya Rai, Prasenjit Chatterjee
- Set in colonial Bengal, this adaptation of Nobel prizewinner Rabindranath Tagore's 1902 novel, concerns a beautiful widow (Aishwarya) who enters a…
City of Men (TV Series) (Cidade dos Homens) (2003)
- Feat. Darlan Cunha, Douglas Silva
- Brazilian TV followup to the crime epic CITY OF GOD, continues the lives of Acerola and Laranjinha in the shanties of Sao Paolo dodging drug gangs…
Crimson Gold (Talaye sorkh) (2003)
- Dir. Jafar Panahi
- Extraordinary, emotionally–compelling class fable set in contemporary Iran, which begins with a failed jewelery heist in Tehran, then…
Dot The I (El Punto sobre la I) (2003)
- Dir. Matthew Parkhill
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, James D'Arcy, Natalia Verbeke
- A skillfully moody London romance, in which the relationship of an engaged couple is disturbed by a pre–wedding ritual in which Verbeke must…
Evil (Ondskan) (2003)
- Dir. Mikael Håfström
Feat. Andreas Wilson, Henrik Lundstrom, Gustaf Skarsard
- Based on a renowned novel, this dramatic thriller is set in the 1950s Sweden, where a high school bully (Wilson) is expelled and sent by his mother…
Facing Windows (La Finestra di fronte) (2003)
- Dir. Ferzan Ozpetek
Feat. Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Massimo Girotti, Raoul Bova
- An Italian woman finds her life and desires fraying away, as she struggles to support her family in the apartment blocks of Rome, while coming to…
Father and Son (Otets i syn) (2003)
- Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
Feat. Andrei Shchetinin, Aleksei Nejmyshev, Aleksandr Razbash
- A loose 'sequel' to dir. Sokurov's arthouse hit MOTHER AND SON, this again uses an oblique, dreamlike visual style, here for an exploration of filial…
Fear and Trembling (Stupeur et tremblements) (2003)
- Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Sylvie Testud
- A Belgian translator (Testud) takes a job in the corporate world of Tokyo (a city where she was born and grew up) hoping to rediscover the culture…
Fearless (Jet Li's Fearless; Huo Yuan Jia) (2003)
- Dir. Ronnie Yu
Feat. Jet Li
- Lively martial–arts epic which is reportedly Jet Li's final offering of screen 'wushu' (traditional Chinese fighting) , retells the story of…
Forest for the Trees, The (Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen) (2003)
- Dir. Maren Ade
Feat. Eva Löbau
- Impressively insightful German drama following an idealistic young teacher who starts a job at a Karlsruhe school and contends with her own…
Ginji The Slasher (2003)
- Dir. Takeshi Miyasaka
Feat. Riki Takeuchi
- Low profile suspenser, set around a recalcitrant swordsman who goes on the rampage in post–WW2 Japan and 50 years later is released to start…
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)
- Dir. Masaaki Tezuka
- More colossal mayhem from the never–ending franchise, with Japan vulnerable to a recuperated Godzilla, who will attack if government scientists…
Good Morning, Night (2003)
- Dir. Marco Bellocchio
- A dramatisation of events surrounding the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 by The Red Brigades, as seen through the…
Goodbye Lenin! (2003)
- Dir. Wolfgang Becker
Feat. Daniel Bruhl, Katrin Sass, Chulpan Khamatova
- This comedy of concealment set around the fall of the Berlin Wall was a justifiable success around the world, with a bittersweet mood of political…
Gozu (2003)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Hideki Sone, Kimika Yoshino
- Rebel iconoclast of Japanese cinema, Takashi Miike, unveils his creepiest film since AUDITION: a hellishly disorientating – yet markedly restrained…
Green Butchers, The (De grønne slagtere ) (2003)
- Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
- Grim comedy focused on two down–and–out butchers who discover they can make a killing out of their customer's oblivious cannibalistic…
Grudge 2, The (Ju-On 2) (2003)
- Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Feat. Chiharu Nîyama, Noriko Sakai, Kei Horie…
- Followup to the original Japanese version of dir. Takashi's own JU–ON, this proffers an almost identical vision, with a TV crew visiting the…
Grudge, The (Ju-On) (2003)
- Dir. Takashi Shimizu
- A horror film that understands that fear is best painted blacker than molasses, this cult Japanese hit follows in the ghostly steps of the RING…
High Tension (Haute tension, Switchblade Romance) (2003)
- Dir. Alexandre Aja
Feat. Cecile De France, Maïwenn
- A grisly yet indeed tense French horror movie directed with stunning virtuosity, about two women whose rural weekend getaway turns horrific when they…
Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Classics: From 1983 to 1986 (The Boys From Fengkuei; A Summer at Grandpa's; A Time to Live, A Time to Die; Dust in the Wind) (2003)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
- A collection of four of the early films from director Hou Hsiao–Hsien, who is a leading figure in the Taiwanese New Wave.
The Boys From…
I'm Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura) (2003)
- Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Dino Abbrescia, Giorgio Careccia…
- Atmospheric thriller from dir. Gabriele Salvatores that deftly conveys a foreboding childhood experience during a long, hot summer in the country,…
Infernal Affairs 2 (Mou gaan dou II) (2003)
- Dir. Wai Keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak
Feat. Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, Carina Lau…
- Solid prequel to the hit Hong Kong policier, goes back in time to the era of the 1991 and moves forward in three acts to the Chinese handover,…
Infernal Affairs 3 (Mou gaan dou III) (2003)
- Dir. Wai Keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak
Feat. Andy Lau, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Leon Lai…
- Actual sequel to the hit Hong Kong gangland–cop thriller attempts valiantly to tie up loose ends, both picking up where corrupt cop Ming (Lau)…
Italian Film Festival Collection, The - 2006 (2003-2005)
- Comprehensive box–set collection of 12 of the best Italian films featured at the 'Italian Film Festival 2006' spread over 6 discs.
Films…
James' Journey to Jerusalem (Massa'ot James Be'eretz Hakodesh) (2003)
- Dir. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz
Feat. Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe
- A witty yet significant portrait of contemporary Israel that takes the form of a deceptively straightforward fable, charting the progress of a young…
Joy of Madness (Lezate divanegi) (2003)
- Dir. Hana Makhmalbaf
- An unusual and invigorating self–reflexive documentary created by the teenage sister of acclaimed filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf, during the…
Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Never Come) (2003)
- Dir. Nikhil Advani
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta
- Sporting a string of hit songs and featuring a troika of India's most popular stars, this giddy swirl of romantic comedy, musical, family melodrama…
Kiss Me First (Prima dammi un bacio) (2003)
- Dir. Ambrogio Lo Giudice
Feat. Stefania Rocca, Marco Cocci
- Endearing Italian comedy following the fate of two separated lovers whose lives cannot help but intersect. The events of WW2 inevitably drive these…
Kitchen Stories (Salmer fra kjøkkenet) (2003)
- Dir. Bent Hamer
Feat. Tomas Norstrom, Joachim Calmeyer, Reine Brynolfsson…
- A slyly humourous offering from Scandanavia, examining the efforts of the (real–life) Swedish Home Research Institute to improve lives of…
Koktebel (2003)
- Dir. Boris Khlebnikov, Alexei Popogrebsky
Feat. Gleb Puskepalis, Igor Chernevich
- A delicately imagined journey through the Ukrainian countryside in the company of a widower and his 11–year old son, who set off on foot from…
Kuch Naa Kaho (2003)
- Dir. Rohan Sippy
Feat. Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan
- Effective, if predictable, this contemporary comedy of arranged marriage concerns an eligible bachelor (Bachban) who becomes the personal project of…
Last Life in the Universe (2003)
- Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Tadanobu Asano, Riki Takeuchi, Sinitta Boonyasak
- With a cool command of the aloof, this strange, seductive noir–romance merges the soulless existence of a suicidal librarian (Asano), a…
Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d'enfants) (2003)
- Dir. Yann Samuell
Feat. Marion Cotillard, Guillaume Canet
- Two French kids develop an intense relationship through escalating games of "dare" that bond and haunt them through a turbulent teenage and…
Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) (2003)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim
- A darkly lyrical thriller, set around the true–life hunt for South Korea's first documented serial killer in 1986, during the years of Chun…
Miracle of Bern, The (2003)
- Dir. Sonke Wortmann
- Set in grim post–WW2 West Germany, this passionate, if broadly–handled drama respools a backdrop of events leading to the shock triumph…
Monsieur Ibrahim (2003)
- Dir. Francois Dupeyron
Feat. Omar Sharif, Pierre Boulanger
- Set on the multicultural streets of 1960s working–class Paris, this warm–hearted tale has a Sufi grocery store owner befriend a lonely…
Munnabhai M.B.B.S. (2003)
- Dir. Rajkumar Hirani
Feat. Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Dutt
- An unusually comedic Bollywood musical, sees a smalltime gangster staging an elaborate deception to prove to his straight–laced father that, in…
Nathalie... (2003)
- Dir. Anne Fontaine
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardant, Gerard Depardieu
- Steamy French confection involves frustrated wife Ardant in hiring prostitute Beart to seduce her philandering husband (Depardieu), and bring her…
Natural City (2003)
- Dir. Byung-chun Min
Feat. Ji-tae Yoo, Jae-un Lee, Rin Seo
- A stylised high–tech thriller set in 2080 – after global war has destroyed much of civilisation – where an isolated metropolis has…
Noi Albinoi (Noi the Albino) (2003)
- Dir. Dagur Kari
Feat. Tomas Lemarquis, Pröstur Leó Gunnarsson
- Distinctive drama about a 'gifted' 17–year–old who rebels against the limits of life in a remote Icelandic town.
Brimming with…
Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Afrika) (2003)
- Dir. Caroline Link
Feat. Juliane Kohler
- An old–fashioned epic of family survival, where a privileged Jewish family migrate from 1938 Nazi Germany into the exotic vastness of…
One Missed Call (Chakushin Ari) (2003)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Ko Shibasaki, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Kazue Fukiishi…
- Another 'J–horror' riding on the wave of the RING phenomena, updating the supernatural formula with cell–phone technology and…
Ong-Bak (Muay Thai Warrior) (2003)
- Dir. Prachya Pinkaew
Feat. Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao
- A martial arts juggernaut from Thailand, in which a benign village kickboxer travels to big bad Bangkok in search of a sacred statue stolen from his…
Osama (2003)
- Dir. Siddiq Barmak
Feat. Marina Golbahari
- Though nothing to do with a certain infamous terrorist, this first Afghani film made since the rise and fall of the Taliban also happens to be a…
Other Side of the Bed, The (2003)
- Dir. Emilio Martinez Lazaro
Feat. Paz Vega, Natalia Verbeke, Ernesto Alterio…
- Frisky Spanish sex comedy involving the criss–crossing love affairs across a group of "friends" and acquaintances.
Cast with 'Guess Jeans'…
Remember Me (Ricordati di Me) (2003)
- Dir. Gabriel Muccino
Feat. Fabrizzio Bentivoglio, Laura Morante, Monica Bellucci
- The dir. of THE LAST KISS constructs an equally heightened melodrama about the saga of a middle–class Italian family, their various personal…
Return, The (Vozvrashcheniye) (2003)
- Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev
Feat. Ivan Dobronravov, Vladimir Garin, Konstantin Lavronenko…
- A surprise arthouse hit about a couple of teenage brothers who are taken on a mysterious trip by their estranged and rather surly father, with his…
Rosenstrasse (2003)
- Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
Feat. Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader, Martin Feifel
- Fact–based drama set around the wartime protest movement of Aryan German women in 1943 Berlin, who were distraught at the forced detention of…
Schultze Gets the Blues (2003)
- Dir. Michael Schorr
Feat. Horst Krause, Harald Warmbrunn
- A recently retired worker (Krause) in a dismal German mining town, discovers an unexpected passion for playing Zydeco rhythms on the piano accordion,…
Seducing Doctor Lewis (La Grande séduction) (2003)
- Dir. Jean-François Pouliot
Feat. Raymond Bouchard, David Boutin
- Amiable and crafty, this Québécois comedy has a small fishing village trying to gently persuade a visiting young doctor to take up permanent…
Silmido (2003)
- Dir. Woo-Suk Kang
Feat. Ahn Sung-Ki, Kyung-gu Sol
- Korean Cold War thriller which takes the true scandal of how a team of gangsters and death–row criminals were recruited in 1968 as part of a…
Since Otar Left (2003)
- Dir. Julie Bertuccelli
Feat. Dinara Droukarova, Nino Khomassouridze, Ester Gorintin
- Touching and wryly comic tale set in post–Communist Georgia, in which a mother, daughter and granddaughter partly survive through a romantic…
Singing Behind Screens (Cantando dietro i paraventi) (2003)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi
Feat. Bud Spencer, Davide Dragonetti
- Visually opulent Italian epic directed by Ermanno Olmi (THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS) set in coastal China and centred on a plucky widow who takes her…
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom) (2003)
- Dir. Kim Ki-Duk
Feat. Oh Young-Soo, Kim Ki-Duk, Kim Young-Min…
- As the seasons pass through many years, the inhabitants of a floating temple on a woodland pond – a young boy and his wizened mentor –…
Springtime in a Small Town (2003)
- Dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang
- Long–awaited followup to THE BLUE KITE for dir. Zhuangzhuang (who was banned from filmmaking for three years afterwards), constructing a…
Story of Marie and Julien, The (Histoire de Marie et Julien) (2003)
- Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Jerzy Radziwilowicz
- Meandering and hypnotic tale of the supernatural from French master Jacques Rivette, which begins in the apparently nondescript world of a Parisian…
Stroll, The (Progulka) (2003)
- Dir. Alexei Uchitel
Feat. Irina Pegova, Pavel Barshak, Yevgeny Tsyganov…
- An acclaimed, and winningly light–handed promenade through the streets of St Petersburg, with three 20–somethings, as they skirt, revolve…
Swimming Pool (2003)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier, Charles Dance
- A beguiling psychological thriller, in which a British mystery–novelist (Rampling) travels to her publisher's holiday house in rural France for…
Tais Toi! (Ruby and Quentin) (2003)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Jean Reno, Andre Dussollier…
- Another reliable entertainment from the writer–director of THE CLOSET and THE DINNER GAME, this screwball crime comedy boasts a central comic…
Tale of Two Sisters, A (Janghwa Hongryeon) (2003)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kap-su Kim, Jung-ah Yum, Su-jeong Lim…
- A further revelation of the K–horror genre, this enters the forboding world of two devoted sisters who endure the lakeside household of their…
Thousand Months, A (Mille Mois) (2003)
- Dir. Faouzi Bensaïdi
Feat. Fouad Labied, Nezha Rahile
- A rare international release from Morocco, this portrays languid months of existence for a boy who, following various family crises, moves with his…
Time of the Wolf (Temps du loup, Le) (2003)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Beatrice Dalle, Olivier Gourmet
- Chilling, disconcerting post–apocalyptic nightmare that begins with Isabelle Huppert and children fleeing into a barren French countryside,…
Touch of Spice, A (Politiki kouzina) (2003)
- Dir. Tassos Boulmetis
Feat. George Corraface
- Spices build bridges in this touching account of a Greek astrophysicist and his spice merchant grandfather, conjoined by that now–familiar…
Travellers and Magicians (2003)
- Dir. Khyentse Norbu
Feat. Tsewang Dandup, Sonam Lhamo
- A puckishly effective road movie from the Himilayan kingdom of Bhutan, this follows a young villager who gets the opportunity to travel forth from…
Triple Agent (2003)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
- A measured and discrete exercise in espionage cinema from octagenrian dir. Rohmer (AN AUTUMN TALE), eschewing his usual air of cordial romance for an…
Triplets of Belleville, The (Belleville Rendezvous) (2003)
- Dir. Sylvain Chomet
- Witty, inventive and lovingly designed with retro–chic flair, this 'all–ages' animated feature is distinctively and delightfully…
Twentynine Palms (2003)
- Dir. Bruno Dumont
Feat. Katia Golubeva, David Wissak
- Provocative in both form and content, dir. Dumont (L'HUMANITE) crafts an opaque thriller around a dysfunctional couple's 'holiday' in the American…
Untold Scandal (2003)
- Dir. Je-yong Lee
Feat. Mi-suk Lee, Yong-joon Bae
- ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ translates seamlessly to Chosun Dynasty Korea, with temptress Lady Cho (Lee) assuming role of sexual power broker in this…
Vodka Lemon (2003)
- Dir. Hiner Saleem
Feat. Romen Avinian
- The residents of a diminishing Armenian village eke out meagre living in this sombre, if delightfully deadpan post–communist…
Warrior, The (2003)
- Dir. Asif Kapadia
Feat. Irfan Khan, Puru Chibber
- Award–winning debut for British born dir. Kapadia follows the quest of a lone swordsman to escape his brutal paymaster in ancient feudal…
Warriors of Heaven and Earth (Tian di ying xiong) (2003)
- Dir. He Ping
Feat. Wen Jiang, Xueqi Wang, Vicki Zhao
- A lavish post–CROUCHING TIGER epic derived from a Chinese folktale about an Imperial assassin who is sent forth to the Gobi desert to eliminate…
Who Killed Bambi? (Qui a tué Bambi?) (2003)
- Dir. Gilles Marchand
Feat. Laurent Lucas, Catherine Jacob, Sophie Quinton
- French thriller set in an eerie hospital where people are mysteriously disappearing, following a nursing student and a doctor as they try to catch…
Zatoichi (2003)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano
- Actor–director–cult hero Takeshi Kitano stylishly revives a hero of well–known Japanese mythology and scores his most broadly…
Zelary (2003)
- Dir. Ondrej Trojan
Feat. Anna Geislerova, Gyorgy Cserhalmi
- A layered tale of war and romance set around the 1943 purge of the Czech resistance by the occupying Nazis, and a young nurse's flight to…
Zhou Yu's Train (2003)
- Dir. Sun Zhou
Feat. Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Gong Li, Honglei Sun
- Gong Li shimmers as a gorgeous ceramic artisan in rural China, who is torn between two men – a reclusive poet (Leung) and an affable vetenarian…
800 Balas (800 Bullets) (2002)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Carmen Maura, Sancho Gracia
- Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia (DAY OF THE BEAST) brings his wild energy to this story of a stuntman in Almeria whose career is floundering in…
A Loving Father (Aime ton père) (2002)
- Dir. Jacob Berger
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Guillaume Depardieu, Sylvie Testud
- Gerard Depardieu and real–life offspring Guillaume star as estranged father and son in this MISERY–inspired scenario of gaping family…
A Snake of June (2002)
- Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
Feat. Asuka Kurosawa, Yuji Kohtari, Shinya Tsukamoto…
- Intriguing neo–noir psychodrama from uncompromising Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto (yes, he of the notorious TETSUO films), about a suicide…
A Tale of a Naughty Girl (Mondo Meyer Upakhyan) (2002)
- Dir. Buddhadev Dasgupta
Feat. Samata Das, Rituparna Sengupta, Arpan Basar
- Caught between the push of tradition and the pull of the promise of a new life, a bright prostitute's daughter runs away to Calcutta to escape a…
Abouna (Our Father) (2002)
- Dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
- Set in the impoverished, dusty landscapes of Chad, this fable of African fragmentation follows two brothers (aged 8 and 15) as they search…
Alive (2002)
- Dir. Ryuhei Kitamura
Feat. Hideo Sakaki, Koyuki, Tak Sakaguchi
- A convicted murderer is sentenced to death, only to escape execution and become the subject of bizarre prison experiments in this inventive marriage…
And Now Ladies and Gentlemen (2002)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Jeremy Irons, Patricia Kaas, Thierry Lhermitte…
- A smooth exercise in self–satire from dir. Lelouch, with Jeremy Irons playing a shifty jewel–thief who hooks up with lounge–singer…
Angela (2002)
- Dir. Roberta Torre
Feat. Donatella Finocchiaro
- A solid, if oblique drama depicting the doings of the 1980s Sicilian Mafia as seen through the eyes of mob–wife Finocchiaro.
Although…
Asterix and Obelix - Mission Cleopatra (2002)
- Dir. Alain Chabat
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Alain Chabat, Monica Bellucci…
- The core cast of 1999's disastrous ASTERIX AND OBELIX TAKE ON CAESAR return for a far more successful adaptation of one of those classic…
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002)
- Dir. Dai Sijie
- Lovingly photographed fable of freedom, set during China's 'Cultural Revolution' in 1971 and based on the dir.'s own adolescence.
Two young…
Black Angel (Senso '45) (2002)
- Dir. Tinto Brass
Feat. Anna Galiena, Gabriel Garko, Franco Branciaroli
- Typically lurid Brass outing with well–connected Galiena drawn into a torrid affair with an SS Officer during the Nazi occupation of Venice.…
Blissfully Yours (Sud Sanaeha) (2002)
- Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- One–of–a–kind filmmaker Weerasethakul embarks on a delicate, ethereal journey through Thailand’s magical wilderness, to beguiling…
Bollywood Hollywood (2002)
- Dir. Deepa Mehta
Feat. Rahul Khanna, Lisa Ray
- The dir. of the 'elements trilogy' (FIRE, EARTH, WATER) conceived this less artful, but rather clever insider's take on the Bollywood musical…
Braquo (TV Series) (2002)
- Dir. Olivier Marchal, Xavier Palud
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Joseph Malerba, Karole Rocher…
- Grungy French police series in which four officers of the SDPJ Hauts–de–Seine have their lives turned upside down after a colleague…
Broken Wings (K’nafayim Shvurot) (2002)
- Dir. Nir Bergman
Feat. Orly Silbersatz Banai, Maya Maron
- The fraught shuffle of daily life for an Israeli family after the death of the male head of the household, is depicted with touching and intimate…
Butterfly, The (Le Papillon) (2002)
- Dir. Phillippe Muyl
Feat. Michel Serrault, Claire Bouanich, Nade Dieu
- Gentle family drama concerns the relationship between a gruff old man and his eight year old neighbour. Setting out one day in search of an elusive…
Chaos (2002)
- Dir. Coline Serreau
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Catherine Frot
- A witty French thriller where, through a chance meeting, a middle–class woman comes to the rescue of an Algerian–born prostitute who is…
Chihwaseon (Painted Fire) (2002)
- Dir. Kwon-taek Im
Feat. Min-sik Choi, Sung-kee Ahn
- A mainstay of Korean cinema, Im Kwon–taek helms this impassioned portrait of one of the country's most celebrated painters, Jang…
Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002)
- Dir. Jeff Lau
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Faye Wong, Chen Chang…
- Silly only in appearance, this in–joke laden spoof of Hong Kong cinema stapes – Chinese opera, gender–bending romances, and…
City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002)
- Dir. Fernando Mierelles
Feat. Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmano da Hora, Phellipe Haagensen
- An incendiary Brazilian drama depicting two decades of blood–drenched rivalry between two youth gangs who control a slum area of Rio De…
Code, The (La Mentale) (2002)
- Dir. Manuel Boursinhac
Feat. Samuel Le Bihan
- Convincingly gritty crime drama set in the drab outer zone of Paris' apartment estates and trailer parks, with a recently paroled hood (Le Bihan)…
Crime of Father Amaro, The (El Crimen del padre Amaro) (2002)
- Dir. Carlos Carrera
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal
- Melodramatic and ironic critique of the crimes of the Roman Catholic church that was hugely successful in its native Mexico.
A young priest…
Cuckoo, The (Kukushka) (2002)
- Dir. Aleksandr Rogozhkin
Feat. Anni-Kristiina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo, Viktor Bychkov
- An earthy drama of non–communication set amid the frozen WW2 battleground of Lapland, where a pacifist Finnish soldier, a survivalist Russian…
Dark Water (2002)
- Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno
- Running rings around the RING films in unsettling atmosphere, rich subtext and jump–in–your–seat moments, this creepy fable of…
Dead or Alive 3 (Final) (2002)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi
- Imaginative, futuristic final entry in a remarkable action trilogy that this time presents its anti–heroic pair toughing it out in a dystopian…
Demonlover (2002)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloe Sevigny…
- An insinuating future–shock Euro–thriller, with Connie Neilsen as an attractive corporate executive caught in the…
Devdas (2002)
- Dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai
- The most expensive production in Bollywood history to date is this gorgeously extravagant soap opera based on one of India’s most widely–read…
Dolls (2002)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Miho Kanno, Tatsuya Mihashi
- Beautiful to behold with its spectacular Japanese vistas, but unfocused in content, dir. Takeshi stumbles with an art film that feels stranded…
Double Vision (Shuang tong) (2002)
- Dir. Chen Kuo Fu
Feat. David Morse, Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Rene Liu
- A slickly effective horror film, in which cross–cultural cop buddies Leung and Morse hunt a demonic serial killer in Taiwan.
Imbued with a…
Drowned Out (2002)
- Dir. Franny Armstrong
- A forerunner, and now excellent companion piece to the much vaunted UP THE YANGTZE, this captures in sobering close–up the plight of an Indian…
El Bonaerense (2002)
- Dir. Pablo Trapero
- An authentically macho tale about the notoriously clannish and corrupt police force of Buenos Aires (members are known as 'el Bonaerense') which…
Enlightenment Guaranteed (2002)
- Dir. Doris Dorrie
Feat. Uwe Ochsenknecht, Gustav-Peter Wohler
- Entertainment is guaranteed for those in the right headspace with this droll comedy, in which two befuddled German brothers on holiday in Japan stray…
Etre et Avoir (To Be and to Have) (2002)
- Dir. Nicolas Philibert
- Acclaimed internationally for its inspirational power and transcendence of the documentary form, this non–fiction film observes the simple,…
Eye, The (2002)
- Dir. Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Feat. Angelica Lee, Lawrence Chou
- Almost guaranteed to give you goosebumps, this unnerving Asian horror show follows in the footsteps and spirit of the watershed RING films, though…
Fiancée of Dracula (2002)
- Dir. Jean Rollin
Feat. Cyrille Gaudin, Jacques Orth, Thomas Smith
- A late addition in the filmography of cult fantasy director Jean Rollin, who once again turns his attention to vampire mythology in this tale of a…
Gada Meilin (2002)
- Dir. Feng Xiaoning
- Lauded, but rather obscure action drama set in 1930s Mongolia, where the nomadic tribal leader Gada Meilin tried to prevent the 'desertification' of…
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (A la Folie pas du Tout) (2002)
- Dir. Laetitia Colombani
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan
- A slyly–structured tale of adultery which uses the ambiguous qualities of actress Audrey Tautou (AMELIE) to deliver some thrilling…
Hero (2002)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Jet Li, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Maggie Cheung…
- Though no doubt diminished on the small screen, this ancient Martial Arts spectacle from the dir. of RAISE THE RED…
Historias Minimas (Intimate Stories) (2002)
- Dir. Carlos Sorin
Feat. Javier Lombardo
- Gentle, uneventful road movie drifts between three separate journeys from a remote village in Argentina to San Julian. Softly observed, this quietly…
House of Fools (Dom Durakov) (2002)
- Dir. Andrei Konchalovsky
- Based around the true story of a Chechen mental hospital which was abandoned by staff during the recent civil war, with patients left to fend for…
Housekeeper, The (Une Femme de Menage) (2002)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Jean-Pierre Bacri, Emilie Dequenne, Catherine Breillat
- Charming "French souffle" about a forlorn divorcee who hires a housekeeper to clean up his slovenly act.
However, it turns out she's never done a…
Hukkle (2002)
- Dir. Gyorgy Palfi
Feat. Ferenc Bandi
- An original and arresting work from Hungary, which explores, burrows into and juxtaposes the varied environs of a small rural village – plants,…
In My Skin (Dans Ma Peau) (2002)
- Dir. Marina de Van
Feat. Marina de Van
- A disturbing, cerebral manifest on the nature of self–mutilation, portrayed with serious conviction by writer/dir. Marina de Van, regular…
In This World (2002)
- Dir. Michael Winterbottom
- A powerful, simply wrought story of two Afghani brothers who attempt to journey from their Pakistani refugee camp across Asia and Europe to…
Infernal Affairs (2002)
- Dir. Wai Keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak
Feat. Andy Lau, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Anthony Wong…
- This dynamic cops ‘n’ robbers spectacle is populist Hong Kong film–making at its most slick and sophisticated.
Infused with more than a…
Inner Senses (Yee do hung gaan) (2002)
- Dir. Chi-Leung Law
Feat. Leslie Cheung, Karena Lam, Maggie Poon
- A loner psychologist (Cheung) falls for a suicidal woman he is treating for her constant, gloomy visions of the dead, in this stylish Asian riff on…
Japon (Japan) (2002)
- Dir. Carlos Reygadas
- A crippled man journeys into a remote Mexican canyon in order to end his life, but becomes entangled with a saintly old woman, village politics and a…
Jet Lag (2002)
- Dir. Daniele Thompson
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Jean Reno, Sergi Lopez
- Euro–comedy with supermodel Binoche and insomniac Reno forced into each's others' company by an airline strike and soon, opposites begin to…
Kaante (Thorns) (2002)
- Dir. Sanjay Gupta
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty
- From a new generation of Bollywood film–making comes a kinetic heist picture, shot and located in LA in which six Indian suspects plot a…
L'Homme du Train (Man on the Train) (2002)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Johnny Hallyday
- An elegantly amusing role–switching tale that's equal parts social comedy, existential drama and subtle thriller, tinged with melancholy…
L'Idole (2002)
- Dir. Samantha Lang
Feat. Leelee Sobieski, James Hong
- Playing a troubled Australian actress, Sobieski arrives in Paris and befriends her elderly Chinese neighbour in this melancholy…
Legend of Suriyothai, The (2002)
- Dir. Chatrichalerm Yukol
- A lavish historical epic financed by the royal family of Thailand (and directed by a prince) and centred around two powerful women – a princess…
Lilya 4-Ever (2002)
- Dir. Lukas Moodysson
Feat. Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharsky, Pavel Ponomaryov
- Lauded Swedish film–maker Lukas Moodyson turns his talents to the plight of a Russian teenage girl whose hopes for a brighter future (and…
Madame Sata (2002)
- Dir. Karim Ainouz
Feat. Lazaro Ramos, Marcelia Cartaxo, Felippe Marques…
- The underbelly of 1930s Rio de Janeiro glistens in this atmospheric drama about the celebrated João Francisco dos Santos (Ramos), a flamboyant gay…
Malefique (2002)
- Dir. Eric Valette
Feat. Gérald Laroche, Philippe Laudenbach, Clovis Cornillac
- Imaginative, atmospheric low–budget French horror, set around the discovery of a dusty book of supernatural spells by four convicts in their…
Man Without a Past, The (2002)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen
- Another understated, double–take comedy from Finnish dir. Kaurismaki, making perhaps his most cleverly balanced work yet.
An itinerant…
Marie-Jo and her Two Loves (2002)
- Dir. Robert Guediguian
Feat. Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gerard Meylan
- A dreamy, perceptive romance gently steered under the Mediterranean sun by dir. Guédiguian, who again uses the vibrant setting of his native…
Missing Gun, The (Xun qiang) (2002)
- Dir. Chuan Lu
Feat. Wen Jiang
- Wound–up thriller set in a small and eccentric Chinese village, where a policeman wakes one morning with a hangover to find his…
Monday Morning (Lundi Matin) (2002)
- Dir. Otar Iosseliani
Feat. Jacques Bidou
- A whimsical comic journey for a French factory worker, who uproots from his village and family in search of philosophical and liquid refreshment in…
Monsieur Batignole (2002)
- Dir. Gerard Jugnot
Feat. Gerard Jugnot
- An ironic comedy set in WW2 Paris, in which the titular butcher helps himself to an apartment vacated by a Jewish family who have been rounded up by…
Mostly Martha (Bella Martha) (2002)
- Dir. Sandra Nettelbeck
Feat. Martina Gedeck, Sergio Castellitto
- Light and satisfying dish, concerning the frissions in a Hamburg restaurant between a chef, her eight year old neice and a talented…
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002)
- Dir. Aparna Sen
- A casual aquaintance between two passengers (one Hindu, one Muslim) on a bus journey in northern India becomes a matter of life and death when the…
Nest, The (Nid de Guêpes) (2002)
- Dir. Florent Emilio Siri
Feat. Nadia Farès, Samy Naceri, Benoit Magimel
- A brutally efficient and stylish French action yarn about a night–time standoff between various crims, security guards and an army of Albanian…
Oasis (2002)
- Dir. Chang-Dong Lee
Feat. Kyung-gu Sol, So-ri Moon
- Tough and emotionally powerful drama, highlighted by fearless performances, which charts the romance between a recent parolee and a cerebral…
Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt) (2002)
- Dir. Susanne Bier
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Sonja Richter
- A touch edgier than recent 'Dogme 95' melodramas, this explores the consequences of a car accident on the previously steady lives of those…
Pact of Silence, The (Le Pacte du Silence) (2002)
- Dir. Graham Guit
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Elodie Bouchez
- Glossy Euro–thriller in which a priest of doubtful faith (Depardieu) investigates twin sisters – one in prison, the other in a convent…
Phone (2002)
- Dir. Byeong-ki Ahn
Feat. Ji-won Ha, Yu-mi Kim
- Down the more cluttered and preposterous end of the Korean–horror genre, this finds a new cellphone being the centre of all the terror for an…
Ping Pong (2002)
- Dir. Fumisiko Sori
Feat. Yôsuke Kubozuka, Arata
- A madcap, yet gently humourous Japanese sports tale, set around two table tennis hotshots (Kubozuka and Arata) preparing for a ferocious battle at a…
Private Property (2002)
- Dir. Joachim Lafosse
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Jeremie Renier
- Isabelle Huppert is held to emotional ransom by her two grown–up twin sons in this ‘Mexican standoff’ of family dysfunction and domestic…
Radical Digital Cinema - Vol. 1 (Egoshooter, Half the Rent) (2002-2004)
- Dir. Christian Becker, Oliver Schwabe, Marc Ottiker
Feat. Tom Schilling, Stephan Kampwirth
- The brainchild of Wim Wenders, this digital cinema incubator provides a supportive framework for young filmmakers to push the envelope of the…
Radical Digital Cinema - Vol. 2 (Summer Moon (aka Junimond), Fools) (2002-2003)
- Dir. Hanno Hackfort, Tom Schreiber
- The brainchild of Wim Wenders, this digital cinema incubator provides a supportive framework for young filmmakers to push the envelope of the…
Respiro (Grazia's Island) (2002)
- Dir. Emanuele Crialese
Feat. Valeria Golino
- Highly charged and mostly insightful depiction of a free–spirited woman whose near–psychotic episodes have a profound effect on her small…
Returner (2002)
- Dir. Takashi Yamazaki
Feat. Takeshi Kaneshiro
- Kitted out with a charismatic cast, CGI–action that delivers, and tongue–lightly–in–cheek, this slick, big–budget…
Russian Ark (2002)
- Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
- Distinguised by its dazzling cinematic conceit – 300 years of Russian history staged in the Hermitage Museum (with 2000 extras) and captured in…
Satin Rouge (2002)
- Dir. Raja Amari
Feat. Hiam Abbass, Hend El Fahem
- A still–attractive but lonely widow is liberated through the world of belly–dancing in this infectious romantic drama from Tunisia.
At…
Sea is Watching, The (Umi wa miteita) (2002)
- Dir. Kei Kumai
- Set in the red–light district of 19th century, Edo–period Tokyo, this sensitively mounted drama concerns the lives of prostitutes…
Sex is Comedy (2002)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Anne Parillaud, Gregoire Colin, Roxane Mesquida
- A self–reflexive twist in the cinema of Catherine Breillat (ROMANCE), here recreating the filming of a lengthy and troublesome sex–scene…
So Close (Chik yeung tin sai) (2002)
- Dir. Corey Yuen
Feat. Shu Qi, Karen Mok, Vicki Zhao
- Presenting... a heroic trio of femmes for a new generation – a kind of high–octane "Asian Charlie's Angels".
This super–flash…
Son, The (2002)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Olivier Gourmet, Morgan Marinne, Isabella Soupart
- Finding the perfect subject for their pared down visual aesthetic, the Bros. Dardenne follow up the Cannes–winning ROSETTA with an ostensibly…
Spanish Apartment, The (L'Auberge Espagnole) (2002)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Judith Godreche…
- Summery comedy set in a Barcelona apartment, where six international exchange students variously mingle, cavort and fall messily in love.
Although…
Suicide Club (Suicide Circle) (2002)
- Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Ryo Ishibashi, Akaji Maro, Masatoshi Nagase
- Off–beat Japanese thriller based on apparently real–life incidents in which groups of high–school children commit mass…
Summer Things (Embrassez qui vous voudrez) (2002)
- Dir. Michel Blanc
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Jacques Dutronc, Carole Bouquet…
- Rom–com with an ensemble cast led by Charlotte Rampling as an unhappily married woman who is off to stay at a seaside resort, where she…
Sweat (Sueurs) (2002)
- Dir. Louis-Pascal Couvelaire
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Joaquim De Almeida
- Interesting but flawed re–imagining of THE WAGES OF FEAR, with a gang of four hoods trying to heist a fortune in gold ore across the North…
Swing (2002)
- Dir. Tony Gatlif
- The latest excursion into the music–rich culture of Europe's 'gypsy' population from dir. Gatlif (GADJO DILO), this time set around its…
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Doona Bae
- Incredibly bleak suspenser witnesses the disastrous efforts of a deaf–mute man and his girlfriend (who is on the fringes of a terrorist cell)…
Talk to Her (2002)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Javier Camara, Geraldine Chaplin, Rosalie Flores…
- With his fourteenth film, star Spanish director Almodovar marries his supreme style with an original, emotionally resonant story for what might just…
Ten (10) (2002)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
- Teasing but ultimately rewarding drama, in which a video camera, mounted on the dashboard of a car in Tehran, records the lives of the driver and…
Three...Extremes 2 (Three) (2002)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim, Nonzee Nimbutr, Peter Chan
Feat. Leon Lai, Eric Tsang
- Dubbed the second entry in the THREE...EXTREMES horror series, this pan–asian omnibus actually precedes said anthology, offering a trio of…
Together (He Ni Zaiyiqi) (2002)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Tang Yun, Liu Peiqi, Chen Kaige
- Touching story of a father and his 13–year–old son, a shy violin prodigy, who scrape up their meagre savings and set off from their…
Turning Gate (On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate) (2002)
- Dir. Sang-soo Hong
Feat. Sang-kyung Kim
- A wry and astute drama of romantic hang–ups, this follows a crestfallen actor’s trysts with two random women as he rebounds from a failed…
Twilight Samurai, The (Tasogare Seibei) (2002)
- Dir. Yoji Yamada
Feat. Hiroyuki Sanada, Ren Osugi, Rie Miyazawa…
- Boldly subverting the masculine cliches of the genre, this refreshing and highly rewarding Samurai drama follows a dishevelled, low–status…
Twin Sisters (De Tweeling) (2002)
- Dir. Ben Sombogaart
- An epic 'tale of two sisters', which follows their lives after being separated as children in 1920s Holland and sent to live with rich and poor…
Unborn But Forgotten (Hayanbang) (2002)
- Dir. Chang-jae Lim
Feat. Jung Joon-ho, Lee Eun-ju
- When pregnant women begin mysteriously dying after visiting a mysterious website, a TV producer and a detective begin to investigate, in this South…
Uzak (Distant) (2002)
- Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
- Exuding a sense of melancholic accomplishment, this slowly unfolding Turkish drama centres on two cousins – one, a successful but cynical…
Vampire Hunters (2002)
- Dir. Wellson Chin
Feat. Ken Chang
- Typically enjoyable and overblown Hong Kong mayhem, where five powerful warriors battle the Vampire King and his followers.
Written and produced…
Villa Des Roses (2002)
- Dir. Frank Van Passel
Feat. Julie Delpy, Shirley Henderson, Timothy West
- A visually stylish excursion to Paris on the eve of WWI, in a shabby boarding house run by an English couple (Henderson and West) into which a new…
Waiting for Happiness (Heremakono) (2002)
- Dir. Abderrahmane Sissako
Feat. Khatra Ould Abder Kader, Mohamed Mahmoud
- A worldly 17–year–old returns to his coastal hometown, only to find himself a stranger amongst a community caught in limbo between…
Warm Spring (2002)
- Dir. Tana Wulan
Feat. Chenren Tian, Yan Zhang
- Little–known but rather poignant story in which an orphan girl runs away from her abusive foster parents and is sheltered by a poor elderly…
Yossi and Jagger (2002)
- Dir. Eytan Fox
Feat. Ohad Knoller
- Subversive, sweetly–natured gay drama set amid the close–quarters comraderie of the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) where a commanding…
8 Women (8 Femmes) (2001)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart…
- In the classic whodunnit mould, this whimsical French "thriller" starts with a man’s dead body in a snowbound Alpine manse in the 1950s, and eight…
A Ma Soeur! (For My Sister, aka Fat Girl) (2001)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Anais Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero de Rienzo…
- An artfully impassive study of sexual predation that takes place during the summer holidays of two teenage sisters – the dumpy Anais Reboux and…
A Young Prisoner's Revenge (2001)
- Dir. Mu Deyuan
- Obscure, but supposedly award winning Chinese drama concerns the botched plans of a couple to bribe a judge so their son, guilty of robbery, gets a…
Aimee and Jaguar (2001)
- Dir. Max Farberbock
Feat. Maria Schrader, Juliane Kohler
- A forbidden love story that crosses both ethnic and sexual lines, inspired by a true love affair between a role–model Nazi mother and a…
All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)
- Dir. Shunji Iwai
Feat. Hayato Ichihara, Yu Aoi, Ayumi Ito…
- Vogue Japanese dir. Shunji Iwai renders the contemporary teen malaise with poignancy and despair in this haunting commentary on the perils of…
Amelie (2001)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz
- A charming romantic comedy stamped with the purely cinematic style of dir. Jean–Pierre Juenet, who here remixes intricate set pieces, editing…
Amour de Femme (A Woman's Love) (2001)
- Dir. Sylvie Verheyde
Feat. Raffaela Anderson, Helene Fillieres, Anthony Delon…
- Quiet romantic drama of a woman trapped in a lifeless marriage who embarks on a journey of self–discovery when she begins an affair with a…
Asoka (2001)
- Dir. Santosh Sivan
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Danny Denzongpa
- Scintillating, hallucinatory epic of ancient India that’s perhaps the first ‘Bollywood’ film to reach international audiences, telling the…
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) (2001)
- Dir. Zacharias Kunuk
Feat. Natar Ungalaaq, Sylvia Ivalu, Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq
- A ‘cause celebre’ of recent film festivals worldwide, this filmed folktale from the ice–bound Innuit communities of northern Canada,…
Autumn Spring (Babí léto) (2001)
- Dir. Vladimír Michálek
Feat. Vlastimil Brodsky
- Spry Czech comedy of elderly bad manners, concerns an aging prankster (Brodsky) who spends his retirement impersonating people in league with a…
Baran (2001)
- Dir. Majid Majidi
- Patiently rewarding, bittersweet drama in which a young Afghan woman disguises herself as a man in order to assume her injured father's construction…
Behind the Sun (2001)
- Dir. Walter Salles
Feat. Jose Dumont
- Worthy followup to CENTRAL STATION by dir. Salles, again accessing the underlayers of Brazil in a melodrama set in the dusty hinterlands of 1910. …
Brief Crossing (2001)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Gilles Guillain, Sarah Pratt
- Compelling and explicit portrayal of the brief sexual encounter between a naive French teenager and a married English woman who meet on an overnight…
Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des Loups) (2001)
- Dir. Christophe Gans
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Mark Dacascos
- A ripping, action–packed 18th century detective story based on the true–life case of the Beast of Gevaudan – a killer or creature who…
Closet, The (Le Placard) (2001)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Gerard Depardieu, Thierry Lhermitte…
- More comic gold from the king of French farce, Francis Veber, who understands the value of a good premise, great actors, and simple, unpretentious…
Count of Monte Cristo, The (2001)
- Dir. Josee Dayan
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Ornella Muti, Jean Rochefort
- The classic tale of injustice and revenge (by Alexander Dumas), gets respectful treatment in this French TV mini–series starring Gerard…
Crying... Silicon Tears (Klama) (2001)
- Dir. Thanassis Papathanassiou
- One of the biggest hits of recent Greek cinema, this is a lavish parody of 1960s Greek movie melodramas, mixing musical, comedy and suspense into a…
Dark Blue World (Tmavomodry Svet) (2001)
- Dir. Jan Sverak
Feat. Krystof Hadek, Ondrej Vetchy, Charles Dance…
- From the dir. of KOLYA and based on the story of Czech pilots who fled the Nazis in WW2 to fly alongside the RAF, this is an unsentimental, yet…
Devil's Backbone, The (Espinazo Del Diablo, El) (2001)
- Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Feat. Eduardo Noriega, Frederico Luppi, Marisa Paredes
- This elegant amalgam of melodrama and horror movie set in a boys orphanage during the Spanish Civil War is rich in baroque atmospherics, and features…
Divided We Fall (2001)
- Dir. Jan Hrebejk
Feat. Boleslav Polivka, Anna Siskova, Jaroslav Dusek
- In WW2 Czechoslovakia, couple Bolek Polívka and Anna Sisková shelter their Jewish neighbour during the Nazi Occupation, with much absurd comedy…
Dog Days (2001)
- Dir. Ulrich Seidl
Feat. Maria Hofstatter, Alfred Mrva, Erich Finsches…
- A wilfully transgressive Euro–drama examining middle–class dysfunction and despair in a Viennese suburb over a few days in a summer heat…
Drole de Felix (The Adventures of Felix aka Funny Felix) (2001)
- Dir. Jacques Martineau, Olivier Ducastel
Feat. Sami Bouajila
- Seeking to meet his father for the first time, HIV–positive Sami Bouajila journeys across France from Dieppe to Marseille in a tour of…
Eureka (2001)
- Dir. Shinji Aoyama
Feat. Aoi Miyazaki, Koji Yakusho
- Unforgettably beguiling Japanese road trip movie shot in sepia–toned cinema scope, following the existential odyssey of a group of emotionally…
Everybody Famous (2001)
- Dir. Dominique Deruddere
Feat. Josse De Pauw, Eva van der Gucht, Werner De Smedt…
- A hit in the Netherlands and at festivals, this half–sweet, half–cringe–inducingly sour satire, sees truly mediocre singer Eva Van…
Experiment, The (Das Experiment) (2001)
- Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Feat. Moritz Bleibtreu, Maren Eggert, Christian Berkel
- Twenty men volunteer for a paid two–week simulated study that divides them into the roles of prisoners and guards in a ‘controlled’…
Fulltime Killer (2001)
- Dir. Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai
Feat. Andy Lau, Simon Yam, Kelly Lin…
- Two very different hit men face off in this Hong Kong action film, with Andy Lau playing a flamboyant new hotshot who is tracking down the number one…
Ghislain Lambert's Bicycle (2001)
- Dir. Philippe Harel
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Jose Garcia
- Less sports drama than celebration of the endearingly average, this comical biopic charts the 30–year career of big–hearted, but…
God is Great, I'm Not (Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite) (2001)
- Dir. Pascale Bailly
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Edouard Baer, Julie Depardieu
- Slim Audrey Tautou vehicle has the AMELIE–ingénue unable to settle on a religion, eventually converting to Judaism in order to win over a…
Happy Times (Xingfu Shiguang) (2001)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Dong Jie, Zhao Benshan
- Putting a gentle Asian spin on the "French farce" model, dir. Zhang Yimou takes a light–hearted detour with this comedy about a retired…
I'm Going Home (2001)
- Dir. Manoel de Oliveira
Feat. Michel Piccoli, John Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve
- Calmly balanced between drama and sly comedy, this excursion into the trials and experiences of old age, is a late tour–de–force by the…
Ichi the Killer (2001)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto
- Dir. Takashi Miike earned his notoriety with this wincingly violent revenge thriller in which a bent ex–cop (played by "Tetsuo" director,…
Ignorant Fairies, The (His Secret Life) (2001)
- Dir. Ferzan Ozpetek
Feat. Stefano Accorsi
- A woman's life in Rome is thrown into relief after the death of her doctor husband – especially when she discovers a secret inscription on the…
In Praise of Love (Eloge de L'amour) (2001)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Bruno Putzulu, Cecile Camp, Jean Davy…
- Dir. Godard’s first major film in over a decade presents intellect and filmmaking in full–flight, while stubbornly refusing to provide a…
Intacto (2001)
- Dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Feat. Max von Sydow, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Guillermo Toledo
- A finely devised Spanish thriller, in which particularly obsessed gamblers contest their 'Luck' in various absurd, dangerous and creepy…
Isle, The (2001)
- Dir. Kim Ki-Duk
Feat. Suh Jung, Kim Yoo-Suk, Park Sung-Hee
- An art–shocker with a distinctly Asian streak of the perverse, this counterpoints a striking visual tableaux and tranquil setting with the…
Italian For Beginners (2001)
- Dir. Lone Scherfig
Feat. Anders W Berthelsen
- A likeable ensemble comedy in which six vulnerable characters orbit a drab Copenhagen suburb, each seeking some form of solace, romance or…
Kandahar (2001)
- Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- A Canadian–Afghani journalist travels incognito into the heart of wartorn Afghanistan to find her sister.
Filmed at the height of the…
La Ciénaga (The Swamp) (2001)
- Dir. Lucrecia Martel
Feat. Graciela Borges, Mercedes Morán, Martín Adjemián…
- Dir. Lucrecia Martel's debut film is an abstract Chekhovian tale of two bourgeois families roasting under the Argentinian sun within the confines of…
Lady and the Duke, The (2001)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Jean Claude Dreyfus, Lucy Russell
- Intellectually stimulating and strikingly anti–realist account of the French Revolution, told through the (true–life) relationship…
Lagaan (2001)
- Dir. Ashutosh Gowariker
Feat. Aamir Khan, Gracey Singh, Paul Blackthorne…
- Bollywood epic that broke through to international awards and audience with its ‘test–match’ running–time, lavishness and periodic…
Laissez-Passer (Safe Conduct) (2001)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Jacques Gamblin, Denis Podalydes, Marie Gillain
- A vivid and suspenseful drama set in the French film industry during the German occupation of WWII, this is a labour of love for leading French dir.…
Last Kiss, The (L'Ultimo Bacio) (2001)
- Dir. Gabriel Muccino
Feat. Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Stefania Sandrelli
- Award–winning Italian melodrama investigates the anxieties of a young unmarried couple on the verge of parenthood.
Stefano Accorsi is torn…
Love On a Diet (2001)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng
- The dir. of HEROIC TRIO, takes a serious change of tack with a weight–problem comedy. Looking to re–ignite her former romance with…
Merci Pour Le Chocolat (Nightcap) (2001)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Isabelle Huppert
- Slyly subversive psychodrama, with Isabelle Huppert excelling as the owner of a Swiss chocolate–business, who also happens to be a…
Millennium Mambo (2001)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Shu Qi
- The first in dir. Hou’s ‘contemporary youth’ trilogy is a light–infused strobe of aimless young adults living in the accelerated urban…
Minor Mishaps (2001)
- Dir. Annette K. Olesen
Feat. Jorgen Kiil, Maria Wurgler Rich, Jannie Faurschou
- Emerging from the lighter end of the Dogme 95 movement, this drama reunites a father and three children after the death of their mother in a car…
Mortal Transfer (2001)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Miki Manojlovic, Helene de Fougerolles…
- Freudian psycho–thriller with analyst Anglade finding himself a little too attracted to masochistic patient de Fougerolles. Delirious visuals…
Musa - The Warrior (2001)
- Dir. Kim Sung-Su
Feat. Woo-sung Jung, Ahn Sung-Ki, Zhang Ziyi
- Genuinely spectacular 14th century restaging of "The Seven Samurai" that was the (then) most expensive film made in its native…
My Wife is an Actress (Ma Femme est une Actrice) (2001)
- Dir. Yvan Attal
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yvan Attal, Terence Stamp
- Obviously modelled on his own life, first time writer/director Yvan Attal tailors a project for his real–life wife, Charlotte Gainsbourg, who…
Naked, The (Golasy) (2001)
- Dir. Witold Swiêtnicki
- Genuine oddity, this Polish satire upon the tedium of the Soviet era, as experienced by an office full of white–collar workers, is lent a…
Night Shift (Trois Huit) (2001)
- Dir. Phillippe Le Guay
Feat. Gérald Laroche, Marc Barbe
- Tense French workplace drama about a mild–mannered factory employee who must cope with a vindictive and domineering co–worker.
Working…
One Take Only (Som and Bank: Bangkok for Sale) (2001)
- Dir. Oxide Pang
Feat. Wanatchada Siwapornchai, Pawarith Monkolpisit
- Another visually dizzying trip into the dens of the Thai capital for dir. Pang, this time steering a tale of two streetwise lovers – a…
Pauline and Paulette (Pauline et Paulette) (2001)
- Dir. Lieven Debrauwer
Feat. Dora van der Groen, Ann Petersen
- An amusing, poignant tale of two elderly sisters and their unique relationship, portrayed by two grand old dames of Belgian theatre.
After her…
Piano Teacher, The (2001)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot, Benoit Magimel
- Isabelle Huppert gives the bravest and possibly best performance of her career as a brittle, imbalanced music teacher in a drama that might prove too…
Pistol Opera (2001)
- Dir. Seijun Suzuki
Feat. Makikio Esumi, Shirley Yamaguchi, Kirin Kiki…
- A comeback of sorts for brilliant Japanese director Seijun Suzuki, who brings a self–referential and at times incomprehensibly abstract style…
Princess Blade (Shurayuki-Hime) (2001)
- Dir. Shinsuke Sato
- Post–apocalyptic Japanese samurai action adapted from a graphic novel, employs a stark visual style to convey its tale of a disturbed young…
Pulse (Kairo) (2001)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Kumiko Aso, Koji Yakusho, Koyuki…
- A clandestine by–product of the post–RING phenomenon, this refined and wholly disconcerting tale of a supernatural internet pandemic…
Read My Lips (Sur Mes Levres) (2001)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Emmanuelle Devos
- Sturdy, unconventional French thriller about an insecure, partially–deaf office clerk who tries to help an irascible ex–con integrate…
Ring 2 (2001)
- Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Miki Nakatani, Hitomi Sato
- Esteemable sequel to the 1998 original, this finds the supernaturally fatal videotape – the one that causes death, a week after watching it –…
Samsara (2001)
- Dir. Pan Nalin
Feat. Shawn Ku, Christy Chung, Neelesha Bavora
- A spiritual and visually resplendent drama based around the sexual awakening of a novice Buddhist monk in remote, mountainous Tibet.
After…
Sex and Lucia (2001)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Paz Vega, Tristan Ulloa, Najwa Nimri…
- Another sumptuous, stylistic meditation for dir. Julio Medem that interlocks his penchant for intricate, fractured narrative with a thrust of daring…
Shadow of the Wraith (Ikisudama) (2001)
- Dir. Toshiharu Ikeda
- Fitfully scary J–horror is set around a series of disconnected horrors in two halves: first, at a high school plagued by a creepy…
Shaolin Soccer (2001)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao), Richard Ng, Vicki Zhao
- With an astounding mix of Eastern fantasy, CGI effects and the game of soccer, Hong Kong’s one–man comedy machine Stephen Chow kicks one out…
Sleepless (Non ho Sonno) (2001)
- Dir. Dario Argento
Feat. Max von Sydow, Stefano Dionisi, Chiara Caselli
- A welcome return to his 'giallo' roots by dir. Argento, turning a tangled tango between a serial–killer and recently–retired detective…
Song for Martin, A (2001)
- Dir. Bille August
Feat. Sven Wollter, Reine Brynolfsson
- Touching drama of a composer and concertmaster who fall in love through classical music, only to battle the effects of Alzheimer's.
Foreseeable…
Tanguy (2001)
- Dir. Etienne Chatiliez
Feat. Sabine Azema, Andre Dussollier, Laurent Chouchan
- A crowd–pleasing French comedy set around the efforts of a middle–aged couple to surreptitiously get their 28–year–old son to…
Time for Drunken Horses, A (2001)
- Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Feat. Ayoub Ahmadi, Rojin Younessi, Amaneh Ekhtiar-dini…
- Set in remote Kurdistan, along the mountainous smuggling border between Iran and Iraq, this chronicles the pitiable circumstances of a recently…
Time Out (2001)
- Dir. Laurence Cantet
Feat. Aurelien Recoing, Serge Livrozet
- A subtly layered account of middle–class businessman Aurelien Recoing, who pretends to his family and friends that he is corporate highflyer,…
Tom Thumb (Le Petit Poucet) (2001)
- Dir. Olivier Dahan
Feat. Nils Hugon, Catherine Deneuve, Said Taghmaoui
- Ambitious, enjoyably dark rendering of Perrault’s classic fable, "Le Petit Poucet" told with trademark French twistedness and aplomb, kids will…
Tomie: Re-birth (2001)
- Dir. Takashi Shimizu
- Third entry in the J–horror series continues the vile career of the titular schoolgirl, here playing a murder victim who comes back to haunt…
Trouble Every Day (2001)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Vincent Gallo, Beatrice Dalle, Alex Descas…
- This messy yet mesmerizing tale of visceral sexual obsession has vamp Beatrice Dalle spoiling a couple's Paris honeymoon when she develops a carnally…
Tunnel, The (2001)
- Dir. Roland Suso Richter
Feat. Heino Ferch, Nicolette Krebitz
- An extended though by no means deep excavation of German Cold War history, in which an East German swimmer (Ferch) defects to West Berlin in 1961 and…
Under the Sand (2001)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Jacques Nolot, Bruno Cremer
- Charlotte Rampling enters a twilit zone of denial following her husband’s disappearance into the sea on a beach holiday, and mysterious…
Va Savoir (Who Knows) (2001)
- Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Jeanne Balibar, Sergio Castellitto, Jacques Bonnaffe…
- Skilful romantic farce interweaves the lives of six characters connected to an Italian theatre troupe on tour in Paris (doing Pirandello’s ‘As…
Versus (2001)
- Dir. Ryuhei Kitamura
Feat. Tak Sakaguchi, Kenji Matsuda
- The zombie genre is resurrected yet again, here spliced with Asian combat routines and punk–gangster gunplay, and set in the local woods on an…
Vertical Ray of the Sun, The (At the Height of Summer) (2001)
- Dir. Tran Anh Hung
Feat. Tran Nu Yen-Khe, Nhu Quynh Nguyen, Le Khanh
- Conjuring once more the scent, hue and atmosphere of Vietnam, the dir. of SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA depicts the complicated sisterhood of three women in…
Visitor Q (Bizita Q) (2001)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Kenichi Endo, Shungiku Uchida, Kazushi Watanabe…
- Miike Takashi's most controversial film – which in this case is really saying something – finally coming to video (?).
A legendarily…
Volcano High (Whasango) (2001)
- Dir. Tae-gyun Kim
- Wildly action–packed Korean thriller, set in a future high–school where combat–trained, telekinetic students and staff slug it out…
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001)
- Dir. Shohei Imamura
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu
- Nourishing sex fable in which Japanese everyman Koji Yakusho, down and out after losing his wife and job, discovers the joys of making love to a…
What Time Is It There? (2001)
- Dir. Ming-liang Tsai
Feat. Kang-sheng Lee, Cecilia Yip, Jean-Pierre Leaud
- Three forlorn individuals bide their time between grief, ennui and loneliness in this minimalist – and unusually talky – masterpiece from…
Wind Will Carry Us, The (2001)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Feat. Behzad Dourani
- Carried by the dir.’s deadpan comic instincts and more minimally poetic, this quasi–fable concerns (what seems to be) a documentary crew who…
Would I Lie to You Again? (2001)
- Dir. Thomas Gilou
Feat. Richard Anconina, Jose Garcia, Bruno Solo…
- Boys–will–be–boys comedy revisits the ‘Jewish’ entrepreneurs of WOULD I LIE TO YOU?, now in need to an all–new…
Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too!) (2001)
- Dir. Alfonso Cuaron
Feat. Maribel Verdu, Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna
- Acclaimed universally (and here in NZ beset with censorship wrangles), this Mexican joyride, taken by two teenage boys and an older woman, is indeed…
101 Reykjavik (2000)
- Dir. Baltasar Kormakur
Feat. Baltasar Kormakur, Victoria Abril
- An endearingly skewed yet unexpectedly poignant sex comedy moored in the 30–below temperatures of the Icelandic winter, about a…
A Moment of Innocence (2000)
- Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- A slowly unfolding tale of the dir.'s own involvement in the stabbing of a policeman when he was an Islamic radical in the 1970s.
Subsequently…
Amazon (Amazone) (2000)
- Dir. Phillipe De Broca
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Arielle Dombasle
- Convoluted sci–fi adventure has jewel thief Belmondo stumbling upon an alien visitor in the guise of a twelve year old girl.
Almost…
Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch) (2000)
- Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Feat. Emilio Echevarria, Gael Garcia Bernal, Goya Toledo…
- Bursting forth with passion, cinematic mettle and pungent local flavours, this debut feature, a triptych of stories set in polyglot Mexico City, is…
Anatomie (2000)
- Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
Feat. Franke Potente
- Franke Potente (RUN LOLA RUN) stars as a bright medical student at an elite college who discovers her fellow freshmen and women are turning up as…
Bang Rajan (2000)
- Dir. Tanit Jitnukul
- Truly ferocious action spectacular based on the true tale of how a small Siamese village tried to withstand the efforts of 100 000 invading Burmese…
Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae) (2000)
- Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Doona Bae
- An accomplished black comedy from Korea, which follows an unemployed lecturer's annoyance with the barking of neighbourhood dogs through to its…
Battle Royale (Batoru Rowaiaru) (2000)
- Dir. Fukasaku Kinji
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Chiaki Kuriyama, Tatsuya Fujiwara…
- This hyper–kinetic, violent satire from Japan courted controversy (and a fair swag of hype) for its ‘irresponsible’ premise and searing…
Beijing Bicycle (2000)
- Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai
Feat. Lin Cui, Bin Li, Yuanyuan Gao
- Set in the milieu of urban cycle–couriers, this retells De Sica’s BICYCLE THIEF on the teeming streets of Beijing where country–boy Lin…
Bichunmoo (2000)
- Dir. Young-Jun Kim
- Boasting the biggest budget of any Korean film, this period epic, a kind–of "Once Upon a Time in Korea", blends the usual ingredients with…
Blackboards (2000)
- Dir. Samira Makhmalbaf
Feat. Said Mohamadi, Behnaz Jafari
- Set in politically unstable Kurdistan, this followup to THE APPLE by dir. Makhmalbaf, traces the adventures of a group of teachers searching the…
Bread and Tulips (2000)
- Dir. Silvio Soldini
Feat. Licia Maglietta, Bruno Ganz, Marina Massironi…
- When 40–something housewife Licia Maglietta is deserted by her family during vacation, she seizes on a chance to roll the romantic dice once…
Circle, The (2000)
- Dir. Jafar Panahi
Feat. Brano Holicek, Pavlina Mourkova, Jeri Pecha
- Banned its native Iran, this compendium of linked stories circumscribes the various oppressions women must suffer under that country’s strict…
City of Lost Souls (2000)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Teah , Michelle Reis, Ren Osugi
- Another turbo–charged piece of blood–drenched lunacy from prolific genre stylist Takashi Miike, marked out by its Brazilian protagonist…
Code Unknown (2000)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Arsinee Khanjian, Thierry Neuvic…
- Perhaps dir. Haneke's (THE PIANO TEACHER) least straightforward effort, this sketches a series of interconnected storylines loosely bound by themes…
Comedie de L'Innocence (Comedy of Innocence) (2000)
- Dir. Raul Ruiz
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Jeanne Balibar, Charles Berling
- A spooky psychological thriller, in which a young boy of nine tells his mother (Huppert) that in fact he is the son of another woman.
When this…
Crimson Rivers, The (2000)
- Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Jean Reno, Vincent Cassel
- A bizarre murder in the French Alps draws detectives Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel into the killing–cycle of a particularly grisly…
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
- Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi…
- A fantasy–fuelled, Chinese feudal melodrama laced with jaw–dropping combat sequences (arguably the best ever staged), this represents a…
Day I Became a Woman, The (2000)
- Dir. Marziyeh Meshkini
Feat. Fatemeh Cherag Akhur, Hassan Nebhan, Shahr Banou Sisizadeh
- A trio of strong metaphorical tales that outline three aspects of “a woman’s lot” in contemporary Iran, with humour and cinematic…
Dead or Alive 2 (Tobosha) (2000)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi, Shinya Tsukamoto
- Understated yet rewarding sequel to the mind–blowing gangster actioner follows on from the 'end of the world' with an unrelated story, with…
Faithless (2000)
- Dir. Liv Ullmann
Feat. Erland Josephson
- Formidable high–brow drama directed by actress Ullmann from an autobiographical script by her veteran collaborator Ingmar…
Farewell - Brecht's Last Summer, The (2000)
- Dir. Jan Schutte
Feat. Josef Bierbichler, Monika Bliebtreu, Elfriede Irrall
- Prior knowledge of the life of playwright Bertolt Brecht (played by Josef Bierbichler) will enhance this accomplished chamber–drama, set at an…
Girls Can't Swim (Les filles ne savent pas nager) (2000)
- Dir. Anne-Sophie Birot
Feat. Isild Le Besco, Karen Alyx, Pascale Bussieres…
- Moody French coming–of–age drama about two girls, one who lives in the coastal town in Brittany, the other from the city.
Best…
Godzilla Vs. Megaguiris (2000)
- Dir. Masaaki Tezuka
Feat. Shosuke Tanihara
- The 25th film in the Godzilla franchise and the second film in the Millennium series. While the film uses the Godzilla suit from Godzilla 2000, it is…
Happenstance (Le Battement d'ailes du Papillon) (2000)
- Dir. Laurent Firode
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Faudel , Eric Savin…
- Cute French riff on the 'butterfly effect' of chaos theory, in which a Parisian office–worker (Tautou) becomes unknowingly trapped in a train…
Harry, He's Here to Help (With a Friend Like Harry,Who Needs Enemies?) (2000)
- Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Sergi Lopez, Laurent Lucas
- French festival–hit that invokes the delicious menace of Alfred Hitchcock with its insidious central character, Harry (Sergi Lopez) who invites…
Himalaya (2000)
- Dir. Eric Valli
Feat. Thilen Lhondup, Gurgon Kyap, Lhakpa Tsamchoe…
- A journey into the life of a remote Nepalese village which relies on an annual pilgrimage to collect salt from the Tibetan side of the Himalayas,…
In the Mood for Love (2000)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Maggie Cheung
- As in DAYS OF BEING WILD, dir. Wong Kar–Wai portrays the languor of a 1960s Hong Kong in which two neighbours discover their respective spouses…
Isola (Tajuu jinkaku shôjo) (2000)
- Dir. Toshiyuki Mizutani
Feat. Yoshino Kimura
- Curious but finally rather tepid riff on the J–Horror genre has a psychic woman (Kimura) travelling to the city of Kobe to offer help in the…
JSA: Joint Security Area (2000)
- Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Young-ae Lee
- A Korean military thriller of high repute that opens with a double–killing on the bitterly–tense border between North and South and…
Les Destinees Sentimentales (2000)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Charles Berling, Isabelle Huppert
- Genteel family saga from the trilogy of novels by Jacques Chardonne that follows the destiny of pastor Charles Berling through the first decades of…
Little Otik (Otesanek) (2000)
- Dir. Jan Svankmajer
Feat. Veronika Zilkova, Jan Hartl, Kristina Adamcova
- Animation guru and ‘militant surrealist’ Jan Svankmajer elaborates on a distinctively Czech fairy tale about a monstrous baby that grows…
Lumumba (2000)
- Dir. Raoul Peck
Feat. Eric Ebouaney
- A strident and fittingly uncompromising biopic about an African political icon, Patrice Lumumba, who liberated the Congo from Belgium in the late…
Malena (2000)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Monica Bellucci
- The dir. of CINEMA PARADISO throws an amber–lit glow around a man’s memory of a boyhood infatuation in his hometown in WWII Sicily.…
Mark of Cain, The (2000)
- Dir. Alix Lambert
- Instructive documentary on an esoteric subject: the disappearing art of the Russian prison tattoo. Journeying the penal system of the Russian…
Me You Them (Eu Tu Eles) (2000)
- Dir. Andrucha Waddington
Feat. Regina Case, Lima Duarte, Stenio Garcia
- Set in the arid hinterlands of Brazil, this serio–comic study of rural polyandry has Regina Case (Brazil’s Oprah Winfrey) hitch up three…
MPD - Psycho (TV Series) (2000)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Naoki Hosaka
- Takashi Miike's TV series is an appropriately psychotic riff on a policier, featuring a detective with 32 personalities chasing a serial killer who…
Nine Queens (Nueve Reinas) (2000)
- Dir. Fabian Bielinsky
Feat. Gaston Pauls, Ricardo Darín
- An Argentian congame thriller which uses a fresh, edgy setting to bolster its David Mamet–by–way–of–Quentin Tarantino…
One Hundred Steps, The (I Cento Passi) (2000)
- Dir. Marco Tullio Giordana
- Expansive, fact–based drama set around a young man's fight against local mafiosos in the small Sicilian village of Cinisi in the…
Our Lady of the Assassins (la Virgen de los Sicarios) (2000)
- Dir. Barbet Schroeder
Feat. Anderson Ballesteros, Juan David Restrepo
- A middle aged author returns to his native Colombian village to find that it has been overrun by violence and corruption. After his young male lover…
Pet Shop of Horrors (2000)
- Horror–tinged anime set in a mysterious pet shop in New York's Chinatown, where the androgynous proprietor 'Count D' has a sinister pet for…
Platform (Zhantai) (2000)
- Dir. Jia Zhang-ke
Feat. Zhao Tao
- Taking its title from a Chinese hit rock song of the 80s, this fetchingly spare epic meditates on the changes of that turbulent decade and the…
Presque Rien (Almost Nothing) (2000)
- Dir. Sebastien Lifshitz
Feat. Jérémie Elkaïm, Stephane Rideau
- French drama of melancholic first love that, despite the common themes, sets itself apart with sensitive acting and a deeply felt approach to the…
Princes and Princesses (Princes et Princesses) (2000)
- Dir. Michel Ocelot
Feat. Arlette Mirapeu, Philippe Cheytion, Yves Barsacq
- French animation compilation made up of six episodes from director and animator Michel Ocelot's silhouette animation television series Ciné si. The…
Princess and the Warrior, The (2000)
- Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Franke Potente
- Follow–up and companion piece to dir. Tykwer’s RUN LOLA RUN, is a 'Snow White'–inspired tale of a psychiatric nurse who is hit by a…
Ring 0 (2000)
- Dir. Norio Tsuruta
Feat. Yukie Nakama, Seilchi Tanabe, Yoshiko Tanaka
- Prequel to the first RING film details the transformation of the innocent schoolgirl Sadako in 50s Japan into the murderous demon who haunts the…
Road Home, The (2000)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Zhang Ziyi, Honglei Sun, Hao Zhang
- Tackling the period of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, period dir. Zhang Yimou (RAISE THE RED LANTERN) gives the story of a young man's return home…
Scarlet Diva (2000)
- Dir. Asia Argento
Feat. Asia Argento
- A fearless, punk excursion into her own fleeting status as a model–cum–actress daughter of Italian horror stylist Dario Argento, Asia…
Seance (2000)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Koji Yakusho
- A hybrid of crime thriller and ghost story, this remake of the British classic "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" reinstates the supernatural emphasis of…
Shadow Magic (2000)
- Dir. Ann Hu
Feat. Jared Harris
- The 'shadow magic' in question is the early cinema, which is brought to Beijing in 1902 by a travelling promoter (Harris), who, along with a local…
Shower (Xizhao) (2000)
- Dir. Zhang Yang
Feat. Pu Cunxin, Zhu Xu
- A popular success with international audiences, this Chinese comedy is centred around a modern–day bathhouse in Beijing without a…
Sky Is Falling, The (Cielo cade, Il) (2000)
- Dir. Andrea Frazzi, Antonio Frazzi
Feat. Isabella Rossellini, Jeroen Krabbe
- Two young orphan girls are sent to live with relatives in Tuscany, Italy during WW2 and discover intriguing new perspectives through their Jewish…
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
- Dir. Roy Andersson
Feat. Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson
- Various rotund men of retirement age face personal crises in a series of unsettling, stylised vignettes that could be collectively read as an…
Taste of Others, The (Le Gout des Autres) (2000)
- Dir. Agnes Jaoui
Feat. Anne Alvaro, Alain Chabat, Jean-Pierre Bacri…
- A subtle French comedy of manners, that strews an array of matched, mismatched and all quite droll characters into a satisfying treat for the comic…
Tears of the Black Tiger (Fah Talai Jone) (2000)
- Dir. Wisit Sasanatieng
- A blast of wild inspiration from the New Thai Cinema, this restages a Hollywood Western within a luridly kitschy setting using back–projection,…
Tell Me Something (2000)
- Dir. Chang Yoon-Hyung
Feat. Han Suk-gyu, Shim Eun-ha
- A fine slice of Korean “giallo”, this is detective pulp of the lacquered–black, rain–drenched variety, with perverse/macabre…
The Best Man's Wedding (Jalla! Jalla!) (2000)
- Dir. Josef Fares
- A racy comic swirl through the family, romantic, sexual and general personal dilemmas of two Swedish best friends.
While one must suffer the…
Time and Tide (2000)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Nicholas Tse, Wu Bai
- Healthy measures of hard–boiled alienation and gyroscopic fire–fights ignite this Hong Kong kick–butt–fest that somersaults…
Tomie: Replay (2000)
- Dir. Tomijiro Mitsuishi
Feat. Yôsuke Kubozuka, Kenichi Endo, Tomorowo Taguchi
- Second (and best) installment in the manga–inspired series continues the vengeful streak of 'Tomie', the undying…
Town is Quiet, The (La Ville est Tranquille) (2000)
- Dir. Robert Guediguian
Feat. Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin
- A characteristically gritty yet humanist urban drama that expands out in scope from the directors’ previous snapshots of life in his home town…
Turbo (TV Series) (2000-2001)
- Feat. Roberto Farnesi
- Addictive mystery series with the canine detective Turbo tracking villains against the sun–drenched vistas of Tuscany.
Unit One (TV Series) (Rejseholdet) (2000-2004)
- Feat. Mads Mikkelsen
- CONTRABAND TITLE. Series 1 to 4 are not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of…
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
- Dir. Bela Tarr
Feat. Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla
- A visionary film to herald in the 21st century, Bela Tarr’s apocalyptic masterpiece begins with the arrival of a bizarre circus attraction to a…
Wild Zero (2000)
- Dir. Tetsuro Takeuchi
Feat. Guitar Wolf
- Japanese punk tyrants Guitar Wolf shred up the screen in this appropriately chaotic zombie fest, gouged from the remnants of a meteor carrying…
6ixtynin9 (Sixtynine; Ruang talok 69) (1999)
- Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Lalita Panyopas
- Second feature film by the Thai writer–director Pen–Ek Ratanaruang (LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE), following a woman who is laid off during…
Afterlife (1999)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Arata Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima
- Original, intriguing conception of what happens after life – a panel of students challenge a succession of deceased persons to choose one…
All About My Mother (1999)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Cecilia Roth
- Almodovar's "celebration of mother and womanhood" has been hailed as something of a departure for the director, though in fact all of his (beloved)…
Attack the Gas Station (1999)
- Dir. Sang-Jin Kim
Feat. Sung-jae Lee, Oh-seong Yu, Seong-jin Kang…
- Four disaffected youths take hostage an entire gas station in this subversive, blackly–comic masterpiece from Korea.
Gleefully tearing apart…
Bangkok Dangerous (1999)
- Dir. Danny Pang, Oxide Pang
Feat. Pawalit Mongkolpisit, Premsinee Ratanasopha, Patharawarin Timkul
- Frenetic, violent gangland tale set in the throbbing Thai capital, about a deaf–mute hitman isolated by his affliction and his profession, and…
Bleeder (1999)
- Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Kim Bodnia
- Hard–nosed drama about a brooding man who turns destructive when he learns of his girlfriend’s pregnancy in…
Butterfly's Tongue (La lengua de las mariposas) (1999)
- Dir. Jose Luis Cuerda
Feat. Fernando Fernan Gomez, Manuel Lozano
- Heartwarming Spanish coming–of–age drama set in Galicia in 1936.
Against the backdrop of the encroaching Spanish Civil War, a shy…
Cabaret Balkan (The Powder Keg) (1999)
- Dir. Goran Paskaljevic
Feat. Nikola Ristanovski
- Troubling split–portrait of the Serbian psyche, depicting a series of often violent incidents over the course of a single night in Belgrade,…
Carriers Are Waiting, The (Les Convoyeurs Attendent) (1999)
- Dir. Benoit Maraige
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Morgane Simon, Bouli Laners
- When journalist Benoit Poelvoorde decides his family MUST win top prize in local competition (which involves training his reluctant son to break the…
Celebration, The (Festen) (1999)
- Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Feat. Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen
- Conceived and executed under the "Dogma 95" manifesto, this corrosive black comedy sees the birthday celebrations of a wealthy family implode after…
Charisma (1999)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Ren Osugi
- An eerie 'ecological horror' from the mind of dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, here following the path of a police detective (Yakusho Koji) who has been…
Children of the Marshlands (Les Enfants du Marais) (1999)
- Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Jacques Villeret, Michel Serrault, Eric Cantona
- Old–fashioned French drama, whose 1930s Loire Valley setting is refreshingly free of the usual cliches, while remaining utterly charming and…
Colour of Paradise, The (1999)
- Dir. Majid Majidi
Feat. Mohsen Ramezani
- A gripping, compassionate study of a blind Iranian boy’s attempts to connect with his egotistical father and a carpentry tutor when he is taken to…
Criminal Lovers (Amants criminels, Les) (1999)
- Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Natacha Regnier, Miki Manojlovic
- Before he made the lighter 8 WOMEN, dir. Ozon established his credentials with this twisted wee horror, which fearlessly ventures into sadistic and…
Cup, The (1999)
- Dir. Khyentse Norbu
Feat. Orgyen Tobgyal, Neten Chokling, Jamyang Lodro
- This charming, slyly comic tale of soccer–mad young monks obsessed with viewing the World Cup has found broad worldwide appreciation with its…
Dead or Alive (Hanzaisha) (1999)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi, Ren Osugi
- A jaw–dropping, wickedly amoral revenge thriller from the dir. of AUDITION, who blows the dust (and the roof) off gangster movie cliches and…
East / West (Est / Ouest) (1999)
- Dir. Regis Wargnier
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov Jr…
- A 'woman's picture' in the proudest sense of the term, this lush historical melodrama from the dir. of INDOCHINE again finds a French woman in a…
Emperor and the Assassin, The (Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang) (1999)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Gong Li, Zhang Fenyi
- Vast, gilded historical spectacle set in the 3rd Century BC, centred on China's legendary first Qin emperor's struggle to consolidate a unified…
Girl on the Bridge, The (1999)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Vanessa Paradis
- This glossy slice of modern 'poetic realism' has an attractive visual component but its arch–Romanticism won't be everyone's glass of Chablis.…
Gloomy Sunday (Ein Lied Von Liebe Und Tod) (1999)
- Dir. Rolf Schubel
Feat. Joachim Krol, Erika Marozsan, Ben Becker…
- Captivating drama which pivots around the apocryphal origins of the classic melancholy song 'Gloomy Sunday' in pre–WW2 Budapest.
An amiably…
Gohatto (Taboo) (1999)
- Dir. Nagisa Oshima
Feat. Takeshi Kitano
- Visually stunning evocation of the tensions in a samurai–training school in 1860s Japan, with Kitano playing a captain who agonises over his…
Harmonium in my Memory, The (1999)
- Dir. Young-jae Lee
Feat. Do-yeon Chun, Min-hie Kim, Byung-hun Lee
- Sweet, soft–spoken melodrama of jittery first love, recalling the innocent love triangle that forms between a handsome, fresh–faced…
Hero (A Man Called Hero) (1999)
- Dir. Wai Keung Lau
Feat. Ekin Cheng, Shu Qi, Kristy Yang
- A typically offbeat HK amalgam of historical saga, martial arts action and CGI special effects.
Set in the first half of the 20th century, this…
Human Resources (1999)
- Dir. Laurent Cantet
Feat. Jalil Lespert
- Astute French drama from director Laurent Cantet (THE CLASS) set in a white collar human resources department in Normandy, about the conflicts that…
Hypnosis (Saimin) (1999)
- Dir. Masayuki Ochiai
Feat. Hiroshi Inagaki, Miho Kanno
- A mysterious force is causing a spate of bizarre suicides, creatively and gruesomely staged for our blackly comic pleasure, in this…
Inugami (1999)
- Dir. Masato Harada
Feat. Yuki Amami, Atsuro Watabe, Eugene Harada
- Quietly impressive suspenser set in a remote mountain village in Japan, where a young local woman and a visiting school teacher become aware of the…
It All Starts Today… (1999)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Philippe Torreton, Maria Pitarresi, Nadia Kaci
- Determinedly humanist account of the difficulties facing a kindergarten teacher in impoverished northern France, based on the experiences of the…
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999)
- Dir. Hiroyuki Okikura
Feat. Michael Dobson, Mike Kopsa
- Visually rich and tasteful ‘anime’ set in a slightly futurised post–WW2 Tokyo, where an anti–terrorist commando, suspended from duty,…
Kikujiro (Kikujiro no Natsu) (1999)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano
- An uncharacteristically easy–going, episodic road movie from one–man movie machine, Beat Takeshi, whose impassive screen persona snugly…
King of Comedy (Choi kek ji wong) (1999)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao), Karen Mok
- Hong Kong’s king–of–parody Stephen Chow ironically casts himself as a luckless movie extra who fumbles his way to leading man status…
La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (Widow Of Saint-Pierre) (1999)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Emir Kusturica, Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil
- In 1850, on a tiny island near Canada, an oafish Emir Kusturica is sentenced to die by guillotine.
While waiting for an executioner to arrive from…
Lies (Gojitmal) (1999)
- Dir. Jang Sun-Woo
Feat. Kim Tae Yeon, Lee Sang Hyun
- Highly controversial in its native Korea (the source novel was banned) this tale of S&M sex–addiction between a schoolgirl and an older…
Mifune (1999)
- Dir. Soren Kragh-Jacobson
Feat. Iben Hjejle, Anders W Berthelsen, Jesper Asholt…
- The third Dogma 95 film is in many ways as traditional a European romantic comedy as you could come across, a breezy and smart take on a yuppie…
Moloch (1999)
- Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
Feat. Yelena Rufanova, Leonid Mozgovoy
- Typically Sokurov, the dir. of RUSSIAN ARK turns his filtered lens on a day in the life of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, concerned more with the…
My Neighbours the Yamadas (Houhokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun) (1999)
- Dir. Isao Takahata
- With an original eye and ear for the burdensome triviality and difficulties of everyday life, this Japanese animation concerns a set of suburbanite…
Nameless, The (Los Sin Nombre) (1999)
- Dir. Jaume Balaguero
Feat. Emma Vilarasau, Karra Elejalde
- A family, devastated by the murder of their daughter, are sent into a fresh spin by her seeming re–appearance five years later in this visually…
Not One Less (1999)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Wei Minzhi
- 13–year old peasant–girl Wei Minzhi is handed the responsibility of substitute–teaching a class of children in a rural China…
Nowhere to Hide (1999)
- Dir. Lee Myung-Se
Feat. Park Joong-Hoon, Ahn Sung-Ki
- An irreverent pastiche of seemingly every violent cop flick ever made, this hysterical, hyper–kinetic Korean action movie throws up every…
Pornographic Affair, A (An Affair Of Love) (1999)
- Dir. Frederic Fonteyne
Feat. Nathalie Baye, Sergi Lopez
- A decidedly unpornographic meditation upon the mutability of human desires and emotions, with Nathalie Baye and Sergi Lopez as a nameless couple who…
Postmen in the Mountains (Nashan naren nagou) (1999)
- Dir. Jianqi Huo
- A simply conveyed fable of 'youth' coming to an understanding of 'age', with a young man accompanying his father on a long–held postal delivery…
Romance (1999)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Caroline Ducey, Sagamore Stevenin
- A schoolteacher's boyfriend loses sexual interest in her, so she embarks on a series of unlikely sexual encounters in search of intimacy and…
Rosetta (1999)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Emilie Dequenne
- Drawing creative parallels with the Danish 'Dogma' movement, this is a rigidly intense study in survivalism that forsakes any plot contrivance to…
Running Out of Time (1999)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Andy Lau, Lau Ching-wan
- A crackingly–paced, plot–bending Yin–Yang heist drama, with terminally–ill master jewel thief Andy Lau playing against the…
Shiri (Swiri) (1999)
- Dir. Kang Je-Gyu
Feat. Min-sik Choi, Yunjin Kim, Kang-ho Song…
- South Korean actioner from director Kang Je–gyu (BROTHERHOOD OF WAR) in which a pair of agents are tracking down female assassin from North…
Three Seasons (1999)
- Dir. Tony Bui
Feat. Harvey Keitel
- The first US film to be shot in post–war Vietnam, this intertwined series of four tales set in contemporary Saigon, rapturously conveys a…
Time Regained (Le Temps Retrouve) (1999)
- Dir. Raul Ruiz
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Beart, John Malkovich…
- Legendary surrealist Chilean director Ruiz takes a break from his schedule or runaway obscurities (most sadly unavailable in NZ) for this legit…
Tomie (1999)
- Dir. Ataru Oikawa
Feat. Tomorowo Taguchi, Miho Kanno
- A severed head in a paper bag mutates into the film's titular school girl from hell in this malevolent Japanese horror offering genuine creeps under…
Venus Beauty Institute (Venus Beauty) (1999)
- Dir. Tonie Marshall
Feat. Nathalie Baye, Audrey Tautou
- A modest beauty salon is the setting for this wry ensemble piece about the vagaries of womanhood, with an engagingly eccentric collection of clients…
Yi Yi (A One and a Two) (1999)
- Dir. Edward Yang
Feat. Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issey Ogata
- Masterful cinema – a drama that loosely surveys a middle–class family in contemporary Taipei, encompassing a wealth of human observation…
2 Seconds (1998)
- Dir. Manon Briand
Feat. Charlotte Laurier, Dino Tavarone
- A frothily enjoyable drama set around a mountain–bike rider (Laurier), who despite an addiction to the thrills of high speed cycling, is forced…
Alice Et Martin (1998)
- Dir. Andre Techine
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Carmen Maura, Mathieu Amalric
- A maladjusted young drifter (Alexis Loret) has success as a Paris fashion model and a torrid love affair with his half–brother's…
An Autumn Tale (1998)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Marie Riviere, Beatrice Romand, Alain Libolt
- Completing his suite of films based on the four seasons, dir. Rohmer provides another mellow, seemingly unplotted comedy, in which Rhone valley…
Beau Travail (1998)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Gregoire Colin
- Best Film of 2000 for many highbrow critics, this oblique study of jealousy and power in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion is pure…
Besieged (1998)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Thandiwe Newton, David Thewlis
- Returning to a 'chamber–piece' setting reminiscent of LAST TANGO IN PARIS, dir. Bertolucci unfolds an enigmatic relationship in a Rome…
Bird People In China, The (Chûgoku no chôjin) (1998)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Masahiro Motoki, Renji Ishibashi
- Visually rich and accomplished drama set around a parallel journey by a businessman and a yakuza gangster to a remote Chinese highland in search of a…
Bullet Ballet (1998)
- Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
Feat. Shinya Tsukamoto, Hisashi Igawa
- After his fiancee commits suicide, a young man tries to obtain a gun so that he can do the same, and in the process becomes embroiled in warfare…
Central Station (1998)
- Dir. Walter Salles
Feat. Fernanda Montenegro
- A cantankerous woman who writes letters for the illiterate at Rio De Janeiro's train station obliges to help a 9–year–old boy locate his…
Chance or Coincidence (1998)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Alessandra Martines, Pierre Arditi, Marc Hollogne
- Bereaved wife Alessandra Martine speeds like a comet through this intriguing comedy from dir. Lelouch equal parts melodrama, musical and…
Children of Heaven (1998)
- Dir. Majid Majidi
Feat. Mohammad Amir Naji, Amir Farrokh Hashemian, Bahare Seddiqi
- More simplicity from Iran in this child's tale of small disasters and small triumphs, as a lost pair of shoes provides a catalyst for change for a…
Così ridevano (The Way We Laughed) (1998)
- Dir. Gianni Amelio
Feat. Enrico Lo Verso, Francesco Giuffrida
- A superbly novelistic epic set amid the rigours of post–WW2 Italy where two poor Sicilian brothers settle in northern Turin in search of future…
Dinner Game, The (1998)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret
- Gourmet–grade French farce from the maestro of the genre – well–packaged, delivered without haste, indeed delicious, if a slightly…
Dreamlife of Angels, The (1998)
- Dir. Erick Zonca
Feat. Elodie Bouchez, Natacha Regnier
- Displaying the laconic influence of Eric Rohmer, the French critical triumph of 1998 explores with a contemporary honesty the friendship between two…
Drifting Clouds (1998)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Kati Outinen, Kari Vaananen, Elina Salo…
- Day–glo colours collide with glum silences in Aki Kaurismaki's unemployment comedy, effortlessly combining the previously unreconcilable genres…
Earth (1998)
- Dir. Deepa Mehta
Feat. Maia Sethna, Nandita Das, Kitu Gidwani
- The director of FIRE takes on another controversial element of modern India with the second in her (proposed) trilogy – a humanistic view of…
Eternity and a Day (1998)
- Dir. Theo Angelopoulos
Feat. Bruno Ganz
- A slow, austere cinematic journey in which memories and present–day events mesh in the thought–processes of a dying Greek writer (Bruno…
Hitman (1998)
- Dir. Tung Wai
Feat. Jet Li
- Would–be assassin Jet Li joins in the race to avenge the murder of an evil Japanese businessman for the tune of $100 million, but is encumbered…
I Stand Alone (Seul Contre Tous) (1998)
- Dir. Gaspar Noe
Feat. Philippe Nahon, Blandine Lenoir, Frankie Pain…
- Staunch attempt to shake up the “bourgeois” values in French cinema, first–time director Gaspar Noe fleshes out his short film about a…
Idiots, The (1998)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Bodil Jorgensen, Jens Albinus, Anne Louise Hassing…
- One of the fruits of Dogma 95, this sensationally conceived outing from von Trier will satisfy those with a penchant for the experimental, and…
Inheritors, The (Die Siebtelbauern) (1998)
- Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
- An earthily subversive drama set among a rural community of peasants and masters in an idyllic Austrian valley in the early 20th century.
When the…
Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998)
- Dir. Michel Ocelot
- A stunning French animation based on a West African folktale in which a tiny boy, Kirikou, emerges walking and talking from his mother's womb and…
L'Ennui (1998)
- Dir. Cedric Kahn
Feat. Charles Berling, Arielle Dombasle, Sophie Guillermin
- The tale of the restless and infuriating sexual obsession that a philosophy professor develops for an uncomplicated young woman.
Observing their…
Late August, Early September (Fin août, début septembre) (1998)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Mathieu Amalric, Virginie Ledoyen, Francois Cluzet…
- Overlooked French drama from prolific and distinctive auteur Olivier Assayas (IRMA VEP, PERSONAL SHOPPER) following a group of friends and lovers as…
Left Luggage (1998)
- Dir. Jeroen Krabbe
Feat. Isabella Rossellini, Marianne Sagebrecht, Laura Fraser
- Concerning a free–spirited young woman working as a nanny in a Jewish household in Antwerp, this resolutely serious drama struggles with…
Life Is Beautiful (La vita e bella) (1998)
- Dir. Roberto Benigni
Feat. Roberto Benigni
- Winner of both Best Foreign Film and Best Actor Oscars (a first for an actor speaking a foreign tongue) as well as the top prize at Cannes, Roberto…
Love Etc. (1998)
- Dir. Marion Vernoux
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Charles Berling, Yvan Attal
- Depicts an infernal love–triangle between three friends – taken from the novel ‘Talking It Over’ by Julian Barnes. Charming comedy…
Lovers of the Arctic Circle (1998)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Najwa Nimri, Fele Martinez, Nancho Novo
- Artful but humourless slice of 'magic realism' that follows the near–metaphysical long–term relationship between two childhood…
Marquise (1998)
- Dir. Vera Belmont
Feat. Sophie Marceau
- Bawdy, naturalistically–styled period romp about the artistic clashes between playwrights Moliere and Racine at the court of Louis XIV. Sophie…
Men with Guns (1998)
- Dir. John Sayles
Feat. Frederico Luppi
- Criminally denied a theatrical release, this masterful study of Third World realities is arguably prolific indie dir. John Sayles most accomplished…
Mother and Son (1998)
- Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
Feat. Aleksei Ananishnov, Gudrun Geyer
- Little–seen outside Europe, dir. Sokurov's dream–like films have been championed by critics (incl. Susan Sontag), and find their best…
Quiet Family, The (Choyonghan kajok) (1998)
- Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Min-sik Choi
- A deliciously deadpan black comedy in which a respectable family decide to leave the rat race behind, buy a hotel in remote mountains and lead more…
Red Violin, The (1998)
- Dir. Francois Girard
Feat. Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Flemyng, Greta Scacchi
- The contemporary auction of a prized antique violin becomes another suspenseful, passionate chapter in its lifespan as we learn of its 300 year…
Ring (Ringu) (1998)
- Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Hiroyuki Sanada
- A cult phenomenon in Japan and everywhere else it’s played, it’s since spawned a sequel, a prequel, both a Korean and American remake, and its…
Ring: The Spiral (Rasen) (1998)
- Dir. Jôji Iida
Feat. Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani
- The 'lost' first sequel to RINGU, follows on from the tale of the lethal videotape and the demonic Sadako with the rather prosaic solution to the…
Run Lola Run (1998)
- Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Franke Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu
- Runaway foreign–language hit clocks up mileage from a simple conceit – flame–haired punkette Lola has twenty minutes to go like the…
Secret Defense (1998)
- Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire
- A Hitchcockian thriller in which dir. Rivette, better known for his surreal excursions, knowingly toys with the conventions of the suspense genre,…
Show Me Love (Fucking Amal) (1998)
- Dir. Lukas Moodysson
Feat. Rebecka Liljeberg, Alexandra Dahlstrom
- Vivid depiction of teenage angst and restlessness that became a cause celebre (and box–office hit) in its native Sweden for frank, passionate…
Sicilia! (1998)
- Dir. Jean-Marie Straub, Daniele Huillet
- An unnamed man engages in a series of idle discussions with family members and strangers upon his return to Sicily from America in this aesthetically…
Sleepless Town (Fuyajo) (1998)
- Dir. Chi-Ngai Lee
Feat. Takeshi Kaneshiro, Sihung Lung, Kathy Chow
- Hybridistic pan–Asian thriller set in the 'sleepless' red–light district of Tokyo, where petty crim Kaneshiro must revisit his gangster…
So Close To Paradise (Biandan, guniang) (1998)
- Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai
Feat. Wang Tong, Shi Yu, Guo Tao
- Chinese film set in the city of Wuhan before it was a household name, where two young migrant workers become embroiled in the city's criminal…
Storm Riders, The (1998)
- Dir. Wai Keung Lau
Feat. Sonny Chiba, Aaron Kwok
- The big Hong Kong hit of '98 – a super–extravagant 'flying swordsman' fantasy that ambitiously distils a popular Manga comic book series…
Taxi (1998)
- Dir. Gerard Pirés
Feat. Samy Naceri, Frederic Diefenthal
- From writer/producer Luc Besson, this four–wheeled fantasy comedy sets up a speed–freak taxi driver with a cop that can’t drive to…
Terrorist, The (1998)
- Dir. Santosh Sivan
Feat. Ayesha Dharkar
- Discovered and championed by the actor John Malkovich, this intensely concentrated thriller depicts the hardening and training of 19–yr old…
Thief, The (1998)
- Dir. Pavel Chukhrai
Feat. Vladimir Mashkov, Yekaterina Rednikova, Misha Philipchuk
- Serious–minded trek across the landscapes and mindsets of post–WWII Russia that's been compared to BURNT BY THE SUN for dramatic impact.…
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998)
- Dir. Patrice Chereau
Feat. Pascal Greggory, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Charles Berling…
- Friends and associates of a deceased painter make a procession, via train, to the artist’s burial in this superb French drama. A highly nuanced…
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (Tian yu) (1998)
- Dir. Joan Chen
Feat. Li Xiaolu
- Coming–of–age story set in the 70's about a teenage girl who is sent to the countryside during the "Down to the Countryside" Movement in…
Young Thugs - Nostalgia (1998)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Naoto Takenaka
- Apparently dir. Miike's (AUDITION) favourite of his own films, this semi–autobiographical rites of passage tale is a prequel to YOUNG THUGS…
Apple, The (1997)
- Dir. Samira Makhmalbaf
Feat. Massoumeh Naderi, Zahra Naderi, Ghorban Ali Naderi
- More than the curiosity piece you'd expect from its 17 year old director, this is a strange, small film that uniquely blends documentary footage with…
Artemisia (1997)
- Dir. Agnes Merlet
Feat. Valentina Cervi, Miki Manojlovic, Michel Serrault
- Study of the first significant female painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, the daughter of Caravaggio's one–time assistant in 17th Century…
Assassin(s) (1997)
- Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz, Michel Serrault
- Disappointing followup to LA HAINE for dir./star Kassovitz, plumping for a story of an apprentice hitman (Kassovitz) to aging pro Michel Serrault,…
Au Petit Marguery (1997)
- Dir. Laurent Benegui
Feat. Stephane Audran, Michel Aumont
- You are cordially invited to attend the farewell dinner of a long–loved Parisian restaurant whose Chef is losing his sense of smell. Memories…
Black Mask (1997)
- Dir. Daniel Lee
Feat. Jet Li, Lau Ching-wan
- Mild–mannered librarian by day – pain–resistant, cool–garbed crime–fighter by night – Jet Li's engaging…
Brother (Brat) (1997)
- Dir. Aleksei Balabanov
Feat. Sergei Bodrov Jr
- Grimily captivating thriller follows a baby–faced veteran of the Chechen war as he quietly 'assists' his brother in the St Petersburg…
Character (1997)
- Dir. Mike van Diem
Feat. Fedja Van Huet
- A murderous confrontation bookends an elegantly told story of class, oppression and perseverance in 1920s Rotterdam, in which a young…
Cure (1997)
- Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Masato Hagiwara, Tsuyoshi Ujiki…
- Delivering one of the great, unsung horror movies, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa plumbs the depths of societal malaise with this novel take on serial…
Dance of the Wind (1997)
- Dir. Rajan Khosa
Feat. Ami Arora, Roshan Bano, Kitu Gidwani
- Set in contemporary Delhi, this drama concerns the responses of classical Hindi singer Kitu Gidwani to her mother’s death. Steeped in a particular…
Dobermann (1997)
- Dir. Jan Kounen
Feat. Tcheky Karyo, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci…
- Frenetic French crime thriller filled with over the top gun play and colourful yet grimy characters.
Vincent Cassel plays a bank robber known as…
Eel, The (1997)
- Dir. Shohei Imamura
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu
- After doing eight years for killing his wife, an inhibited man (Yakusho Koji of SHALL WE DANCE) sets himself up at a quiet riverside barbershop, the…
For Roseanna (Roseanna's Grave) (1997)
- Dir. Paul Weiland
Feat. Mercedes Ruehl, Jean Reno
- Terminally–ill Mercedes Ruehl's dying wish is to be buried in the local cemetary, but the plots are filling up fast, thus sending off her…
Full Alert (1997)
- Dir. Ringo Lam
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng
- Quality police thriller with realistic drama, bracing action and strong sense of locale – regarded as one of the last 'classics' from the…
Funny Games (1997)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Ulrich Muhe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering…
- Michael Haneke’s disturbing, self–reflexive examination of violence, and violence as entertainment, in which two young men dressed in tennis…
Gadjo Dilo (1997)
- Dir. Tony Gatlif
Feat. Romain Duris, Rona Harther, Izidor Serban
- Re–casting a spotlight onto the poor and downtrodden yet spiritually rich gypsy culture, film–maker/musician Toni Gatlif grafts a…
Going to School with Dad on My Back (Bei qi baba shangxue) (1997)
- Dir. Youchou Zhou
- Straightforwardly touching tale of a young boy, who with the help of his selfless family, graduates from his impoverished Malian River village to the…
Hamam - The Turkish Bath (1997)
- Dir. Ferzan Ozpetek
Feat. Alessandro Gassman, Francesca d'Aloja, Carlo Cecchi
- Beautifully presented, exotic drama about a young Italian designer whose sexual and spiritual life takes a profound turn after inheriting a steam…
Hana-Bi (1997)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osusi
- 'Beat' Takeshi cements his reputation as the modern visionary of Japanese cinema with his most celebrated film to date, returning as the formidably…
Happy Together (1997)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Chen Chang
- Wong Kar Wai's South American gay love story features the usual dazzling Christopher Doyle camerawork, but replaces the genre thrills of FALLEN…
Harmonists (Comedian Harmonists) (1997)
- Dir. Joseph Vilsmaier
Feat. Ben Becker, Heino Ferch, Ulrich Noethen…
- The most popular singing group of 1920s Germany, the sextet Comedian Harmonists toured widely and were world–famous by the mid–30s.…
Insomnia (1997)
- Dir. Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard
- An edgy, ingeniously plotted psychological thriller about an amoral Swedish detective whose murder investigation in Northern Norway (where the sun…
Junk Mail (1997)
- Dir. Pal Sletaune
Feat. Robert Skjaerstad, Andrine Saether, Per Egil Aske
- A sex–obsessed, surly postman tampers with the mail, stalks pretty girls and steals erotic letters from his delivery sack, one of which leads…
Kingdom II, The (Riget II) (1997)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, Kirsten Rolffes, Udo Kier
- Lars Von Trier's compulsive TV creation continues into its second series of medical soap opera, supernatural horror and black comedy.
Raising the…
Kitchen (1997)
- Dir. Yim Ho
Feat. Jordan Chan, Yasuko Tomita
- Treading the same grungy Hong Kong streets as the films of Wong Kar–Wai, this adaptation of a novel by Banana Yoshimoto concerns a love affair…
La Vie de Jesus (Life of Jesus) (1997)
- Dir. Bruno Dumont
- Virtuoso bleakness from the dir. of TWENTYNINE PALMS, in his debut study of alienated existence for a group of unruly skinheads in rural Flanders who…
Le Bonheur Est Dans Le Pre (Happiness Is in the Field) (1997)
- Dir. Etienne Chatiliez
Feat. Michel Serrault, Carmen Maura
- The director of TATIE DANIELLE puts a sly new twist on that most reliable of French film conceits – the 'imposter' genre.
Grouchy…
Le Bossu (On Guard) (1997)
- Dir. Phillipe De Broca
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Vincent Perez, Fabrice Luchini
- A classically composed swashbuckler in the Dumas tradition (THE THREE MUSKETEERS), in which a wittily vengeful fencing master (Auteuil) disguises…
Live Flesh (1997)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal
- Five aggrieved characters get wrapped in a sticky web of consequence after a fateful incident leaves one paralysed and another in jail.
Dir.…
Locked-In Syndrome (1997)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
- Heart–rending look at the life of Jean–Dominque Bauby whose autobiography was filmed as THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY.
Lucie Aubrac (1997)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Carole Bouquet, Klaus Barbie
- French Resistance true–story from the period–eye of dir. Claude Berri (JEAN DE FLORETTE), offering a romantic sub–plot between…
Ma Vie En Rose (1997)
- Dir. Alain Berliner
Feat. George Du Fresne, Michele Laroque, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey…
- Confusion envelops an idyllic French suburban household when their youngest son starts believing he is a little girl. Solemn regard for themes of…
Ma Vie Sexuelle (1997)
- Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Feat. Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos, Emmanuel Salinger
- Ponderous study of Parisian twentysomething ennui centering around a typically amoral, self–obsessed Frenchman who has few problems bedding…
Marius et Jeannette (1997)
- Dir. Robert Guediguian
Feat. Ariane Ascaride, Gerard Meylan
- A laidback yet buoyant slice–of–ordinary–life set on the low–rent side of Marseille, where two wounded fortysomethings strike…
Masterworks of Abbas Kiarostami, The (Taste of Cherry; The Wind Will Carry Us; Ten) (1997-2002)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
- Three features from acclaimed Iranian dir. Abbas Kiarostami in a single box–set.
On Connait la Chanson (Same Old Song) (1997)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azema, Jean-Pierre Bacri…
- A winner of seven Cesar awards, this light–hearted homage to Dennis Potter applies his musical–cinematic ideas to the…
Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997)
- Dir. Sammo Hung
Feat. Jet Li
- Jet Li reprises his signature role in the popular saga, this time reinvented as a Kung Fu Western – the perfect setting for…
Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) (1997)
- Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
Feat. Eduardo Noriega, Penelope Cruz, Chete Lera
- A surrealistic nightmare unfurled with Hitchcockian precision and irony, Eduardo Noriega plays a young–man–who–has–everything…
Port Djema (1997)
- Dir. Eric Heumann
Feat. Jean-Yves Dubois, Nathalie Boutefeu, Christophe Odent…
- A Paris surgeon gets into the thick of dangerous politics at an East African colonial port as he traces the footsteps of a murdered friend. Won Best…
Post Coitum (1997)
- Dir. Brigitte Rouan
Feat. Brigitte Rouan
- The director herself plays a 40–year–old wife, mother and book editor who has her respectable life devastated after a whirlwind affair…
Secrets of the Heart (Secretos del Corazon) (1997)
- Dir. Montxo Armendariz
Feat. Andoni Erburu, Inigo Garces
- A subdued drama that views rural Spain through the childs' eye of its protaganist, a young boy whose curiosity leads him into a haunted house…
Shall We Dance? (Shall We Dansu?) (1997)
- Dir. Masayuki Suo
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari
- Happiness eludes a successful Japanese salaryman, so he plucks up the courage to attend dance lessons. Hugely popular home and international hit got…
Taste of Cherry, A (1997)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Feat. Homayon Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari
- Kiarostami's Palme D'Or winner follows the 'last rites' of an affluent, suicidal middle–aged man who scours the streets of Teheran for an…
Three Men and a Leg (1997)
- Dir. Aldo , Giovanni , Giacomo
Feat. Aldo , Giovanni , Giacomo
- Slapstick magic from favourite Italian comic trio, Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo, this frantic yet first rate farce was naturally a box–office…
Truce, The (1997)
- Dir. Francesco Rosi
Feat. John Turturro, Rade Serbedzija
- The aftermath of WWII locates Auschwitz survivor John Turturro on a difficult, redemptive journey back to his home town.
Based on Primo Levi's…
Tykho Moon (1997)
- Dir. Enki Bilal
Feat. Julie Delpy, Michel Piccoli
- Mixed sci–fi odyssey features stunning art direction, but a rather shapeless plot involving an aging dictator’s search for life saving brain…
Unknown Pleasures / Xiao Wu (1997-2002)
- Dir. Jia Zhang-ke
Feat. Zhao Tao
- Two astonishing features from gifted 'sixth generation' Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang–ke (PLATFORM, THE WORLD); his terrain the onset of popular…
Western (1997)
- Dir. Manuel Poirier
Feat. Sergi Lopez, Sacha Bourdo
- Soulfully transposing the conventions of the Western to the forlorn landscapes of modern–day Brittany, this road movie owes equal allegiance to…
Wintersleepers (1997)
- Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Ulrich Matthes, Marie-lou Sellem, Floriane Daniel
- The paths of five people on the German skifield of Berchtesgaden intersect following a car accident, resulting in a precise, chilly thriller from RUN…
Would I Lie to You? (1997)
- Dir. Thomas Gilou
Feat. Richard Anconina, Vincent Elbaz, Bruno Solo
- In a Jewish rag–trade district of Paris, an affable street kid maintains the ruse of being Jewish to financial, social and romantic advantage.…
Young Thugs - Innocent Blood (1997)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Naoto Takenaka
- Gangster shenanigans with cult dir. Takashi, this time taking a more measured approach to the story of four young friends who drift together and…
A Summer's Tale (1996)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Melvil Poupaud, Amanda Langlet
- Once more exploring the fickleness of love, dir. Rohmer involves holidaying student Melvil Poupard in a love–quadrangle of romantic options. In…
Antonia's Line (1996)
- Dir. Marleen Gorris
Feat. Willeke van Ammelrooy, Els Dottermans, Jan Decleir
- The deserving winner of the '96 Best Foreign Film Oscar recalls the 50 year history of matriarch Antonia and her defiantly unconventional brood in…
Autumn Sun (Sol de otoño) (1996)
- Dir. Eduardo Mignogna
Feat. Frederico Luppi, Norma Aleandro
- Argentine drama following a Jewish woman who pretends to be in a relationship with a Jewish man from Uruguay (Frederico Luppi, CRONOS) to appease her…
Bag of Rice (1996)
- Dir. Mohammad-Ali Talebi
Feat. Jairan Abadzade, Shirin Bina, Masume Eskandari
- A child and her elderly neighbour have small adventures on the streets of Tehran while trying to buy a sack of rice. Those seeking a rare alternative…
Beaumarchais (1996)
- Dir. Edouard Molinaro
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Sandrine Kiberlain
- Wigs and quippery at the ready, this is 18th century French history conceived in vivacious strokes of social satire and perfumed with a savoury wit,…
Beyond Hypothermia (Sip si 32 doe) (1996)
- Dir. Patrick Leung
Feat. Lau Ching Wan
- A master Hong Kong hitwoman is contracted to bump off top–level crime lords in this brooding suspenser, directed by a longtime assistant to…
Blade, The (1996)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Xin Xin Xiong, Moses Chan, Man Cheuk Chiu
- Honour and retribution are the key themes in this densely–plotted, straight–faced actioner set in a mythic–historical setting.…
Boy Who Stopped Talking, The (1996)
- Dir. Ben Sombogaart
Feat. Brader Masiki, Ercan Orhan, Halsho Hussain
- A nine–year–old boy is forced to flee war–ravaged Turkey for the Netherlands, but decides to stop talking in protest. As well as…
Celestial Clockwork (1996)
- Dir. Fina Torres
Feat. Ariadna Gil, Arielle Dombasle
- Cinderella–type comedy that has a gifted Venezualan opera singer vaulting for stardom in an eccentric Parisian setting. Consistently sunny in…
Day of the Beast (1996)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Alex Angulo, Armando De Razza, Santiago Segura
- If Almodovar made a horror movie it might look like this – beautifully shot and designed, funny and exciting. Though he can't quite sustain the…
Devil's Island (1996)
- Dir. Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
Feat. Baltasar Kormakur, Gisli Halldorsson
- The director of COLD FEVER bites off a little more ice than he can comfortably chew, with this sprawling tale of the difficulties of life in 1950s…
East Palace / West Palace (1996)
- Dir. Zhang Yuan
Feat. Vicki Zhao, Si Han, Jun Hu
- This rare independent mainland Chinese film is a difficult, often devastating two–hander between a gay man and the policeman sent to arrest him…
Ebola Syndrome, The (1996)
- Dir. Herman Yau
Feat. Anthony Wong
- Birthed from the notorious "Category 3" underbelly of Hong Kong cinema, this close relative of THE UNTOLD STORY features another deranged murderer on…
Eighth Day, The (1996)
- Dir. Jaco Van Dormael
Feat. Daniel Auteuil
- The director of the much–loved TOTO THE HERO makes another film about magic at ground level, with Daniel Auteuil having his humdrum life…
Every Little Thing (La Monindre des choses) (1996)
- Dir. Nicolas Philibert
- Documentarian extraordinaire Nicholas Philibert observes the rehearsals and performance of an annual summer play by the inmates of an idyllic French…
Fiesta (1996)
- Dir. Pierre Boutron
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Gregoire Colin
- Biting, rigorously intelligent parable of the Spanish Civil War, watches unblinking as a young soldier is intiated into the brutalities by his…
Fire (1996)
- Dir. Deepa Mehta
Feat. Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das
- Blazing melodrama defiantly targets Indian sexual hypocrisy and tradition, not to mention trangressing 'Bollywood' taboo, in portraying two women…
Flower of My Secret, The (1996)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Marisa Paredes
- An artistic maturing for the director of kitsch sex comedies like HIGH HEELS and KIKA, this is an introspective study of a successful authoress…
Forbidden City Cop (1996)
- Dir. Vincent Tak-Chiu
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
- Hysterical and kinda crazy semi–sequel to the smash hit comedy FROM BEIJING WITH LOVE, splices James Bond with A CHINESE GHOST STORY, following…
French Twist (Gazon Maudit) (1996)
- Dir. Josiane Balasko
Feat. Victoria Abril, Josiane Balasko
- Radiant Spanish star Victoria Abril plays a betrayed wife teased into an affair with a butch lesbian (director Balasko). Many permutations of a very…
Fudoh - The Next Generation (1996)
- Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Shosuke Tanihara, Kenji Takano, Marie Jinno
- Possibly the first film that gave the Western world an inkling of dir. Miike's unhinged worldview, investing a tale of yakuza vengeance with surreal,…
Gabbeh (1996)
- Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Feat. Abbas Sayah, Shaghayeh Djodat, Hossein Moharami…
- Unique combination of lyricism and social realism from one of the icons of Iranian cinema – a story of a remote struggling tribe, the…
God of Cookery, The (1996)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
- Stephen Chow cooks up a comic storm as a mercilessly ego–centric chef who, in great narrative tradition, is forced to truly earn his title…
Goodbye South Goodbye (1996)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Jack Kao, Lim Giong
- Another exemplary, detailed effort from dir. Hsiao–Hsien, this time following a couple of small time grafters trying to put together 'the big…
Guantanamera (1996)
- Dir. Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Juan Carlos Tabio
Feat. Carlos Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Jorge Perugorria…
- A quirky mix of low–speed road movie and romantic comedy following the unsteady progress of a funeral procession across the length of Cuba…
Horseman on the Roof (1996)
- Dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Olivier Martinez
- Strapping melodrama in the old–fashioned Errol Flynn milieu set during the cholera epidemic of 1800s France. A tale of chivalry, loyalty and…
Il Ciclone (1996)
- Dir. Leonardo Pieraccioni
Feat. Leonardo Pieraccioni, Lorena Forteza, Barbara Enrichi
- Ribald comedy that holds the local box–office record in Italy, posits a bored accountant in Tuscany whose life hits the fan when a bus filled…
Irma Vep (1996)
- Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Nathalie Richard…
- Ranking up there with the best movies–about–movies, this supremely stylish, sexy film showcases an unseen side of Hong Kong action diva…
Kama Sutra (1996)
- Dir. Mira Nair
Feat. Indira Varma, Sarita Choudhury, Ramon Tikaram…
- The director of SALAAM BOMBAY returns to her native land for this enticing, beautifully photographed tale of love, jealousy and revenge among the…
Kids Return (1996)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Ando Masanobu, Kaneko Ken
- Two feckless delinquents discover the local boxing–gym, which provides inspiration for one and an entry into a yakuza gang for the other.…
King of Masks, The (1996)
- Dir. Tianming Wu
Feat. Zhu Xu
- Touching paternal tale, in the Chinese mainland tradition, concerning an aging street performer determined to pass on his technique to a young…
Kolya (1996)
- Dir. Jan Sverak
Feat. Zdenek Sverak, Andrei Chalimon
- A beautifully sentimental Oscar winner for Best Foreign film – set during the 1988 Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia, when a…
Lady Ninja: Reflections of Darkness (1996)
- Dir. Masaru Tsushima
Feat. Yuka Ohnishi, Tetsuo Kurata, Rina Kitahara
- Snappy example of the Martial Sex–Arts sub–genre, with a gang of 'Lady Ninjas' hired by a lascivious Emperor to wipe–out his royal…
Lars von Trier Collection (Breaking the Waves, Tranceformer, The Idiots) (1996-1998)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
- Three provocative Lars von Trier films from the director's 'Dogme' phase. Includes the documentary 'Tranceformer – A Portrait of Lars von…
Libertarias (1996)
- Dir. Vincente Aranda
Feat. Victoria Abril, Ana Belen, Miguel Bose…
- Examining the Spanish Civil War from a left–wing point–of–view, this passionate war drama focuses on a trio of women – a…
Nelly and Mr. Anaud (1996)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Michel Serrault
- Emmanuelle Beart gets caught up in a May–to–December romance with Michel Serrault in another elegant and subtle drama from the director…
Nenette & Boni (1996)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Gregoire Colin, Alice Houri , Jacques Nolot…
- Minor, though beautifully rendered slice–of–life from Claire Denis casts an eye on two teenage siblings raised separately by divorced…
Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead (1996)
- Dir. Agustin Diaz Yanes
Feat. Victoria Abril, Pilar Bardem
- Alcoholic and reluctant whore Victoria Abril turns a few clever tricks on a Mexican mob's laundering operation. A Spanish pulpy fiction grafted with…
O'Quatrilho (1996)
- Dir. Fabio Barreto
Feat. Fabio Barreto, Mariana Pellegrino Barreto
- Steamy Latino variant on the patented love–triangle/adultery story, set among immigrants newly settled in turn of the century Brazil, freshly…
Other Side of Sunday, The (1996)
- Dir. Berit Nesheim
Feat. Marie Theisen, Bjorn Sundquist, Hildegun Riise
- Yearning to discover the 'other side' of life in 1950s Norway, teenager Marie Theisen evades her harshly religious father to explore the amorphous…
Ponette (1996)
- Dir. Jacques Doillon
Feat. Victoire Thivisol
- Staying at her Aunt's provincial cottage after the accidental death of her mother, a four–year–old girl comes to terms with death, while…
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996)
- Dir. Sadjan Dragojevic
Feat. Dragan Bjelorgrlic, Nikola Kojo
- Seen in flashback from a ward in triage, the Bosnian war is portrayed in a riveting counter–play of nihilism and theatre, as a band of Serbian…
Prisoner of the Mountains (1996)
- Dir. Sergei Bodrov
Feat. Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov Jr, Susanna Mekhraliyeva…
- A Tolstoy fable is here seamlessly transposed to the Chechean conflict, with two Russian soldiers apprehended by a Chechean village elder who hopes…
Promise, The (La Promesse) (1996)
- Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Feat. Jeremie Renier, Olivier Gourmet
- A deceptively modest, altogether riveting early film from the Dardenne brothers, here test–driving the formal rigors of their unwavering…
Pure Formality, A (Una pura formalità) (1996)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Roman Polanski
- A chilling interrogation of an elusive murder suspect transpires under weather most foul. Roman Polanski and Gerard Depardieu face–off…
Pusher (1996)
- Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Kim Bodnia, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen
- Intense Danish thriller follows a fast–living drug dealer's (Bodnia) downward arc after he inadvertantly loses a load of product and tries to…
Ridicule (1996)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Charles Berling, Jean Rochefort, Fanny Ardant…
- Delightful Cesar–winning comedy set in the Court of Louis XVI in 1700s France where the King grants favours to those endowed with only the…
Satan Returns (1996)
- Dir. Allan Lam
Feat. Chingmy Yau, Donnie Yen
- On a rash mission to find the devil's daughter, a cult member with strange powers resorts to wrenching the hearts (and we mean literally) of women…
Self Made Hero, A (1996)
- Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz
- Mattieu Kassovitz (director of LA HAINE) proves to be no slouch actor here as a WW2 idler who swats up and cheekily ascends the ranks of the…
Sex and Zen Pt. 2 (1996)
- Dir. Chin Man-Kei
Feat. Loletta Lee, Tat-Wah Lok
- A creepy polygamist meets his match in the 'mirage woman' in this twice–as–smutty, half–as–funny sequel to the outlandish…
Summer in La Goulette (1996)
- Dir. Ferid Boughedir
Feat. Sonia Mankai, Ava Cohen-Jonathan, Sarah Pariente…
- Three families of disparate cultures enjoy harmony in Tunisian paradise, until three of their beautiful daughters flirt with losing their virginity,…
Temptress Moon (1996)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Gong Li, Leslie Cheung
- Chen Kaige elevates the sumptuous Chinese epoch of FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE with this visually rapturous, though far less coherent saga of epic…
Tierra (Earth) (1996)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Carmelo Gómez, Emma Suarez, Karra Elejalde
- Intimate portrait of Angel (Gomez), an exterminator who travels to a remote wine–making town to rid them of a plague of woodlice, and gradually…
Too Late (Prea Târziu) (1996)
- Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Razvan Vasilescu
- Bleak, unflinching examination of Romanian society from dir. Pintilie focuses on an inexperienced investigator who discovers a myriad of corruption…
Weatherwoman Returns (1996)
- Dir. Tomoaki Hosoyama
Feat. Misa Aika, Kiyomi Ito, Ayako Kato
- Sequel to WEATHERWOMAN, is equally unsettling in the way its nasty thrills are clad in cheap satire. As in the first, the rivalry between various TV…
When the Cat's Away (1996)
- Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Feat. Garance Clavel, Zinedine Soualem
- A movie for cat lovers and young romantics alike, this Latino–tinged, funky, yet alluringly modest French film follows the dowdy–cute…
Will It Snow for Christmas? (1996)
- Dir. Sandrine Veysset
Feat. Dominique Reymond, Daniel Duval
- Not a seasonal film 'for the whole family', rather a slow–paced evocation of hard–won, rural life for an impoverished French family of…
A Weatherwoman (1995)
- Dir. Tomoaki Hosoyama
Feat. Kei Mizutani
- Manga–based comedy where debut TV weatherwoman Kei Mizutani disregards all public standards in pursuit of ratings and her own fetishistic…
All Things Fair (1995)
- Dir. Bo Widerberg
Feat. Johan Widerberg, Marika Lagercrantz
- The late Bo Widerberg's swansong records a bittersweet memoir of his love affair with a teacher 22 years his senior. The casting of his young son in…
Bait, The (L'Appat) (1995)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Marie Gillain
- A claustrophobic psychological thriller dealing with a trio of young friends who naively conspire to commit a home invasion, that becomes a study of…
Beyond the Clouds (Al di là delle nuvole) (1995)
- Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Feat. Fanny Ardant, Chiara Caselli, Irene Jacob…
- Michelangelo Antonioni's final film weaves together four stories of discontented love in his characteristic cinematic style.
Featuring a huge…
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre (1995)
- Dir. T.F. Mous
- This extreme 'shocker' depicts in grisly detail the story of the massacre of 300 000 Chinese by Japanese soldiers following the invasion of Nanking…
Brother of Sleep (1995)
- Dir. Joseph Vilsmaier
Feat. Andre Eisermann, Dana Vavrova, Ben Becker…
- A bastard child born in remote 19th century Bavaria proves to have an eerie, powerful musical gift, causing consternation among the inbred, somewhat…
Campfire (Short Films by Bavo Defurne) (1995-2000)
- Dir. Bavo Defurne
- Four short films by the renowned gay Belgian filmmaker Bavo Defurne, whose work is distinguished by an aesthetic that combines an astute sense of…
Chinese Torture Chamber Story (1995)
- Dir. Bosco Lam
- Salacious sex farce in the mould of SEX AND ZEN and EROTIC GHOST STORY, that wilfully pushes the boundaries of good taste, with a measure of…
Chungking Express (1995)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Takeshi Kaneshiro, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai)…
- Influential urban style piece that brought its director serious attention in the West.
There's no plot to speak of; Kar–Wai's style is an…
City of Lost Children (1995)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro
Feat. Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet
- Visual wonderstuff from the unique genius pairing of the creators of DELICATESSEN, this is as good a follow up as one could wish for.
While…
Colonel Chabert, Le (1995)
- Dir. Yves Angelo
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, Fabrice Luchini…
- After being presumed dead in Napoleonic battle, Gerard Depardieu returns to his home town to find his wife, his money and his honour being betrayed…
Confessional, The (1995)
- Dir. Robert Lepage
Feat. Lothaire Bluteau, Kristin Scott Thomas
- A man searches for lost relatives and missing pieces of family history, somehow linked to the making of Hitchcock's 'I Confess' in Quebec, 1953; past…
Convent, The (1995)
- Dir. Manoel de Oliveira
Feat. John Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve
- Academic couple John Malkovich and Catherine Deneuve survey a spooky ancient convent in a quest to prove that Shakespeare is of Spanish descent. From…
Cyclo (1995)
- Dir. Tran Anh Hung
Feat. Le Van Loc, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Tran Nu Yen-Khe
- Brooding expose of corruption, poverty and violence in contemporary Vietnam follows the ill fortunes of a young taxi–cyclist.
Has potent…
D'Artagnan's Daughter (Revenge of the Musketeers) (1995)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Philippe Noiret
- This gleefully French swashbuckler checks in as a loose sequel to the Three Muskeeters. The magnetic Sophie Marceau stars as the feisty titular…
Eko Eko Azarak (Wizard of Darkness, Birth of the Wizard, Misa the Dark Angel) (1995)
- Dir. Shimako Sato
Feat. Kimika Yoshino
- Highly impressive and lurid high–school horror, has a teenage girl (Yoshino) contending with coven of Satanic witches at her new school, who…
Fallen Angels (1995)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Leon Lai, Michelle Reis
- Seductive stylist Wong Kar–Wai here orchestrates the stories of three disreputable urbanites across a Hong Kong nightscape of impersonal…
Farinelli (1995)
- Dir. Gerard Corbiau
Feat. Stefano Dionisi, Enrico Lo Verso, Elsa Zylberstein
- Il Castrato – less a freak of nature than of anatomical subtraction. This flamboyant biopic freely interprets the illustrious musical and…
French Woman, A (Une Femme Francaise) (1995)
- Dir. Regis Wargnier
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Daniel Auteuil
- Emmanuelle Beart stars in this period tale of idyllic romance compromised by the reality of war. The director of INDOCHINE again embraces the…
Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)
- Dir. Shusuke Kaneko
Feat. Shinobu Nakayama, Ayako Fujitani
- Japanese Kaiju genre film (giant monsters!) which is the ninth inclusion to the Gamera film series, but enjoyable as stand–alone entertainment,…
High Risk (1995)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Jet Li, Jacky Cheung
- A Hong Kong actioner worth singling out from the glut, Jet Li is charisma–on–legs as an unflappable stunt double/bodyguard who is forced…
Kamikaze Taxi (1995)
- Dir. Masato Harada
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Kazuya Takahashi, Reiko Kataoka
- An apprentice gangster fouls up his first major assignment and flees Tokyo in a taxi, the driver of which turns out to be a unlikely confident with a…
L'Amour Molesto (Wounded Love) (1995)
- Dir. Mario Martone
Feat. Anna Bonaiuto, Angela Luce, Gianni Cajafa…
- Filial difficulties between mother and daughter act as the centre of gravity for this Italian mystery that matches its edgy storyline with a…
L'Appartement (The Apartment) (1995)
- Dir. Gilles Mimouni
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Romane Bohringer, Monica Bellucci
- Chic Parisian thriller lifts a few motifs from VERTIGO, but adds more than a few original flourishes.
Vincent Cassel is about to settle down with…
La Ceremonie (Judgement in Stone, A) (1995)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jacqueline Bisset
- Veteran new–wave director Chabrol takes this HEAVENLY CREATURES–ish tale of the unholy synergy between two women, adds some class theory,…
La Haine (Hate) (1995)
- Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, Said Taghmaoui…
- A distinctive French urban crime drama in which the idle hands of male youth form fisticuffs on mean urban streets. A whole lot punchier, intelligent…
Land of Milk and Honey (1995)
- Dir. Joseph Destein
Feat. Lumi Cavazos, Richard Panebianco
- A hired man plumbs the secrets of a Spanish–American family on a remote Californian coastal farm, in this stark, brooding melodrama. Stars…
Les Miserables (1995)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Widely considered the definitive screen version of this granddaddy of French literary staples. Few concessions have been allowed in staging a…
Letters from the East (1995)
- Dir. Andrew Grieve
Feat. Ewa Froling, Mark Womack, Ingeborga Dapkunaite
- The political turmoil of the Baltic Republics provides a backdrop for this Anglo–Estonian drama, in which a young English woman searches for…
Like Grains of Sand (1995)
- Dir. Hashiguchi Ryosuke
Feat. Yoshinori Okada, Kouta Kusano
- Remarkable, intense Japanese high school romance is centrally about a gay relationship, though it essentially captures the universal,…
Maborosi (Mabaroshi) (1995)
- Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Feat. Makikio Esumi, Tadanobu Asano
- A young woman's fear that she brings death to those around her forms the basis for this contemplative, serene drama, the dir.'s debut. Suggestively…
Mina Tannenbaum (1995)
- Dir. Martine Dugowson
Feat. Romane Bohringer, Elsa Zylberstein
- Two childhood girl–friends of different character and ambition endure a tempestuous friendship over three decades. A freshly drawn, stylish…
Molom (1995)
- Dir. Marie Jaoul De Poncheville
Feat. Molom Tseded, Yonden Yondejunai
- Mystical travelogue of a spiritual nomad/shaman who comes to earth as an eagle, then traverses the breathtaking landscapes of rural Mongolia as the…
Patriotes, Les (1995)
- Dir. Eric Rochant
Feat. Yvan Attal, Richard Masur, Allen Garfield…
- Disillusionment erodes the ideals of a young Frenchman who emigrates to Israel to train for a career in their intelligence division. Its astute focus…
Peace Hotel (1995)
- Dir. Wai Ka-Fai
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- Chow Yun–Fat stars in his last Hong Kong opus before taking the Hollywood leap. A 1920s Chinatown Western, he runs the 'Peace Hotel', a refuge…
Promise, The (1995)
- Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
Feat. Corinna Harfouch, Meret Becker, August Zirner
- Separated while trying to cross the Berlin Wall to the West in 1961, two lovers traverse thirty odd years of German history apart, yet faithful. This…
Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (1995)
- Dir. He Ping
Feat. Jing Ning, Gang Wu, Xiaorui Zhao
- Exotic tale of forbidden passion set among the labyrinthine traditions of Chinese society. Like the work of Zhang Yimou, the immaculate imagery does…
Rendezvous in Paris (1995)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Clara Bellar, Mathias Mégard, Antoine Basler
- A delicately poised triptych framed around three lighthearted tales of philandering men and women. Minor, though quintessential Rohmer dalliance…
Score (1995)
- Dir. Atsushi Muroga
Feat. Shu Ehara, Hiroshi Miyasaka, Ryuushi Mizukami
- A kinetic, if largely derivative actioner, which comes over as a Japanese RESERVOIR DOGS set around an unstable band of Yakuza henchmen attempting to…
Shanghai Triad (1995)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Gong Li
- Richly–hued encounter with the criminal high–life of 1930s Shanghai, told through the hired servant of a pampered gangster's moll, and…
Sixty Million Dollar Man (1995)
- Dir. Yip Wai-Man
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
- Spoiled brat 'accident' victim Stephen Chow becomes a not–so–super hero when he is pieced back together Steve Austin–style for a…
Starmaker, The (1995)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Sergio Castellitto, Tiziana Lodato, Franco Scaldati
- The director of CINEMA PARADISO reprises another movie–enchanted tale. An endearing con–man tours the countryside, posing as a studio…
Sun Valley (1995)
- Dir. He Ping
Feat. Feng Gu, Xueqi Wang
- A vengeful Chinese warrior drifts into a small village on the Silk Road, where he is destined for a climactic showdown with a rival suitor of a young…
Trick of the Light, A (Brothers Skladanowsky) (1995)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Udo Kier
- Quirky, pseudo–documentary in the tradition of FORGOTTEN SILVER recreates through faux interviews and found footage the exploits of the…
Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
- Dir. Theo Angelopoulos
Feat. Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern
- Returning from exile in America, Yugoslavian filmmaker Harvey Keitel quests after rare film footage in the wartorn Balkans. Shot under conditions…
Underground (1995)
- Dir. Emir Kusturica
Feat. Miki Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic
- Palme D'Or–winning epic covering fifty years of Balkan history in fantastical, magic–realist style. While the brash satire may be too…
White Balloon, The (1995)
- Dir. Jafar Panahi
Feat. Aida Mohammadkhani, Mohsen Kalifi, Fereshteh Sadr Orfani
- Sophisticated kids and adults alike should seek out this multiple prize–winner from Iran that follows a seven–year–old–girl's…
Wild Reeds (Les Roseaux Sauvages) (1995)
- Dir. Andre Techine
Feat. Frederick Gorny, Gael Morel
- Beautifully studied coming–of–age saga set in rural France at the end of the Algerian war, as four young friends on the cusp of adulthood…
Zero Kelvin (1995)
- Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Gard B. Eidsvold, Stellan Skarsgard
- This tale of hardcore cabin fever in the 1930s has the Arctic wasteland as a backdrop for the face off between two romantic idealists – one a…
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Anne Bennent, Lukas Miko, Gabriel Cosmin Urdes
- A radical and virtuoso endpoint to Michael Haneke’s ‘Glaciation Trilogy’, this serves as a template for CODE UNKNOWN in its complex mosaic of…
An Unforgettable Summer (Un été inoubliable) (1994)
- Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Claudiu Bleont
- Spare, well–realized drama taking place in 1925 on the Romanian/Bulgarian border, where Capitaine Petre Dumitriu (Bleont) and his wife…
Ashes of Time (1994)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung
- From revered mo–hup novelist Jing Yong's East, South, West, North, Wong Kar–Wai trailblazes the Hong Kong art movie with a cyclical tale…
Belle Epoque (1994)
- Dir. Fernando Trueba
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Jorge Sanz
- Oscar–winning comedy set in thirties Spain will have you grinning from ear to ear as its young army deserter finds the ultimate sanctuary at…
Blush (1994)
- Dir. Shaohong Li
Feat. Ji Wang, Zhiwen Wang, Caifei He…
- A sensual historical epic that follows the fortunes of two prostitutes who escape the Chinese revolution by fleeing their brothel in 1949 Shanghai.…
Bodyguard from Beijing (1994)
- Dir. Yuen Kwai
Feat. Jet Li
- Jet Li is "The Bodyguard" in this delightful parody of the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston smash. A gourmet chop suey of action, humour and simmering…
Burning Paradise (1994)
- Dir. Ringo Lam
Feat. John Ching, Willi Chi
- Dir. Ringo Lam hits prime form in this Kung Fu excursion into the distant Chinese past. Previous hero Fong Sai Yuk and friends must quickstep…
Burnt By the Sun (1994)
- Dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
Feat. Oleg Menshikov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Ingeborga Dapkunaite
- Oscar–winning drama contrasts sunlit Chekhovian lyricism with the dark undercurrents of Stalinist Russia during the "Great Purge", when…
City Hunter (1994)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Jackie Chan, Chingmy Yau, Joey Wong
- Jackie Chan is the popular Japanese comic book character Ryu Saeba: part detective, part mercenary, all womanizer – is contracted to return the…
Cold Fever (1994)
- Dir. Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
Feat. Masatoshi Nagase, Lili Taylor, Fisher Stevens…
- Stylish one–off depicts a Japanese businessman's pilgrimage to Iceland, to where his holidaying parents died.
Taking its cues from the…
Day the Sun Turned Cold (1994)
- Dir. Yim Ho
Feat. Siqin Gaowa
- Stark melodrama set in Northern China about a man who accuses his mother of having murdered his father some years before. Tantalising central tale,…
Drunken Master II (Legend of Drunken Master) (1994)
- Dir. Lau Kar Leung
Feat. Jackie Chan
- Jackie Chan gets comic mileage with the dubious idea that he can only tap into his martial art prowess while pissed as a newt. Jackie continues to…
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
- Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Sihung Lung, Yu-Wen Wang, Chien-lien Wu
- Those that attended Ang Lee's WEDDING BANQUET will want to sample his tasty and sensual comedy about the perennial delights of life – sex and…
Ermo (1994)
- Dir. Zhou Xiaowen
Feat. Liya Ai, Liu Peiqi
- A young woman yearns to acquire the largest colour tele in her village, largely as a bid in the popularity stakes. The Chinese flirt with materialism…
Fist of Legend (1994)
- Dir. Gordon Chan Kar-Seung
Feat. Jet Li
- Jet Li stars in an infinitely superior remake of Bruce Lee's FIST OF FURY. A showcase of the highest calibre martial arts choreography, but firmly…
From Beijing with Love (1994)
- Dir. Stephen Chow (Chiao)
Feat. Stephen Chow (Chiao), Anita Yuen
- Exceedingly funny James Bond spoof, perhaps the finest Hong Kong export since Jackie Chan.
Assigned to retrieve a national treasure from corrupt…
Future Cops (1994)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok
- Good dumb fun is the pure agenda of this kitsch, kinetic fantasy–comedy based on the popular ‘Streetfighter’ arcade game.
On the trail…
God of Gamblers Return (1994)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- Chow Yun–Fat returns as a charming poker player who enjoys the quiet life until a challenger kills his wife and begins to target his friends. …
Grosse Fatigue (1994)
- Dir. Michel Blanc
Feat. Michel Blanc, Carole Bouquet, Philippe Noiret…
- Popular comedian Michel Blanc gently bites the hand that feeds him in this irreverent farce in which the entire cast, including himself and the…
Heroic Trio 2 - Executioners (1994)
- Dir. Johnnie To, Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung…
- Downbeat sequel returns the trio of feisty femmes to combat the evil mega–corporation that taken a stranglehold on the world's…
Il Postino (Postman, The) (1994)
- Dir. Michael Radford
Feat. Massimo Troisi, Philippe Noiret
- The biggest international foreign language hit since LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE stars the late Massimo Troisi as a simple postie who learns the value…
Inspector Rex (TV Series) (1994-2004)
- Feat. Tobias Moretti
- Austrian TV series, with a sizable cult following around the world (especially in Australia), in which a lone policeman and his German Shepherd…
Kingdom, The (Riget) (1994)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, Kirsten Rolffes, Ghita Norby…
- A Danish medical soap opera from the director of BREAKING THE WAVES that's a bizarre yet compulsive combination of ghost story, TV drama and…
Like Two Crocodiles (1994)
- Dir. Giacomo Campiotti
Feat. Angela Baraldi, Fabrizzio Bentivoglio, Sandrine Dumas…
- Various step–brothers feud like crocodiles when their bigamist father is forced by circumstances to reconcile his unknowing progeny. Attractive…
Machine, La (1994)
- Dir. Francois Dupeyron
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye
- Gerard Depardieu goes into mad–doctor mode for this high–tech mind–transplant thriller, as a shrink/inventor whose fleeting…
Miracle Alley (Midaq Alley) (1994)
- Dir. Jorge Fons
Feat. Salma Hayek
- Miracle Alley is the setting for four pungent stories of urban lovelife among Mexico City residents. Strong pacing and local humour make this lengthy…
Nightwatch (1994)
- Dir. Ole Bornedal
Feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
- A student (Nikolaj Waldau) takes a job as nightwatchman in a morgue so he can swat for his exams, but is dragged into trouble by an unruly companion…
Pom Poko (1994)
- Dir. Isao Takahata
- A community of raccoon–like creatures called Tanuki battle to defend their forest community from encroaching human developers in another…
Queen Margot (La Reine Margot) (1994)
- Dir. Patrice Chereau
Feat. Isabelle Adjani, Vincent Perez, Virna Lisi…
- A bodice–ripping yarn of treachery and forbidden passions between warring Catholic and Protestant factions in late 1500s France. Isabelle…
Satantango (1994)
- Dir. Bela Tarr
Feat. Mihály Vig
- Daunting, one–of–a–kind event from Hungarian maestro Bela Tarr delves into seven formidable hours of East European malaise, where…
Separation, The (1994)
- Dir. Christian Vincent
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Daniel Auteuil
- Isabelle Huppert and Daniel Auteuil provide a class double–act for this moving, mature portrait of a middle–class Parisian couple who put…
Silences of the Palace (1994)
- Dir. Moufida Tlatli
Feat. Amel Hedhili, Hend Sabri, Najia Ouerghi…
- The daughter of a palatial servant reflects on her upbringing and steady revolt of her birthright obligations.
Impassioned look at the status of…
Six Days, Six Nights (1994)
- Dir. Diane Kurys
Feat. Anne Parillaud, Beatrice Dalle
- Favourite French fatales Anne Parillaud and Beatrice Dalle brood into Polanski territory, finding sibling and sexual rivialry, and possibly madness…
Story of Xinghua (1994)
- Dir. Yin Li
Feat. Wen Jiang, Xingli Niu, Shaojun Tian…
- Set in a remote village at the ruins of the Great Wall in Northern China, this explores the conflict between moral corruption, ancient traditions and…
Strawberry and Chocolate (Fresa y Chocolate) (1994)
- Dir. Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Juan Carlos Tabio
Feat. Jorge Perugorria, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra
- Oscar–nominated for Best Foreign Film 1995, a red–blooded conservative is befriended by a gay communist who challenges his prejudices.…
Three Colours: Red (1994)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Irene Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Julie Delpy
- A haunting conclusion to the acclaimed trilogy and the career of its late director. Irene Jacob plays a fashion model who becomes oddly connected…
Three Colours: White (1994)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy
- The second in Kieslowski's trilogy is a lighter affair than BLUE but is no less exquisite or deeply philosophical. Embroided with more plot, its…
Through the Olive Trees (1994)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Feat. Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Farhad Keradmand, Zerifeh Shiva
- An extreme simplicity of style and storytelling disguises complex meditations on human nature and cinema in a typically distinctive film –…
To Live (1994)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Gong Li
- An absorbing tale of Chinese peasantry in the dark shadow of politics over three decades.
Distinguished by the star presence of Gong Li and her…
Torment (L'Enfer) (1994)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Francois Cluzet
- Based on an unproduced H.R. Clouzot screenplay from the 1950s, and not quite up to the standard of its follow–up, A JUDGEMENT IN STONE, but a…
Treasure Hunt (1994)
- Dir. Ricky Lau
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- CIA operative Chow Yun–Fat falls in love while on secret assignment at mainland Shaolin monastery. Bubble–headed romance with some action…
Wing Chun (1994)
- Dir. Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen
- Martial–arts star Michelle Yeoh lends some charisma to a cotton–sugar tale of remote villagers plagued by robbers. In the title role Yeoh…
Yvonne's Perfume (1994)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Jean-Pierre Marielle, Hippolyte Girardot, Sandra Majani
- A deserter from the Algerian war falls for the charms of a beautiful actress and her gay companion at a lakeside hotel for pensioners. The director…
A Crime (Un Crime) (1993)
- Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Alain Delon
- Vintage courtroom vehicle for the ice cool Delon, sturdy in its workmanlike screenplay and no–nonsense attitude.
Accion Mutante (1993)
- Dir. Alex de la Iglesia
Feat. Antonio Resines, Alex Angulo
- A deformed terrorist group strike out against pretty society in this wildly irreverent satire that takes a gleeful turn into futuristic…
Bandit Queen (1993)
- Dir. Shekhar Kapur
Feat. Seema Biswas
- Far and away from the innocuous fluff that dominates India's film industry, comes this bold, controversial true story of Phoolan Devi, a notorious…
Barefoot Kid, The (1993)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Aaron Kwok
- Rites–of–passage, chop–socky style with lithe HK supernova Aaron Kwok as the eponymous hero whose inititation into manhood is…
Blue Kite, The (1993)
- Dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang
Feat. Tian Yi, Wenyao Zhang, Xiaoman Chen
- Emotive and honest account of the realities of daily life under chairman Mao's regime as witnessed by one Beijing family from the 1950s through…
Bride With White Hair 2, The (Bai fa mo nu zhuan II) (1993)
- Dir. Ronnie Yu, David Wu
Feat. Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung, Christy Chung
- Above–average sequel to the martial arts blockbuster continuing on directly from its cliffhanger ending, with the viciously insane Lin, now…
Butterfly and Sword (1993)
- Dir. Michael Mak
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Michelle Yeoh, Joey Wong…
- Raucous, fast–paced martial arts fantasy boasts a top–flight cast and some of the most ludicrous action sequences of the 90s. Michelle…
Crime Story (1993)
- Dir. Kirk Wong
Feat. Jackie Chan
- A serious Jackie Chan movie for which he even nabbed a HK oscar! Based on a true story involving police corruption and a kidnapping ring, the…
Daens (1993)
- Dir. Stijn Coninx
Feat. Jan Decleir, Gerard Desarthe, Antje De Boeck
- Earnest historical epic concerns labour relations in 19th Century Europe and follows one man's struggle to lead a revolt against the village elite.…
Darkness in Tallinn (1993)
- Dir. Ilka Jarvilaturi
Feat. Elina Aasa, Milena Gulbe, Juri Jarvet
- In liberated Estonia, gangsters plan the elaborate ambush of gold bullion being restored from a Paris vault. A humble electrician has the pivotal job…
Especially On a Sunday (1993)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Marco Tul
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Patricia Arquette, Nicoletta Braschi…
- Three stories of love and loss from the pen of Tonino Guerra brought to screen life by three directing talents. Sublime fare in the finest European…
Faraway, So Close (1993)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz, Nastassja Kinski
- WINGS OF DESIRE sequel is again about an angel who finds himself sucked back into humanity. This discusses politics and philosophy more directly than…
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Gong Li, Leslie Cheung
- Lavish, episodic journey through 20th Century Chinese history, encompassing more revolutions than a 45. Joint winner of the Palm D'Or at Cannes is…
Fencing Master, The (1993)
- Dir. Pedro Olea
Feat. Omero Antonutti, Assumpta Serna, Joaquim De Almeida
- Opulent tale of lust and betrayal in politically turbulent turn–of–the–century Spain. A middle–aged celibate fencing teacher…
Germinal (1993)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Renaud , Gerard Depardieu, Miou-Miou…
- The director of the JEAN DE FLORETTE films reunites with Gerard Depardieu for this epic recreation of the French coal–miners strike during the…
Heroic Trio (1993)
- Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh
- An invisible criminal is stealing babies for a sewer–dwelling villain and it's up to three dazzling super–chicks. Hugely entertaining…
I Don't Kiss (J'embrasse Pas) (1993)
- Dir. Andre Techine
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Philippe Noiret
- A 19–year old breaks away from his sheltered rural life and drifts into the seedy world of Parisian streetlife where he falls in love with…
I Don't Want to Talk About It (1993)
- Dir. Maria Luisa Bemberg
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Luisina Brando, Alejandra Podesta
- The mother of a dwarf sets about removing all references in her town to dwarfism in order to protect her daughter from prejudice. Things complicate…
Iron Monkey (Siunin Wong Fei-hung tsi titmalau) (1993)
- Dir. Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Donnie Yen
- Enjoyably charged with wacky humour, this fairly traditional Hong Kong slambam concerns a doctor and his daughter who must track down a notorious…
Jamon Jamon (1993)
- Dir. Bigas Luna
Feat. Stefania Sandrelli, Anna Galiena, Juan Diego…
- Brazen mix of absurd humour, outrageous melodrama and body fluid, though with all the excitement to be had during the puffing and panting, the climax…
Kika (1993)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Veronica Forque, Peter Coyote, Victoria Abril
- A make–up artist juggles the dubious attentions of a porn stud, a philandering crime writer, and a trash TV journo. The perils of media…
Kung Fu Cult Master (1993)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Chingmy Yau
- Extraordinarily over–the–top martial arts epic in which Jet Li procures invincible powers while negotiating the restless hordes from…
La Scorta (1993)
- Dir. Rick Tognazzi
Feat. Ennio Morricone
- Bold dramatic thriller draws from real events surrounding the indictment of Mafia collaborators with the focus on the four bodyguards of a maverick…
Legend 2, The (1993)
- Dir. Corey Yuen
Feat. Jet Li, Michelle Reis
- Jet Li returns as the hero 'Fong Sai Yuk', battling the oppressive ruling Chinese government in the ranks of the subversive Red Flower Society. With…
Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, The (1993)
- Dir. Yuen Kwai
Feat. Jet Li
- Hilarious and oddly satisfying mixture of character, comedy, drama, incredible action, and high camp tragedy! Jet Li stars in one of the best HK…
Les Visiteurs (Visitors, The) (1993)
- Dir. Jean-Marie Poire
Feat. Jean Reno, Christian Clavier
- Beleaguered, not to mention slobbish, medieval knights Jean Reno and Christian Clavier are plonked down is present–day Paris to duel over…
Like Water for Chocolate (1993)
- Dir. Alfonso Arau
Feat. Marco Leonardi, Lumi Cavazos, Regina Torne
- Certifiable foreign–language block–buster blends the irresisistible ingrediants of primal female desire with old–fashioned…
Maadadayo (Madadayo) (1993)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyoko Kagawa
- A masterful, understated last word from Japanese sensei Kurosawa, here paying tribute to an inspiration from his own life with the story of a retired…
Moon Warriors (1993)
- Dir. Sammo Hung
Feat. Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui
- Flashy feudal martial arts adventure features the high kicks of Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui, in a battle of noble siblings to regain the…
My Favourite Season (Ma Saison Préférée) (1993)
- Dir. Andre Techine
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Marthe Villalonga
- Involving French character drama, which observes the cracks in a woman's family dynamic when her elderly mother must move in with her due to poor…
Oh, Woe is Me (Helas Pour Moi) (1993)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Gerard Depardieu
- Gerard Depardieu is the most accessible thing on offer in Godard's latest enigma, a film that's controlling idea is perhaps 'the desire of a God to…
Once Upon a Time in China 3 (1993)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan
- Jet Li must quash a Russian plot to murder the ruling eunuch, fight a band of gangsters, and find a way to propose to Rosamund Kwan. Predictable yet…
Palms (Ladoni) (1993)
- Dir. Artour Aristakisian
- Examining the plight of Moscow’s homeless and adrift, dir. Aristakisyan’s jarring, but resolute formalism (unfussy 16mm black and white footage…
Puppetmaster, The (1993)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Li Tianlu
- The turbulent pre–WWII history of Taiwan is woven into this epic yet simple docu–drama of the early years of famous puppeteer Li Tianlu,…
Red Squirrel (La Ardilla Roja) (1993)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Emma Suarez, Nancho Novo
- On the cusp of suicide, a young man befriends the amnesiac victim of a motorcycle accident. Under a shroud of deceit, the couple 'renew' their…
Scent of Green Papaya, The (1993)
- Dir. Tran Anh Hung
Feat. Tran Nu Yen-Khe, Man San Lu, Thi Loc Truong…
- Drama as crisp and luxuriant as its title observes a wealthy Saigon family over two turbulent decades through the eyes of a peasant servant girl. Its…
Sex and Zen (1993)
- Dir. Michael Mak
Feat. Lawrence Ng, Kent Cheng, Xu Jin-Jang
- Part comic fantasy, part porno movie, and though an imaginative example of both genres, the balancing act is a hard one to pull off (fnarr, fnarr).…
Shadow of Doubt, A (1993)
- Dir. Aline Issermann
Feat. Mireille Perrier, Alain Bashung, Sandrine Blancke
- A painfully credible exploration of how a father's alleged crime against his young daughter affects a middle class family. Well researched and…
Slingshot, The (1993)
- Dir. Ake Sandgren
Feat. Jesper Salen, Stellan Skarsgard, Basia Frydman
- A bittersweet snapshot of pre–war Stockholm in which an enterprising 10–year–old flirts with boyhood rebellion. This local…
Sofie (1993)
- Dir. Liv Ulmann
Feat. Liv Ullmann
- Actress Liv Ullmann makes a confident directing debut with this period drama about a Jewish woman's emotional journey over 20 years that begins with…
Sonatine (1993)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Ayo Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe
- Those familiar with 'Beat' Takeshi's films will know what to expect from this latest elegy to gangster violence. His personal demons manifest in…
Sumo Do, Sumo Don't (1993)
- Dir. Masayuki Suo
Feat. Masahiro Motoki, Misa Shimizu, Naoto Takenaka
- Unabashed low–brow comedy about a gang of misfits who tussle it out in a Tokyo University wrestling ring, which also serves as the circle in…
Tai Chi Master, The (1993)
- Dir. Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh
- Jet Li ascends to be the founder of the Chinese art of self–defence and healing known as Tai Chi Chuan, but not before crossing blades with,…
Tango (1993)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Thierry Lhermitte, Philippe Noiret, Richard Bohringer
- Left by his wife, Thierry Lhermitte hits the road to track her down with the help of his misogynist uncle, Phillippe Noiret. Hitman Richard Bohringer…
Temptation of a Monk (1993)
- Dir. Clara Law
Feat. Joan Chen, Zhang Fenyi
- Graphic chronicle of blood–letting by a fierce warrior general in 7th century China, that hews to the visual traditions of the classic Japanese…
Three Colours: Blue (1993)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Benoit Regent, Emmanuelle Riva…
- Immaculate, introspective meditation on grief, redemption and liberty, Kieslowski's masterpiece borders on the pretentious. This redefines ART…
Untold Story, The (1993)
- Dir. Herman Yau
Feat. Danny Lee, Anthony Wong
- Outrageous gross–out thriller that may put you off Chinese food for life – based on the "Eight Immortals Restaurant murders" that took…
Wedding Banquet, The (1993)
- Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Dion Birney, Jeanne Kuo Chang, Winston Chao…
- A simple white lie gets way out of hand for a gay Chinese–New Yorker when his excited parents fly in from Taiwan to celebrate his 'straight'…
Window to Paris (1993)
- Dir. Yuri Mamin
Feat. Agnes Soral
- A constantly inventive comic fantasy about a group of luckless Russkies who find they can enter gay Paris from a window in their appalling St.…
Accidental Golfer, The (1992)
- Dir. Lasse Aberg
Feat. Lasse Aberg, Jon Skolmen, Mats Bergman
- A redundant factory worker becomes the object of an expensive golfing wager between a millionaire and his mistress. Big Scandanavian hit comes dubbed…
Accompanist, The (1992)
- Dir. Claude Miller
Feat. Richard Bohringer, Romane Bohringer
- A humble pianist is hired to accompany a wealthy soprano in occupied France, but their partnership becomes fraught with rivalry and…
Benny's Video (1992)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Arno Frisch, Ulrich Muhe
- This middle installment in Michael Haneke’s ‘Glaciation Trilogy’ considers under a familiar milieu of urban dread the effects of mediated…
Best Intentions (1992)
- Dir. Bille August
Feat. Samuel Froler, Pernilla August, Max von Sydow…
- Sincere, meticulous yet characteristically bleak adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's biographical account of his parents' turbulent courtship and…
Bride with White Hair (1992)
- Dir. Ronnie Yu
Feat. Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin
- In a remote China of superstition and legend, vicious clan skirmishes result in an eye–popping frenzy of acrobatic martial arts. Resplendent…
Conte D'hiver (A Winter's Tale) (1992)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Charlotte Very, Frederic Van Den Driessche
- A whirlwind romance ends abruptly for a young woman when she accidentally gives her lover a wrong address. Four years pass and she remains possessed…
Cronos (1992)
- Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Feat. Frederico Luppi, Ron Perlman
- Elderly antique dealer Federico Luppi discovers the ancient (and sought–after) 'Cronos' device, which has the power to give eternal life, but…
Dark at Noon (1992)
- Dir. Raul Ruiz
Feat. John Hurt, David Warner
- John Hurt and David Warner join in the spirit of this bizarre fancy from exiled Chilean director Ruiz. Set in a Portugese village where anything…
Dear Diary (Caro Diario) (1992)
- Dir. Nanni Moretti
Feat. Nanni Moretti
- Often hilarious and inspiring film travelogue follows the endearing Nanni Moretti's personal experiences over 18 months. Over three chapters, he…
Delicatessen (1992)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro
Feat. Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Karin Viard…
- Two former Ad–men splash down with an audacious, darkly comic masterpiece set in a vegetarianist, post–apocalyptic future. Consumed with…
Discrete, La (1992)
- Dir. Christian Vincent
Feat. Fabrice Luchini, Judith Henry, Maurice Garrel…
- Things don't go to plan for a philandering writer who refuses to commit emotionally. A literary yet accessible essay on sexual game–playing,…
Dragon Inn (New Dragon Gate Inn) (1992)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung (Kar-fai)…
- Gory Ming Dynasty–set epic in which forces of good and evil clash swords over the fate of feudal China. An extravagant climax, featuring…
El Mariachi (1992)
- Dir. Robert Rodriguez
Feat. Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gomez
- A cause celebre of low–budget film–making, this $7000 Tex–Mex wonder about a guitar–player mistaken for a gangster contains…
Fiorile (1992)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Feat. Claudio Bigagli, Galatea Ranzi, Michael Vartan
- The brothers' Taviani spin three torrid tales of hot–blooded Italians at love and war, recounted by a father to his children about family myths…
Flight of the Innocent (1992)
- Dir. Carlo Carlei
Feat. Manuel Colao, Federico Pacifici, Sal Borgese
- A swirling steady–cam follows the chase of a young boy across Northern Italy after his family are slaughtered by a kidnapping ring. Thriller is…
Full Contact (1992)
- Dir. Ringo Lam
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- Chow Yun–Fat rescues his friend from a loan shark, but the friend leaves him for dead in a botched robbery and takes off with his girlfriend. A…
Hard-Boiled (1992)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Anthony Wong
- An action film to end all action films, John Woo's technical command of the genre reaches its peak with this ballistic ballet in which Chow…
House of Angels (1992)
- Dir. Colin Nutley
Feat. Helena Bergstrom, Rikard Wolff, Sven Wollter
- Two Harley–riding city slickers descend on a country village and obliviously stir up a hornet's nest among the townfolk. Old–fashioned,…
In the Land of the Deaf (Le Pays des sourds) (1992)
- Dir. Nicolas Philibert
- The extraordinary debut of dir. Philibert (ETRE ET AVOIR) giving unrushed insight into the deaf community in France. Recounting their stories and…
Indochine (1992)
- Dir. Regis Wargnier
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, Linh Dan Pham…
- Oscar–winning Foreign Film of 1993 set during the Inochinese revolution of 1930. Catherine Deneuvre plays a French landowner coming to terms…
Ip5 (1992)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Yves Montand, Olivier Martinez, Sotigui Kouyate…
- Beineix's visual flair props up this slight story of a graffiti artist and his young pal who journey in search of escape and/or love. They meet an…
Johnny Stecchino (1992)
- Dir. Roberto Benigni
Feat. Roberto Benigni
- Celebrated comedian Roberto Benigni, also co–writes and directs this tale of a meek bus–driver mistaken for a notorious gangster. The…
L627 (1992)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Didier Bezace, Jean-Paul Comart
- A sharp, unsentimental depiction of the daily grind that a Paris drugs–squad detective must endure, contending with dealers, addicts and…
La Crise (1992)
- Dir. Coline Serreau
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Patrick Timsit, Zabou
- Another smart comedy of crises from the comedienne director of THREE MEN AND A CRADLE and ROMUALD ET JULIETTE.
A high–powered corporate…
La Reine Blanche (1992)
- Dir. Jean-Loup Hubert
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Richard Bohringer
- The return of a childhood friend to his home fishing village has fateful consequences for a long–married couple.
La Sentinelle (The Sentinel) (1992)
- Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Feat. Emmanuel Salinger, Thibault de Montalembert, Jean-Louis Richard…
- French chiller from director Arnaud Desplechin (A CHRISTMAS TALE) about a forensic medicine student who finds himself mysteriously in possession of a…
La Vie De Boheme (1992)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Matti Pellonpaa, Evelyne Didi, Andre Wilms
- An achingly deadpan treatment of the book that served as the basis for Puccini's opera. Ironically romantic portrait of deadbeat, impoverished…
Leolo (1992)
- Dir. Jean-Claude Lauzon
Feat. Maxime Collin, Ginette Reno, Julien Guiomar
- A rites–of–passage drama seen through a warped looking–glass, the story of ten–year–old Leolo is a blackly humorous…
Lolo (1992)
- Dir. Francisco Athie
Feat. Damian Alcazar, Lorena Caballero, Alonso Echanove
- An unflinching portrait of an urban Mexican slum in which a 17–year–old's pursuit of happiness is shattered when a petty crime leads to…
Mima (1992)
- Dir. Philomene Esposito
Feat. Nino Manfredi, Margarita Lozano, Virginie Ledoyen
- The first–time director captures the nuance and feeling of her own experience as a young girl who witnesses the mysterious disappearance of her…
Naked Killer (1992)
- Dir. Clarence Fok-Yiu
Feat. Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam, Carrie Ng
- Sex and violence potently combust in a tale of nubile assassins and a love–struck, traumatised cop. The plot may typically wander but it…
Oak, The (Balanta) (1992)
- Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Maia Morgenstern, Razvan Vasilescu, Victor Rebengiuc
- Provocative director Pintilie strikes the perfect balance of surreal comedy and powerful realism as he examines the progressive disillusionment of a…
Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Jet Li, Donnie Yen
- Comic emphasis is given to the continuing adventures of a traditional martial artiste in late 1900s. Escapist elements are graced with fine…
Ox, The (1992)
- Dir. Sven Nykvist
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Ewa Froling, Lennart Hjulstrom
- During the famine years of Sweden in the 1860s, a peasant family slaughter their employer's ox, then reap the consequences. Directed by Ingmar…
Police Story 3 (Supercop) (1992)
- Dir. Stanley Tong
Feat. Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh
- Jackie Chan returns as death–defying maverick cop Ka Kui, while Michelle Yeoh offers some savvy sidekick. From the director of Jackie's first…
Savage Nights (1992)
- Dir. Cyril Collard
Feat. Cyril Collard, Romane Bohringer, Carlos Lopez…
- A audaciously frank and romantic tale of the life, love and passions of its bisexual director and star, who died of AIDS and was posthumously…
Saviour of the Soul (1992)
- Dir. David Lai
Feat. Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok
- Breathtaking camerawork and special effects combine with hallucinatory plotting as two city–dwelling mercenaries do battle with the silver fox,…
Schtonk! (1992)
- Dir. Helmut Dietl
- Following the broad outlines of the 1983 'Hitler diaries' case, in which a forgery of the Fuhrer's scatological jottings was 'discovered', this…
Stalingrad (1992)
- Dir. Joseph Vilsmaier
Feat. Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel
- Superlative evocation of WW2 tragedy from a German perspective. A unit of soldiers are posted to the front line in the merciless Russian winter to…
Station, The (1992)
- Dir. Sergio Rubini
Feat. Sergio Rubini, Margherita Buy, Ennio Fantastichini
- Beguiling film about a disillusioned society woman who becomes drawn to a humble station–master while waiting for the first available train.
Stolen Children, The (1992)
- Dir. Gianni Amelio
Feat. Enrico Lo Verso, Valentina Scalici, Giuseppe Ieracitano
- Two kids are reluctantly escorted from Milan to Palermo after they are refused asylum at an orphanage. A warts–and–all, portrait of…
Story of Qiu Ju, The (1992)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Gong Li
- Docu–drama about a peasant wife's determined fight for her justice after her husband is assaulted. An insight into modern China is glimpsed…
Vacas (Cows) (1992)
- Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Emma Suarez, Ana Torrent, Karra Elejalde…
- Debut film of dir. Julio Medem follows in vivid, swift fashion the growing connections between two Basque families over the decades between the…
Vita Cane (Life's a Bitch aka Vita da Cane) (1992)
- Dir. Carlo Liconti
- An Italian hairdresser plays loverboy with a bevy of clients, but things snowhall hilariously when, to everyone's dismay, he falls in strictly…
Warszawa (1992)
- Dir. Janusz Kijowski
Feat. Julie Delpy, Lambert Wilson, Hanna Schygulla
- Tense and original drama has a young Jewish couple (Lambert and Delpy) escaping the Warsaw massacre in 1943, by hiding with an older woman…
Wild Target (1992)
- Dir. Pierre Salvadori
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Guillaume Depardieu
- Jean Rochefort is a fastidious hitman whose mania for control, both at home and on assignment, is dangerously weakened when he apprentices Gerard…
A Heart in Winter (Un Coeur en Hiver) (1991)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Andre Dussollier
- Impeccable romantic tragedy examines a love triangle between a virtuoso violinist, her violin–making boyfriend and his emotionally crippled…
Amants Du Pont Neuf, Les (1991)
- Dir. Leos Carax
Feat. Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant
- Extravagant production breathes fire into this unusual epic love story of two young Paris street punks. Through the ebbs and the flows, Carax adjusts…
Autobus (1991)
- Dir. Eric Rochant
Feat. Yvan Attal, Kristin Scott Thomas
- A desperate, attention–seeking young man (Yvan Attal – superb) hijacks a school bus, taking its two adults and little passengers hostage.…
Black Cat (1991)
- Dir. Dickson Poon
Feat. Jade Leung
- The Hong Kong industry could not resist a crack at French action fave Nikita, the foxy misfit trained as an assassin for the secret service. A…
Brighter Summer Day, A (1991)
- Dir. Edward Yang
Feat. Chen Chang
- Sublime ode to adolescence set in early 1960's Taiwan, Edward Yang's sprawling, novelistic narrative reflects the personal and political turmoil of…
Centre Stage (Actress) (1991)
- Dir. Stanley Kwan
Feat. Maggie Cheung
- Maggie Cheung won the Silver Bear in Berlin for her moving portrayal of Ruan Lingyu, a '30s Chinese matinee idol who committed suicide at age 25. A…
Chinese Ghost Story 3 (1991)
- Dir. Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Joey Wong, Jacky Cheung
- Spirited retread of the first movie, in which the evil Tree Spirit is back with yet another ghost played by Joey Wong.
It takes place 100 years…
Conte De Printemps (A Tale of Springtime) (1991)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Anne Teyssedre, Hugues Quester, Florence Darel…
- The first of the director's 'Tales of Four Seasons', as invigorating as its Springtime theme. Complex relationships are woven from the meeting of two…
Danzon (1991)
- Dir. Maria Novaro
Feat. Maria Rojo
- Lovely film about a phone operator and mother in Mexico City enthralled by the popular Cuban dance, known as "danzon". When her regular dance partner…
Days of Being Wild (1991)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Leslie Cheung
- An excellent example of the other side of Hong Kong movie–making. Set in 1960, Leslie Cheung plays a disillusioned, spoiled youth who…
Double Life of Veronique (1991)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Irene Jacob
- An incandescent meditation on the lives of two identical young women – one Polish, one French – both played by Irene Jacob (RED). A…
Erotic Ghost Story 2 (1991)
- Dir. Lam Ngai Kai
Feat. Charine Chan, King-Man Chik, Yiu-Wah Kwok
- Sequel mixes up similar ingredients, but story is unrelated to the first.
Europa, Europa (1991)
- Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Feat. Marco Hofschneider, Salomon Perel, Rene Hofschneider
- A riveting account of the real–life ordeal experienced by German Jew Soloman Perel, who concealed his ethnicity for seven years when drafted…
Great Day On the Beach (1991)
- Dir. Stellan Olssen
Feat. Erik Clausen, Nina Gunke, Benjamin Rothenborg
- A family day at a seaside resort enlightens a six–year–old boy with grand illusions of his extrovert father. A comic, perceptive view of…
Hairdresser's Husband, The (1991)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Anna Galiena
- Everything you may love or loathe about French movies is taken to an (intentional?) extreme in this whimsical venture into the one–track mind…
Herman (1991)
- Dir. Erik Gustavson
Feat. Anders Danielsen Lie, Elisabeth Sand, Bjorn Floberg
- A gentle, wry tale of a boy who finds his hair is falling out at the ripe old age of 11 but, instead of wallowing in puberty blues, chooses to turn…
High Heels (1991)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Victoria Abril
- Victoria Abril finds herself accused of murder while trying to fill the 'high heels' of her glamourous celebrity mum. At once ludicrous and enjoyable.
Highway Patrolman (1991)
- Dir. Alex Cox
Feat. Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir, Vanessa Bauche
- A wayward film–maker returns to form in using road–movie conventions to enrich this tale of poverty, drugs, prostitution and rampant…
Hors La Vie (Life on Hold) (1991)
- Dir. Maroun Bagdadi
Feat. Hippolyte Girardot, Rafic Ali Ahmad, Nidal Ashkov…
- A fictionalised depiction of a freelance photographer's ten months in Shi'ite custody. Charged with political anger but unsensationalist and…
How to Be a Woman and Not Die in the Attempt (1991)
- Dir. Ana Belen
Feat. Carmen Maura, Antonio Resines
- Carmen Maura, the morning–star of many an early Almodovar film, enlivens this slight–ish, breezy comedy of domestic meltdown, having to…
Indecent Woman, The (1991)
- Dir. Ben Verbong
Feat. Jose Way, Coen Van Vrijberghe de Coningh, Huub Stapel
- A married violinist is drawn into a no–holds–barred relationship with a mystery man. A decent erotic parable that perceptively explores…
Jacquot De Nantes (1991)
- Dir. Agnes Varda
Feat. Philippe Maron, Edouard Joubeaud, Laurent Monnier
- Beautifully–crafted, affectionate tribute to the director's late husband, the film–maker Jacques Demy (UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, LOLA).…
Journey of Hope (1991)
- Dir. Xavier Koller
Feat. Necmettin Cobanoglu, Emin Sivas, Yaman Okay
- Powerful but heart–breaking drama about an exiled Turkish family who trek through the Swiss alps in a desperate bid for a new homeland. Upset…
La Belle Noiseuse (1991)
- Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Michel Piccoli, Emmanuelle Beart
- Rivette's four–hour portrait of an artist as an old man explores the process and politics of a retired artist painting a nude model. Subtle,…
Life On a String (1991)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Zhongyuan Liu, Lei Huang, Qing Xu
- A richly poetic chronicle of a blind man who devotes himself to music. Like the director's subsequent FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE, some messages may be…
Lovers (1991)
- Dir. Vincente Aranda
Feat. Victoria Abril
- Almodovar–regular Victoria Abril brings her sultry star presence to this smouldering tale of illicit lovers who conspire to a horrendous crime…
Madame Bovary (1991)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Francois Balmer, Christophe Malavoy…
- Chabrol remains faithful to the text of this oft–filmed classic of French literature, with Isabelle Huppert bringing a glacial refinement to…
Mediterraneo (1991)
- Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Claudio Bigagli, Diego Abatanthono, Giuseppe Cederna
- Oscar–winning tale of eight Italian soldiers who find themselves stranded on a remote Greek isle during WW2. An affecting and surprising…
Merci La Vie (1991)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Anouk Grinberg
- Two young girls bond on a magical, mysterious tour played out against shifts in time, from the present to Occupied France. The audacious mix of ideas…
Mon Pere Ce Heros (1991)
- Dir. Gerard Lauzier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu
- Gerard Depardieu is the adoring roly–poly father of a pubescent daughter whose emerging hormones prompt her to proclaim dad as her lover on a…
Olivier Olivier (1991)
- Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Brigitte Rouan, Gregoire Colin
- After disappearing from his country home six years earlier, a boy's mysterious return brings with it a mix of salvation and suspicion to his…
Once a Thief (1991)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung, Kenneth Tsang
- Whimsical actioner combines directorial flair with the charisma of Chow Yun–Fat. He leads an elite team of art thieves who encounter the…
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Jet Li, Biao Yuen, Rosamund Kwan
- Extravagent epic about legendary Chinese martial artiste and conqueror, Wong Fei Hung. Beautifully filmed spectacle, punctuated with exciting combat…
Quince Tree Sun, The (1991)
- Dir. Victor Erice
Feat. Antonio Garcia
- Quietly–paced, fascinating semi–documentary about Spanish painter Antonio Garcia and his attempts to capture the effects of light falling…
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Gong Li
- Gong Li is unforgettable as an educated woman who bitterly serves as the fourth arranged wife of a feudal nobleman. A magnificent tragedy, enriched…
Rhapsody in August (1991)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Sachiko Murase, Richard Gere
- A Japanese grandmother shares painful memories of Nagasaki with her four grandchildren who travel to meet extended kin–folk in Hawaii.
Dir.…
Ripoux Contre Ripoux (1991)
- Dir. Claude Zidi
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Thierry Lhermitte, Guy Marchand
- Sequel to LES RIPOUX reunites the odd couple of petty corrupt cops for another comic round of mischevious errors.
Robotrix (1991)
- Dir. Luk Kim Ming
Feat. Amy Yip
- A scientist's discovery that the mind of a dying person can be transferred to a robot leads to perversion.
Controversial sci–fi/exploitation…
Scene at the Sea, A (1991)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Kuroudo Maki, Hiroko Oshima, Sabu Kawahara…
- One from dir. Kitano’s (HANA–BI) quieter side, this fable of deaf–mute garbageman’s obsession with surfing is deceptively minimal,…
Story of Ricky (Riki-Oh aka Lai Wong) (1991)
- Dir. Nam Nai-Choi
Feat. Fan Siu-wong
- Hong Kong cult sensation that comedically stir–fries prison ultra–violence with Western–style splatter.
Rib–cracking,…
Stranger, The (1991)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Deepankar Dey, Mamata Shankar
- An absorbing domestic parable from revered film–maker Satyajit Ray, whose last film here explores familial bonds when a long–lost…
Tatie Danielle (1991)
- Dir. Etienne Chatiliez
Feat. Tsilla Chelton, Catherine Jacob, Isabelle Nanty…
- Brilliantly absurd black comedy about an elderly widow who does her best to make life miserable for her relatives. Tsilla Chelton is irresistible as…
Tous Les Matins Du Monde (All the Mornings of the World) (1991)
- Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Jean-Pierre Marielle, Gerard Depardieu, Anne Brochet…
- Gerard Depardieu duets with real–life son Guillaume in this romantic tale of love, betrayal and classical music in the 17th Century. Exquisite…
Van Gogh (1991)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Jacques Dutronc
- The ultra–naturalistic style of Maurice Pialat may not seem the best choice for a costume drama about probably the most–often filmed…
Volere Volare (1991)
- Dir. Maurizio Nichetti
Feat. Maurizio Nichetti
- From the director of THE ICICLE THIEF comes another enjoyable comic fantasy inter–relating real and fictional worlds. Nichetti himself plays a…
Zentropa (Europa) (1991)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier…
- A multi–lingual visual essay from upstart director Von Trier, who unfolds his story of post–war European unease through metaphor and a…
Ages of Lulu, The (1990)
- Dir. Bigas Luna
Feat. Francesca Neri, María Barranco, Javier Bardem…
- Spanish erotic drama depicting the sexual explorations of a young woman as she descends into the dangerous and kinky underworld of Madrid –…
Ay Carmela (1990)
- Dir. Carlos Saura
Feat. Carmen Maura
- Matriarchal siren Carmen Maura leads a vaudeville troupe to the other side of enemy lines during the Spanish Civil War – where they are forced…
Boiling Point (3-4x10) (1990)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano
- Director 'Beat' Takeshi captures the relentlessly simmering tensions between yakuza factions mainly focusing on a docile gas station attendant and a…
Bullet in the Head (1990)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Jacky Cheung, Waise Lee
- John Woo's indictment of war as raw and visceral as its title. Three friends flee Hong Kong and find themselves knee deep in the corruption and…
C'est La Vie (1990)
- Dir. Diane Kurys
Feat. Nathalie Baye, Richard Berry
- Another twee autobiographical snapshot, set at a French holiday resort in a late–'50s summer. A teenager's coming of age is marked by the…
Chinese Ghost Story 2 (1990)
- Dir. Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, Jacky Cheung
- The original cast return for another surreal, big–budget fantasy that delivers as much as the first one, with more of a comedic slant.
This…
Cinema Paradiso (1990)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Antonella Attili, Enzo Cannavale, Isa Danieli…
- Enchanting, achingly sweet film in which young Toto falls into a lifelong adoration of movies at the village theatre and its grumpy old…
Close to Eden (Urga) (1990)
- Dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
Feat. Badema , Bayaertu , Vladimir Gostyukhin
- The vanishing ancient culture of Mongolia is offered spellbinding yet humourous insight through a herdsman's family whose simple life is threatened…
Close-Up (1990)
- Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Feat. Hossain Sabzian, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
- A uniquely–devised work intermingling life and art, documentary and fiction, born of a real life incident in which an unemployed film buff is…
Cup Final (1990)
- Dir. Eran Riklis
Feat. Moshe Ivgy, Mohamed Bakri, Salim Dau
- An engaging Israeli film about a soccer player whose dreams of representing his country at the World Cup in Spain are shattered by war. He is…
Cyrano De Bergerac (1990)
- Dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez…
- Rostand's classic play filmed in its native tongue, with the man born to play the poet with the outsized hooter, Gerard Depardieu. Little expense has…
Doctor Petiot (1990)
- Dir. Christian De Chalonge
Feat. Michel Serrault, Pierre Romans, Berangere Bonvoisin
- A dark, expressionistic account of a depraved physician who, in occupied Paris, used his practise to facilitate emigration for hopeful Jews, only to…
Elegant Criminel, L' (1990)
- Dir. Francis Girod
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Jean Poiret, Jaques Weber
- Daniel Auteuil stars in this irreverent and witty biography of suave petty thief and condemned killer Pierre Lacenaire, whose brief flame burned…
Elementary School, The (1990)
- Dir. Jan Sverak
Feat. Jan Triska, Zdenek Sverak, Libuse Safrankova
- Sly comedy in which a class of badly behaved Czech schoolboys drive away their timid teacher and learn to love her uniformed, baton–weilding…
Erotic Ghost Story (1990)
- Dir. Lam Ngai Kai
Feat. Amy Yip
- Buxom starlet Amy Yip lets it all hang out with other 'foxes' in this Eastern spin on the WITCHES OF EASTWICK. Generous nudity and dry ice steam up…
Everybody's Fine (Stanno Tutti Bene) (1990)
- Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni
- Marcello Mastroianni plays a fiercely proud but distanced father who embarks unwittingly on a voyage of discovery when he sets out on a surprise…
God of Gamblers (1990)
- Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- Chow Yun–Fat plays a gambling king who is de–throned by amnesia, then embraced by a petty hustler who discovers he can trigger his memory…
Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg (1990)
- Dir. Kjell Grede
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Karoly Eperjes
- Swedish WWII film starring Stellan Skarsgard as Raoul Wallenberg, a businessman who saved over 60000 Hungarian Jews by helping them to acquire…
Holy Virgin vs. the Evil Dead (1990)
- Dir. Chun-Yeung Wong
Feat. Sonny Chang, Kathy Chow, Hei Man Chui
- In taking advantage of the relaxation of some Asian countries regarding nudity, this comic horror mixes erotic fantasy into a tale of a wimpish…
Ju Dou (1990)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Gong Li
- Immaculately composed fable about a village girl who conducts an illicit affair with the nephew of the bitter factory owner she has been forced to…
Kid from Tibet, A (1990)
- Dir. Yuen Biao
Feat. Biao Yuen, Michelle Reis, Wah Yuen
- Amiable, energetic actioner stars the director as a young monk who must avenge a friend's death using Tibetan magic, pyrotechnics and a host of…
Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho, Martin Scorsese
- Opinions vary wildly over this sequence of eight re–enactments of Akira's very own dreams – stunning photography and subtle use of…
Life and Nothing But (1990)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Sabine Azema
- Philippe Noiret plays a Missing–in–Action chief officer whose obsession to account for the anonymous casualties of WW1 draws him to a…
Little Gangster, The (Le Petit Criminel) (1990)
- Dir. Jacques Doillon
Feat. Gerald Thomassin, Richard Anconina, Clotilde Courau
- Jacques Doillon (PONETTE) combines his eye for youthful naturalism with technical and storytelling assurance in this neatly formed movie about a…
Mahabharata, The (1990)
- Dir. Peter Brook
Feat. Erika Alexander, Maurice Benichou, Amba Bihler
- This 'great story of mankind' forms the basis of Indian religion and mythology. Some 15 times the length of the bible, stage maestro Peter Brook has…
Man and Two Women, A (1990)
- Dir. Valerie Stroh
Feat. Valerie Stroh, Lambert Wilson, Dianne Pierens
- Inspired by the writings of Doris Lessing, three sensuous stories are thoughtfully realised from the imagination of an emotionally inhibited writer.
Martha and I (1990)
- Dir. Jiri Weiss
Feat. Michel Piccoli, Marianne Sagebrecht
- A touching, humourous yarn from the director's childhood memoirs. He witnesses his eccentric uncle (Michel Piccoli) marry his under–educated…
Match Factory Girl, The (1990)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Kati Outinen, Elina Salo
- Aki Kaurismaki concludes his "Proletariat Trilogy" with this bleakly ironic fable following the drab fortunes of a factory–worker (Kati…
Moon 44 (1990)
- Dir. Roland Emmerich
Feat. Michael Pare, Lisa Eichhorn, Malcolm McDowell
- Low–rent, but tolerable sci–fi action set on a remote corporate mining colony which is under siege from rival interests.
Pare plays an…
My Father's Glory (La Gloire de Mon Pere) (1990)
- Dir. Yves Robert
Feat. Philippe Caubere, Nathalie Roussel, Didier Pain
- Archetypal French art movie adapted from the memoirs of author Marcel Pagnol (JEAN DE FLORETTE). Little Marcel takes to life in Provence where even…
My Mother's Castle (Le Chateau de Ma Mere) (1990)
- Dir. Yves Robert
Feat. Philippe Caubere, Nathalie Roussel, Didier Pain…
- Sequel to MY FATHER'S GLORY continues life in Provence with the Pagnol family. The nostalgic vignettes unfold with each frame a scenic wonder to…
Nasty Girl, The (1990)
- Dir. Michael Verhoeven
Feat. Lena Stolze, Hans-Reinhard Muller, Monika Baumgartner
- Poignant comedy about an essay prize–winning scholar who creates community havoc when she decides to write about her home town during the Third…
Night Sun (Il Sole Anche Di Notte) (1990)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Feat. Julian Sands, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nastassja Kinski
- After rejecting nobility, a soldier (Julian Sands) struggles to find fulfilment at a monastery. A thoughtful, near–mythical meditation based on…
Nikita (La Femme Nikita) (1990)
- Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Tcheky Karyo…
- A stylish thriller if ever there was one. The director combines the visual ostentation from his THE BIG BLUE with the plot mechanics of a classic…
Ronin-gai (Roningai: Street of the Samurai) (1990)
- Dir. Kazuo Kuroki
Feat. Yoshio Harada, Renji Ishibashi, Kanako Higuchi
- Samurai drama set in the 19th century near the end of the Japanese civil war, following several disgraced and listless ronin who attempt to regain…
Roselyne and the Lions (1990)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Isabelle Pasco, Gerard Sandoz, Gabriel Monnet
- Another visual triumph from the director of DIVA, this is an absorbing account of a teen couple's yearning to tame and perform with lions. The…
Royal Hunt, The (1990)
- Dir. Vitaly Melnikov
Feat. Nikolai Yeryomenko Ml, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Anna Sumokhing
- Erotic and exotic expose of Catherine the Great and the claimants to her throne in 17th Century Russia. Passion, scandal and lavish costumes come…
Seduction: The Cruel Woman (1990)
- Dir. Monika Treut, Elfi Mikesch
Feat. Udo Kier
- The director of VIRGIN MACHINE takes her subversive sensibilities further with this outing exploring the activities of a domanatrix. Udo Kier takes…
She Shoots Straight (Huang jia nu jiang) (1990)
- Dir. Corey Yuen
Feat. Joyce Godenzi, Sammo Hung
- Taut and melodramatic, this HK policier concerns a decorated and ultra–competent female police officer (Godenzi) who arouses jealousy in her…
Skinny Tiger Fatty Dragon (Shou hu fei long) (1990)
- Dir. Liu Chia Liang
Feat. Sammo Hung, Liu Chia Liang, Carrie Ng
- Amusing action spoof starring the incomparable Samo Hung as one of a pair of bumbling cops who go on the hunt for drug traffickers in Hong Kong, but…
Story of Boys and Girls (1990)
- Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Felice Andreasi, Angiola Baggi, Davide Bechini
- A piquant soap opera in which love, lust and class rivalry add to a twenty course meal shared by the thirty relatives of a newly engaged couple in…
Swordsman (1990)
- Dir. Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Jacky Cheung, Man Cheung, Sam Hui
- A good–natured swordsman from Ming Dynasty China, gets involved in a scramble for a priceless book. Excellent special effects but confusing…
Yaaba (1990)
- Dir. Idrissa Ouedraogo
Feat. Fatimata Sanga, Noufou Ouedraogo, Roukietou Barry
- All–too–rare African film to emerge on Western shores is a simple delight about a friendship between a 12–year–old boy and an…
A World Without Pity (Un Monde Sans Pitie) (1989)
- Dir. Eric Rochant
Feat. Hippolyte Girardot, Mireille Perrier, Yvan Attal
- A young Parisian slacker falls in love with an ambitious, bright student but finds the tables turning on his egocentric existence. Rochant's debut…
Belt, The (La Cintura) (1989)
- Dir. Giuliana Gamba
Feat. James Russo
- American teacher James Russo embarks on an affair with a beautiful Italian woman in Rome, which gets interesting when she buys him a belt... to whip…
Black Rain (Kuroi Ame) (1989)
- Dir. Shohei Imamura
Feat. Yoshiko Tanaka, Katzuo Kitamura, Etsuko Ichihara
- Alarming, mournful insider's view of post–nuclear devastation that focuses on a surviving family that have been contaminated by the fallout of…
Canton Godfather, The (Miracles; Mr. Canton and Lady Rose) (1989)
- Dir. Jackie Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Anita Mui
- Though light on martial arts, this lavish period production is generally considered Jackie Chan's most accomplished movie. At once inspired by THE…
Circus Boys (1989)
- Dir. Kaizo Hayashi
Feat. Hiroshi Mikami, Moe Kamura, Shu Ken
- Sumptuous film blends illusion and reality in contrasting the paths of two brothers from a circus family, one an idealist who attempts to rejuvenate…
City of Sadness, A (Beiging Chengsi) (1989)
- Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Hsin Shu-fen, Chen Sown-yung…
- The first of the director’s trilogy of films about the modern history of Taiwan, here depicting the unstable post–WW2 period through the eyes…
Complete Works of Michael Haneke Boxset (Seventh Continent, Benny's Video, 71 Fragments, Funny Games, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher, Time of the Wolf, Hidden) (1989-2005)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
- The (almost) complete film ouevre of Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke. Includes the previously unreleased (to Region 4) CODE UNKNOWN.
Dark Woods, The (1989)
- Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Beatrice Dalle
- Beatrice Dalle (BETTY BLUE) marries a stranger on a whim, and lives to regret it when her affections for his brother leads to a brutal crime of…
Emma's Shadow (1989)
- Dir. Soeren Jacobsen
Feat. Line Kruse, Borje Ahlstedt, Erik Wedersoe
- 12–year–old Emma, feeling that her affluent parents would care more for her if she were missing, fakes her own kidnapping, and discovers…
Five Days in June (1989)
- Dir. Michel Legrand
Feat. Sabine Azema, Annie Girardot, Matthieu Roze
- Yet another addition to the canon of dramas based on childhood memoirs. A renowned composer takes the helm to recall five days in his life on the…
I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar / Emergency Kisses (1989-1991)
- Dir. Philippe Garrel
Feat. Philippe Garrel
- Two French drama films by Philippe Garrel, both semi–autobiographical in nature: 'I Can No Longer Hear The Guitar' depicts youthful romance in…
I Want To Go Home (1989)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Linda Lavin, Laura Benson
- Satirical French comedy focused on a washed–up American comic artist who reluctantly visits France for an exhibition, only to run into his…
Iceman Cometh, The (Time Warriors) (1989)
- Dir. Fok Yiu Leung
Feat. Biao Yuen, Maggie Cheung
- A pair of Ming Dynasty adversaries find themselves defrosted 300 years later in contemporary Hong Kong. Film festival fave combines outrageous farce…
Icicle Thief, The (1989)
- Dir. Maurizio Nichetti
Feat. Maurizio Nichetti
- Italy's answer to Woody Allen directs and stars in this zany love story–cum–media satire using the film–within–a–film…
In The Line of Duty (In The Line of Duty 4: The Witness) (1989)
- Dir. Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Donnie Yen, Cynthia Khan , Michael Wong…
- Although the fourth in a film series about a flashy martial–arts cop, this is generally considered the best, with Yen taking his police job in…
Killer, The (1989)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- Action at break–neck speed with a body–count to match the running time, this smorgasbord of super–violence with lashings of good…
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, Total Balalaika Show) (1989)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Jim Jarmusch
- Laconic, often funny road movie follows an awful Soviet rock group with outlandish hairstyles across backwater USA. Director is Europe's answer to…
Lily Was Here (1989)
- Dir. Ben Verbong
Feat. Marion Van Thijn, Thom Hoffman, Coen Van Vrijberghe de Coningh
- Well known for Eurythmics' Dave Stewart's seductive score, the film follows the desperate plight of a young woman forced to resort to prostitution…
Little Thief, The (1989)
- Dir. Claude Miller
Feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Didier Bezace
- Penned by the late Francois Trauffant and completed by his protege, this engaging tale of mis–spent youth follows the adventures of a…
Milou En Mai (May Fools) (1989)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Michel Piccoli, Miou-Miou
- In May of '68, a rural family gather for the reading of their matriarch's will, an event that will strangely affect their idyllic existence. Stephane…
Nocturne Indien (1989)
- Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Clémentine Célarié, Otto Tausig
- Moody drama from dir. Corneau (TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE) sees a young Frenchman travel to India to search for a missing friend, and get lost in…
Open Doors (1989)
- Dir. Gianni Amelio
Feat. Gian Maria Volente, Ennio Fantastichini, Renato Carpentieri
- A resonant political drama set in corrupt fascist Italy about a juror's attempt to save a political murderer from the gallows.
Rikyu (1989)
- Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara
Feat. Rentaro Mikuni, Tsutomu Yamazaki
- A unique dramatic meditation on the symbolic qualities of the Japanese tea ceremony, set around a Buddhist priest and the ruling Shogun of Japan in…
Romuald et Juliette (1989)
- Dir. Coline Serreau
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Firmine Richard, Pierre Vernier
- French comedy at its very best contrasts the lives of a yoghurt company director and a black mother–of–five cleaning lady who through…
Sandwich Years (Les années sandwiches) (1989)
- Dir. Emile Ghigo
Feat. Michel Aumont, Clovis Cornillac
- In post–war France, a young Jewish boy befriends an elderly op–shop owner after his parents are arrested.
Secret Wedding (1989)
- Dir. Alejandro Agresti
Feat. Floria Bloise, Mirta Busnelli, Tito Haas
- An amnesic returns to his home village after 15 years to try to reconstruct his life, but the townspeople shun him and the authorities get…
Seventh Continent, The (1989)
- Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Dieter Berner, Leni Tanzer, Birgit Doll
- The disintegration of a seemingly content, middle–class family is at the center of this chilling domestic autopsy; a clinical and cynical…
This Dance Is Ours (Waltzing Regitze) (1989)
- Dir. Kaspar Rostrup
Feat. Frits Helmuth, Mikael Helmuth, Ghita Norby
- Longtime married couple reminisce the good times and bad when Regitze hosts a party for family and friends. Finely crafted family drama with inspired…
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (Atame!) (1989)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Antonio Banderas, Victoria Abril
- A mental patient kidnaps his sexy B–movie idol in the hope that she will fall in love with him. Teasingly politically unsound, Almodovar…
Tiger On the Beat (1989)
- Dir. Liu Chia Liang
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Conan Lee
- Chow Yun Fat buddies up with martial artiste Conan Lee as a pair of mismatched cops in hot pursuit of an international drug syndicate, climaxing in a…
Trop Belle Pour Toi (Too Beautiful For You) (1989)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Josiane Balasko, Carole Bouquet
- Car salesman Gerard Depardieu has a beautiful wife, but becomes infatuated with his plain yet passionate receptionist. Insightful, melancholy comedy.
Violent Cop (1989)
- Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano
- Popular entertainer 'Beat' Takeshi's directing debut is a stylish, witty yet cynical and disturbing elegy to violence executed with alarming…
Why has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (1989)
- Dir. Bae Yong-kyun
- A mystical journey into the riddles and symbols of Zen Buddhism through various characters ensconced in a remote monastery.
Loosely threaded by a…
Zanzibar (1989)
- Dir. Christine Pascal
Feat. Fabienne Babe, Andre Marcon, Francis Girod
- An enigmatic, sensual work set in the tumultuous and fickle world of film–making where three self–interested obsessives – the…
Zatoichi 26 (Darkness Is His Ally) (1989)
- Dir. Shintaro Katsu
Feat. Shintaro Katsu
- An enjoyable, autumnal revival of the 1960s–70s samurai movie franchise, with a much older Katsu reprising his role of the blind swordsman and…
36 Filette (Virgin) (1988)
- Dir. Catherine Breillat
Feat. Delphine Zentout, Etienne Chicot, Olivier Parniere
- The thrills and fears of a young girl's willed sexual awakening are explored when she opts to accept a ride from a mysterious stranger in order to…
Ariel (1988)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Turo Pajala, Susanna Haavisto, Matti Pellonpaa
- A redundant miner takes his newly acquired Thunderbird to Helsinki in search of financial and emotional security, but is hampered with rotten luck. A…
As Tears Go By (Wong gok ka moon) (1988)
- Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung
- Dir. Wong Kar–Wai debuted with this ambitious remake of MEAN STREETS, where best buddies Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung struggle through the…
As Thick As Thieves (1988)
- Dir. Claude Zidi
Feat. Christophe Malavoy, Claire Nebout, Francois Cluzet
- A practical joke goes awry for a group of successful business men who mislead an aspiring friend into thinking he's struck it rich. Hilarious…
Camille Claudel (1988)
- Dir. Bruno Nuytten
Feat. Isabelle Adjani, Gerard Depardieu, Alain Cuny
- Intense, robust biopic of the French artist and lover of fellow sculptor, Auguste Rodin. Their tumultuous affair is passionately incarnated by…
Chocolat (1988)
- Dir. Claire Denis
Feat. Isaach de Bankole, Giulia Boschi, Francois Cluzet
- Quietly rewarding autobiographical work follows a young woman to West Africa where she reminisces her childhood. Early work by the director of BEAU…
Cobra Verde (1988)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Klaus Kinski
- Klaus Kinski stars for the last time for Herzog as another doomed outcast in an alien environment. West Africa is portrayed as a cruel, highly…
Damnation (Karhozat) (1988)
- Dir. Bela Tarr
Feat. Miklós B. Székely, Vali Kerekes, Gyula Pauer
- A magnificent representation of the earlier feature films of Hungarian master of miserabilism Béla Tarr, telling the story of a lonely barfly who…
Decalogue - Parts 1 - 5 (Dekalog) (1988)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
- The Polish master's extraordinary series of hour–long dramas, each pertaining to one of the ten commandments. He matches the high concept with…
Decalogue - Parts 6 - 10 (Dekalog) (1988)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
- Continuing Kieslowski's exemplary series of hour–long dramas, with a further five 'commandments'.
Episodes:
Dekalog 6 – "Thou Shalt…
Dragons Forever (1988)
- Dir. Sammo Hung, Corey Yuen
Feat. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen
- Final martial–arts rumble for the 'three brothers' team of Chan, Hung and Biao (see PROJECT–A), here playing three spokes in a nefarious…
Essential Patrice Leconte (Monsieur Hire, Tango, My Best Friend) (1988-2006)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
- Three modern French classics from the Patrice Leconte oeuvre.
Flaming Brothers (Jiang hu long hu men) (1988)
- Dir. Tung Cho 'Joe' Cheung
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Alan Tang, Pat Ha
- Two close friends from the island of Macao (Tang and Yun–Fat) become dangerously involved in the Chinese triads through decades of prosperity…
Hanussen (1988)
- Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer
- Klaus Maria Brandauer adds to his list of distinctive roles in this allegedly true tale of an Austrian soldier who recovers from shotgun wounds and…
I'm the King of the Castle (1988)
- Dir. Regis Wargnier
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Dominic Blanc, Regis Arpin
- The young sons of a rich widowed industrialist and his house matron enter into an increasingly dangerous power play as their parents become close.…
Kingsajz (Kingsize) (1988)
- Locked inside an abandoned library basement, tiny dwarfs work hard to maintain their all–male dwarf commune.
When a scientist synthesizes…
La Lectrice (1988)
- Dir. Michel Deville
Feat. Miou-Miou, Christian Ruche, Maria Casares
- Miou–Miou plays a hired 'reader' who leads us through a series of exchanges with various disabled personalities. A sensual treat for those…
Last Stop Paradise (Terminus paradis) (1988)
- Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Costel Cascaval, Dorina Chiriac, Gheorghe Visu
- French/Romanian drama set against the outskirts of Budapest, centered around the ill–fated love affair between a waitress and a young pig…
Legend of the Holy Drinker, The (1988)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Anthony Quayle, Sandrine Dumas…
- Rutger Hauer plays a drunken homeless man in Paris who is lent 200 francs by a stranger as long as he promises to repay it to a local church when he…
Mapantsula (1988)
- Dir. Oliver Schmitz
Feat. Eugene Majola, Darlington Michaels, Thomas Mogotlane
- A disturbingly accurate evocation of township unrest in Soweto, as a young black petty criminal is throne into jail with a militant fraternity whom…
Monsieur Hire (1988)
- Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire
- A lonely, middle–aged tailor becomes obsessed with a glamourous but suspicious woman, whom he observes from his opposing apartment. Melancholy…
Muscle (Kitami) (1988)
- Dir. Hisayasu Sato
Feat. Kiyomi Ito, Takeshi Ito, Simon Kamai
- Interesting, expressively stylised item from cult Japanese dir. Hisayasu set in the muscle clubs, bars and bedrooms of Tokyo.…
Music Teacher, The (1988)
- Dir. Gerard Corbiau
Feat. Jose Van Dam, Anne Roussel, Patrick Bauchau
- Sterling voiced Jose Van Dam plays an opera star who retires to train an aspiring nymphette and her wayward peer. Like the superlative operatic…
Pathfinder (Ofelas) (1988)
- Dir. Nils Gaup
Feat. Mikkel Gaup
- Over icy, unforgiving terrain, a 16–year–old boy diverts a group of marauders who have raided his village.
Powerful adventure film…
Police Story 2 (1988)
- Dir. Jackie Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung
- Jackie Chan directs this follow–up to his landmark hit, playing a demoted detective who must use his wiles to track down bomb–scare…
Red Sorghum (1988)
- Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Gong Li, Wen Jiang
- A love story set among village winemakers who fight back against Japanese marauders in 1930's China. Blackly humorous and agonisingly horrific, this…
Rouge (1988)
- Dir. Stanley Kwan
Feat. Leslie Cheung
- Beautiful, haunting ghost story about a 1930s courtesan whose restless spirit roams modern Hong Kong. Asian stars Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung…
Salaam Bombay! (1988)
- Dir. Mira Nair
Feat. Shafiq Syed, Hansa Vithal
- Breakthrough Indian film that eschews Bollywood tradition is a compassionate account of an 11–year–old village boy, stranded on the…
Short Film About Killing, A (1988)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Miroslaw Baka, Krzysztof Globisz, Jan Tesarz
- Feature–length version of Kieslowski's indelibly chilling Decalogue Pt.5 further protracts a cold–blooded murder and the subsequent…
Short Film About Love, A (1988)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Grazyna Szapolowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Stefania Iwinska
- Extended version of the director's DEKALOG Part 6 – "Thou shalt not commit adultery" shares its voyeuristic premise with MONSIEUR HIRE, though…
Three Seats for the 26th (1988)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Yves Montand, Mathilda May, Francoise Fabian
- Musical maestro Jacques Demy's last picture was this pseudo–documentary conceived around singer and actor Yves Montand, who returns to his home…
Une Affair Des Femmes (a Story of Women) (1988)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Francois Cluzet
- Traumatic, gripping fact–based story about the last woman to be guillotined in France. Isabelle Huppert is in feverish form as the woman both…
Vanishing, The (1988)
- Dir. George Sluzier
Feat. Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Berroets, Johanna Ter Steege
- A genuinely creepy psychological thriller – a woman vanishes while on holiday in France, later her boyfriend is taunted in a battle of wits…
Virgin Machine (1988)
- Dir. Monika Treut
Feat. Ina Blum, Marcelo Uriona, Gad Klein
- A frustrated German journalist takes her work to San Fransisco in this lesbian odyssey that proudly parades its fringe philosophy and contemporary…
Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Carmen Maura
- Speedy sparkling slapstick from Almodovar, in which pregnant Carmen Maura is dumped by her boyfriend, harassed by his suicidal ex–wife and…
A Taxing Woman (1987)
- Dir. Juzo Itami
Feat. Nobuko Miyamoto
- A nicely offbeat look at the potentially boring subject of tax evasion. Nobuko Miyamoto plays our star tax collector who meets her match in a hotshot…
Angel Dust (1987)
- Dir. Edouard Niermans
Feat. Bernard Giraudeau, Fanny Bastien, Fanny Cottencon
- Accomplished thriller in the film noir tradition about an out–of–luck cop who falls for a woman he later begins to suspect of murder.
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto, Francine Racette…
- Dir. Malle has transformed a childhood memoir into a powerful and vivid account of a catholic schoolboy who unknowingly witnesses anti–semitism…
Babette's Feast (1987)
- Dir. Gabriel Axel
Feat. Stephane Audran
- Oscar–winning and mouth watering delight which tells a wistful, wise tale with a subtle sense of humour. Exiled French housekeeper Stephane…
Better Tomorrow II, A (1987)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Kenneth Tsang, Emily Chu
- Sequel to Woo's breakout genre classic finds Chow Yun–Fat shoehorned (as the twin brother of his original role, no less) into another fire…
Blind Chance (Przypadek) (1987)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Boguslaw Linda
- In the opening scene a young Polish medical student (Linda) hurries to catch a train departing from Lodz to Warsaw, from which point dir.…
Boyfriends and Girlfriends (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend) (1987)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Emmanuelle Chaulet, Sophie Renoir
- Through a series of deceptions and misunderstandings, four Parisians come to discover their true feelings for each other. Entrancing tale of…
Chinese Ghost Story, A (1987)
- Dir. Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Leslie Cheung
- The first of a marvellous trilogy of outrageous fantasies set in Ming Dynasty–era China, in which student Leslie Cheung falls in love with an…
City On Fire (1987)
- Dir. Ringo Lam
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee
- Undercover cop Chow Yun Fat is wounded in the aftermath of a bloody heist gone horribly wrong, and trapped in the thieves' hideout as they determine…
Cry of the Owl, The (Le Cri du hibou) (1987)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Christophe Malavoy, Mathilda May, Jacques Penot
- Rich adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel from New Wave director Claude Chabrol, who probes the mind of a troubled artist obsessed with his…
Dark Eyes (1987)
- Dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni
- The Soviet director ventures to Italy for this exquisite Chekhovian romantic tragedy in which Marcello Mastroianni abandons rationale for the allure…
Debajo Del Mundo (Underground) (1987)
- Dir. Beda Docampo Feijóo
Feat. Oscar Ferrigno Jr., Gabriel Rovito
- Intense WW2 drama focused on a Polish family who make the drastic decision to bury themselves underground to hide from the Nazis. Based on a true…
Epidemic (1987)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Lars Von Trier
- Typically divisive earlier Lars von Trier effort concerns the making of a low–budget horror movie about a highly contagious disease, thrown…
Girl Who Lived Twice, The (1987)
- Dir. Francois Villiers
Feat. Julian Sands
- Julian Sands stars in this fantasy/drama about an Indian girl's obsession with finding her alleged rich husband of a past life. Shot in Nepal.
Grand Chemin, Le (1987)
- Dir. Jean-Loup Hupert
Feat. Anemone , Richard Bohringer
- A charming, heartfelt drama about a childless and unhappy couple who are entrusted with the care of a 9–year–old relative over the summer…
Intervista (1987)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Sergio Rubini
- An easy–going ode to dir. Fellini's early career at Cinecitta Studios, this takes the form of a mock interview–flashback, with the…
Life Is a Long Quiet River (1987)
- Dir. Etienne Chatiliez
Feat. Benoit Magimel, Helene Vincent, Andre Wilms…
- Wry, off–beat comedy with a resonant message about two families of different classes who discover that their twelve–year–old…
Loner, The (Le Solitaire) (1987)
- Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Malo, Pierre Vernier
- Sub–par Belmondo outing has him play the routine jaded cop out to avenge his partner's death. Low on stunts but high on cruelty this is one for…
Long Live the Lady (1987)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi
Feat. Marco Esposito, Simone Brandalise, Stafania Busanello
- Six teenage catering scholars await a banquet at a remote chateau. A telling observation of boyhood evolves, with an emphasis on action and…
Masques (1987)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Bernadette Lafont
- Showbiz thriller with an offbeat setting and treatment typical of the director.
Phillip Noiret excels as a vain and complacent TV celebrity, with…
Pelle the Conqueror (1987)
- Dir. Bille August
Feat. Max von Sydow
- Swedish widower Max Von Sydow emigrates in the 19th century to Denmark with his son, where they struggle against injustice and poverty. Won an Oscar…
Sur (1987)
- Dir. Fernando Solanas
Feat. Susu Pecoraro, Miguel Angel Sola, Philippe Leotard
- A political prisoner, freed after five years, confronts his haunting past and alien present before reconciling with his wife. Deeply personal,…
Under the Sun of Satan (Soues Le Soleil De Satan) (1987)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat…
- Both booed and awarded the top prize at Cannes Film Festival, Pialat's visionary film exemplifies the director's style and his thematic preoccupation…
Wings of Desire (1987)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander…
- Wenders ambitious and hypnotic film centres around two angels who can listen into human thought in pre–unified Berlin. This rich and surreal…
Yeelen (Brightness) (1987)
- Dir. Souleymane Cisse
- One the few internationally–seen films from the African continent, this myth–like narrative concerns a young man of the Bambara culture…
Armour of God (1986)
- Dir. Jackie Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan
- Jackie Chan blows a bigger budget than usual for this crazy quest for some relics of a Crusader's armour in Eastern Europe. Drab stretches are…
Bashu, The Little Stranger (1986)
- Dir. Bahram Beizai
Feat. Susan Taslimi, Parvis Pourhosseini, Adrian Afravian
- Compassionate film follows the plight of a 10–year–old boy whose raided Iranian village forced him to take contentious refuge. Certain to…
Better Tomorrow, A (1986)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat
- Chow Yun–Fat stars in the high–octane gangster flick that literally changed the face of the genre. A cop becomes ostracized by the force…
Betty Blue (1986)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Beatrice Dalle, Jean-Hugues Anglade
- Beatrice Dalle stars as the ultra crazy and ultra sexy Betty in this lusty, over–the–top drama as only the French aspire to create.…
Camorra (1986)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Angela Molina, Harvey Keitel
- Complicated but well–judged thriller about the Naples underworld and specifically the use of children in the drug trade. More conventional than…
Decline of the American Empire (1986)
- Dir. Denys Arcand
Feat. Pierre Curzi, Remy Girard, Yves Jacques…
- An astute and devastatingly frank expose of the sexes from the director of JESUS OF MONTREAL, that alternately eavesdrops on the separate gatherings…
Eastern Condors (Dung fong tuk ying) (1986)
- Dir. Sammo Hung
Feat. Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen
- A Hong Kong riff on THE DIRTY DOZEN, in which 12 Chinese convicts accept a mission into Vietnam to destroy an abandoned American weapons…
Essential Almodovar: Volume Two (Law of Desire, Kika, Flower of My Secret) (1986-1996)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
- Three more Pedro Almodovar films presented in a Collector's Edition box set.
Essential Arcand (Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal, Love and Human Remains, The Barbarian Invasions) (1986-2003)
- Dir. Denys Arcand
- Four of French–Canadian dir. Denys Arcand's quality works in one box–set.
Good Morning, Babylon (1986)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Feat. Vincent Spano, Joaquim De Almeida, Greta Scacchi
- Two artisan Italian brothers seek their fortune in America and wind up sculpting for D.W. Griffith on the set of INTOLERANCE. An elegant tribute to…
Green Ray, The (Summer) (1986)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Marie Riviere, Lisa Heredia, Beatrice Romand…
- Exemplary Rohmer material, this bittersweet story follows a reserved young woman on her Riviera holiday, who must assert herself if she is to find…
Heroes Shed No Tears (1986)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Eddy Ko
- Bloody actioner has elite commandos having to capture a drug lord and smuggle him into Thailand. Things do not go smoothly.
Early John Wood effort…
Jean De Florette (1986)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Yves Montand, Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil
- A modern classic of love, greed and revenge set against the beauty of 1920s French Provence, superbly performed by three of France's biggest…
Law of Desire (1986)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Antonio Banderas, Carmen Maura
- Sexual acrobatics and absurd humour abound as it explores the increasingly complex sex–life of a gay film director. Fun screwball romp.
Les Fugitifs (1986)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Pierre Richard, Gerard Depardieu
- The inept Pierre Richard teams up with the innocent Gerard Depardieu in a madcap criminal escape after a botched bank–job. The situation…
Man and A Woman: 20 Years Later, A (1986)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Anouk Aimee, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Richard Berry
- Worthy follow–up to Lelouch's seminal 60's romantic drama benefits from appealing performances by it's two leads.
Manon Des Sources (1986)
- Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Yves Montand, Emmanuelle Beart, Daniel Auteuil
- Indispensible sequel to JEAN DE FLORETTE concludes Marcel Pagnol's story of innocence, greed, envy and revenge in 1920s Provence.
At the time the…
Matador (1986)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Assumpta Serna, Antonio Banderas, Nacho Martinez
- Almodovar breaks a few more screen taboos with this erotic black comedy about a bull–fighter and a smart female lawyer who share a morbid…
Mauvais Sang (The Night Is Young) (1986)
- Dir. Leos Carax
Feat. Michel Piccoli, Denis Lavant, Juliette Binoche
- A street–punk joins a gang of hoods intent on stealing a top–secret serum, but complications prevail. Romantic thriller contains…
Max Mon Amour (1986)
- Dir. Nagisa Oshima
Feat. Charlotte Rampling
- Charlotte Rampling does her stuff... with a chimpanzee called Max? A very dry comedy with some decidedly dicey morality about Man and his closest…
Melo (1986)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Sabine Azema, Fanny Ardant, Pierre Arditi…
- New Wave dir. Resnais explores unusually restrained, linear territory in this bittersweet melodrama centered around a love triangle between longtime…
Millionaire's Express (Foo gwai lit che) (1986)
- Dir. Sammo Hung
Feat. Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen, Rosamund Kwan
- Camp and hysterical genre mash–up, has Samo Hung as a bumbling brothel–owner who entraps a group of millionaire's in his hometown (by…
Peking Opera Blues (1986)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Brigitte Lin, Cherie Chung, Sally Yeh
- One of prolific Hong Kong director/producer Tsui Hark's most celebrated films is a genre–blending romp set around the Peking Opera in 1913. A…
Sacrifice, The (1986)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edward
- Tarkovsky's final film is this harrowing tale of a man who vows to sacrifice all that he is in order for the world to avoid the apocalypse. Further…
Shadows in Paradise (Varjoja paratiisissa) (1986)
- Dir. Aki Kaurismaki
Feat. Matti Pellonpaa, Kati Outinen, Sakari Kuosmanen
- The first film in Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy follows a lonely garbage collector who finds romance with a check–out clerk (Kaurismäki…
Tampopo (1986)
- Dir. Juzo Itami
Feat. Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Ken Watanabe…
- A crazy, satirical comedy in which heroine Tampopo and her cronies strive to create the perfect noodle. A wonderful movie full of hilarious madness…
Therese (1986)
- Dir. Alain Cavalier
Feat. Catherine Mouchet, Aurore Prieto, Sylvie Habault…
- Brooding realisation of the diaries of a convent girl who achieved sainthood. The meticulous, stylised treatment offers an experience akin to…
Colonel Redl (1985)
- Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer
- Klaus Maria Brandauer offers another tour–de–force performance for the second in Szabo's WW2 trilogy (between MEPHISTO and HANUSSEN)…
Come and See (1985)
- Dir. Elim Klimov
Feat. Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Lauciavicius
- Shattering film that chronicles the devastating effect the Nazi occupation had on Russian peasantry, focusing on one impoverished youth. The brutal…
Death in a French Garden (1985)
- Dir. Michel Deville
Feat. Anemone , Richard Bohringer, Nicole Garcia…
- A guitar tutor arrives at the house of a beautiful nymphette and her suspicious mother, where games of sex, power and manipulation unfold ultimately…
Detective, The (1985)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Claude Brasseur, Nathalie Baye, Johnny Hallyday…
- Late, vague genre piece mismatches big name French stars (Baye, Leaud, and a young Julie Delpy) and trench coat chic with Godard’s newfound…
Great Wall, A (The Great Wall is A Great Wall) (1985)
- Dir. Peter Wang
Feat. Peter Wang, Sharon Iwai, Kelvin Han Yee
- The first American film to be shot in China follows a Chinese–American computer executive (the director) and his family to Peking where they…
Hail Mary (1985)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Myriem Roussel, Thierry Rode, Juliette Binoche
- Controversial and ultimately reverent update on the story of the immaculate conception, with Mary as a gas station attendant and Joseph as her cab…
Heart of the Dragon (Long de xin) (1985)
- Dir. Sammo Hung, Fruit Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Emily Chu
- Uncharacteristically serious Chan–Hung drama follows police detective Chan's difficulties in caring for his mentally disabled, child–like…
Hour of the Star (1985)
- Dir. Suzana Amaral
Feat. Marcelia Cartaxo, Jose Dumont, Tamara Taxman…
- Distinctive Brazilian drama following the life of an impoverished, orphaned young girl who moves to Rio de Janeiro to take a job as a typist after…
Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
- Dir. Paul Schrader
Feat. Ken Ogata
- Fascinating study of the controversial Japanese author/militarist whose desire to merge life and art led to his ritualistic suicide. A luminous…
Mr. Vampire (1985)
- Dir. Ricky Lau
Feat. Ching-Ying Lam, Siu-hou Chin, Ricky Hui…
- Influential kung–fu ghostbusting flick is a distinctively Eastern slant on the 'vampire' genre – less like caped Counts, more like…
My Life As a Dog (1985)
- Dir. Lasse Hallstrom
Feat. Arnold Alfredsson, Ing-Marie Carlsson, Ralph Carlsson
- A young boy is taken away from his ill mother to a rural village where he confronts the likes of death, soccer, guilt and his first love. Ultimately…
My Sweet Little Village (1985)
- Dir. Jiri Menzel
Feat. Janos Ban, Marian Labuda, Rudolf Hrusinsky
- This good–natured charmer examines the comic, sad, quirky and downright ordinary affairs of village life, highlighted by the exploits of a pair…
No End (Bez konca) (1985)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Grazyna Szapolowska
- Bleak but powerful drama about life under martial law in early–1980s Poland, centred around the consequences that follow the death of an…
Official Story, The (1985)
- Dir. Luis Puenzo
Feat. Hector Alterio, Norma Aleandro, Chunchuna Villafane
- The heart–wrenching official story of a woman who discovers her adopted daughter was stolen at birth by the then military dictatorship. This…
One Woman or Two (1985)
- Dir. Daniel Vigne
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Sigourney Weaver
- Screwball comedy has Gerard Depardieu as an archeologist who must choose between the two women in his life – Sigourney Weaver and a…
Parking (1985)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Francis Huster
- Little–seen Jacques Demy musical fantasy that transposes Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus" into the world of 1980s rock.
Police (1985)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, Richard Anconina
- Brilliantly idiosyncratic crime thriller co–written by French auteurs Maurice Pialat (who also directs) and Catherine Breillat (A MA SOEUR!),…
Police Assassins (Yes Madam) (1985)
- Dir. Corey Yuen
Feat. Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, Tsui Hark
- Cheesy but fun outing has two hard–as–nails policewomen Michelle Yeoh (in her first lead role) and Cynthia Rothrock turning in their…
Police Story (1985)
- Dir. Jackie Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung
- The incomparable Jackie Chan – a mix of Bruce Lee and Buster Keaton – is in prime form here, weaving his brand of sly Asian humour into a series…
Ran (1985)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai
- The title translates to 'chaos'; it is Kurosawa's vast and bloody interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. Grandiose in every sense – a…
Subway (1985)
- Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani
- Fast paced action thriller set in the Paris underground. A cool rebel–hero (Christopher Lambert) teams up with Isabelle Adjani in stylish…
Three Men and a Cradle (1985)
- Dir. Coline Serreau
Feat. Roland Giraud, Michel Boujenah, Andre Dussollier
- Hugely successful comedy that spawned the U.S. remake about three domesticated bachelors who grapple with the needs of an infant and an unsolicited…
Vagabond (1985)
- Dir. Agnes Varda
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire
- Award–winning drama that artfully presents poetic moments from young vagabond Sandrine Bonnaire’s last month alive, listlessly drifting…
Voyeur (Abel) (1985)
- Dir. Alex Van Warmerdam
Feat. Alex Van Warmerdam, Henri Garcin, Olga Zuiderhoek
- So many windows, so little time! An oddball sex farce in which the director himself plays a binocular–happy mummy's boy who falls in love with…
When Father Was Away on Business (1985)
- Dir. Emir Kusturica
Feat. Moreno de Bartolli, Miki Manojlovic, Mira Furlan
- A delightful dramedy of social upheaval, set during Yugoslavia’s Tito–Stalin conflict of the 1950s.
Kusturica filters the tribulations of…
An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty (Tong chiu ho fong nui) (1984)
- Dir. Eddie Ling-Ching Fong
Feat. Alex Man, Patricia Ha
- Patricia Ha stars as the 'amorous woman' in this oddly liberal erotic drama from the Shaw Brothers stable, set around a woman's desire to experience…
And the Ship Sails On (1984)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Freddie Jones, Barbara Jefford, Victor Poletti
- An idyllic odyssey aboard an ocean liner, where celebrated guests who have gathered for the funeral voyage of a great opera star are introduced in…
Comperes, Les (1984)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Pierre Richard, Gerard Depardieu
- Pierre Richard and Gerard Depardieu star in this screwball film as two strangers enlisted to help a mutual ex–lover, both thinking they are the…
Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, The (1984)
- Dir. Kar-leung Lau
Feat. Gordon Liu, Alexander Fu, Kara Hui…
- Hong Kong martial arts epic set circa the 10th century, with a Mongol army attempting to overthrow the influential Yang family, defenders of the Song…
Element of Crime, The (1984)
- Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Michael Elphick
- A detective’s unconventional methods qualify him for the investigation of child murders in a dark, decaying, post–apocalyptic Germany.…
Full Moon in Paris (1984)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Pascale Ogier, Fabrice Luchini, Christian Vadim…
- From Rohmer's 'Comedies and Proverbs' series, wit and subtlety is derived from the simplest of plots. This time a headstrong woman's plans backfire…
Funeral, The (1984)
- Dir. Juzo Itami
Feat. Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto
- A Buddhist funeral service for a brothel owner makes an ideal vehicle for both fiendish black comedy and social satire. An assured debut from the…
Holy Innocents, The (1984)
- Dir. Mario Camus
Feat. Alfredo Landa, Terele Pavez, Belen Ballesteros
- A soldier returns to his rural croft and recalls his impoverished family's struggle with daily life and unscrupulous landlords. The bitter climate of…
Kaos (1984)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
- Marvellous but rarely seen compendium of four tales (and an epilogue) by Luigi Pirandello set in the parched landscape of Sicily.
'The Other Son'…
Ladies On the Rocks (1984)
- Dir. Christian Thomsen
Feat. Gotha Anderson, Bruno Bjorn, Peter Boesen
- Two women cabaret performers win the hearts of provincial audiences with their raucous brand of feminist humour. Ironically, their increasing…
Legend of the Suram Fortress (1984)
- Dir. Sergei Paradjanov
- Soviet dir. Sergei Paradjanov resumed his filmmaking career after years of exile with this visually rapturous, obscure folk tale.
More opaque in…
Love Unto Death (L'amour à Mort) (1984)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Sabine Azema, Fanny Ardant, Pierre Arditi
- Alain Resnais (HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR) pursues his themes of love and death with this symbolic tale of lovers Simon (Arditi) and Elizabeth (Azema)…
Lust For Love of a Chinese Courtesan (Ai nu xin zhuan) (1984)
- Dir. Yuen Chor
- A middling remake by dir. Chor of his own classic 1972 Shaw Brothers sexploitationer INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN. Tending towards a…
My New Partner (Les Ripoux) (1984)
- Dir. Claude Zidi
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Thierry Lhermitte
- The genial Phillipe Noiret plays a slobbish corrupt cop saddled with a straight–laced partner in this hilarious caper comedy. It's a delight…
Runner, The (1984)
- Dir. Amir Naderi
Feat. Abbas Nazeri, Majid Niroumand, Musa Torkizadeh
- On a coastline strewn with the flotsam of the Arabian Gulf, an Iranian orphan boy scrapes a living together scavenging and selling ice before it…
Sunday in the Country, A (1984)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Louis Ducreux, Sabine Azema, Michel Aumont…
- An elderly painter invites his family to his country villa; in a single day their happinesses and sorrows come to be expressed. Subtle, intelligent…
Swann in Love (1984)
- Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. Jeremy Irons, Ornella Muti, Alain Delon…
- Lavish filming of Proust's novel 'Remembrance of Things Past' which centres around a high class man who risks everything for his erotic obsessions.…
Three of Us, The (Noi Tre) (1984)
- Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Christopher Davidson, Ida De Benedetto, Gianni Cavina…
- Charming, though slender, portrayal of Mozart’s teenage life as the 14–year old musical prodigy spends a summer in Italy and starts to…
What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Carmen Maura
- Carmen Maura plays a delirious feminist housewife in this early black–comic farce from Almodovar, here working at his freshest and most…
Wheels on Meals (1984)
- Dir. Sammo Hung
Feat. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen
- The kung–fu trio of Chan, Hung and Biao travel, to Spain for this rambunctious minor classic, in a tale about food–vendors helping out a…
Yellow Earth (1984)
- Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Quiang Liu, Tuo Tan, Xueyin Wang…
- This spearheaded the wave of modern Chinese cinema to be seen outside the People's Republic. A communist soldier visits a backwards village in 1939…
À Nos Amours (To Our Loves) (1983)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat, Cyril Collard
- One of dir. Pialat's most satisfying dramas, this concerns a journey of a teenage girl (Bonnaire, in a stunning debut) when her family life turns…
Ballad of Narayama (1983)
- Dir. Shohei Imamura
Feat. Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto, Tonpei Hidari
- Austere beauty characterises this second retelling of a Japanese legend, originally filmed in stylised, Kabuki–inspired vignettes.
Ken…
Carmen (1983)
- Dir. Carlos Saura
Feat. Antonio Gades, Laura Del Sol
- A choreographer casting Bizet's opera falls for a woman who transpires to be as passionate and treacherous Carmen herself. Carlos Saura's mesmerizing…
Dark Habits (1983)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Cristina Pascual
- Red–light denizen on the run, Cristina Pascual holes up in a bizarre, wildly improbable Convent of the Humble Redeemers, frequented by…
Devil's Sword (1983)
- Dir. Ratno Timoer
Feat. Barry Prima
- A villager must race a band of marauding psychopaths to find and acquire the legendary Devil's Sword. Unfortunately, the sword is no match for the…
El Norte (The North) (1983)
- Dir. Gregory Nava
Feat. Zaide Silvia Gutierrez, David Villalpando
- The journey northward of a Guatemalan brother and sister (Zaide Silvia Gutierrez and David Villalpando) on the run is an epic saga of the modern…
Fanny and Alexander (1983)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Kristina Adolphson, Borje Ahlstedt, Pernilla Allwin
- Dir. Bergman's last film is his least typical, yet one of his finest. It tells a semi–autobiographical family saga through the eyes of two…
Finally Sunday (Vivement Dimanche!) (1983)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Fanny Ardant, Jean-Louis Trintignant
- A businessman in trouble with the police over the murder of his wife's lover finds solace in his secretary who decides to investigate the case…
First Name: Carmen (Prenom Carmen) (1983)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Maruschka Detmers, Jacques Bonnaffe
- Late Godard standout is a markedly nostalgic throwback to his New Wavy years, combining an ad hoc terrorist, ill–fated romance, a…
Fourth Man, The (1983)
- Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Jeroen Krabbe
- Jeroen Krabbe is a gay alchoholic writer prone to hallucinations who suspects his hairdresser of triple murder. Weird and stylish…
Hong Kong 1941 (Dang doi lai ming) (1983)
- Dir. Po-Chi Leong
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Alex Man, Kien Shih…
- One of Chow Yun–Fat's early classics, this portrays the disturbing invasion of Hong Kong by the Japanese in 1941, which disrupts the dreams and…
L'Argent (1983)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Christian Patey
- This bleak, enigmatic crime study depicts the tragic chain of events which emanate from a counterfeit bank note being passed through a photo shop.…
Lady is the Boss, The (Chang men jen) (1983)
- Dir. Liu Chia Liang
Feat. Liu Chia Liang, Chia Hui Liu
- Amiable flick concerns a curmudgeonly martial arts teacher who begrudgingly hires a young marketing woman to help keep his martial arts school open,…
Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle) (1983)
- Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Pierre Jolivet, Jean Bouise, Jean Reno
- The director's impressive debut (at the age of 24) is a post–apocalyptic fable, strikingly filmed in black and white with almost no…
Life Is A Bed Of Roses (1983)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Ruggero Raimondi, Fanny Ardant, Geraldine Chaplin
- Ambitious fantastical oddity from dir. Resnais was made as a tribute to era–defining French directors Melies, L'Herbier and Rohmer, weaving…
Makioka Sisters, The (Sasame-yuki) (1983)
- Dir. Kon Ichikawa
Feat. Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga
- Lyrical Japanese drama set in the 1930's, following the lives of four siblings who have taken on their father's kimono manufacturing business. Based…
Moon in the Gutter (1983)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Nastassja Kinski, Victoria Abril…
- Dockworker Gerard Depardieu befriends Nastassja Kinski as he hunts for the killer of his sister. Pompous or excellent? Watch and decide for yourself.…
Nostalgia (Nostalghia) (1983)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Oleg Jankovsky
- A lingering essay on the angst of living in exile, with Oleg Jankovsky as a beleaguered Russian academic subsisting in Italy (like Tarkovsky…
Pauline a La Plage (Pauline at the Beach) (1983)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Amanda Langlet, Arielle Dombasle
- Teenage Pauline visits her older cousin plagued with boy trouble. Rohmer again demonstrates his knack for eliciting candid performances from…
Power of Emotion, The (1983)
- Dir. Alexander Kluge
- A bold, kaleidoscopic essay film from theorist and New German Cinema co–founder Alexander Kluge, combining staged vignettes with raw archival…
Rembetiko (1983)
- Dir. Costas Ferris
Feat. Sotiria Leonardou, Nikos Kalogeropoulos, Michalis Maniatis
- Stirring fictionalized biopic of Marika Ninou, a Greek Rebetiko (urban Greek folk music) singer who lived through some of the most dramatic…
Sheer Madness (Heller Wahn) (1983)
- Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Angela Winkler
- Two women, one a withdrawn painter and the other a confident professor, start to rely upon their friendship as an alternative to their unhappy…
Zu Warriors (Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain) (1983)
- Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Biao Yuen, Moon Lee, Brigitte Lin…
- A renowned fantasy film, in which four medieval warriors search the universe for twin swords with which to defeat a powerful demon, which threatens…
A Good Marriage (Le Beau Marriage) (1982)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Beatrice Romand, Andre Dussollier, Féodor Atkine
- An art history student is growing tired of being the mistress of a married painter, then meets a handsome and wealthy younger man whom she vows to…
Balance, La (1982)
- Dir. Bob Swaim
Feat. Nathalie Baye, Philippe Leotard, Richard Berry
- Money, loyalty and death hang in the balance in this gritty, Cesar–winning thriller. A crime king–pin is exposed by an…
Danton (1982)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Gerard Depardieu
- A gripping depiction of the political struggle faced by charismatic revolutionary Danton (Gerard Depardieu), whose campaign for peace and tolerance…
Diva (1982)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Frederic Andrei, Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Richard Bohringer…
- Stylish romantic thriller in which an opera–intoxicated youth bootlegs a concert of an unrecorded opera star which leads to trouble with shady…
Dragon Lord (Long xiao ye) (1982)
- Dir. Jackie Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Wai-Man Chan
- Chiefly of interest to Chan–completists, this wraps a threadbare plot about stolen Chinese artifacts around some admittedly spectacular…
Duel to the Death (Xian si jue) (1982)
- Dir. Ching Siu Tung
Feat. Norman Chu, Damian Lau
- Groundbreaking martial–arts actioner from dir. Ching Siu–Tung (CHINESE GHOST STORY) about a Ming–era duel between a Chinese (Lau)…
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale
- Colonialist visionary Klaus Kinski attempts to haul a huge riverboat over a hill in 19th century S. America with the help of Indian…
Human Lanterns (Ren pi deng long) (1982)
- Dir. Chung Sun
Feat. Leih Lo
- The Shaw Brothers' first international star, Lo Leih, excels in this horror–suspenser as a mad lampshade maker in olden–day China who…
Impossible Kid, The (1982)
- Dir. Eddie Nicart
Feat. Weng Weng, Romy Diaz, Nina Sara
- Chop–socky sequel with world's smallest spy again coming up another baddie intent to destroy the world. Comical dialogue, and more ball busting…
Labyrinth of Passion (1982)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Antonio Banderas, Cecilia Roth, Luis Ciges…
- A nympho pop singer and her bisexual buddy cruise the decadent nightlife of Madrid, encountering Almodovar's usual slate of deviants –…
Le Bal (1982)
- Dir. Ettore Scola
- A unique ‘concept ballet’, where a revolving cast of dancers wordlessly act out the 20th century history of France in a ballroom.
As…
Legend of a Fighter (Huo Yuan-Jia) (1982)
- Dir. Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Kar-yan Leung
- A 'wireless' kung–fu masterclass from one of Hong Kong's most feted martial arts exponent, dir. Ping (choreographer for THE MATRIX), here…
Legendary Weapons of China (1982)
- Dir. Liu Chia Liang
Feat. Liu Chia Liang
- Forthright Shaw Brothers classic with the invincible Gordon Liu as a dogged kung fu master pursued relentlessly by hired assassins. And intriguing…
Living Dead Girl, The (1982)
- Dir. Jean Rollin
Feat. Marina Pierro, Francoise Blanchard, Mike Marshall
- Rollin's dream–like visual style dominates this Gallic blood–lusting romp about a sexy vampire whose trail of gore engulfs her in bitter…
Night of the Shooting Stars, The (Night of San Lorenzo, The) (1982)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Feat. Omero Antonutti, Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli
- Set during the German retreat from Italy in 1944, this tragicomedy of War carries a magical nostalgia by being told through the memories of woman who…
Ninja Wars (Iga ninpûchô) (1982)
- Dir. Mitsumasa Saito
Feat. Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chiba
- Period fantasy action involving magicians, love potions and endangered royalty in ancient Japan, a story resolved with a fair amount of…
Passion (1982)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla, Michel Piccoli
- 'Film within a film' from France's thorniest director, sowing narrative confusion in his story of director Michel Piccoli trying to make a arthouse…
Querelle (1982)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Brad Davis, Jeanne Moreau
- Fassbinder's parting shot is a fittingly bleak, ultra–stylised adaptation of Jean Genet's writings about the (bi)sexual escapades of a…
Return of Martin Guerre (1982)
- Dir. Daniel Vigne
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye
- A legendary French tale with Gerard Depardieu as the 16th century peasant who returns to his family after an eight year absense but is suspected of…
Shaolin Prince (1982)
- Dir. Chia Tang
Feat. Ti Lung
- Respected fight choreographer Tang Chia helms one of his few films as director: two princes are separated at birth; one is raised by Shaolin monks…
State of Things, The (1982)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Patrick Bauchau, Samuel Fuller, Roger Corman
- Reliving the personal turmoil of his first American production (HAMMETT), Wenders fashions a scathing yet oddly comedic…
That Night in Varennes (1982)
- Dir. Etore Scolla
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Louis Barrault, Harvey Keitel
- An enthralling, vivid historical drama set during the last days of Louis XVI's reign during the 1791 revolution, but focusing largely on a band of…
Une Chambre en Ville (1982)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Dominique Sanda, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli
- Another entirely sung–through French musical from the director of THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, this time set against the backdrop of a workers'…
Veronika Voss (1982)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, Cornelia Froboess
- Fictionalised biography of a once famous actress whose career surrendered to drug–addiction, neurosis and the dubious motives of a medical…
Wim Wenders Documentaries (Room 666, Tokyo-Ga, Notebook on Cities and Clothes) (1982-1989)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
- Three documentaries from the hand of Wim Wenders, concerned with his chief obsessions in Japanese culture and the state of cinema.
36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)
- Dir. Aparna Sen
Feat. Jennifer Kendal, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Debashree Roy…
- An English spinster living out her twilight years teaching in India befriends a young couple whose motives might not be what she suspects.
Tender…
Aviator's Wife, The (La femme de l'aviateur) (1981)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Philippe Marlaud, Marie Riviere
- A young student is devastated when he finds that his girlfriend is cheating on him. In order to find out why she did it, he decides to spy on her and…
Blood Wedding (1981)
- Dir. Carlos Saura
Feat. Antonio Gades
- The first of Saura's hot–blooded flamenco dance films captures the preparation and performance a tragic ballet by choreographer/actor Antonio…
Choix Des Armes, Le (Choice of Arms) (1981)
- Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Yves Montand, Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu
- Two disparate ex–convicts face difficulties settling into normal society. Boasts France's greatest acting talents.
Christiane F. (1981)
- Dir. Ulrich Edel
Feat. David Bowie
- Absorbing account of the decline and fall into the Berlin's degrading drug and prostitution scene of two young heroin addicts. Features the music and…
City of Women (1981)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni
- Dir. Fellini pushes his fantasies to their zenith (or nadir), again with Marcello Mastroianni as the surrogate male. Falling asleep on a train, he…
Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate) (1981)
- Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Marielle…
- Mordantly humourous suspense set in dusty French Senegal, with Noiret playing a much–abused police chief who begins to have dreams of…
Das Boot (The Boat) (1981)
- Dir. Wolfgang Petersen
Feat. Jurgen Prochnow
- Nail biting, meticulous and realistic account of a German U–boat's prowlings through the North Atlantic. The most expensive German film to…
For Your Height Only (1981)
- Dir. Eddie Nicart
Feat. Weng Weng, Yehlen Catral, Carmi Martin…
- Schlocky riff on the 007 franchise with pint sized ass–kicker Weng Weng as the world's smallest super spy, Agent 00, doing battle with mad…
House By the Cemetery (1981)
- Dir. Lucio Fulci
Feat. Paolo Malco, Giovanni Frezza, Catriona MacColl…
- One of the most notable from the filmography of director Lucio Fulci is this haunted house movie in which the guests at a New England home are…
La Chevre (1981)
- Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Pierre Richard, Gerard Depardieu
- Irrepressible comic duo Richard and Depardieu are paired for the first time; here, the chronically unlucky daughter of a businessman goes missing in…
Les Uns et Les Autres (Bolero) (1981)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. James Caan, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert Hossein…
- Sprawling extravaganza of questionable taste is not without its devotees. It charts the impact that music has made on the lives of four…
Lola (1981)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Barbara Sukowa, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Mario Adorf
- Shattering Fassbinder drama depicting an exotic singer searching for true happiness and survival in post–war Germany. Fassbinder again excels…
Man of Iron (1981)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Krystyna Janda, Marian Opania
- Angry sequel to MAN OF MARBLE covers much the same ground with an alcoholic journalist sent to cover the Polish Solidarity strike and to discredit…
Mephisto (1981)
- Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer
- An astonishing portrait of the seductive allure of pre–war fascism, faced by a talented actor, aptly played by fine thesp, Klaus Maria…
Montenegro (1981)
- Dir. Dusan Makavejev
Feat. Susan Anspach, Erland Josephson, Marianna Jacobi
- A bored housewife gets caught up in Slavic sex and violence and discovers that she quite likes it. Unpredictable and weird, things become wickedly…
Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, The (Tajemstvi hradu v Karpatech) (1981)
- Dir. Oldrich Lipsky
Feat. Michal Docolomansky, Rudolf Hrusinsky, Vlastimil Brodsky…
- Cult oddity based on the Jules Verne novel The Carpathian Castle, a sci–fi horror story about a campy count who haunts a house overlooking a…
No Time for Tears (1981)
- Dir. Hark Bohm
Feat. Marie Colbin, Michael Gwisdek
- True story of Marianne Bachmeier who shot the murderer of her child during his trial. Subtle yet disturbing film concentrates on the background to…
Pixote (1981)
- Dir. Hector Babenco
Feat. Marilia Pera, Ramos Da Silva
- Inspired by the plight of his country's homeless children, dir. Babenco created this semi–improvised odyssey of three boys in the slums of…
Professional, The (1981)
- Dir. Georges Lautner
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Action and humour alternate in this carefree Belmondo vehicle, in which the French larrikin plays a secret service agent out for revenge.
They Call Her...Cleopatra Wong (1981)
- Dir. Bobby A. Suarez
Feat. Marrie Lee
- Singapore's top policewoman, the deadly Miss Cleopatra Wong, teams up with her Filipino counterpart to bust a counterfeit operation in this…
Warrior, the (Jaka Sembung) (1981)
- Dir. Sisworo Gautama Putra
Feat. Barry Prima
- A shirtless Robin hood figure with magical powers fights off the evil Dutch Imperialists. Jam packed with ambitious stunts and unique special effects…
Woman Next Door, The (1981)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant
- Emotional chaos ensues for a happily married man when his old flame, now also married, becomes his immediate neighbour. Taut, intimate melodrama…
Berlin Alexanderplatz (TV Series) (1980)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Gunter Lamprecht, Hanna Schygulla, Elisabeth Trissenaar…
- This monolithic tome set in Weimar–era Germany represented the peak of dir. Fassbinder's filmmaking career. Across 15 hours, it details the…
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (Gui da gui) (1980)
- Dir. Sammo Hung
Feat. Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen
- A groundbreaking Hong Kong blend of martial arts action, horror, and slapstick humour, set around Hung's attempts to battle the voodoo and hopping…
Essential Almodovar: Volume One (Pepi Luci Bom, Dark Habits, What Have I Done to Deserve This, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1980-1988)
- Dir. Pedro Almodovar
- Four early Pedro Almodovar films presented in a Collector's Edition box set.
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Robert Atzom, Heinz Bennent, Martin Benrath
- A dark themed and intricately plotted drama from dir. Bergman's later period, concerning a businessman who commits the sex–murder of a…
Germany, Pale Mother (Deutschland bleiche Mutter) (1980)
- Dir. Helma Sanders-Brahms
Feat. Eva Mattes, Ernst Jacobi
- Bleak WWII drama that follows the tragic fate of a couple who marry the day before the war breaks out when he is drafted to the Eastern front only to…
Kagemusha (1980)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara
- A majestic 16th century saga about a petty thief who ascends to tribal leadership on account of his resemblance to a dying warlord. Shared the top…
La Cage Aux Folles 2 (1980)
- Dir. Edouard Molinaro
Feat. Michel Serrault, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Galabru
- Cast and crew reunite for this enjoyable sequel to one of the most successful French comedies of all time. This time our two heroes find themselves…
Last Metro, The (1980)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu
- Elegant war story in occupied France, Catherine Deneuve struggles to keep her Jewish husband's theatre operating while concealing his whereabouts.
Lili Marleen (1980)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini, Mel Ferrer
- Fassbinder's fact–based account of the recording of the Nazi anthem, sung by a jaded cabaret singer with a Jewish love interest.
Loulou (1980)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Isabelle Huppert, Guy Marchand
- Charismatic street rogue Gerard Depardieu lures an impetuous Isabelle Huppert out her stale, bourgeois partnership with Guy Marchand. Star chemistry…
Mon Oncle D'Amerique (My American Uncle) (1980)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Marie Dubois, Jean Daste
- The dir. of LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD experiments with notions of human behaviour in this unusual drama, centred around the theories of a French…
Un Mauvais Fils (A Bad Son) (1980)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Patrick Dewaere, Brigitte Fossey, Yves Robert
- Affecting working–class drama about a young man returning to France after a jail term in the US for narcotics, where his attempt to restart his…
Wim Wenders on Film (Lightning over Water, The State of Things, A Trick of the Light) (1980-1995)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
- Boxset of three underseen Wim Wenders classics, each concerning the agony and ectasy of filmmaking.
Young Master, The (Shi di chu ma) (1980)
- Dir. Jackie Chan
Feat. Jackie Chan, Biao Yuen
- A fine early action–comedy from the phenomenal Jackie Chan, here trying to lure a wayward fellow student back to the 'right' side of martial…
Alexandria... Why? (1979)
- Dir. Youssef Chahine
- An autobiographical film about the early life of director Youssef Chahine, set in Alexandria. Winner of the Silver Bear at the 29th Berlin…
Amour en fuite, L' (Love on the Run) (1979)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud, Marie-France Pisier
- The fifth and final entry in dir. Truffaut's loosely autobiographical 'Anoine Doinel' series. Here, the footloose hero reaches his 30s and a new…
Buffet Froid (Cold Cuts) (1979)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet…
- When his lost switchblade turns up as a murder weapon, petty crim Gerard Depardieu goes on the lam in a nightmarish Paris, several disreputable…
Camera Buff (Amator) (1979)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
- Pointed, if slightly familiar satire of Communist life, has a smalltown clerk in Poland buy a Super8 film camera and begin to film life around him,…
Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979)
- Dir. Francesco Rosi
Feat. Gian Maria Volente, Paolo Bonacelli, Alain Cuny
- A writer is exiled to the remote South in the mid 1930s. Based on the autobiography of Carlos Levi, this film in four parts contrasts his political…
Egouts Du Paradis, Les (The Sewers of Paradise) (1979)
- Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Francis Huster, Jean-François Balmer, Lila Kedrova
- Romantic dramatization of "The Great Drain Robbery" of 1976, in which the Societe Generale Bank of France was robbed of over $10 million dollars by a…
Heroes Of The East (Zhong hua zhang fu) (1979)
- Feat. Chia Hui Liu, Yuka Mizuno
- Graceful martial arts film focused around a Chinese man who must prove the superiority of Chinese kung fu over Japanese to his disillusioned Japanese…
La Cage Aux Folles (1979)
- Dir. Edouard Molinaro
Feat. Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Serrault, Michel Galabru
- A gay couple masquerade as husband and wife for the sake of their son's marriage prospects. Screwball drag comedy was a phenomenal hit worldwide.
La Luna (1979)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Jill Clayburgh, Matthew Barry, Alida Valli…
- A wayward young junkie cuddles up to his Opera–singing mother (Jill Clayburgh) in this peculiar incest drama, shot in lush Bertolucci overtones.
Laura (Laura, Shadows of a Summer) (1979)
- Dir. David Hamilton
Feat. Maud Adams, Dawn Dunlap, James Mitchell…
- One of the dreamy, soft focus movies of fashion photographer Hamilton, featuring his characteristic themes: the coming of age of a young girl in an…
Legend of the Mountain (Shan zhong zhuan qi) (1979)
- Dir. King Hu
Feat. Shih Chun, Hsu Feng, Sylvia Chang
- A scholar translating Buddhist sutras visits a monastery filled with various mysterious characters, in this soothing spiritual drama with elements of…
Magnificent Butcher (Lin shi rong) (1979)
- Dir. Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen
- Peak Samo Hung martial artistry, collaborating here with with action legend Yuen Woo Ping for a tale based on the true–life exploits of Lam Sai…
Passe ton Bac d'abord (Graduate First) (1979)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Sabine Haudepin, Philippe Marlaud, Bernard Tronczak…
- Dir. Pialat’s matter–of–fact realism and blasé cast of young actors conveys all the aimlessness and uncertainty of youth in this…
Resurrection of Golden Wolf (1979)
- Dir. Toru Murakawa
Feat. Yusaku Matsuda, Sonny Chiba
- A moderately subversive actioner which revolves around an apparently mild–mannered 'salary man' (Matsuda), who by night sheds wig and glasses…
Shaolin Temple (1979)
- Dir. Cheung Hsin Yen
Feat. Jet Li
- Martial Arts superstar Jet Li’s debut film, as a Shaolin–trained fighter who exacts revenge upon an evil warlord, already displaying the…
Sisters or the Balance of Happiness (Schwestern oder Die Balance des Glücks) (1979)
- Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
- 1970s West German drama about two sisters whose unusually close relationship negatively impacts their individual personal lives.
Stalker (1979)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Aleksandr Kajdanovsky, Alisa Frejndlikh, Anatoli Solonitsyn
- A stark, apocalyptic vision into a world where the Stalker guides those who wish to enter the forbidden Zone. Intimate, dilatory work conjures images…
Third Generation, The (Die Dritte Generation) (1979)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Margit Carstensen, Eddie Constantine…
- A scathing black comedy about terrorism, one of the final films of German provocateur Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
A hilariously indiscriminate plot…
Tin Drum, The (1979)
- Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. David Bennett
- One the best films ever made with a child protagonist, David Bennett is unforgettable as a 12–year–old who refuses to grow up and…
To Forget Venice (1979)
- Dir. Franco Brusati
Feat. Mariangela Melato, Eleonora Giorgi, Erland Josephson
- Brooding melodrama about an extended family reunion in the house of an Operatic matriach.
5 Deadly Venoms, The (Five Deadly Venoms) (1978)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. Sheng Chiang, Philip Kwok, Feng Lu…
- A martial arts master commands a student to track down some of his other students and get them to stop those that have used their skills for…
Autumn Sonata (1978)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman
- The resumes of director Bergman and actress Bergman intersect for the first and only time in this, ahem, Bergmanesque (sombre, brutally honest,…
Blood Feud (Fatto di sangue fra due uomini per causa di una vedova - si sospettano moventi politici) (1978)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Giancarlo Giannini
- Convoluted romantic drama set against the rise of Mussolini has recently widowed Loren torn between an attorney and petty thief.
Overheated (and…
Drunken Master (1978)
- Dir. Yuen Woo Ping
Feat. Jackie Chan
- The martial arts comedy that put Jackie Chan on the map tells the tale of a disobedient son learning the art of Drunken Fist Kung Fu in order to stop…
Empire of the Passions (ai no borei) (1978)
- Dir. Nagisa Oshima
Feat. Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
- Searing, underrated crime of passion from the dir. of IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES focuses less on explicit sex, unfolding as a ghost…
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Preparez Vos Mouchoirs) (1978)
- Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Carole Laure, Patrick Dewaere
- Naive, frustrated husband Gerard Depardieu embarks on an unconventional quest to find his listless wife some happiness, firstly by 'lending' her to a…
Grapes of Death, The (Les Raisins de la Mort) (1978)
- Dir. Jean Rollin
- Eco–thriller set in the French countryside where a dangerous pesticide used in a local vineyard has turned residents into the walking dead.…
Hitler - A Film From Germany (1978)
- Dir. Hans-Jurgen Syberberg
- An epic and highly original exploration of the sources of German fascism, in which experimentalist dir. Syberberg weaves a tapestry of surreal…
In a Year of 13 Moons (1978)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven, Gottfried John…
- Volker Spengler plays a hopelessly insecure trans–sexual cast adrift amid imposing cityscapes of modern Berlin. Fassbinder trawls out the…
Les Rendez-vous D'anna (Anna's Meetings) (1978)
- Dir. Chantal Akerman
Feat. Aurore Clement, Helmut Griem, Magali Noel
- Dir. Akerman channels her nomadic existence in this semi–autobiographical account of a female filmmaker's tour of Europe to promote her latest…
Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla
- During the reconstruction of post–war Germany, a woman emerges from the ruins of war and marriage to build an empire. Hanna Schygulla oozes…
Orchestra Rehearsal, The (1978)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Baldwin Baas, Clara Colosimo, Elizabeth Labi
- A comedy of the absurd about a group of orchestra musicians who stage a revolt against the conductor after the building collapses. Allegory may be…
Tree of Wooden Clogs, The (1978)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi
Feat. Luigi Ornaghi, Francesca Moriggi
- Portrayal of early 20th century peasantry in Lombardy, this un–melodramatic alternative to Bertolucci’s NOVACENTO, examines with quiet…
You Are Not Alone (Du er ikke alene) (1978)
- Dir. Ernst Johansen, Lasse Nielsen
Feat. Anders Agensø, Peter Bjerg
- Beautifully evocative Danish coming–of–age story set in an all–boys boarding school, which confronts themes of homosexuality and…
A Special Day (1977)
- Dir. Ettore Scola
Feat. Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, John Vernon
- Quietly subversive drama set entirely in a working–class apartment building in Rome, on the fateful day in 1938 that Mussolini welcomed Hitler…
Ascent, The (Voskhozhdeniye) (1977)
- Dir. Larisa Shepitko
Feat. Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Anatoli Solonitsyn
- A Soviet WWII classic shot in appalling winter conditions in which two partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the…
Bilitis (1977)
- Dir. David Hamilton
Feat. Patti D'Arbanville
- Tissue–thin sex drama from famed 1970s photographer Hamilton (he of those misty images of nude or lace–clad women), going into dreamy…
Chess Players, The (1977)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Richard Attenborough
- India's first internationally renowned film–maker draws upon the ancient game of chess as a metaphor for Anglo–Indian political relations…
Clans of Intrigue (Chu liu xiang) (1977)
- Dir. Che Yuan
Feat. Ti Lung
- Another collaboration between dir. Yuan and the charismatic Ti Lung, in a historical detective story set around a legendary swordsman who tries to…
Death Duel (San shao ye de jian) (1977)
- Dir. Che Yuan
Feat. Derek Yee, Chen Ping, Yu An-an
- A Shaw Bros. extravaganza that benefits from its pared–down take on the swordplay–and–intrigue formula and impressive visuals,…
Despair (1977)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Dirk Bogarde
- Fassbinder's blackly comic adaptation of Nabakov's novel about delusion, depression and decline of the human spirit. Dirk Bogarde plays a Russian…
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment (1977)
- Dir. Yukio Noda
Feat. Sonny Chiba
- Sonny Chiba oozes masculine cool as the titular hitman of Takao Saito's best–selling manga. A hard–boiled exploitation noir which doesn't…
House (Hausu) (1977)
- Dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi
Feat. Kimiko Ikegami
- Words don't do justice to this one–of–a–kind Japanese horror romp about a gaggle of teen girls caught in a haunted house whose…
Man Who Loved Women, The (1977)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Charles Denner, Leslie Caron, Brigitte Fossey…
- Charles Denner plays a dedicated skirt–chaser, who falls in love with women so constantly he is brought to the point of…
Mighty Peking Man, The (Hsing Hsing wang) (1977)
- Dir. Meng-Hwa Ho
Feat. Danny Lee
- A hilarious Shaw Brothers riff on KING KONG, with an earthquake disturbing the slumbers of a giant ape in the Himalayas who then heads into India to…
Padre Padrone (1977)
- Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Feat. Omero Antonutti, Saverio Marconi, Marcella Michelangeli…
- An affecting true story about a Shepherd's son who escapes the shackles of family expectations and returns mature and educated to confront his…
Serpent's Egg, The (1977)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Isolde Barth, Heinz Bennent, Toni Berger
- Jewish trapeze–artist Keith Carradine endures the depravities and anti–semitism of 1920's Berlin. Out of the director's most grotesque…
Soldier of Orange (1977)
- Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbe, Derek De Lint…
- Dutch WWII film by Paul Verhoeven, following several young students during the German occupation of the Netherlands, and the different paths each of…
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet
- Masterpiece of loopy morals, terrorist attacks and chastity belts that turns that age old loves–me–loves–me–not story once…
The Devil, Probably (Le diable probablement) (1977)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc…
- Distinctive late–period inclusion into the incredible canon of films from director Robert Bresson (DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST), following a…
18 Bronzemen (Return of the 18 Bronzemen) (1976)
- Dir. Joseph Kuo
Feat. Tien Peng, Carter Hwang, Polly Shang-Kuan
- Two friends must fight their way out of a Shaolin temple – and 18 formidable bronze warriors – in this celebrated kung fu classic.…
1900 (Novecento) (1976)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Robert De Niro
- Spectacular saga spans the first half of 20th Century Italy, and follows two men, one a peasant (Gerard Depardieu), the other a nobleman (Robert de…
Allegro Non Troppo (1976)
- Dir. Bruno Bozzetto
- This pastiche of Disney's FANTASIA holds its own with a variety of animators having a ball with the freedom to interpret some popular classical…
American Friend, The (1976)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Bruno Ganz, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray
- Twisting thriller stars Bruno Ganz as an apparently terminally–ill man duped into murder. Dennis Hopper plays the American 'friend', while…
Body Of My Enemy, The (Le Corps De Mon Ennemi) (1976)
- Dir. Henri Verneuil
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Marie-France Pisier
- Slow burning thriller with Belmondo as a man wrongly imprisoned for drug trafficking looking to exact revenge on those who framed him.
Trading…
Boomerang (Comme un boomerang) (1976)
- Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Alain Delon, Carla Gravina, Dora Doll
- French crime film with Alain Delon playing an ex–gangster and father of a delinquent teen, who is determined to clear his son's name after he…
Challenge of the Masters (Huang Fei-hong yu liu a cai) (1976)
- Dir. Liu Chia Liang
Feat. Gordon Lau, Chan Koon Tai, Lai Lai Lee
- One of the great exponents of shaolin kung fu cinema, dir. Chia Liang, here casts his attention on the Chinese legend of Fei–hung.
Played by…
Chinese Roulette (Chinesisches Roulette) (1976)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Anna Karina, Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira…
- Daunting Fassbinder drama concerning a cheating mother and father unwittingly convinced by their disabled daughter to each take their lovers on a…
Cria Cuervos (1976)
- Dir. Carlos Saura
Feat. Ana Torrent, Geraldine Chaplin
- The remarkable Ana Torrent (SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE) turns in another mesmerizing performance as the middle child of recently deceased parents. A…
Desert of the Tartars, The (1976)
- Dir. Valerio Zurlini
Feat. Vittorio Gassman, Jacques Perrin, Helmut Griem…
- Italian drama set in a hostile East Asian desert, where a isolated Lieutenant defends an old, unmaintained border fortress while awaiting an attack…
Face to Face (1976)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann
- A harrowing insight into a nervous breakdown suffered by a woman psychiatrist. Bleak yet compulsive through stylised photography and Liv Ullmanns…
Fellini's Casanova (1976)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Donald Sutherland
- Fellini indulges himself just short of self–parody for a gorgeously stylised, absurdist revision of the life of the 18th Century lover. Donald…
Hand Of Death (Shao Lin men) (1976)
- Dir. John Woo
Feat. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Biao Yuen
- Fairly standard HK action fare with a young Shaolin martial–artist given the difficult task of avenging the death of a member of his order.…
Heart of Glass (1976)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Clemens Scheitz
- Werner Herzog committed his cast to six months of hypnosis, before embarking on a spellbinding tale of an 18th Century Bavarian glassblower whose…
Hunter Will Get You (L'Alpagueur) (1976)
- Dir. Philippe Labro
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bruno Cremer
- Ice–cool Belmondo thriller about government mercenary who poses undercover as a prisoner to smoke out an insidious criminal mastermind.
In the Realm of the Senses (Ai No Corrida) (1976)
- Dir. Nagisa Oshima
Feat. Tatsuya Fuji, Eiko Matsuda
- Hailed as an erotic masterpiece in some quarters and condemned as mere sexually explicit exploitation in others, Oshima’s indisputably elegant…
Kieslowski Collection, The (The Scar, Camera Buff, No End, Blind Chance, I'm So So) (1976-1987)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
- The acclaimed early works of Krzysztof Kieslowski in a five disc box–set. Includes I'M SO SO, an hour–long tribute to the director…
Kings of the Road (1976)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Rudiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Lisa Kreuzer
- Two men embark on an odyssey of discovery along Germany's East/West border. A thoughtful, illuminating road movie that will ultimately reward…
L'Innocente (1976)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O'Neill
- Visconti's swan–song is an exquisite noble period drama in which a faithless husband in driven to extremes when his wife bears a child to…
Magic Blade, The (Tien ya, ming yueh tao) (1976)
- Dir. Che Yuan
Feat. Ti Lung, Ching Li, Lo Lieh
- Excellent action tale from the prime era of "Wu Xia" cinema, this has three rival swordsman in medieval China compete for possession of a secret…
Maitresse (1976)
- Dir. Barbet Schroeder
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Bulle Ogier
- An eye–watering, willfully transgressive tale of a petty crook (Depardieu) who enters into a seemingly conventional romance with a…
Man of Marble (1976)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
- One of dir. Wadja's later masterpieces is a strong attack on the tactics and hypocrisy of the Communist government of the day.
A film student…
Mr. Klein (1976)
- Dir. Joseph Losey
Feat. Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau
- A dark, dread–inducing moral tale, with Delon fleecing vulnerable Jews under German–occupied–France, only to be mistaken by…
News From Home (La Chambre, Hotel Monterey) (1976)
- Dir. Chantal Akerman
Feat. Chantal Akerman
- A beautifully composed tableaux of New York in the seventies, cut to a reading of letters from dir. Akerman's mother.
Also includes the…
Satan's Brew (Satansbraten) (1976)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Margit Carstensen, Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven…
- Schizophrenic Fassbinder dramedy involving a German poet struck with writer's block that partakes in a number of moneymaking schemes involving his…
Scar, The (Blizna) (1976)
- Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Feat. Franciszek Pieczka
- Dir. Kieslowski's debut theatrical feature follows on from his earlier documentary work in dramatising what happens when a large chemical plant is…
Shaolin Wooden Men (1976)
- Feat. Jackie Chan
- Jackie Chan cut his teeth on these cheap fist–and–feet–fests. More intentionally serious than his later star–turns, but…
Small Change (L'argent de Poche) (1976)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Nicole Felix, Chantal Mercier
- Childhood in a small French village is portrayed as a series of witty poetic moments in a comedy that’s sunny, tender and finally serious in…
Stroszek (1976)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Bruno S., Eva Mattes
- Powerful tragi–comedy follows a simple–minded Bruno S to America with a prostitute trying to escape her unsavoury past. The film's…
The Marquise of O (Die Marquise von O) (1976)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Edith Clever, Bruno Ganz
- An Eric Rohmer period drama set in 1799 telling the story of the Marquise von O, a virtuous widow, who finds herself pregnant who protests her…
Web of Death, The ( Wu du tian luo) (1976)
- Dir. Yuen Chor
Feat. Yang Chiang, Ching Li, Norman Chu…
- Shaw Brothers 'wu xia' at its ripest and most expressive, injecting a tale of ancient clan rivalry with great action, creative polish and bizarre…
Woman at Her Window, A (Une femme à sa fenêtre) (1976)
- Dir. Pierre Granier-Deferre
Feat. Romy Schneider, Philippe Noiret
- Romy Schneider plays a lovelorn aristocrat torn between a nobleman and a political activist in 1936 Greece.
Woyzeck (1976)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Klaus Kinski
- A version of Georg Buchner's play, matching Herzog to another gloomy Germanic visionary, with Klaus Kinski as the soldier tormented by visions and…
Best French Crime Flicks (1975-1981)
- Dir. Georges Lautner, Jose Giovanni, Alain Corneau
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Yves Montand
- Three seminal French crime dramas in one collection: THE PROFESSIONAL (1981), THE GYPSY (1975), and CHOICE OF ARMS (1981).
Bullet Train, The (1975)
- Dir. Jun'ya Sato
Feat. Ken Takakura, Sonny Chiba
- Unstoppable, no–holds–barred action vehicle finds Sonny Chiba steering a passenger train rigged with a bomb to explode if its speed drops…
Cousin Cousine (1975)
- Dir. Jean-Charles Tacchella
Feat. Marie-Christine Barrault, Victor Lanoux, Marie-France Pisier…
- Warm, witty and immensely successful comedy in which cousins by marriage take their relationship way beyond the…
Dersu Uzala (1975)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Maksim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin, Svetlana Danilchenko
- Kurosawa ventured to Russia for this Oscar–winning epic detailing the experiences of a Russian military explorer in Siberia, and his friendship…
Emilienne (1975)
- Dir. Guy Cararil
Feat. Betty Mars, Pierre Oudry
- French art house erotica based on a novel by Claude Des Olbes about a threesome between a young model, an artist and his wife. Straight faced and as…
Fear of Fear (Angst vor der Angst) (1975)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira
- Overlooked Fassbinder drama following an isolated young mother suffering from post–natal depression who turns to drugs to help her cope. A fine…
Fox and His Friends (1975)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Peter Chatel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Adrian Hoven
- Fassbinder himself stars in one of his best melodramas as a working class lottery–winner who is exploited by his middle–class lover. A…
Gypsy, The (Le Gitan) (1975)
- Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Paul Meurisse
- Alain Delon humours the plight of the gypsy as a gangster with a nomadic past. An obscure, moody crime vehicle.
Je tu il elle (I, You, He, She) (1975)
- Dir. Chantal Akerman
Feat. Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire Wauthion
- Dir. Chantal Akerman stars in her debut feature as a lonely drifter whose road trip to nowhere detours via encounters with a male truck driver and a…
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
- Dir. Chantal Akerman
Feat. Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte
- Delphine Seyrig plays a repressed housewife whose rigid domestic routine – with, secretly, the occasional trick turned on the side –…
Lost Honor of Katherina Blum, The (1975)
- Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. Angela Winkler, Jurgen Prochnow
- Taken from the novel by Heinrich Boll, this reproach to the powers–that–be in mid–70s West Germany portrays the hardheaded…
Magic Flute, The (1975)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
- An immaculately delivered version of Mozart's operatic fairytale, filmed on a special replica of the original 18th century stage.
At its simplest,…
Man from Hong Kong, The (1975)
- Dir. Brian Trenchard-Smith
Feat. George Lazenby, Bill Hunter, Rebecca Gilling…
- Cracking martial arts adventure tracking an inspector sent to Australia to expel a drug courier. Photogenically set against the backdrops of Ayers…
Master of the Flying Guillotine (1975)
- Dir. Yu Wang
Feat. Yu Wang
- Legendary martial arts anomaly cited by Quentin Tarantino as his favourite kung fu film, this stars (and is directed by) Jimmy Yu Wang as a…
Mother Kuesters Goes to Heaven (1975)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Brigitte Mira, Ingrid Caven, Karlheinz Bohm…
- A furiously witty political black comedy from New German Cinema iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder, heavily inspired by the melodramas of Douglas…
Salo (1975)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Paolo Bonacelli, Giogio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle…
- More extreme in content than anything else in our library, an embittered Pasolini spares the viewer nothing in his faithful adaptation of The Marquis…
Seven Beauties (1975)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Shirley Stoler
- Wimpish Casanova Giancarlo Giannini is cast wherever the winds of WWII fling him: eventually into a German concentration camp run by Shirley Stoler…
Sholay (Flames) (1975)
- Dir. Ramesh Sippy
Feat. Dharmendra , Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Bhaskar
- This roundabout Bollywood classic, about a former law enforcer who enlists two criminal misfits to help him seek revenge, plunders spaghetti…
Story Of Adele H.,The (1975)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, Sylvia Marriott
- A towering performance by Isabelle Adjani anchors this moody, but somewhat turgid romance. Based on the diaries of Victor Hugo's daughter that…
Wrong Move (1975)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Rudiger Vogler, Nastassja Kinski
- A young writer works through his artistic angst and laments the decline of German society in Wenders disquieting road movie. Downbeat, but compelling…
Xala (Impotence) (1975)
- Dir. Ousmane Sembene
- When a government official (Thierno Leye) in newly–independent Senegal marries a third wife he finds himself struck down with impotence, in…
Alice in the Cities (1974)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Rudiger Vogler, Yella Rottlander, Lisa Kreuzer
- A German journalist's homeward trek is diverted through various cities when he helps a young companion re–locate her family. Wenders'…
Amarcord (1974)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Bruno Zanin, Pupella Maggio, Armendo Brancia
- Fellini's last bonafide masterpiece – an inspired recreation of his memories of growing up in small–town Italy during the Fascist 1930s…
Arabian Nights (Il Fiore Delle Mille e Una Notte) (1974)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Ninetto Davoli, Franco Citti, Tessa Bouche
- For the final part of his “Trilogy of Life”, Pasolini interweaves several of the tales of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’,…
Celine & Julie Go Boating (Celine et Julie vont en bateau) (1974)
- Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier
- Rivette assaults the narrative form for his epic–lengthed, dream–like, near indescribable tale of two girls whose lives and imaginations…
Conversation Piece (1974)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Silvana Mangano
- A retired professor, who leads of solitary and ordered existence is disturbed by rich and overbearing new tenants in his Roman palazzo.
Assembles…
Effi Briest (1974)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla
- Thoughtful drama, from provocative German Dir. Fassbinder, recounting the story of a stifled married woman whose long hidden affair reveals itself…
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Bruno S., Walter Ladengast, Brigitte Mira
- The title refers to the only case of a man who was 'born' as an adult. He has lived in a dark cellar all his life and has never seen another human…
French Screen Icons: Alain Delon 2 (Icy Flesh, The Gypsy, Like a Boomerang, A Crime) (1974-1993)
- Feat. Alain Delon
- Four films starring French leading–man Alain Delon.
French Screen Icons: Romy Schneider (Love in the Rain, A Woman at Her Window) (1974-1976)
- Feat. Romy Schneider
- Two French films from the 1970's starring German–born screen icon, Romy Schneider.
Golden Lotus (Jin ping shuang yan) (1974)
- Dir. Han Hsiang Li
Feat. Yang Chun, Hu Jien, Tien Ni…
- Now rather obscure erotica from the Shaw Brothers, adapting the classic Chinese novel about a 'Casanova' of the Sung Dynasty and various intertwined…
Icy Flesh (Icy Breasts; Les seins de glace) (1974)
- Dir. Georges Lautner
Feat. Alain Delon, Mireille Darc, Claude Brasseur
- Alain Delon potboiler, with the French leading man succumbing to the wiles of an alluring, if deadly femme fatale. Better known as 'Icy Breasts'.
La Gueule Ouverte (The Mouth Agape) (1974)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Hubert Deschamps, Monique Mélinand, Philippe Leotard…
- Devastating drama from dir. Pialat distills autobiographical material into an edifying portrait of terminal illness, and the emotional state of the…
La Maman Et La Putain (the Mother and the Whore) (1974)
- Dir. Jean Eustache
Feat. Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Francoise Lebrun
- At just over three and a half hours, this domestic chamber drama – probably the last great film of the French New Wave – is not for the…
Lacombe Lucien (1974)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Pierre Blaise, Aurore Clement
- A subtle, probing study of the psychology of collaboration set in WW2 rural France, sees young peasant lad Pierre Blaise drawn into the local…
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (Shura-yuki-hime: Urami Renga) (1974)
- Dir. Toshiya Fujita
Feat. Meiko Kaji, Yoshio Harada, Kazuko Yoshiyuki…
- Excellent, though not widely celebrated sequel, has Kaji put her sword skills to work in Meiji Japan playing off the ruthless government against an…
Lancelot Du Lac (1974)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Luc Simon, Laura Duke Condominas, Humbert Balsan…
- Bresson endows the legend of King Arthur with his unique style and vision, and exposes a density of ideas by stripping the story back to its base…
Lone Wolf & Cub 6: White Heaven in Hell (1974)
- Dir. Yoshiyuki Kuroda
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Junko Hitomi…
- The continuing adventures of disgraced Shogun assassin Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro.
Lone wolf and Cub return for their final battle…
Love in the Rain (Un amour de pluie) (1974)
- Dir. Jean-Claude Brialy
Feat. Romy Schneider, Nino Castelnuovo, Suzanne Flon
- More pomp and circumstance from Romy Schneider, here playing a well–to–do French woman indulging in various love affairs while holidaying…
Martha (1974)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Margit Carstensen, Karlheinz Bohm
- Addressing his favourite subject, emotional cruelty, Dir. Fassbinder skillfully works a vein of pitch–black comedy in depicting Margit…
Mirror (Zerkalo) (1974)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Larisa Tarkovskaya
- Appropriately titled autobiography of Tarkovsky's childhood, impressioned by the volatile cultural environment. Unique in both form and vision, this…
Nuits Rouges (1974)
- Dir. Georges Franju
Feat. Jacques Champreux, Gayle Hunnicutt
- Another Franju masked adventure launched from Louis Feuillade serials and his own excellent JUDEX, only this time in filmed in a garish, exagerrated…
Phantom of Liberty, The (1974)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Jean-Claude Brialy, Monica Vitti
- The great surrealist's penultimate film uses a Chinese–box structure to weave a dream–like tableau of set pieces that waver from to the…
Stavisky (1974)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Francois Perier, Anny Duperey…
- Belmondo lends his shafty screen persona to the role of notorious financier, swindler, and raconteur Alexandre Stavisky, whose monetary exploits and…
Street Fighter, The (1974)
- Dir. Shigehiro Ozawa
Feat. Sonny Chiba
- Career–making martial arts outing for Japanese icon Sonny Chiba, mugging his heart out as a brutal enforcer who turns the tables on his…
Vincent, François, Paul et les autres (1974)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Yves Montand, Michel Piccoli, Serge Reggiani…
- French drama following three friends facing mid–life crises, based on the novel La grande Marrade by Claude Néron.
Wim Wenders Road Movies (Alice in the Cities, Wrong Move, Kings of the Road) (1974-1976)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
- Boxset compilation of a further three Wim Wenders touchstones, each variations on the quintessential road movie.
Burned Barns, The (Les granges brulées) (1973)
- Dir. Jean Chapot
Feat. Alain Delon, Simone Signoret
- Moody provincial drama of death and betrayal reunites Delon and Signoret, this time on opposite sides of the law.
More a character study than a…
Cauldron Of Death (Ricco) (1973)
- Dir. Tulio DeMicheli
Feat. Christopher Mitchum, Barbara Bouchet, Malisa Longo
- Masquerading as a B–grade horror, this is actually a melodramatic Italian revenge thriller concerning the son of a murdered mobster who is…
Day For Night (La Nuit Americaine) (1973)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Leaud…
- The blueprint film about film–making – made a few decades before it became fashionable – mirroring the first–hand experiences…
Don Juan (or if Don Juan Were a Woman) (1973)
- Dir. Roger Vadim
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Robert Hossein, Mathieu Carriere
- Notable mainly as the last appearance from screen goddess Brigitte Bardot, this erotic drama sees the sex–kitten playing a lusty seductress who…
Fear Eats the Soul (1973)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem
- A sort of remake of Douglas Sirk's older woman–younger man melodrama "All That Heaven Allows", with added plot weirds countered by typical…
Female Yakuza Tale (Yasagure anego den: sôkatsu rinchi) (1973)
- Dir. Teruo Ishii
Feat. Reiko Ike
- A scorned Reiko Ike returns in this remarkably trashier sequel to SEX AND FURY, ready to unleash another roaring rampage of revenge on sadistic…
Grande Bouffe, La (1973)
- Dir. Marco Ferreri
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Philippe Noiret, Michel Piccoli…
- A wonderful bare–faced satire that indulges its social metaphor through a dinner party of four rich, bored middle–aged men who decide to…
I Will Walk Like A Crazy Horse (J'irai comme un cheval fou) (1973)
- Dir. Fernando Arrabal
Feat. Emmanuelle Riva, George Shannon
- With VIVA LA MUERTE, this represents the peak of the cinematic surrealism of dir. Arrabal, threading another quasi–medieval fable with liberal…
Illicit Desire (Feng liu yun shi) (1973)
- Dir. Han Hsiang Li
Feat. Hong-Yip Cheng, Chen Ping
- Shaw Brothers sexploitation from the early 1970s, this was actually a huge hit at the Hong Kong box–office with three steamy scantily costumed…
Lady Snowblood 1 (Shurayukihime) (1973)
- Dir. Toshiya Fujita
Feat. Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaaki Daimon…
- A classic samurai B–movie made in the heyday of 'Wu Xia' influence, with Kaji playing a bereaved young woman who seeks revenge on the gangsters…
Lone Wolf & Cub 5: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Michiyo Ookusu…
- The continuing adventures of disgraced Shogun assassin Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro.
In this 5th instalment, Itto must battle 5 samurai to…
Love and Anarchy (1973)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Eros Pagni
- Cult director Lina Wertmuller's political parable about the would–be assassin of Mussolini who falls in love with a prostitute at his…
Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson
- Married couple Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson undergo a lengthy emotional ordeal as their marriage disintegrates. Shot in a sparse functional…
Sex and Fury (Furyô anego den: Inoshika Ochô) (1973)
- Dir. Norifumi Suzuki
Feat. Reiko Ike
- Japanese exploitation cinema proves itself unrivaled with this slice of 70s celluloid anarchy, trailing a mostly nude Reiko Ike as she slashes and…
Shock Treatment (Traitement de Choc) (1973)
- Dir. Alain Jessua
Feat. Alain Delon, Annie Girardot
- Pointed medical chiller set in an anti–aging clinic overseen by Delon. This minor genre film is memorable for Girardot and Delon's risque beach…
Slightly Pregnant Man, A (1973)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve
- Minor, though broadly enjoyable Demy farce partners Mastroianni and Deneuve as expecting husband and wife. The twist? He's pregnant! Gender politics…
Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
- Dir. Victor Erice
Feat. Ana Torrent
- Set after the Spanish Civil War, this gorgeous, moving still–life accounts a young girl's obsession with finding a 'spirit' after seeing…
Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe / Return of the Tall Blond Man (1973)
- Dir. Yves Robert
Feat. Pierre Richard, Bernard Blier, Jean Rochefort
- A secret service chief arranges for his assistant to investigate an innocent person chosen at random in order to prove him inept.
A little dated…
Themroc (1973)
- Dir. Claude Faraldo
Feat. Michel Piccoli
- Satirical in a most primitive, bestial way, this astonishing fable sees frustrated factory–worker Michel Piccoli cease to speak one morning,…
Touki Bouki (1973)
- Dir. Djibril Diop Mambety
Feat. Magaye Niang, Mareme Niang
- A Senegalese drama, recently restored, about a cowherd and a university student try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past…
World on a Wire (1973)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Klaus Löwitsch, Mascha Rabben, Adrian Hoven…
- Fassbinder's one–and–only sci–fi foray is awash with trademark visual motifs, gaudy fashion, and dramatic power struggles of the…
Zatoichi's Conspiracy (Zatoichi 25) (1973)
- Dir. Kimiyoshi Yasuda
Feat. Shintaro Katsu
- Blind masseur and swordsman Zatoichi returns to his home town after decades of wandering and trouble, only to find inevitable conflict with a…
A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (Une Belle Fille Comme Moi) (1972)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Bernadette Lafont, Andre Dussollier
- Twisted French black comedy of a licentious, manipulative murderess recounting her sordid past to a green criminology student. Dripping in silly…
Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Klaus Kinski
- Stunningly shot on location in the Amazon, this spellbinding adventure details the decline and fall of a conquistador (Klaus Kinski) in his maniacal…
All Men are Brothers (Sui woo juen) (1972)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. David Chiang, Ti Lung, Danny Lee
- Slathered with great fight scenes, this Shaw Brothers sequel to THE WATER MARGIN ups the ante considerably, with the band of Outlaw warriors…
Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, The (1972)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla
- Lurid, feverish masterpiece from the incredibly prolific Fassbinder, chronicles a doomed lesbian relationship from the claustrophobic confines of…
Canterbury Tales, The (I Racconti di Canterbury) (1972)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Hugh Griffith, Tom Baker, Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Pasolini interprets four of Geoffrey Chaucer’s tales in the second of the director's medieval trilogy, set in a bawdy, perverse and dark vision of…
Cesar & Rosalie (1972)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Yves Montand, Romy Schneider, Sami Frey…
- French romantic drama with Yves Montand and Sami Frey playing contrasting romantic rivals to divorced single mum Romy Schneider. Montand is a coarse…
Cries and Whispers (1972)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson…
- “It’s Monday morning and I’m in pain…” So begins one of Bergman’s most nerve–wrecking psychodramas, set in a 19th household of…
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1972)
- Dir. Samuel Fuller
Feat. Glenn Corbett, Anton Diffring, Stephane Audran
- German police procedural directed by Samuel Fuller, made as part of the television series Tatort but also given a theatrical release in the USA. An…
Dirty Money (Un Flic) (1972)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Alain Delon, Richard Crenna, Catherine Deneuve
- Final film by the suspense–specialist Melville (LE SAMOURAI), spins a familiar tale of cops and bank–robbers involving Alain Delon,…
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeiosie (1972)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stephane Audran…
- Best Foreign Film Oscar–winner in which six guests convene for a meal they never actually get to eat! Bunuel veers between reality and illusion…
Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)
- Dir. Lucio Fulci
Feat. Barbara Bouchet, Florinda Bolkan, Tomas Milian…
- A compelling Giallo mystery from Italian master Lucio Fulci (THE BEYOND) following a detective investigating a series of child murders in a southern…
Fellini's Roma (1972)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Federico Fellini
- The Italian master's eclectic home town portrait blends reconstructed memoirs and contemporary images (incl. a stunning traffic jam sequence) into a…
Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)
- Dir. Shunya Ito
Feat. Meiko Kaji, Fumio Watanabe, Kayuko Shiraishi
- A classic of Japanese 70s exploitation cinema, this charts the grim road to freedom for a gaggle of women escaped–convicts with a feverish…
French Screen Icons: Jean-Paul Belmondo 2 (The Inheritor, Scoumoune: Mafia Warfare, The Body of My Enemy) (1972-1976)
- Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Three films starring French leading–man Jean–Paul Belmondo.
French Screen Icons: Jean-Paul Belmondo 3 (The Professional, The Outside Man, The Loner, Amazone) (1972-1987)
- Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Four films starring French leading–man Jean–Paul Belmondo.
Hanzo The Razor Trilogy (The Razor: Sword of Justice; Razor 2: The Snare; Razor 3: Who's Got the Gold?) (1972-1974)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Shintaro Katsu
- Mind–boggling samurai film series combines a 1970s taste for heroic bloodshed with a strongly Japanese sexploitation angle.
Featuring the…
Hapkido (Lady Kung Fu) (1972)
- Dir. Feng Huang
Feat. Angela Mao, Carter Wong
- Old–school chop socky flick centring round rival martial arts schools features none of that tiresome rapid fire editing, but plenty of rapid…
Herzog Kinski Collection (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu, Cobra Verde, Woyzeck, My Best Fiend) (1972-1999)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Klaus Kinski
- Fabulous box–set containing six collaborations between the visionary dir. Werner Herzog and his most manic collaborator: Klaus Kinski.
Inheritor, The (L'Heritier) (1972)
- Dir. Philippe Labro
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Carla Gravina, Jean Rochefort
- Shadowy thriller in which a wealthy industrialist dies in an air crash but his son suspects foul play. Soon he finds his own life in peril.
Set…
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972)
- Dir. Yuen Chor
Feat. Lily Ho, Yue Hua, Bei Di
- One of the most controversial, yet best directed films of Hong Kong erotic cinema, this shocked avid audiences in its day and exerts a raw power even…
Liza (Love To Eternity) (1972)
- Dir. Marco Ferreri
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Marcello Mastroianni, Corrine Marchand
- Another fetish piece from dir. Ferreri (GRANDE BOUFFE & BYE BYE MONKEY) sees Liza (Deneuve) stranded on an island playing a 'dog' for Giorgio's…
Lo Scopone Scientifico (1972)
- Dir. Luigi Comencini
Feat. Bette Davis, Alberto Sordi, Silvana Mangano…
- Little–known Italian comedy stars Bette Davis as a wealthy, Nora Desmond–esque countess who entices those less fortunate to gamble with…
Lone Wolf & Cub - Complete Boxset (1972-1981)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Fumio Watanabe…
- Boxset of all six 'Lone Wolf & Club' installments plus the re–cut/re–dubbed feature film, SHOGUN ASSASSIN.
Lone Wolf & Cub 1: Sword of Vengeance (1972)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Fumio Watanabe…
- The LONE WOLF AND CUB series chronicles the adventures of disgraced Shogun assassin Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro, who sell their services to…
Lone Wolf & Cub 2: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Kayo Matsuo
- The continuing adventures of disgraced Shogun assassin Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro.
In this second episode, Ogami battles a group of…
Lone Wolf & Cub 3: Baby Cart to Hades (1972)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Go Kato…
- The continuing adventures of disgraced Shogun assassin Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro.
Ogami volunteers to be tortured by the Yakuza gang…
Lone Wolf & Cub 4: Baby Cart In Peril (1972)
- Dir. Buichi Sato
Feat. Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Michie Azuma…
- The continuing adventures of disgraced Shogun assassin Ogami Itto and his infant son Daigoro.
In the fourth installment of the series, Itto is…
Love in the Afternoon (L'Amour l'après-midi) (1972)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Bernard Verley, Zouzou , Françoise Verley…
- The sixth and final movie in Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" series concerning a bourgeois man who is still tempted to pursue other women despite being…
Ludwig (1972)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Helmut Berger, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard…
- A sumptuous biopic of 'mad' Prince Ludwig II of Bavaria (Berger) who reigned in the mid–1800s, creating and inhabiting his own bizarre world of…
Merchant of Four Seasons, The (Händler der vier Jahreszeiten) (1972)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Ingrid Caven, Peter Chatel…
- Crushing melodrama centred on a man whose life begins to cave in on him after returning from service in the Foreign Legion to find his dreams…
Scoumoune: Mafia Warfare (La Scounoune) (1972)
- Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale, Michael Constantine
- Punchy underworld tale charts the rise and fall of icy hitman Belmondo who returns to Marseilles to help clear his friend of a murder charge.
Told…
Seduction of Mimi, The (1972)
- Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato
- Satirical comedy taking plenty of shots at Italianisms, about a poor labourer who is forced to leave his family in Sicily to take an illegal factory…
Solaris (1972)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, Juri Jarvet
- Brilliant imagery permeates this provocative insight into life on an isolated space station, where madness threatens all who work there. Paced to…
State of Siege (1972)
- Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori, Maurice Teynac
- Influenced by the rise to power of Uruguay's 1970s dictatorship, Costa–Gavras's gritty drama follows the kidnapping and interrogation of U.S.…
Tout Va Bien (Everything’s All Right) (1972)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin
Feat. Yves Montand, Jane Fonda, Anita Caprioli
- Radical political drama from Nouvelle Vague luminary Jean Luc–Godard and frequent collaborator Jean–Pierre Gorin, set during a wildcat…
Water Margin (Seven Blows Of The Dragon) (1972)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. David Chiang, Ti Lung
- Perhaps the most spectacular of the 1970s Hong Kong swordplay productions by the Shaw Bros, this epic is set in 12th century Sung Dynasty China,…
We Won't Grow Old Together (Nous Ne Vieillirons Pas Ensemble) (1972)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Marlène Jobert, Jean Yanne, Christine Fabréga…
- A uniquely disquieting film covering the dissolution of an affair between an aged filmmaker and a much younger secretary, based on French director…
Who Saw Her Die? (1972)
- Dir. Aldo Lado, Vittorio De Sisti
Feat. George Lazenby, Anita Strindberg, Adolfo Celi…
- Moody Italian giallo horror about a child killer roaming the streets of Venice.
The family of the latest victim begin their own investigation…
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972)
- Dir. Sergio Martino
Feat. Edwige Fenech, Anita Strindberg, Luigi Pistilli…
- Another brilliantly lurid psycho–sexual horror from Italian giallo master Sergio Martino (THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH).
Edwige Fenech…
Zatoichi At Large (Zatoichi 23) (1972)
- Dir. Kazuo Mori
Feat. Shintaro Katsu, Rentaro Mikuni, Hisaya Morishige
- Late–period inclusion to the Zatoichi series has the eponymous blind swordsman helping to deliver a baby, then finding himself honour bound to…
Zatoichi In Desperation (Zatoichi 24) (1972)
- Dir. Shintaro Katsu
Feat. Shintaro Katsu, Kiwako Taichi, Kyôko Koizumi
- A particularly bleak inclusion in the iconic ZATOICHI series, with the eponymous blind swordsman (Shintaro Katsu, also directing) seeking to atone…
Alfredo Alfredo (1971)
- Dir. Peitro Germi
Feat. Dustin Hoffman
- Even Dustin Hoffman is dubbed in this low–rent sex farce that only the Italians seem to find funny. Time has procured it novelty value.
Beware Of A Holy Whore (Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte, The Little Chaos, The City Tramp) (1971)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hanna Schygulla
- Dubbed Fassbinder's most autobiographical work, this ambiguous comedy investigates relations between a clan of artists attempting to make a film in…
Daughters of Darkness (Le Rouge aux Levres) (1971)
- Dir. Harry Kumel
Feat. Delphine Seyrig, Danielle Ouimet, Andrea Rau…
- Significant, sultry vampire horror, justly celebrated for its blend of understated dread, unusual eroticism and elegant trappings which has been…
Death in Venice (1971)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Dirk Bogarde
- Dirk Bogarde plays a gay composer whose unspoken obssesion with a young boy detains him in Venice during a cholera epidemic. This soft–focus,…
Duel of Fists (Kuen gik) (1971)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. David Chiang, Ti Lung, Ching Li
- Chiang plays a Chinese boxer who travels to Bangkok, Thailand to find his long–lost brother. Although he is successful, events precipitate a…
Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Helmut Berger, Dominique Sanda
- Remarkable comeback for dir. De Sica after being written off by the critics, this winner of 1971s Best Foreign Film Oscar recreates the tragically…
Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty, The (1971)
- Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Arthur Brauss
- Enigmatic tale of a maturing goalkeeper who abandons his soccer team and ambles about Germany. Dir. Wender's typical sketchbook narrative provides…
Le Souffle Au Coeur (Murmur of the Heart) (1971)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Benoit Ferreux
- A much praised coming–of–age tale concerns a sickly, but promiscuous teenage boy growing up in a stilted bourgeois family in 1950s Dijon…
Love (Szerelem) (1971)
- Dir. Karoly Makk
- A quiet miracle of the little–seen Hungarian cinema, this quietly impressive story follows a woman's ongoing attention to her vibrant but…
Max and the Junkmen (Max Et Les Ferrailleurs) (1971)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Romy Schneider
- French crime drama set in the noir shaded streets of Paris follows a frustrated detective getting tangled up in a love triangle after commissioning a…
Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The (1971)
- Dir. Sergio Martino
Feat. Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Bruno Corazzari…
- Mesmerising giallo horror starring 70's Italian cinema queen and frequent Martino collaborator Edwige Fenech as the socialite wife of a diplomat who…
Third Part of the Night (Trzecia czesc nocy) (1971)
- Dir. Andrzej Zulawski
- A World War II film told as a feverish abstract nightmare. Set in Nazi–occupied Poland, the story follows a young man who joins the resistance…
Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)
- Dir. Amando De Ossorio
Feat. Lone Fleming, Cesar Burner, Maria Elena Arpon
- Savage 13th Century Templars are resurrected in modern times to exact revenge on young nymphs. The Redemption label redeems another trashy bloodlust…
Trafic (Traffic) (1971)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
Feat. Jacques Tati
- Mr. Hulot's final clownish outing sees him invent a revolutionary motor car which proves to be problematic en route to Amsterdam.
Tristana (1971)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, Franco Nero
- Catherine Deneuve plays a beautiful young heroine burdened with a vulgar husband and a knee ailment that will require her leg to be amputated!…
Two English Girls (Anne and Muriel) (1971)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud, Kika Markham, Stacey Tendeter
- A French writer encounters the delicate dilemma of falling in love with both English sisters at a Welsh coastal cottage. Tantalising romance is…
W.R. Mysteries of the Organism (1971)
- Dir. Dusan Makavejev
- Documentary footage, late sixties counter–culture and fictional elements are freely mixed to explore the ideas of radical sexologist, Wilhelm…
Widow Couderc, The (La veuve Couderc) (1971)
- Dir. Pierre Granier-Deferre
Feat. Alain Delon, Simone Signoret
- Rustic thriller with Delon as a brooding stranger embroiled in a torrid affair with hard–bitten widow Signoret.
Witty adaptation of a George…
Zatoichi Meets The One Armed Swordsman (Zatoichi 22) (1971)
- Dir. Kimiyoshi Yasuda
Feat. Shintaro Katsu, Yu Wang
- An above–average entry in the continuing series, this has the titular blind swordsman assist the Chinese One–Armed Swordsman, who has…
A Swedish Love Story (1970)
- Dir. Roy Andersson
Feat. Ann-Sofie Kylin, Rolf Sohlman
- The debut feature film from director Roy Andersson (YOU, THE LIVING) is an unforgettably beautiful coming–of–age tale inspired by the…
American Soldier, The (Der Amerikanische Soldat) (1970)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Karl Scheydt, Elga Sorbas, Jan George…
- The third in a loose trilogy of gangster films directed by prolific German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder early in his career.
A…
Borsalino (1970)
- Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Michel Bouquet
- Delightful seriocomic film of two likeable hoods who become gangland chieftains in 1930s Marseilles. Music by Claude Bolling.
Cercle Rouge, Le (The Red Circle) (1970)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonte, Yves Montand…
- A precisely–crafted colour 'noir' from the French master, dir. Melville, which rejigs the usual ingredients into an exemplary heist…
Claire's Knee (1970)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Jean-Claude Brialy
- The director's fifth moral tale gained him major international recognition. A curiously droll tale of a middle–aged man's obsession with the…
Confession, The (L'Aveu) (1970)
- Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Gabriele Ferzetti…
- A high–ranking government official in Communist Czechoslovakia is taken prisoner and forced to confess to treason he never committed.
Conformist, The (Conformista, Il) (1970)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin…
- Dazzling images and a potent brew of sex and politics merge seamlessly in this milestone of cinema about a submissive Italian Fascist recruited to…
Decameron, The (1970)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Franco Citti, Ninetto Davoli, Jovan Jovanovic
- The first part of dir. Pasolini’s ‘medieval trilogy’, this adapts ten of Boccaccio’s famously ribald tales of the Italian Middle Ages. With…
Domicile Conjugal (Bed and Board) (1970)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud
- Serio–comic misadventures of Truffaut's alter–ego, Antoine Doinel, an immature father–to–be who is unsettled in matrimonial…
Donkey Skin (Peau d'âne) (1970)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, Delphine Seyrig…
- A vibrant, whimsical and genuinely fantastic adaptation of Perrault's classic 17th century fairy tale in which a Princess (Deneuve) disguises herself…
Ear, The (Ucho) (1970)
- Dir. Karel Kachyna
Feat. Jirina Bohdalova, Radoslav Brzobohaty, Jiri Cisler
- Set over the course of an evening this is a searing look at life under an oppressive totalitarian system and an equally harsh examination of a…
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Helmut Doring, Gerd Gickel, Paul Glauer
- A group of dwarfs run riot and take over their penal colony on a bleak volcanic island. Bizarre and unsettling parable will leave an indelible mark…
Fellini Satyricon (1970)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Martin Potter, Hiram Keller, Max Born…
- Freely adapted from the Roman author Petronious, this follows the adventures of two bisexual youths through the decadent, fragmented age of Rome's…
Gods of the Plague (Götter der Pest) (1970)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Margarethe von Trotta, Harry Baer…
- The second in a loose trilogy of gangster films directed by prolific German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder early in his career.
In this…
Heroic Ones, The (1970)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. David Chiang, Chin Han, Ti Lung…
- Martial arts film set in 1880s imperial China, where a Mogul king secretly assembles his loyal generals on a mission to take on his greatest rivals.…
Incident at Blood Pass, The (Machibuse) (1970)
- Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Shintaro Katsu
- Pedigree shogun face off between genre icons Mifune and Katsu in a tautly conceived show down over hijacked gold between a remote mountain pass.…
La Rupture (The Breach) (1970)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Stephane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jean-Claude Drouot…
- Stéphane Audran plays a good mother with a chequered past who divorces her deadbeat husband and is targeted by her aggrieved in–laws. In a bit…
Medea (1970)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Maria Callas
- Pasolini's stylised, passionate rendering of Euripides play blessed with the formidable presence of Maria Callas, in a non–operatic role, as…
One Plus One (Sympathy for the Devil) (1970)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
- Controversial work from dir. Godard's 'Mao–ist' period intercuts a fascinating, disorganised recording session by the Rolling Stones…
Quiet Days in Clichy (1970)
- Dir. Jens Jørgen Thorsen
Feat. Paul Valjean, Wayne Rodda, Ulla Koppel
- Fascinating Danish adaptation of Henry Miller's ribald novel set around the sexual adventures of a young writer and his roommate in 1930s Paris.…
Secret Of Dorian Gray, The (Dorian Gray) (1970)
- Dir. Massimo Dallamano
Feat. Helmut Berger, Herbert Lom, Richard Todd
- Fleshy retelling of Oscar Wilde's classic tale with Helmut Berger living it up as the decadent naif who fails to age.
Certainly the raunchier of…
Spider's Stratagem, The (1970)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Giulio Brogi, Alida Valli
- Investigating the death of his anti–fascist father, Giulio Brogi is enveloped in an atmosphere of mystery as he strolls the sleepy town where…
Things of Life, The (Les Choses De La Vie) (1970)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Romy Schneider, Michel Piccoli, Jean Bouise
- Golden Palm nominated French comedy focusing on the life of a fatally injured man who upon seeing his life flash before his eyes realizes he must…
Twelve Gold Medallions, The (Shi er jin pai) (1970)
- Dir. Cheng Kang
Feat. Yue Hua
- A Shaw Brothers "wuxia" film starring Yueh Hua as an emperor loyalist trying to prevent a message enscribed on twelve gold medallions delivered by…
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Valerie a tyden divu) (1970)
- Dir. Jaromil Jireš
Feat. Jaroslava Schallerová
- Mesmerising surrealist horror film from Czechoslovakia, following a young heroine as she encounters vampires, priests, and other fantasy characters…
Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (Zatoichi 20) (1970)
- Dir. Kihachi Okamoto
Feat. Shintaro Katsu, Toshiro Mifune
- An enjoyable spin on the Japanese samurai genre, depicts a comedic rivalry between Katsu and Mifune in a secluded mountain village. Although lacking…
Zatoichi: Festival of Fire (Zatoichi 21) (1970)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Shintaro Katsu, Tatsuya Nakadai
- One of the strongest of the later films in the 25–strong Zatoichi cycle (this is 21), with the blind masseur with the cane sword getting into…
Army of Shadows (L'Armée des Ombres, aka Army in the Shadows) (1969)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel…
- Melville’s heavyweight masterpiece – by turns sombre, exhilarating, and tension–filled – tackles the clandestine rearguard…
Boucher, Le (The Butcher) (1969)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Stephane Audran, Jean Yanne
- Psychological thriller probes the perhaps dangerous liaison between a celibate school–teacher and a murder suspect, the local butcher. Rich in…
Colour of Pomegranates (Color of Pomegranates) (1969)
- Dir. Sergei Paradjanov
Feat. Sofiko Chiaurel, Melkon Aleksanyan, Vilen Galstyan
- A visually exquisite, at times baffling film from the much–censored Armenian director. Retells the life of 18th century mystic poet Sayat Nova…
Dillinger is Dead (1969)
- Dir. Marco Ferreri
Feat. Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg, Annie Girardot
- Indefinable late–sixties curio finds gas mask designer Michel Piccoli at a loose end in his gaudy suburban home. A gun that may have belonged…
Double Suicide (Shinjû: Ten no amijima) (1969)
- Dir. Masahiro Shinoda
Feat. Kichiemon Nakamura, Shiwa Iwashita, Hosie Komatsu
- A landmark of avant–garde Japanese cinema aims to replicate the startling aesthetic of traditional 'bunraku' puppetry in its enactment of an…
Femme Infidele, La (The Unfaithful Wife) (1969)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Michel Bouquet, Stephane Audran, Maurice Ronet
- French bourgeoisie couple Michel Bouquet and Stephane Audran form a murderous love–triangle with seducer Maurice Ronet, revealing the hidden…
Funeral Parade of Roses (Bara no Soretsu) (1969)
- Dir. Toshio Matsumoto
Feat. Shinnosuke Ikehata (aka Peter), Yoshio Tsuchiya
- A bold and significant product of the Japanese New Wave that loosely transposes Oedipus Rex to the underground gay culture of 1960s Tokyo with a…
Katzelmacher (1969)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla
- Daring Fassbinder drama focused on a group of Munich friends indulging in the banality of their ordered lives until the arrival of a Greek immigrant…
Le Gai Savoir (Joy Of Learning) (1969)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Juliet Berto, Jean-Pierre Leaud
- Challenging offering from dir. Godard puts two actors on a soundstage and allows them to dwell on ideologies, concepts and complex understandings of…
Love is Colder Than Death (Liebe ist kälter als der Tod) (1969)
- Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Ulli Lommel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hanna Schygulla…
- The first in a loose trilogy of gangster films directed by prolific German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder early in his career.
Fassbinder…
Ma Nuit Chez Maud (My Night at Maud's / My Night with Maud) (1969)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault
- Rohmer's fourth moral tale again presents the idea of a man's romantic dilemma with more than one woman in his life. The wordy philosophising is…
Mississippi Mermaid (1969)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Tobacco baron Belmondo sends for a mail–order bride, gets the ravishing Deneuve. Too bad she's a con–artist with an inescapable past.…
Passion of Anna, The (1969)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson…
- Unpleasant drama set on a barren island with widow Ullman finding misery loves company in the form of tortured ex–convict von Sydow. Meanwhile…
Perversion Story (1969)
- Dir. Lucio Fulci
Feat. Jean Sorel, Elsa Martinelli, Marisa Mell
- Erotic shocker from the priest of perversion. An unfortunate doctor falls in with an amoral stripper who happens to resemble his dead wife.
Que La Bete Meure (This Man Must Die) (1969)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Michel Duchaussoy, Jean Yanne, Caroline Cellier
- Thriller based on the book called The Beast Must Die by Cecil Day–Lewis (under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake), about a man who becomes involved…
Red Lion (Akage) (1969)
- Dir. Kihachi Okamoto
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Shiwa Iwashita
- A fine samurai comedy from dir. Okamoto (KILL!), has a luckless soldier (Toshiro Mifune) don a brilliant red hairpiece (thus impersonating a…
Slogan (1969)
- Dir. Pierre Grimblat
Feat. Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg
- Vivacious French romance about a reckless advertising director who throws caution to the wind and abandons his preggers wife to embark on a worldwide…
Spirits of the Dead (Histoires Extraordinaires) (1969)
- Dir. Louis Malle, Federico Fellini, Roger Vadim
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Terence Stamp, Alain Delon…
- A classy compendium of three Edgar Allan Poe stories directed by Europe's finest.
Metzengerstein (Dir. Roger Vadim) – Jane and Peter Fonda…
Touch of Zen, A (Hsia Nu) (1969)
- Dir. King Hu
Feat. Hsu Feng
- A dazzling blend of medieval potboiler, religious fable and martial arts spectacular, set in an ancient China wracked by civil war.
Centred on the…
Bouncing Beauty, The (The Little Bather) (1968)
- Dir. Robert Dhéry
Feat. Louis de Funès, Franco Fabrizi
- A zany and plotless comic gem from France's top comedian, Louis de Funès, distinctive for its hilarious visual gags. Funès plays a maniacal CEO of…
Bride Wore Black, The (La Mariée était en noir) (1968)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy…
- Traumatised by her fiance's death, moments before due to be wed, Jeanne Moreau dedicates herself to a long–term plan of revenge, hunting and…
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)
- Dir. Daniele Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Feat. Gustav Leonhardt, Christiane Lang
- Less astringent than the reputation of husband and wife filmmakers Straub–Huillet would suggest, this lean but invigorating treatment of Johann…
Claude Chabrol Boxset Vol. 1 (Les Biches, Le Boucher, Que La Bete Meure, La Femme Infidele) (1968-1969)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
- Four classic films from the French master of suspense's late sixties output. Also includes the documentary GRAND MANEGE: THE LIFE AND WORK OF CLAUDE…
Cremator, The (1968)
- Dir. Juraz Herz
Feat. Rudolf Hrusinsky, Vlasta Chramostova
- Widely considered one of the greatest films of the Czech new wave, a blackly humorous fantasy horror following the increasingly deranged impulses of…
Damned, The (1968)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Berger
- Italian dir. Luchino Visconti casts a languorous eye over the decline of a German industrialist family during the Nazi era. Heavyweight cast includes…
Farewell, Friend (Honor Among Thieves) (1968)
- Dir. Jean Herman
Feat. Alain Delon, Charles Bronson
- Dependable French caper, centered on an elaborate heist, with warhorses Branson and Delon thick as thieves in vying to crack the same high security…
Hour Of The Wolf (Vargtimmen) (1968)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann
- One of dir. Bergman's most troubled visions, this concerns the descent of an unstable artist (von Sydow) and his sensitive wife (Ullmann) into a…
Ingmar Bergman Collection (The Serpent's Egg, The Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, Skammen) (1968-1977)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow
- A collection of four of the Swedish master's most challenging and thought provoking works: THE SERPENT'S EGG, THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, THE PASSION OF…
Kill! (Kiru) (1968)
- Dir. Kihachi Okamoto
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai
- A sharp and blackly comic tale set in 1830s Japan around two bedraggled swordsman – one a former samurai (Nakadai), the other a farmer aspiring…
Kuroneko (1968)
- Dir. Kaneto Shindo
Feat. Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kiwako Taichi
- Visually exquisite black and white horror film from Japanese director Kaneto Shindo (ONIBABA). An adaptation of a supernatural folktale set during…
L'Enfance-Nue (Naked Childhood) (1968)
- Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Michel Terrazon
- Astonishingly sober coming–of–age tale represents Pialat at his most profoundly unsentimental. The director brilliantly blends naturalism…
La Chamade (Heartbeat) (1968)
- Dir. Alain Cavalier
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli
- Catherine Deneuve flitters between youthful passion and the comfort of an older, wealthy lover in this elegant menage a trios, lessened only by an…
Les Biches (Bad Girls) (1968)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacqueline Sassard, Stephane Audran
- A love–triangle between an heiress, an architect and a young woman, is tested to unsettling effect in this psychological drama. Chabrol…
Mandabi (The Money Order) (1968)
- Dir. Ousmane Sembene
- The first significant film to be made in an African language (Wolof), directed by the 'father of African cinema', Ousmane Sembène.
The title…
Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)
- Dir. Tomas Gutierrez Alea
Feat. Sergio Corrieri
- Merging the political and personal to stunning effect, this witty and artful assemblage of documentary, still photography, and dramatic fiction…
Milky Way, The (1968)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Alain Cuny…
- Bunuel experiments with narrative in relating theories of traditional Catholicism to the encounters of two wandering vagrants.
Signs of Life (Lebenszeichen) (1968)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Peter Brogle
- An early descent into madness for dir. Werner Herzog, in which a soldier charged with guarding a remote island fortress must overcome the boredom of…
Skammen (Shame) (1968)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand
- Bleak parable set against the back drop of a fictional war finds an apolitical couple aloofly living out their days on an island indulging in various…
Stolen Kisses (Baisers Voles) (1968)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud, Delphine Seyrig
- Third film in the director's Antoine Doinel series (see also THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS) starring Jean–Pierre Leaud, here as a careless young man…
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Terence Stamp, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti…
- A mysterious stranger seduces and corrupts each member of a bourgeois family. Pasolini stitches religious, social and political metaphors into his…
Werner Herzog Collection (Signs of Life, Even Dwarfs Started Small, Kaspar Hauser, Stroszek, Heart of Glass, Where the Green Ants Dream) (1968-1982)
- Dir. Werner Herzog
- Comprehensive box–set containing six early films from renowned German director Werner Herzog.
Z (1968)
- Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Irene Papas
- Pioneering conspiracy thriller based on the true story of the murder of a doctor and the raw sore of Greek political corruption it exposes. Oscars…
Assassin, The (Da ci ke) (1967)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. Yu Wang
- More understated than later Shaw Brothers efforts, this costume actioner stars 'Jimmy' Wang Yu as a patriotic swordsman of ancient Han–era…
Belle De Jour (Beauty of the Day) (1967)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli…
- Cool and elegant comedy of manners about a virginal newlywed who works the day shift in a high class brothel. Bunuel's surrealist…
Champagne Murders, The (Le scandale) (1967)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Anthony Perkins, Maurice Ronet, Yvonne Furneaux…
- Claude Chabrol transitions into his revered period of thrillers with this potboiler about a champagne tycoon's partner who suspects his partner's…
Diabolically Yours (Diaboliquement vôtre) (1967)
- Dir. Julien Duvivier
Feat. Alain Delon, Senta Berger, Sergio Fantoni
- Creepy thriller has amnesiac Delon recovering in his opulent mansion with beautiful wife Berger, living the good life. Trouble comes when he begins…
Elvira Madigan (1967)
- Dir. Bo Widerberg
Feat. Pia Degermark, Thommy Berggren, Lennart Malmer…
- Ultra–romantic story of an army officer and a tightrope dancer who sacrifice everything for each other. Filmed like a shampoo commercial, it…
Firemen's Ball, The (1967)
- Dir. Milos Forman
Feat. Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebanek, Josef Valnoha
- Early film from the director of AMADEUS and CUCKOO'S NEST is an engaging, off–beat collection of comic vignettes, including a clumsy beauty…
French Screen Icons: Alain Delon 1 (Diabolically Yours, The Burned Barns, The Widow Coudrec, Shock Treatment) (1967-1973)
- Feat. Alain Delon
- Four films starring French leading–man Alain Delon.
I am Curious Yellow / I am Curious Blue (1967)
- Dir. Vilgot Sjoman
Feat. Vilgot Sjoman, Lena Nyman
- Originally intended to be one 3.5–hour film but later split into two parts, both presented in a faux–documentary style, with director…
King Kong Escapes (1967)
- Dir. Ishiro Honda
Feat. Mie Hama, Akira Takarada, Rhodes Reason…
- Kaiji co–production between Japan and the USA which pits a robot version of King Kong (MechaniKong!) against a giant dinosaur Gorosaurus. A…
La Chinoise (1967)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud, Anne Wiazemsky, Juliet Berto…
- Five Parisian students dabble in the possibilities of enacting a Mao–ist revolution in the West, in one of dir. Godard's more overt flirtations…
Ladies of the Night (Plus vieux métier du monde, Le) (1967)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe de Broca, Claude Autant-Lara
Feat. Anna Karina, Elsa Martinelli, Jeanne Moreau…
- A six–segment portmanteau comedy which traces the history of prostitution from its Stone Age version (being the 'oldest profession') through to…
Le Samourai (The Samurai) (1967)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Alain Delon
- Alain Delon plays an ultra–cool assassin whose flawless disposition is impenetrable to the Gendarmerie but not to a sexy key witness. Steely…
Les Grandes Vacances (The Big Vacation) (1967)
- Dir. Jean Girault
Feat. Louis de Funès, Ferdy Mayne
- French comedy great Louis de Funès plays dictatorial headmaster to his two wayward sons, who rock the boat when sent to England as exchange students.
Marketa Lazarova (1967)
- Dir. František Vláčil
Feat. Josef Kemr, František Velecký, Magda Vášáryová
- A revelation of the Czech new wave, this dark medieval tale of feuding family clans beautifully evokes the historical tensions between Christianity…
Mouchette (1967)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Nadine Nortier, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Maria Cardinal
- An impoverished young girl in rural France bears the brunt of hard times in this perfectly formed study, taken from the novel by George Bernanos.…
Oedipus Rex (1967)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Silvana Mangano, Franco Citti, Alida Valli
- Striking visual achievement, filmed amidst the Moroccan desert and Bologna, describes the Oedipal tale of a tortured soul who murders his father and…
One Armed Swordsman (Dubei dao) (1967)
- Dir. Chang Cheh
Feat. Yu Wang
- Jimmy Wu Yang predates his one–armed boxer classic MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE as a disabled swordsman training in the art of…
Playtime (1967)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
Feat. Jacques Tati
- Tati's satirical vision of modern city life and brutalist architecture is his magnum opus. His alter–ego Mr. Hulot goes about his third…
Red and the White, The (Csillagosok, katonak) (1967)
- Dir. Miklos Jancso
Feat. Jozsef Madaras
- Russia’s bloody civil war of 1918 is lamented in this visionary war movie from influential Hungarian auteur Miklos Jancso. A formally stunning…
Thief of Paris, The (Le Voleur) (1967)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Genevieve Bujold, Marie Dubois
- Enjoyable comedy with Belmondo as a young man cheated of his inheritance who in turn develops a taste for thieving. Set in Paris at the turn of the…
Weekend (1967)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne
- A poetic, stylised and savage vision as only Godard could dream up and/or get away with. Road chaos and carnage is his metaphor for the decline of…
Young Girls of Rochefort, The (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort) (1967)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Francois Dorleac, Gene Kelly
- The carrot of love is dangled in Jacques Demy's positively radiant follow–up to UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG: an unbridled, colour–saturated…
Zatoichi: The Outlaw (Zatoichi 16) (1967)
- Dir. Satsuo Yamamoto
Feat. Shintaro Katsu
- A middle–installment in the longrunning Zatoichi series, sees the wandering masseur become embroiled in a violent plot involving two rival…
Andrei Rublev (1966)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Anatoli Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko
- Enthralling historical drama vividly portrays the 15th Century Russian painter who was encumbered by the political turbulence of the time.
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Anne Wiazemsky, Francois Lafarge, Philippe Asselin
- Robert Bresson's immediately recognisable minimalist style is here lent to one of the few films whose central character is a donkey.
Before the Revolution (1966)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Adriana Asti, Francisco Barilli
- Bertolucci's second film – made at the age of 22! – demonstrates his bravura visual style fully formed around this coming of age in the…
Black Girl (La Noire de...) (1966)
- Dir. Ousmane Sembene
- A French–Senegalese drama film and the directorial debut of Ousmane Sembene, often considered to be the first Sub–Saharan African film by…
Closely Observed Trains (1966)
- Dir. Jiri Menzel
Feat. Vaclav Neckar, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodsky
- Oscar–winning Czech film about a lonely train guard's attempt to lose his virginity while his country copes with the German occupation. The…
Daimajin: Wrath of Daimajin (1966)
- Dir. Kazuo Mori
Feat. Masahide Iizuka, Hideki Ninomiya, Shinji Hori
- One in a series of Japanese films about the great demon god Daimajin, who repeatedly comes to the aid of villagers when tyrannical warlords threaten…
Daisies (1966)
- Dir. Vera Chytilova
Feat. Julius Albert, Jitka Cerhova, Marie Ceskova
- Much–loved cinematic firecracker from the halcyon days of 60s Czech radicalism, in which two girls (both called Marie) live out their anarchist…
Delirious Fictions of William Klein, The (Who are You, Polly Maggoo?; Mr. Freedom; The Model Couple) (1966-1977)
- Feat. Anemone , Jacques Boudet, Eddie Constantine…
- An American photographer in new wave Paris; Dir. Klein has been making challenging cinema for more than forty years. In his three obscure fiction…
Don't Look Now We're Being Shot At (La Grande Vadrouille) (1966)
- Dir. Gerard Oury
Feat. Andre Bourvil, Gerard Oury, Louis de Funès
- Side–splitting war caper turns a downed British bomber over Paris into a hilarious escape from German clutches. One of France’s highest…
Fighting Elegy (Kenka Erejii) (1966)
- Dir. Seijun Suzuki
Feat. Hideki Takahashi
- As pre–war nationalism spreads through the youth of Japan, A teenage gangster falls in love with a catholic schoolgirl. She tries her best to…
Guerre Est Finie, La (1966)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin, Genevieve Bujold…
- (The War is Over). Deeply romantic film in which Spanish Civil War refugee Yves Montand tries in vain to keep alive the memory of his struggle.
Le Deuxieme Souffle (Second Breath) (1966)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Raymond Pellegrin
- A gangster escapes from prison and returns to his criminal ways, but a determined inspector is on his tail. Has all the style and restraint we can…
Made in U.S.A (1966)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Anna Karina, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Marianne Faithful
- Further political horseplay from Godard in the skin of a Nouvelle Vague alternate reality: this time, Anna Karina plays a war journalist on the hunt…
Mademoiselle (Summer Fires) (1966)
- Dir. Tony Richardson
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Ettore Manni, Umberto Orsini
- Divisive and disturbing portrait of a repressed school teacher who unleashes a plague of 'accidents' upon on the inhabitants of her rural…
Man and a Woman, A (1966)
- Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Anouk Aimee, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pierre Barouh
- Classic love story is one of the most popular foreign films of all time. Intelligent, sensitive script is ignited with exotic locations and Francis…
Masculin Feminin (1966)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud, Chantal Goya, Brigitte Bardot
- Godard steers toward the political with this bittersweet social comment about the Parisian youth culture of '65 through a series of oddly connected…
Nayak (The Hero) (1966)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Sharmila Tagore
- Satyajit Ray deconstructs the male ego–centre in this tale of a Bengali movie star who must summon his own internal critic after coming under…
Patriotism (Yûkoku) (1966)
- Dir. Yukio Mishima
Feat. Yukio Mishima, Yoshiko Tsuruoka
- Short film directed by Japanese writer and revolutionary Yukio Mishima, based on his short story of the same name published in 1961. Set in February…
Persona (1966)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson
- Perhaps dir. Bergman's most renowned and haunting work, a study of the psychological processes between a mute patient and her repressed nurse.
Liv…
Sword of Doom (Dai-bosatsu tôge) (1966)
- Dir. Kihachi Okamoto
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai
- Based on a long–running Japanese newspaper serial, this stars Tatsuya Nakadai as an evil wandering samurai in feudal Japan who sees himself as…
Trace of Stones (Spur der Steine) (1966)
- Dir. Frank Beyer
Feat. Manfred Krug, Krystyna Stypulkowska, Eberhard Esche
- An East German film which was censored by the ruling communist party for years before being finally released in 1989, depicting the working…
War and Peace (1966)
- Dir. Sergei Bondarchuk
Feat. Lyudmila Savelyeva, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Irina Gubanova
- The definitive version of Leo Tolstoy's gargantuan novel, set during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in the early 19th century. Nothing else quite…
Wings (Krylya) (1966)
- Dir. Larisa Shepitko
Feat. Maya Bulgakova, Zhanna Bolotova
- Elegant black and white drama about an ex–WWII Soviet fighter pilot, the directorial debut of Ukrainian filmmaker Larisa Shepitko.
A…
Young Torless (Der junge Törless) (1966)
- Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. Mathieu Carriere
- Early film in the career of German director Volker Schlondorff (THE TIN DRUM), set in an Austrain military academy in the early 20th century which is…
A Blonde in Love (1965)
- Dir. Milos Forman
Feat. Hana Brejchova, Vladimir Pucholt, Vladimir Mensik
- This early film from the director of AMADEUS tells the simple story of a young girl's search for a pianist with whom she spent the night. Forman…
Alphaville (1965)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff…
- A private eye is sent to a futuristic city run by a computer to rescue a trapped scientist. Amalgam of film noir and science fiction illustrates the…
Battle of Algiers, The (1965)
- Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
Feat. Brahim Haggiag
- Gripping account of the Muslim uprising which led to the withdrawal of France from Algeria was shot merely four years after the revolution, and as…
Fists in the Pocket (1965)
- Dir. Marco Bellochio
Feat. Lou Castel, Paola Pitagora, Marino Mase
- A ferocious intensity pervades this bitter yet utterly startling tale of a family afflicted with epilepsy, blindness and frustration, unafforded the…
Intimate Lighting (1965)
- Dir. Ivan Passer
Feat. Zdenek Bezusek
- Intimacy and lightness are two words that fit this excellent Czech New Wave film like a glove. Ivan Passar (CUTTER’S WAY) contrasts the urbane…
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Giulietta Masina
- Perhaps the female flipside of Fellini's 8 1/2, he again infuses stylised flashbacks and fantasies into the real world of a gregarious housewife who…
Oshima's Outlaw Sixties (Pleasures of the Flesh, Violence at Noon a.k.a. Violence at High Noon, Sing a Song of Sex, Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, Three Resurrected Drunkards) (1965-1968)
- Dir. Nagisa Oshima
- Five films from provocative Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, all from the 60's, when he formed his own film production company and enjoyed the most…
Paris vu par (Six in Paris) (1965)
- Dir. Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol
- Passionate, parochial anthology of New Wave shorts from six of France's best: Godard, Chabrol and Rohmer headline a concoction of Parisian sketches…
Pierrot Le Fou (Crazy Pete) (1965)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina
- A striking example of the French New Wave. It's kiss, kiss, bang, bang all the way with Jean Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina as maverick intellectual…
Red Beard (Akahige) (1965)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki…
- An unusual hospital drama from dir. Kurosawa, collaborating for the final time with Mifune, who here plays a tough doctor coaching an intern (Kayama)…
Samurai Assassin (1965)
- Dir. Kihachi Okamoto
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi, Michiyo Aratana…
- Sharply delivered samurai epic based on the infamous Sakurada Gate Incident of 1860 in which a high–ranking shogunite official was assassinated…
Samurai Spy (1965)
- Dir. Masahiro Shinoda
Feat. Koji Takahashi, Tetsuro Tamba, Kei Sato
- This atypical samurai saga ventures from the norm through overenthusiastic plotting, a Latin–infused score, and arresting…
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
- Dir. Sergei Paradjanov
Feat. Ivan Mikolajchuk, Larisa Kadochnikova, Tatyana Bestayeva
- A tragic, Carpathian folk tale of two lovers separated by a family feud is the basis for Parajanov’s staggering debut. Miraculous visuals and a…
Shop on High Street, The (The Shop on Main Street) (1965)
- Dir. Jan Kadar
- A key film of the Czech film renaissance of the 1960s, that explores 'everyday fascism' through the story of a Jewish shopkeeper who mistakes her…
Simon of the Desert (1965)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Silvia Pinal, Claudio Brook
- A short surrealist fantasy concerning the life of Simon Stylites (Claudio Brook), an early Christian ascetic, who stood for years atop a column in…
Sucker, The (Le Corniaud) (1965)
- Dir. Gerard Oury
Feat. Andre Bourvil, Gerard Oury, Louis de Funès
- Quintessential French farce finds the affable Bourvil tricked into driving a Cadillac to Bordeaux containing thousands of dollars of jewelry and…
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1965)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Joseph Gehrard, Marina Vlady, Anny Duperey
- The life of a Parisian prostitute, analysing the likes of women, language, western society as well as cinema itself. Godard's cinematic essay broke…
Assassination (Ansatsu) (1964)
- Dir. Masahiro Shinoda
Feat. Tetsuro Tamba, Eiji Okada
- Japan’s turbulent, late 19th century landscape is the backdrop to this fiercely stylized tale of a masterless whose sword edge thrusts between the…
Bande a Part (Band of Outsiders) (1964)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Anna Karina, Claude Brasseur, Sami Frey
- One of the dir.’s more accessible films follows the carefree criminal adventures of Anna Karina, Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey, while still…
Black God White Devil (1964)
- Dir. Glauber Rocha
Feat. Maurício do Valle, Geraldo Del Rey, Othon Bastos
- A landmark of Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement, fusing discordant sound and imagery with the embittered folktale of a…
Charulata (The Lonely Wife) (1964)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Madhabi Mukherjee
- One of Satyajit Ray’s most accomplished (and Western–influenced) films, whose central female protagonist falls for the young, aspiring cousin…
Diamonds of the Night (1964)
- Dir. Jan Nemec
Feat. Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova
- Extraordinarily intense account, told with almost no dialogue, of two Jewish teenagers running for their lives after escaping from a train bound for…
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Georges Geret, Michel Piccoli
- Maid Jeanne Moreau manipulates two blue–blooded households to ascend her status in pre–war France. Another shrewd political jape from the…
Gertrud (1964)
- Dir. Carl Dreyer
- Exploring similar territory to fellow Scandinavian Ingmar Bergman, Dreyer's final film is an intense psychological study about a middle–aged…
Godzilla Vs Mothra (Godzilla Vs The Thing) (1964)
- Dir. Inoshiro Honda
Feat. Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi
- The hulk lizard of Japanese comic book legend takes on the recently hatched spawn of Mothra, with a little help from some spirited stop–motion…
Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini
- Acted entirely by non–professionals, this is a startlingly visual rendering of the biblical text, blending breath–taking photography with…
Hamlet (1964)
- Dir. Grigori Kozintsev
Feat. Innokenti Smoktunovsky
- The legendary Russian version of Shakespeare's play, which visually at least, stands as the greatest yet.
Staged amidst the massive battlements of…
Intentions of Murder (Akai satsui, Unholy Desire) (1964)
- Dir. Shohei Imamura
Feat. Masumi Harukawa, Ko Nishimura, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi…
- Unsentimental drama from Japanese director Shohei Imamura (THE INSECT WOMAN), depicting a rape survivor's determination to overcome her pitiless…
Kwaidan (1964)
- Dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Feat. Rentaro Mikuni, Michiyo Aratana, Misako Watanabe
- A four part anthology of visually intoxicating Japanese period ghost stories. Each tale expanding domestic melodramas into the paranormal realm.…
Le Bonheur (Happiness) (1964)
- Dir. Agnes Varda
Feat. Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Marie-France Boyer
- Agnes Varda's sly subversion of romantic norms courted controversy with its frank depiction of the infidelity of a happily married man and the…
Marriage Italian Style (Matrimonio All'italiana) (1964)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren
- This hilarious marriage farce features Sophia Loren as a long–suffering unwedded woman: on her deathbed, she convinces the commitment–shy…
My Way Home (Igy jottem) (1964)
- Dir. Miklos Jancso
Feat. Andras Kozak, Sergei Nikonyenko, Janos Gorbe
- In the final days of World War II, a young Hungarian is making his way home, through countryside full of the debris of war, when he is captured and…
Onibaba (the Hole) (1964)
- Dir. Kaneto Shindo
Feat. Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura
- An eerie, brazenly sensual medieval folk tale about a mother and daughter–in–law who kill just to survive and eventually turn on each…
Red Desert (il Deserto Rosso) (1964)
- Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Feat. Monica Vitti, Richard Harris
- Housewife Monica Vitti embarks on a casual affair with Richard Harris following a nervous breakdown. Set amidst an oppressive industrial landscape,…
Soft Skin, The (La Peau Douce) (1964)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Francois Dorleac, Jean Desailly
- Moving New Wave drama from Francois Truffaut tells the story of a scholar pursuing a torrid affair with a stewardess while attempting to juggle his…
Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964)
- Dir. Philippe Condroyer
Feat. Jean-Pierre Talbot, Jean Bouise, Félix Fernández
- Second live–action version of Herge’s cult boy journalist, this time in pursuit of some valuable ‘blue oranges’ in Valencia, Spain.
As…
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The (1964)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo
- Gorgeous French musical with Catherine Deneuve, in her acting debut, one of its many pleasures. A bittersweet romantic story is allied to a lush…
Une Femme Mariee (A Married Woman: Fragments of a Film Shot in 1964 in Black and White) (1964)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Bernard Noël, Macha Meril, Philippe Leroy
- Key work from the first phase of Godard's career which deconstructs the life of a married woman in a series of complex and humorous portraits. Over a…
Weekend at Dunkirk (1964)
- Dir. Henri Verneuil
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Spaak, Georges Geret…
- The decimation of French and English troops who retreated to the coastal settlement of Dunkirk in 1940 is the sobering subject of this otherwise…
Woman of the Dunes (1964)
- Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara
Feat. Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida
- From a simple premise – a man becomes trapped in a valley of sand in which a solitary woman lives – the director is able to draw out…
An Actor's Revenge (1963)
- Dir. Kon Ichikawa
Feat. Kazuo Hasegawa, Fujiko Yamamoto
- Unusual storyline concerns a Kabuki female impersonator, who seduces and arranges the destruction of three nobles responsible for his parents'…
Bay of Angels (La baie des anges) (1963)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Claude Mann, Paul Guers
- A young bank employee is enticed into the world of gambling and travels to Nice where he falls in love with divorced mother and gambling addict…
Doulos, Le (The Finger Man) (1963)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani
- Eschewing the French New Wave movement in favour of homage to the then ‘passe’ genre of film noir, dir. Jean–Pierre Melville adds shades of…
Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni
- Fellini's most revered film is a self–analytical exercise casting Marcello Mastroianni as a troubled director trapped by his own visions and…
Hands Over the City (Le mani sulla città) (1963)
- Dir. Francesco Rosi
Feat. Rod Steiger, Salvo Randone, Guido Alberti
- An astute and ever–pertinent story of political corruption in post–World War II Italy starring Rod Steiger as a ruthless developer and…
High and Low (1963)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune
- Adapted from a crime–novel by Ed McBain, this kidnapping–thriller is a central work in dir. Kurosawa’s series of film noirs, combining…
Insect Woman, The (1963)
- Dir. Shohei Imamura
Feat. Sachiko Hidari, Masumi Harukawa, Emiko Aizawa
- The social upheaval of Japanese life between the wars is examined through the eyes of a struggling but resilient women in a poor farming village. The…
Judex (1963)
- Dir. Georges Franju
Feat. Edith Scob, Channing Pollock, Francine Bergé
- Georges Franju's magical remake of Louis Feuillade’s 1916 serial, in which a masked crime fighter seeks revenge on a corrupt banker. A lyrical…
Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within) (1963)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau, Alexandra Stewart
- Brilliantly measured account of an alcoholic (Maurice Ronet) who makes a final social round to find reason why he should not take his own life. Rich…
Le Mepris (Contempt) (1963)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang
- An insecure screen–writer struggles with vulgar producers as well as his movie–star wife on the set of Homer's Odyssey. Brigitte Bardot,…
Leopard, The (Il Gattopardo) (1963)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale…
- An Italian classic, concerning the decline of the 19th century Sicilian aristocracy – represented by Burt Lancaster– that fulfils its…
Little Soldier, The (Petit soldat, Le) (1963)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Anna Karina, Michel Subor
- Unheralded Godard sidebar has Michel Subor attempting to assassinate an Algerian sympathizer – if he can resist the charms of left–winger…
Mahanagar (The Big City) (1963)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Anil Chaterjee
- Subtle and provoking satire of gender equality finds the wife of a once high–flying, but now redundant banker seeking employment, absorbing the…
Organizer, The (I Compagni) (1963)
- Dir. Mario Monicelli
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot…
- Engrossing, beautifully filmed Italian drama about working class solidarity, set amidst the rapid expansion of industrial society in 19th Century…
RoGoPaG (Let's Wash our Brains) (1963)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Orson Welles, Rosanna Schiaffino, Ugo Tognazzi…
- A curious anthology of four short films each written and directed by three Italian and one French film director; Jean–Luc Godard ("Il Nuovo…
Samurai Pirate (Daitozoku) (1963)
- Dir. Senkichi Taniguchi
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Mie Hama, Kumi Mizuno
- Odd hybrid of feudal Japan and swashbuckler fantasy, with Toshiro Mifune as a ruffian sailor assigned with rescuing a captive King’s daughter from…
Silence, The (1963)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom
- Final part of Bergman's Faith Trilogy (begun with THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY and WINTER LIGHT) is set in an anonymous war–torn country where…
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni
- A compendium of three stories starring Sophia Loren in her luscious prime in three very different roles. Together with Marcello Mastroianni, it…
47 Ronin, The (Genroku chushingura) (1962)
- Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Setsuko Hara
- A grand and spectacular take on a famous Japanese legend, with 47 ronin (masterless samurai) in feudal Japan seeking revenge on those responsible for…
An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Chishu Ryu, Shiwa Iwashita, Keiji Sada
- Dir. Ozu's final work is one of his best – an appropriately autumnal evocation of age and dependency, set around a widower who sorrowfully…
Andrei Tarkovsky Collection, The (Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, The Mirror, Stalker) (1962-1979)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
- Five cinematic landmarks from the visionary Russian filmmaker.
Boccaccio '70 (1962)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini
Feat. Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider, Marisa Solinas…
- Naughty for the time, this all–star portmanteau film is loosely based on updated versions of the bawdy stories of 14th century writer Giovanni…
Cartouche (Swords of Blood) (1962)
- Dir. Philippe de Broca
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale
- The dashing Jean–Paul Belmondo cut, thrusts, and courts the ravishing Claudia Cardinale in this quasi–Robin Hood swashbuckler steeped in…
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
- Dir. Agnes Varda
Feat. Corrine Marchand
- One of the treasures of the French New Wave, dir. Varda’s debut is, Pauline Kael contends “one of the few films directed by a woman where the…
Divorce Italian Style (1962)
- Dir. Pietro Germi
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Stefania Sandrelli
- Italy’s archaic marital laws – where divorce was still illegal in the sixties – are the star in this devious satire of an unhappy…
Eva (1962)
- Dir. Joseph Losey
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Sir Stanley Baker, Virna Lisi…
- Jeanne Moreau is that obscure object of desire which novelist Stanley Baker falls for, and is taken for a ride. Interesting, if lurid Losey melodrama…
Exterminating Angel, The (1962)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Silvia Pinal
- A psychic 'disaster movie', in which guests become trapped at a dinner party by a mysterious forcefield. As the days go by, dinner–table…
Fencing Master, The (1962)
- Dir. Harumi Mizuho
Feat. Raizo Ichikawa, Ganjiro Nakamura, Kinuyo Tanaka
- Thoughtful, if minor exploration of samurai traditions concerns an aging swordsman struggling to keep his feudal art form alive in early 20th century…
Grim Reaper, The (La Commare Secca) (1962)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Carlotta Barilli, Lorenza Benedetti, Clorinda Celani
- Dir. Bertolucci's first film – with trademark technical virtuosity already in evidence – is a whodunnit about a prostitute murdered in a…
Harakiri (Seppuku) (1962)
- Dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai, Shima Iwashita, Akira Ishihama…
- Japanese jidaigeki (period drama) set at the beginning of the Edo period, following a masterless samurai (ronin) who wishes to commit suicide…
Ivan's Childhood (1962)
- Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Nikolai Burlyayev, Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov
- A teenage spy works behind enemy lines in WW2 Germany. The Russian master's first feature is his least self–conscious and most efficient…
Knife in the Water (1962)
- Dir. Roman Polanski
Feat. Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz
- The old adage 'three is a crowd' is chillingly played out in Polanski's directing debut about a couple's troubled yachting weekend with a…
La Jetee (1962)
- Dir. Chris Marker
- Classic science–fiction short told almost entirely in stills takes a man from the future on a terrifying journey back to his childhood. The…
Le Combat Dans L'île (1962)
- Dir. Alain Cavalier
Feat. Romy Schneider, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Henri Serre…
- French drama exploring the tension between right and left wing politics in the early 60's, through the romantic conflict faced by a woman (Romy…
Madame (1962)
- Dir. Christian-Jaque
Feat. Sophia Loren, Robert Hossein
- Rags–to–riches tale set in Napoleonic France mirrors the real life of its Italian bomb–shell star, Sophia Loren.
Mamma Roma (1962)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Anna Magnani
- Pasolini, in this early minor–masterpiece, demonstrates a keen awareness of Italy’s altered social and political landscape in the…
Planeta Bur: The Planet of Storms (1962)
- Dir. Pavel Klushantsev
Feat. Vladimir Yemelyanov, Georgi Zhzhyonov, Yuri Sarantsev
- Cult science–fiction with Russian cosmonauts landing on a Venus teeming with flesh–eating plants, lizard men and dinosaurs! Ingeniously…
Roman Polanski Collection, The (Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac) (1962-1966)
- Dir. Roman Polanski
- The first three features of the Polish master – "Knife in the Water", "Repulsion" and "Cul–de–Sac".
Salvatore Giuliano (1962)
- Dir. Francesco Rosi
Feat. Salvo Randone, Frank Wolff, Frederico Zardi
- An epic Italian political drama, charting in a non–linear fashion the true story of Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, a criminal and…
Sanjuro (1962)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai
- The sequel to YOJIMBO unravels the story of nine would–be Samurai unveiling a government corruption ring. Kurosawa adopts a satirical…
Sundays and Cybele (Les Dimanches de Ville d'Avray) (1962)
- Dir. Serge Bourguignon
Feat. Hardy Kruger, Patricia Gozzi
- Touching, if occasionally over–sentimentalised drama that contemplates the relationship between a mentally scarred bomber pilot and the…
Tale of Zatoichi Continues, The (1962)
- Dir. Kazuo Mori
Feat. Shintaro Katsu
- The first of many sequels to the iconic TALE OF ZATOICHI, in which a blind, affable masseur (Katsu) who happens to be a lethally skillful swordsman…
Tale of Zatoichi, The (1962)
- Dir. Kenji Misumi
Feat. Shintaro Katsu
- The inaugural movie in the iconic 'Zatoichi' series – which followed the intriguing adventures in mythical Japan of a blind masseur, who has…
Trial of Joan of Arc, The (Procès de Jeanne d'Arc) (1962)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
- One of dir. Bressons' more difficult works, depicting the final days of 15th century French religious patriot Joan of Arc and utilising the actual…
Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) (1962)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Anna Karina
- While filtered through dir. Godard's preoccupations with genre, this series of twelve vignettes about a Parisian woman's marriage breakup and gradual…
Winter Light (1962)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Gunnel Lindblom…
- The second in Bergman's faith trilogy, in which a village priest finds himself drawn towards atheism after the death of his wife. Crisp, reflective…
A Man Called La Rocca (Un nommé La Rocca) (1961)
- Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Christine Kaufmann, Nico
- French thriller with Jean Paul Belmondo playing an ex–gangster tracking down the man responsible for putting his friend in prison. Based on the…
Accattone (1961)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Franco Citti
- The debut feature of Italian filmmaker–novelist–poet–provocateur Pasolini, which depicts the underbelly of Roman street life in a…
Antigone (1961)
- Dir. Yorgos Javellas
Feat. Irene Papas
- An impressive Irene Papas heads this black and white epic adapted from Sophocles' Greek tragedy, about the twisted family legacy left behind by…
Daredevil in the Castle (Osaka jo monogatari) (1961)
- Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Yuriko Hoshi…
- Another solid genre excursion from seasoned dir. Hiroshi Inagaki (THE SAMURAI TRILOGY), with Toshiro Mifune again taking the lead as a despondent,…
End of Summer, The (Kohayagawa-ke no aki) (1961)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara
- Another intimate portrayal of Japanese family life
from the dir. of TOKYO STORY that explores the breakdown of traditional family values in the face…
Essential Bergman: The Faith Trilogy Boxset (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence) (1961-1963)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
- Ingmar Bergman's trilogy of films dealing with questions of religion and faith, contained here in one essential boxset.
Femme Est Une Femme, Une (A Woman is a Woman) (1961)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Paul Belmondo…
- Godard flirts with the Hollywood musical, and any other idea that takes his fancy to tell his buoyant tale of a free–spirited stripper who…
Il Posto (1961)
- Dir. Ermanno Olmi
Feat. Loredana Detto, Sandro Panseri
- This Italian neo–realist classic is a simply told yet beautiful depiction of a small–town boy whose employment search in Milan lands him…
Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) (1961)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre…
- Jeanne Moreau stars in this famous New Wave melodrama caught up in the spirit of its swinging times. A twenty–year love triangle, lightening…
Last Year at Marienbad (L'Annee Dernier a Marienbad) (1961)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi
- All the rules of film–making are broken in this notorious question mark of a film in which a past event plagues the occupants of a grand…
Mother Joan of Angels (Matka Joanna od Aniolow) (1961)
- Dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz
- A landmark of post–WW2 Polish cinema recounts in stunningly composed b&w images the disturbing true–story of a 17th century French…
Notte, La (The Night) (1961)
- Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti
- A compelling bout of urban alienation, with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau as a despairing married couple coming slowly apart at the seams.…
Pierre Etaix: Restored Complete Film Works (1961-1971)
- Feat. Pierre Étaix
- A long–overdue collection of film works from French comedy master Pierre Etaix, the delightfully witty clown, comedian and filmmaker whose…
Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Max von Sydow
- Husband, father and brother must cope with the disintegrating mental health of a young woman on an island. The focus is on religion, madness and the…
Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece (1961)
- Dir. Jean-Jacques Vierne
Feat. Jean-Pierre Talbot, Georges Wilson, Georges Loriot
- One of two live–action adaptations of Herge’s Tintin adventures, this stars a look–alike Jean–Pierre Talbot as the eponymous boy…
Two Women (1961)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Sophia Loren
- Sophia Loren won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as a WW2 widow who endures turmoil with her 13–year–old daughter before they are…
Viridiana (1961)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey
- Bunuel purges his spiritual demons in this potent psychological study of a novice nun who loses her innocence when she visits her…
Yojimbo (1961)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa
- Mercenary Sanjuro walks into town and sells his services to both factions of rival gangs – to stand back and watch them destroy each other.…
Bad Sleep Well, The (1960)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune
- A contemporary gangster saga that uses a Hamlet–esque narrative to indict corporate and political corruption. Government officials were not…
Classe Tous Risques (Consider All Risks) (1960)
- Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sandra Milo
- French–Italian gangster film following the exploits of a French mobster (Lino Ventura, based on a real life henchman for the French Gestapo)…
Cloud-Capped Star, The (1960)
- Dir. Ritwik Ghatak
Feat. Supriya Choudhury
- The kind–hearted daughter of a middle–class refugee family from East Pakistan sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family,…
Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse) (1960)
- Dir. Fritz Lang
Feat. Dawn Addams, Peter Van Eyck, Gert Frobe
- The final film in Fritz Lang's DR. MABUSE series, which includes DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER and THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, is also the director's…
Eyes Without a Face (Yeux sans visage, Les) (1960)
- Dir. Georges Franju
Feat. Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob
- Landmark European horror tells with French artistry and tonal malevolence the magnificent obsession of a surgeon determined to restore his…
French Screen Icons: Jean-Paul Belmondo 1 (Moderato Cantabile, A Man Called La Rocca, Weekend at Dunkirk) (1960-1964)
- Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Three films starring French leading–man Jean–Paul Belmondo.
L'Avventura (1960)
- Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Feat. Monica Vitti
- The quintessential Euro–arthouse film of the 60s – a rambling yet elegant voyage through the sterile lives of the bourgeiousie, following…
La Dolce Vita (1960)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni
- An episodic film following the very cool Marcello Mastroianni, a disillusioned journalist trapped in shallow, so called 'decadent' society. A…
Le Trou (The Hole; The Night Watch) (1960)
- Dir. Jacques Becker
Feat. Marc Michel
- Classic, noir–ish prison suspense in the mould of A MAN ESCAPED and RIFIFI chronicles an ambitious tunnel escape. Sparse and tense.
Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Bernadette Lafont, Clotilde Joano, Stephane Audran
- An early comedy from French new wave director Claude Chabrol (LE BOUCHER), following four single Parisian women as they encounter the romantic…
Lola (1960)
- Dir. Jacques Demy
Feat. Anouk Aimee, Marc Michel
- Irresistible 'New Wave' confection breezily spins its romantic tale around the alluring presence of Anouk Aimee, here a cheery cabaret–dancer…
Moderato Cantabile (Seven Days...Seven Nights) (1960)
- Dir. Peter Brook
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jeanne Moreau
- New Wave two–hander stars Jeanne Moreau as a bored housewife who falls for Belmondo's brooding stranger. Stunning wide–screen…
Naked Island (Hadaka no shima) (1960)
- Dir. Kaneto Shindo
Feat. Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama
- An exquisitely simple and moving Japanese drama, notable for having almost no spoken dialogue in depicting a year of struggle for a small farming…
Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) (1960)
- Dir. Rene Clement
Feat. Alain Delon, Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet
- The original adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's gripping novel 'The Talented Mr Ripley', who is here embodied by a sleek Delon in only his third…
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot…
- An uncompromising, richly detailed portrait of an impoverished family who travel to Milan where they are beset by violent misfortune.
Shoot the Pianist (Shoot the Piano Player) (1960)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger…
- Part homage to Hollywood film noir, part love story and part and parcel of the new wave, a down–on–his–luck pianist is drawn into…
Testament of Orpheus (Testament D'orphee) (1960)
- Dir. Jean Cocteau
Feat. Jean Cocteau, Yul Brynner, Jean-Pierre Leaud…
- Cocteau's swansong is an intensely personal odyssey, with the director himself immersed in a world of his cumulative creation. Like a moving…
Virgin Spring, The (1960)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Max von Sydow
- Bergman won his first Oscar for this brooding yet gripping medieval tale about a peasant couple who avenge the savage murderers of their daughter.
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
- Dir. Mikio Naruse
Feat. Hideko Takamine
- Melancholic masterpiece from a largely overshadowed figure in Japanese cinema: concerning the post–war ‘water trade’ of bar hostesses in…
Zazie Dans Le Metro (Zazie in the Underground) (1960)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Catherine Demongeot, Philippe Noiret
- Anarchistic comedy drops the impudent 11yr old Zazie into the care of Uncle Phillipe Noiret and the whirlygig chaos of modern Paris.
Adapted from…
400 Blows, The (1959)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Remy…
- Truffaut's first film rocketed him to fame as some kind of New Wave radical, but at a second glance this story of a teenage delinquent thrown in and…
A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) (1959)
- Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger…
- Godard's landmark first film pulls out all the stops in the style department – with Jean–Paul Belmondo as the romantic fugitive,…
Adventures Of Antoine Doinel, The (400 Blows, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, Love on the Run) (1959-1979)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jean-Pierre Leaud
- Francois Truffaut's most enduring cinematic creation, the irrepressible Antoine Doinel (played synonymously by Jean–Pierre Leaud) is…
Amants, Les (Lovers, The) (1959)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Alain Cuny
- This helped push the envelope of frank sexuality in cinema and made a star of Jeanne Moreau, as the rich, bored housewife whose extra–marital…
Ballad of a Soldier (1959)
- Dir. Grigori Chukhrai
Feat. Vladimir Ivashov
- Soviet poetic realism brings a contemplative tone to the theatre of war, following a soldier’s pilgrimage back home after being granted leave for…
Black Orpheus (1959)
- Dir. Marcel Camus
Feat. Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Lourdes De Oliveira
- Get caught up in the rhythms and colour of Rio De Janiero at Carnival time for an exotic, utterly unique spin on the Greek legend of doomed lovers…
Come Dance with Me (Voulez-Vous Danser Avec Moi?) (1959)
- Dir. Michel Boisrond
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Dawn Addams
- Surprisingly entertaining French mystery thriller tracking a wife attempting to clear her husband's name from involvement in a dance studio murder.…
Floating Weeds (Ukigusa) (1959)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Ganjiro Nakamura
- An aging actor who returns with his troupe to his provincial town, and becomes caught between his long–lost family and his jealous…
Francois Truffaut Collection (1959-1983)
- Dir. Francois Truffaut
- A boxed collection of key films from French auteur Francois Truffaut, who was at the forefront of the "Nouvelle Vague" in the 1960s. Eight discs,…
Good Morning (Ohayo) (1959)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Shimazu Masahiko, Koji Shidara, Chishu Ryu…
- Ozu’s most accessible and scathing film amuses with its deceptively light–hearted tale of two boys’ vow of silence after being refused a…
Head Against the Wall (La tête contre les murs) (1959)
- Dir. Georges Franju
Feat. Pierre Brasseur, Paul Meurisse, Anouk Aimee…
- Georges Franju’s first film is a high–intensity examination of post–war psychiatric care, centred on the survival of a delinquent youth…
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada
- Romance between a French actress and a Japanese architect rekindles their traumatic wartime experiences. The twin threads of despair and sensual love…
Human Condition, The (No Greater Love, Road to Eternity, A Soldier's Prayer) (1959-1961)
- Dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratana
- An epic Japanese film trilogy following the life of a well–intentioned yet naïve pacifist and socialist as he tries to survive in the…
Les Cousins (1959)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Jean-Claude Brialy, Gerard Blain
- Claude Chabrol continues his city / country theme from LE BEAU SERGE with this estranging drama following a country boy who ends up in a despicable…
Pickpocket (1959)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
- Dir. Bresson's austere meditation on the motive personal forces of criminal enterprise, this trails a directionless young man into a flirtation with…
Samurai Saga (Aru kengo no shogai) (1959)
- Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Tsukasa
- Feudal Japanese retelling of Rostand's 'Cyrano de Bergerac', with the charismatic Toshiro Mifune as the shogun–poet with a…
Umberto D. (1959)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
- A pensioner struggles to make ends meet in post–war Italy. Gloomy neo–realist piece wrenches the heart through a compassionate lead…
World of Apu, The (1959)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty
- Final installment of the 'Apu trilogy' sees the complexities of adulthood painfully and euphorically realised for Apu through ambition, marriage and…
Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzanowksa
- Set on the day after WWII, the striking–looking Zbigniew Cybulski plays a Polish freedom fighter torn between wartime duties and peacetime…
Ballad of Narayama, The (Narayama bushiko) (1958)
- Dir. Keisuke Kinoshita
Feat. Kinuyo Tanaka
- Sombre but stylised retelling of a Japanese legend, about a poverty–stricken village and its eldest resident who, in accordance with tradition,…
Brink of Life (Nara Livet) (1958)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Eva Dahlbeck, Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson…
- Minor, but accomplished Bergman potboiler concerns three women in a maternity ward, who must each decide whether to give up their babies for…
Elevator to the Gallows (Lift to the Scaffold, aka. Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud) (1958)
- Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly…
- A young Jeanne Moreau stars in this elegant thriller about a crime of passion that backfires when the murderer gets trapped in a lift. Ambience par…
Giants and Toys (1958)
- Dir. Yasuzo Masumura
Feat. Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Hitomi Nozoe
- Japanese satirical comedy about an advertising war between three candy production companies, and a teenage girl who becomes a celebrity after one of…
Hidden Fortress (1958)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune
- Toshiro Mifune displays astounding skill with horse and sword as the ultimate warrior in this innovative amalgam of fairy–tale and Samurai…
Le Beau Serge (1958)
- Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Jean-Claude Brialy, Gerard Blain
- Accepted as the first film of the French New Wave, this Claude Chabrol drama tells the story of a man returning to his hometown only to discover his…
Magician, The (The Face) (1958)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Max von Sydow
- Bergman's allegorical self–portrait of a controversial travelling magician who exacts revenge on a cynical doctor, but becomes trapped in his…
Mon Oncle (1958)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
Feat. Jacques Tati
- Monsieur Hulot returns in another gag–laden adventure. His whimsical ways endear him to his nephew, but leave the boy's trendy parents cold.…
Cranes are Flying, The (Letyat Zhuravli) (1957)
- Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov
Feat. Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksei Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev
- A Russian classic which conveys homefront anxieties during WW2 for a young bride whose original fiance has gone to the front.
Pursued by his…
Il Grido (The Outcry) (1957)
- Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Feat. Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, Betsy Blair
- This lesser–known work from Antonioni provides a missing link between Italian neorealism and the director's later works like L'AVVENTURA,…
Le Notti Bianche (White Nights) (1957)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Marcello Mastroianni, Maria Schell, Jean Marais…
- A departure from neo–realist beginnings, this surreal Visconti masterwork adapts Dostoyevsky’s ‘White Nights’ through dreamlike art…
Les Miserables (1957)
- Dir. Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Feat. Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier, Daniele Delorme…
- Adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel with Jean Gabin playing the peasant who is jailed for stealing a loaf of bread in 19th century France. A faithful…
Lower Depths, The (Donzoko) (1957)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Isuzu Yamada…
- Arresting Maxim Gorky stage adaptation (previously filmed by Jean Renoir) is transposed to Japan’s Edo–era slums. Social realisms and the…
Mother India (1957)
- Dir. Mehboob Khan
Feat. Nargis , Sunil Dutt, Raaj Kumar
- A quintessential Indian classic, depicting the struggle of a woman through her adult life to reconcile traditional values and village life with a…
Mysterians, The (1957)
- Dir. Inoshiro Honda
Feat. Takashi Shimura, Kenji Sahara, Susumu Fujita
- Pastel coloured invader movie from the creative team behind GODZILLA. Aliens refugees from a planet destroyed by atomic bombs flee to Earth in the…
Nights of Cabiria (1957)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Giulietta Masina
- Giulietta Masina is marvelous as a waifish prostitute dreaming of a rich, wonderful life but always finding sorrow. Tragicomic masterpiece won an…
Seventh Seal, The (1957)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Max von Sydow
- The solemn Swede garnered world prominence with this stunning, poetic allegory set in the plague–ridden 16th Century, where a disillusioned…
Sissi - The Fateful Years of an Empress (1957)
- Dir. Ernst Marischka
Feat. Romy Schneider
- Concluding film in the Sissi trilogy ends on a somber note with Romy Schneider struggling with Viennese court life as she moves towards a tragic end.
Throne of Blood (1957)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura
- Kurosawa transposes MacBeth into a Samurai setting and the result justifies his reputation. Nothing short of an awesome spectacle Shakespeare himself…
Une Parisienne (1957)
- Dir. Michel Boisrond
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Charles Boyer
- Dated yet enjoyably fluffy Bardot comedy, with the sex kitten playing the mischief–making daughter of the French Premier who seduces a cabinet…
Wide Blue Road, The (La grande strada azzurra) (1957)
- Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
Feat. Yves Montand, Alida Valli, Francisco Rabal…
- Italian neorealist melodrama drama which marks the feature debut of Gillo Pontecorvo (THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS).
Set on a small rugged island off the…
Wild Strawberries (1957)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin
- A classic film of one man's reminiscences and his dramatic search for the meaning of human existence. The bleakness is imbued with a quiet optimism.
Akasen Chitai (Street of Shame) (1956)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Machiko Kyo
- Prostitution and the female plight are the chief concerns of this sympathetic, heartbreaking ensemble piece examining the trade of five headstrong,…
And God Created Woman (1956)
- Dir. Roger Vadim
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Curt Jurgens, Jean-Louis Trintignant
- The Bardot movie, set in sleepy St. Tropez where Bridget is the misunderstood town hussy who impulsively marries the brother of a boyfriend. Works…
Aparajito (1956)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Pinaki Sengupta…
- Sequel to PATHER PANCHALI sees Apu now as an adolescent who abandons his village and travels to Calcutta, where he is inevitably confused with his…
Burmese Harp, The (Biruma no tategoto) (1956)
- Dir. Kon Ichikawa
Feat. Rentaro Mikuni
- Another muted anti–war elegy conceived during Japan’s post–WWII recovery, this tells the journey of a Japanese private, who upon…
Crazed Fruit (1956)
- Dir. Ko Nakahira
Feat. Yujiro Ishihara, Masahiko Tsugawa, Mie Kitahara
- Two hedonistic brothers chase the skirt of a voracious young temptress in this scorching, jazz–infused statement on reckless youth. A seminal…
Elena and Her Men (Paris Does Strange Things) (1956)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Ingrid Bergman, Jean Marais, Mel Ferrer
- Ingrid Bergman plays a Polish princess torn between marrying for love, or wealth, in this slinky, sweet–natured comic romance. Mel Ferrer, Jean…
Flowing (Nagareru ) (1956)
- Dir. Mikio Naruse
Feat. Kinuyo Tanaka, Hideko Takamine, Isuzu Yamada
- Dir. Naruse’s compassionate portrait of the fading post–war geisha trade. Considered one of the director's best among his many films to…
Her Bridal Night (Mariée est trop belle, La) (1956)
- Dir. Pierre Gaspard-Huit
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Micheline Presle, Louis Jourdan
- Light comedy dating from Brigette Bardot's early years in which she plays a country girl who gets 'discovered' by the Parisian fashion industry and…
Kanal (1956)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar
- The darkest chapter of dir. Wadja's WWII 'Trilogy', is an unremitting portrayal of the last gasps of the 1944 Warsaw uprising. With desperate…
Man Escaped, A (1956)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Francois Leterrier
- Bresson's films are all extremely controlled in style: no suspense, no histrionics, flat acting, spare and simple camerawork, yet this is an…
Naughty Girl (Cette Sacree Gamine) (1956)
- Dir. Michel Boisrond
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Francoise Fabian
- A con–artist father leaves his devious minx of a daughter in the hands of a performer who discovers the girl is bent on disrupting his life the…
Plucking the Daisy (Mademoiselle Striptease) (1956)
- Dir. Roger Vadim
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim
- One of the Brigitte Bardot/Roger Vadim light comedies that relies on Bardot's charms rather more than the simple story of a smalltown woman who is…
Roof, The (Tetto, Il) (1956)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Gabriella Pallotta, Giorgio Listuzzi
- Moving (and until recently, exceptionally hard to find) neo–realist drama that latches onto the hard times of a newly married couple who…
Sissi - The Young Empress (1956)
- Dir. Ernst Marischka
Feat. Romy Schneider
- Royal life is not quite the bed of roses for Princess Sissi, now married to her beloved Franz but under the constant gaze of her meddling…
Bob Le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) (1955)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Roger Duchesne, Isabelle Corney
- Superb French noir from the dir. of LE SAMOURAI, here debuting with a taut plan to rob the Deauville casino, that grows ever more perilous for…
Dreams (Kvinnodröm; Journey Into Autumn) (1955)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Eva Dahlbeck, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand
- Early, flawed Bergman microscope on relationships focuses on two women – a photographer and her model on a fashion shoot – as they…
French Can Can (French Cancan, Only the French Can) (1955)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Jean Gabin, Michel Piccoli, Dora Doll…
- Jean Renoir returned to France after 15 years absence to make this vibrant tribute to the Parisian world of his father, the Impressionist painter…
Grandes Manoeuvres, Les (1955)
- Dir. Rene Clair
Feat. Michele Morgan, Gerard Philipe, Brigitte Bardot
- Sophisticated French fare is a battle of the sexes between a notorious womanizer, and the divorcee he’s convinced he’ll be able to seduce and…
I Live in Fear (Ikimono no Kiroku) (1955)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
- Convinced a nuclear holocaust is imminent, an elderly industrialist (Mifune) decides to uproot his reluctant family (even his mistresses!) from Tokyo…
Il Bidone (The Swindlers) (1955)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Broderick Crawford, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart…
- An early work from dir. Fellini in which a trio of conmen roam the Italian countryside swindling peasants in order to fund the future they believe…
La Strada (The Road) (1955)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Anthony Quinn
- Fellini hit his stride and won a Foreign Film Oscar with this gentle road odyssey about a simple–minded clown whose loyalty to her boorish…
Lola Montes (1955)
- Dir. Max Ophuls
Feat. Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook
- The life of the famous 19th century courtesan provides the basis for this sophisticated portrayal of the capriciousness of fate, which leads to the…
Napoleon (1955)
- Dir. Sacha Guitry
Feat. Daniel Gelin, Raymond Pellegrin, Yves Montand…
- A somewhat farcical film that suffers from being dubbed into English, over–narration, and the attempt to give a complete account of Napoleon's…
Ordet (1955)
- Dir. Carl Dreyer
- Hailed by many critics as dir. Dreyer's masterpiece, this deep exploration of the true meaning of Christianity, set in rural Denmark, will repay the…
Pather Panchali (1955)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Bannerjee
- The first film from Asia's most respected film–maker also initiates his 'Apu trilogy', three of most admired films in history. A lyrical…
Rififi (1955)
- Dir. Jules Dassin
Feat. Jean Servais, Jules Dassin, Magali Noel…
- The French reclaim film noir with this methodical and stylish heist movie, famous for its 35 minute real–time bank robbery, executed in virtual…
Sissi (1955)
- Dir. Ernst Marischka
Feat. Romy Schneider
- Regal saga finds 16–year–old princess Sissi fall in love with husband–to–be Franz Josef in the first of an ongoing series of…
Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende) (1955)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Ulla Jacobsson, Eva Dahlbeck, Harriet Andersson…
- An enjoyable, ultimately serious comedy of deception set among the Swedish gentry of the early 20th century who are engaged in a poetic dance of…
Wajda's War Trilogy (A Generation, Kanal, Ashes & Diamonds) (1955-1958)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
- Polish visionary Wajda's trilogy of war masterworks.
Yokihi (Empress Yang Kwei-Fei) (1955)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori
- Mizoguchi’s rare colour turn, a lush, poignant ancient fable centred on a commoner maid who marries an emperor, only to be destined for sacrifice.
4 by Agnès Varda (La Pointe Courte, Cléo from 5 to 7, Le bonheur and Vagabond) (1954-1985)
- Dir. Agnes Varda
- Agnès Varda used the skills she honed early in her career as a photographer to create some of the most nuanced, thought–provoking films of the…
Crucified Lovers, The (Chikamatsu Monogatari) (1954)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyoko Kagawa, Eitaro Shindo
- Powerful, Bunraku–inspired tragidrama of adulterous lovers whose illicit romance is doomed in Feudal, 17th century Japan. Essential Mizoguchi.
Dov'e La Liberta...? (Where Is Freedom?) (1954)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Toto, Vera Molnar, Nita Dover
- Legendary Italian comic Toto plays a barber who cannot abide the hypocritical society he is thrust into after spending two decades in prison, and…
Generation, A (Pokolenie) (1954)
- Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Roman Polanski
- Fast–moving account of the Polish Resistance during WWII, as a scrappy young recruit falls in love with his unit leader. Depicts the spirited,…
Godzilla (Gojira) (1954)
- Dir. Inoshiro Honda
Feat. Akira Takarada, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura
- The original Japanese version of GODZILLA, complete with the anti–nuclear subplot which was cut from the 1956 US version.
Concerns a…
Les Diaboliques (1954)
- Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse…
- Simone Signoret stars as one of two women who conspire to murder the man they share – a sadistic schoolmaster. Iconic French thriller with a…
Peek-a-Boo (Ah! Les belles bacchantes) (1954)
- Dir. Jean Loubignac
Feat. Louis de Funès, Robert Dhéry
- Peppy parody of musical revues, with Louis de Funès's small–town copper finding himself inadvertently cast in an all–singing,…
Samurai Trilogy, The (Musashi Miyamoto, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, Duel at Ganryu Island) (1954-1956)
- Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki
Feat. Toshiro Mifune
- Sweeping saga of a legendary 17th century samurai Musashi Miyamoto, that made an icon of actor Toshiro Mifune. Played out against the turmoil of a…
Sansho Dayu (Sansho the Bailiff) (1954)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyoko Kagawa…
- One of Mizoguchi's great classics, based on an 11th century Japanese folktale elaborated into a sprawling vision of a cruel, mysterious cosmos, where…
Senso (1954)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Christian Marquand
- A period love story set in the tumultuous 1860's in Italy, when it was occupied by invading Austrians.
Dir. Visconti turns his eye on a love…
Seven Samurai, The (1954)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune
- Kurosawa's classic 'Eastern Western' about a village who hire an elite band of warriors to fend off marauders. Compassionate storytelling with combat…
Sound of the Mountain (Yama No Oto) (1954)
- Dir. Mikio Naruse
Feat. Setsuko Hara, Ken Uehara, Soh Yamamura
- Dir. Naruse reprises the disintegrating marriage (and cast) of his earlier film, REPAST, in this profoundly affecting tale of a young woman (Hara)…
Touchez Pas au Grisbi (Hands Off the Loot) (1954)
- Dir. Jacques Becker
Feat. Jean Gabin, René Dary, Jeanne Moreau
- Laid–back though influential French noir chronicling a wealthy, retired racketeer (Gabin) who is pulled back into the life of crime when his…
Twenty-Four Eyes (24 Eyes/Nijushi no hitomi) (1954)
- Dir. Keisuke Kinoshita
Feat. Hideko Takamine, Chishu Ryu
- An elegiac triumph of nostalgia for youth and wartime humanism, this cherished landmark of Japanese cinema gracefully chronicles the 20–years…
Uwasa no onna (Her Mother's Profession, The Woman in the Rumour) (1954)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiko Kuga
- Dir. Mizoguchi's longtime muse, Kinuyo Tanaka, plays the madame of a geisha house who falls prey to rumour when both herself and her daughter become…
Victoria in Dover (The Story of Vickie) (1954)
- Dir. Ernst Marischka
Feat. Romy Schneider, Adrian Hoven
- A prequel of sorts to the SISSI trilogy lovingly details the formative romance between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Romy Schneider features…
Albert Lamorisse's Classic Shorts (White Mane, The Red Balloon) (1953-1956)
- Dir. Albert Lamorisse
Feat. Alain Emery
- French director Albert Lamorisse's two landmark films WHITE MANE and THE RED BALLOON presented together on a single DVD is a must–have…
Gate of Hell (Jigokumon) (1953)
- Dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa
Feat. Machiko Kyo, Kazuo Hasegawa, Isao Yamagata
- Tragic story of unrequited love set during the Heiji Rebellion in 1159, where a samurai warrior falls in love with a married…
I Vitelloni (1953)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Franco Interlenghi, Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi
- This neo–realist Fellini combines humour and pathos for a truthful study of aimless youths either ill–equipped or unwilling to embrace…
Life of Oharu (1953)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Kinuyo Tanaka, Toshiro Mifune
- The prolific, though rarely seen dir. Mizoguchi came to attention with this chronicled downfall of a court–concubine in 17th century Japan,…
Madame De... (Earrings Of Madame De..., The) (1953)
- Dir. Max Ophuls
Feat. Danielle Darrieux, Vittorio De Sica, Charles Boyer
- Widely considered one of the dir.'s peak achievements, this gracefully and ironically traces a doomed menage–a–trois in 18th century…
Mr. Hulot's Holiday (Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot) (1953)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
Feat. Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud
- Jacques Tati fine–tunes the virtues of JOUR DE FETE to create his most eponymous character. The first of four Hulot features follows the…
Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas Afton) (1953)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Ake Gronberg
- This grim flipside to Fellini’s loony, carnivalesque films powerfully relays the degradation of several circus performers at the end of their…
Tokyo Story (1953)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara
- The master of Japanese cinema, this is Ozu's masterpiece. An emotional tour–de–force is drawn from an elderly couple's ill–fated…
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Kinuyo Tanaka
- Stories by the 18th century writer Akinari Ueda are woven into an odyssey of civil–war misfortune, in which two peasant–potters and their…
Voyage to Italy (Journey to Italy/ Journey in Italy) (1953)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders
- A meditative journey through the landscapes of Italy, accompanying Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders in the midst of a breakup. The ongoing drama of…
Wages of Fear (Salaire de la Peur, Le) (1953)
- Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Yves Montand, Charles Vanel
- A young Yves Montand leads a group of impoverished men over rocky Latin American terrain with a dangerous load of nitro–glycerine. Considered…
Casque d'Or (Golden Marie) (1952)
- Dir. Jacques Becker
Feat. Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani, Claude Dauphin
- A gangster’s moll falls in love with a reformed criminal, igniting underworld violence, in this lush, overwhelming tragi–romance set in Paris…
Fanfan la Tulipe (1952)
- Dir. Christian-Jaque
Feat. Gerard Philipe, Gina Lollobrigida, Genevieve Page
- Irresistible swashbuckling fluff, with Gerard Philipe imperious on the battlefield and in the bedroom. A daredevil pace matched with lusty female…
Flavour Of Green Tea Over Rice, The (Ochazuke no aji) (1952)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Shin Saburi, Michiyo Kogure, Kōji Tsuruta
- Dir. Ozu once again explores the subtleties of Japanese family life, this time drawing our attention to the struggles of those in arranged marriages…
Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits) (1952)
- Dir. Rene Clement
Feat. Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, Laurence Badie
- After her parents are killed in an air raid during WWII, a small girl makes friends with a peasant boy, and the pair gradually come to terms with the…
French Comedy Greats: Louis De Funès ( Monsieur Leguignon, Lampistel; Peek-a-Boo; The Bouncing Beauty; The Big Vacation.) (1952-1968)
- Feat. Louis de Funès
- Four films starring legendary French funnyman Louis de Funès.
Golden Coach (Le Carrosse d'or) (1952)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Anna Magnani, Odoardo Spadaro, Nada Fiorelli
- Dir. Renoir's classic comedy focuses on a group of commedia dell'arte actors in the eighteenth Century and the much–desired central figure of…
Ikiru (1952)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka
- A patient meditation on life and death about a sullen yet dutiful office clerk of 30 years whose terminal illness compels him to rediscover his…
Le Plaisir (House Of Pleasure) (1952)
- Dir. Max Ophuls
Feat. Jean Gabin, Danielle Darrieux, Simone Simon…
- Three tales by Guy de Maupassant go into this visually elegant treatise on the changing moods of love, youth and memory.
The most successful…
Manina la Fille Sans Voile (The Lighthouse-Keeper's Daughter; The Girl in the Bikini) (1952)
- Dir. Willy Rozier
Feat. Brigitte Bardot
- An obscure, almost forgettable French frolic, save for the eye–catching debut of one Brigitte Bardot. Here, the future sex symbol plays a…
Monsieur Leguignon, lampistel (1952)
- Dir. Maurice Labro
Feat. Yves Deniaud, Louis de Funès
- Spirited and screwball–esque, this 'workers' comedy concerns a down–on–his–luck railway labourer who discovers treasure…
Summer with Monika (1952)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Harriet Andersson
- Early Bergman turns his lens on a pair of working class, teenage lovers. At first this rebellious holiday boat ride comes across as dreamy escapism…
White Sheik, The (Sceicco bianco, Lo) (1952)
- Dir. Federico Fellini
Feat. Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Giulietta Masina
- Fellini’s against–the–grain feature debut coaxes the marital problems of a newlywed couple into a light, playful comedy that wasn’t…
Early Summer (Bakushû) (1951)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, Chikage Awashima
- Another of dir. Ozu's majestic domestic dramas, this time concerning the inner–family conflicts over the spinsterhood of a daughter (Hara) and…
Idiot, The (Hakuchi) (1951)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori…
- Flawed but compelling adaptation of Dostoyevsky's classic novel of human frailty, in which a madman and war criminal (Mori), is released from an…
Rashomon (1951)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori…
- The film that brought Kurosawa to the attention of the world, and an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film.
Four wildly varying perspectives on a…
Repast (Meshi) (1951)
- Dir. Mikio Naruse
Feat. Setsuko Hara, Ken Uehara
- A perceptive study of a fading marriage, in which a housewife (Hara) confronts the tedium and unhappiness of her domestic life, brought into sharp…
River, The (1951)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Nora Swinburne, Arthur Shields
- A sublime and serene drama set on the banks of India's holy Bengal River in the 1920s, where a trio of young English girls come under the spell of a…
Susana (The Devil and the Flesh) (1951)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Rosita Quintana
- A sexually devious reform girl seeks refuge in a decent working class family, only to cause upheaval with her devilish ways.
Early Bunuel…
Diary of a Country Priest (Journal D'Un Cure De Campagne) (1950)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Claude Laydu
- Compelling and uncompromising – this adaptation of Georges Bernanos' classic French novel is one of dir. Bresson's best examinations of the…
Francesco giullare di Dio (Francis, God's Jester; The Flowers of St Francis) (1950)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Aldo Fabrizi
- Following after dir. Rossellini's more obviously left–wing films (ROME OPEN CITY, PAISA), this unusual biopic would prove a transition work to…
La Ronde (1950)
- Dir. Max Ophuls
Feat. Anton Walbrook, Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani…
- A witty chronicle of circular love–affairs and seductions in 19th century Vienna. Lavish sets and extravagent spiralling camerawork complement…
Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned, aka The Forgotten Ones) (1950)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
- Ground–breaking masterwork from dir. Luis Bunuel's Meixcan period, set among slum children in Mexico City, whose harsh circumstances and…
Miracle in Milan (1950)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Paolo Stoppa
- Memorable foray into satirical fantasy for dir. de Sica, in which a hobo philanthropist is given the power to work miracles in the…
Scandal (Shubun) (1950)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Shirley Yamaguchi, Takashi Shimura…
- This excellent early Kurosawa, has Mifune playing a painter who becomes acquainted with a pop–singer, and thus the target of a tabloid…
Story of a Love Affair (Cronaca di un amore) (1950)
- Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Feat. Lucia Bose, Massimo Girotti, Ferdinando Sarmi
- Although more stylistically conventional than his 'mature' films, dir. Antonioni's debut feature is a strongly delivered, almost film noir,…
Stromboli (1950)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Ingrid Bergman
- After his neo–realist masterpieces, this is one of the dir.'s best films, concerning a WW2 refugee who hastily marries an Italian fisherman and…
Summer Interlude (1950)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin
- Perhaps Bergman's first significant work, about an aging ballerina who reflects on a youthful romance with her now–deceased lover in moody…
Un Chant D'amour (A Song of Love) (1950)
- Dir. Jean Genet
- Sole foray into cinema for French convict–turned–playwright Jean Genet is a brief and intense visual poem about the fantasies of…
Variety Lights (1950)
- Dir. Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattuada
Feat. Giulietta Masina
- Fellini co–directed this carnivalesque drama about a mediocre theatre troupe in need of a crowd puller before breaking out solo with THE WHITE…
56 Rue Pigalle (1949)
- Dir. Willy Rozier
Feat. Raymond Cordy, Marie Dea
- Distinctive French noir telling the tale of a boss, suspected of murdering his blackmailing manservant, who flees to Africa with his mistress once…
De Sica Collection, The (The Bicycle Thief, Miracle in Milan, The Roof) (1949-1956)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
- Three films from Italian master Vittorio De Sica. Includes the previously unreleased THE ROOF (1956).
Late Spring (1949)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
Feat. Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu
- Ozu’s greatest film outside of the universally acclaimed TOKYO STORY magically distils the director’s reoccurring family concerns: that of a…
Orpheus (Orphee) (1949)
- Dir. Jean Cocteau
Feat. Jean Marais, Maria Casares, Marie Dea…
- Cocteau's surrealist retelling of the classical tragedy stars Jean Marais as Orphee, the writer who retrieves his wife Eurydice from the dead. A…
Quiet Duel, The (Shizukanaru ketto) (1949)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
- A pre–RED BEARD Toshiro Mifune plays an idealistic doctor who fatally contracts syphilis from performing surgery in this minor Kurosawa…
Stray Dog (Nora Inu) (1949)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune
- An early film noir from Japan’s best–known director tracks police detective Toshiro Mifune into the underbelly of Tokyo in search of a pistol…
Yasujiro Ozu Boxset (Early Summer; Tokyo Story; An Autumn Afternoon; Floating Weeds; Good Morning; The Flavour Of Green Tea Over Rice; Late Spring) (1949-1959)
- Dir. Yasujiro Ozu
- Eight masterpieces from the great Japanese filmmaker.
Bicycle Thieves (The Bicycle Thief, Ladri di biciclette) (1948)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Feat. Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell
- A huge sentimental favourite about a man whose chance at meaningful labour is taken from him when his precious bicycle is stolen from him. Though not…
Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi) (1948)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
- The film that made Toshiro Mifune a star – playing a petty gangster with TB, who turns to an alcoholic doctor for help after a shoot–out.…
Jacques Tati Boxset (Jour De Fete, Mon Oncle, Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Playtime, Trafic, Parade) (1948-1967)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
Feat. Jacques Tati
- A newly remastered collection of films from the legendary French comedian. Includes Tati's six features, seven rare shorts, and the 2009 documentary…
Les Enfants Terribles (The Strange Ones) (1948)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Edouard Dermithe, Nicole Stephane
- A poetic drama–fantasy from the pen of Jean Cocteau (who also directed several scenes), that centres round the narcissistic,…
Germany Year Zero (1947)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
- A heart–breaking depiction of life in the post–WW2 ruins of Berlin, in which a boy struggles to help his family who are forced to live in…
Jour De Fete (1947)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
Feat. Jacques Tati
- Jacques Tati established himself as a major new comic as a postman who attempts to modernise his mail service. Such precise visual humour had not…
La Terra Trema (1947)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Luchino Visconti, Antonio Pietrangeli
- Life–study of a poor Sicilian fishing village that is reverently neo–realist in its approach. Lovely B&W photography never distracts from…
Quai Des Orfevres (1947)
- Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Louis Jouvet, Bernard Blier, Suzy Delair…
- Romantically bleak French noir about an ambitious starlet and her protective husband who find themselves implicated in the murder of a lecherous…
Ship Bound for India, A (1947)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Holger Löwenadler
- An early, overlooked play adaptation finds Bergman's visual and dramatic style in its formative stages. Four troubled souls are drawn together by a…
Silence de la Mer, Le (The Silence of the Sea) (1947)
- Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Howard Vernon
- A German officer is billeted with an elderly man and his niece during the occupation of France in this introspective and talky chamber piece, heavy…
Belle Et La Bete, La (Beauty and the Beast) (1946)
- Dir. Jean Cocteau
Feat. Jean Marais, Josette Day
- Cocteau brings a fine sense of fantasy to the old fable, creating a luxuriant atmosphere unique to his film–making. A true classic.
It Rains On Our Love (1946)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Barbro Kollberg, Birger Malmsten
- Bergman experiments with this awkward combination of romance and misery, in which a couple's happiness is dogged by their criminal and vagrant past.…
Paisa (1946)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Benjamin Emmanuel
- Six short films focusing on the minor victories and losses of ordinary folk during WW2. Pioneering the now–familiar use of documentary footage,…
Panique (1946)
- Dir. Julien Duvivier
Feat. Michel Simon, Viviane Romance
- Exemplary French noir based on the novel Les Fiançailles de M. Hire by Georges Simenon, the source of the Patrice Leconte film, MONSIEUR HIRE…
Shoeshine (Sciuscia) (1946)
- Dir. Vittorio De Sica
- Perhaps Vittorio De Sica's first acknowledged masterpiece, concerns two young boys struggling to survive on the streets of post–WWII Rome by…
Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne (1945)
- Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Maria Casares
- Dir. Bresson and writer Jean Cocteau are strange bedfellows in this lush, stylish drama, well–removed from the director’s austere later…
Les Enfants Du Paradis (Children of Paradise) (1945)
- Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur…
- This resplendent evocation of nineteeth century Paris street theatre follows the love of mime Jean–Louis Barrault for the highly–strung…
Rome: Open City (1945)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi
- Neo–realist war drama about resistance fighters in fascist Italy places the action right inside the everyday and humanises the heroic.…
Sanshiro Sugata 2 (1945)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Denjirô Ôkôchi, Susumu Fujita
- Sequel to dir. Kurosawa’s debut picture about a studious judo disciple in training continues the director’s own development as a future master of…
Torment (Hets) (1944)
- Dir. Alf Sjoberg
Feat. Stig Jarrel, Alf Kjellin, Mai Zetterling…
- Impressionistic study of authoritarian education and adolescent love was scripted by a young Ingmar Bergman, and its universe of cruel twists and…
Day of Wrath (1943)
- Dir. Carl Dreyer
Feat. Thorkild Roose, Lisbeth Movin, Sigrid Neiiendam
- Witchcraft drama set in 17th century rural Denmark, where an innocent young woman is denounced following the death of her much older, harshly…
Ivan the Terrible Pts. 1 & 2 (1943)
- Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Feat. Nikolai Cherkassov, Serafima Birman, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
- Spectacularly staged chronicle of the life of Czar Ivan IV, and his struggle to consolidate the Russian empire in the 16th Century. One of the…
Le Corbeau (1943)
- Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Pierre Fresnay
- Fascinating as a wartime allegory made under the German Occupation of France, a small town becomes a hot–bed of paranoia following a rash of…
Munchhausen (1943)
- Dir. Josef von Baky
Feat. Hans Albers
- This adaptation of the Rudolph Raspe novel about the extraordinary tall–tales of a German baron is a genuine oddity, both historically and…
Sanshiro Sugata (1943)
- Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Denjirô Ôkôchi, Susumu Fujita
- Notable chiefly as the debut directorial effort for Akira Kurosawa, this adaptation of Tsuneo Tomita's novel finds an immature Judo exponent (Fujita)…
Eternel Retour, L' (1942)
- Dir. Jean Delannoy
Feat. Jean Marais, Madeleine Sologney, Yvonne de Bray…
- (Love Eternal) A contemporary take on the legend of Tristan and Isolde, lovers united after death. Jean Cocteau's script is realised with the…
Les Visiteurs Du Soir (1942)
- Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Arletty, Marie Dea, Fernand Ledoux…
- Two of the Devil's henchmen are dispatched to a fairytale–like 15th century castle with an eye to corrupting its inhabitants, especially a pair…
Ossessione (1942)
- Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, Dhia Cristiani
- Visconti's awesome debut interprets James Cain's novel of lust, greed, murder and recrimination, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Its stark rendering…
Jean Grémillon: During the Occupation (Remorques, Lumière d'été, Le Ciel Est à Vous) (1941-1944)
- Dir. Jean Gremillon
Feat. Jean Gabin, Madeleine Renaud
- Three character–driven dramas from the heralded French film director who has been little represented outside of his home country:
Remorques…
Loyal 47 Ronin, The (47 Ronin) (1941)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Yoshizaburo Arashi
- Sombre rendition of a famous Japanese legend that's both quietly dignified and overtly nationalistic, tooled as propaganda during the height of…
Jour Se Leve, Le (Daybreak) (1939)
- Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Jean Gabin, Arletty
- A renowned example of 'poetic realism', Jean Gabin gives another consummate performance as a doomed anti–hero. His tragic story is told in…
La Regle Du Jeu (Rules of the Game) (1939)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Roland Toutain…
- Considered one the greatest films in history, this downbeat yet incisive satire centres around weekend shooting party that results in a myriad of…
Alexander Nevsky (1938)
- Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Feat. Nikolai Cherkassov, Nikolai Okhlopkov
- Eisenstein's first sound film is a patriotic epic about the 13th century hero who led his people against the Teutonic Knights. Monumental battle…
Bete Humaine, La (1938)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Jean Gabin, Simone Simon, Fernand Ledoux…
- Adaptation of Zola's romantic tragedy brims with tension and exults the presense of French icon Jean Gabin as a hot–headed train driver coaxed…
I Accuse (J'Accuse) (1938)
- Dir. Abel Gance
Feat. Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou
- Dir. Gance’s own remake of his 1919 silent classic, in which a soldier traumatised by the slaughter of WWI attempts to prevent future…
Le Quai Des Brumes (Port of Shadows) (1938)
- Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michele Morgan
- The forever anti–heroic Jean Gabin takes on an underworld of pimps and perverts in this gloomy French classic, a major influence on the film…
Marseillaise, La (1938)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Pierre Renoir, Lisa Delamare, Leon Larive…
- Renoir's classic depicts events leading up to the French revolution in the 18th Century, electing to extract history from the heart of the common…
Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion) (1937)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim…
- The heroics and hypocrasies of war are illustrated through an imprisoned French squadron in WW1 and their cultured German commandant. A hailed…
Pepe Le Moko (1937)
- Dir. Julien Duvivier
Feat. Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin
- Jean Gabin plays a super–cool gangster who finds immunity in the Algierian Casbah. Marvellously romantic, this classic of the French golden age…
César (1936)
- Dir. Marcel Pagnol
Feat. Raimu, Orane Demazis, Pierre Fresnay…
- Playwright Marcel Parcol takes over the director's reins himself for this concluding part of his Marseille trilogy, following 'Marius' and 'Fanny'.…
Jacques Tati Shorts (1936)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
- Three rare short comedies for those that can't get enough of the French funnyman. Watch your Left! (1936), School for Postmen (1947), and Evening…
Une Partie de Campagne (A Day in the Country) (1936)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Sylvia Bataille
- This evocative, unfinished short (originally part of a full–length feature) lovingly captures the flirtations of a young girl as she detours…
Le Crime De Monsieur Lange (1935)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Rene Lefevre, Florelle , Jules Berry
- One of the dir.’s early classics. Rene Leferve rises to newsprint fame as the author of the serial “Arizona Jim” after his boss, a…
Goddess, The (Shen nu) (1934)
- Dir. Wu Yonggang
Feat. Ruan Lingyu
- One of the best–known films of China's cinematic golden age, with the legendarily tragic actress Ruan Lingyu playing an unnamed woman who lives…
L'Atalante (1934)
- Dir. Jean Vigo
Feat. Michel Simon, Jean Daste
- A recently restored master work from the French film archive combines lyrical romance with inspired touches of fantasy.
Ecstasy (1933)
- Dir. Gustav Machety
Feat. Hedy Lamarr
- Hedy Lamarr came to world attention in this 1932 film, playing a sexually–frustrated bride who goes on a fifteen minute nude romp in an alpine…
Las Hurdes (Land Without Bread) (1933)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
- Surrealist non–fiction short film focused around Las Hurdes, the poorest region of Western Spain. An unnervingly straight travelogue delivered…
Liebelei (1933)
- Dir. Max Ophuls
Feat. Arthur Schnitzler
- An early work from the German maestro of the tracking shot, whose tale of doomed romance between a young soldier and fraulein (taken from a play by…
Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Michel Simon, Charles Granval, Marcelle Hania
- Renoir's joyfully anarchic attack on the bourgeoisie in which vagrant Michel Simon wreaks emotional havoc in the orderly household that have offered…
Fanny (1932)
- Dir. Marc Allegret
Feat. Raimu, Orane Demazis, Pierre Fresnay…
- Leisurely French romantic drama based on the play by Marcel Pagnol that marks the second part in the Marseille film trilogy that started with Marius…
Le Million (1931)
- Dir. Rene Clair
Feat. Annabella, Rene Lefevre, Louis Allibert
- An early French musical, so delightful it was to inspire the likes of the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin and even the American Musical as a…
M... Worst Crime of All (1931)
- Dir. Fritz Lang
Feat. Peter Lorre
- A chilling expressionist classic starring Peter Lorre as psychotic child molester. Dir. Lang masterfully fills the screen with understated but…
Marius (1931)
- Dir. Alexander Korda
Feat. Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Orane Demazis…
- Based on the play by revered French writer Marcel Pagnol, this is the first film in the Marseille Trilogy featuring the characters of Marius (Pierre…
Silent Naruse (Flunky, Work Hard; No Blood Relation; Apart From You; Every-Night Dreams; Street Without End) (1931-1934)
- Dir. Mikio Naruse
- A collection of silent era films from renowned Japanese director Mikio Naruse, the only five from the 1930's that still exist today, featuring new…
Blood of a Poet (1930)
- Dir. Jean Cocteau
Feat. Lee Miller, Pauline Carton
- Cocteau's first film is a surrealist gem that sewed the seeds of his style. The Dali/Bunuel influence is clear, but this goes one step further with…
Blue Angel, The (1930)
- Dir. Josef von Sternberg
Feat. Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings
- A masterwork of the twenties German grotesquerie, this enjoyed great success and gave an early career boost to Marlene Dietrich.
Earth (Zemlya) (1930)
- Dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
- One of the poetic highpoints of Soviet cinema, this sets its simple tale amid the life of a Ukrainian peasant village undergoing modernization after…
Films of Jean Vigo, The (À propos de Nice; Taris, roi de l'eau; Zero De Conduite, L' Atlante) (1930-1933)
- Dir. Jean Vigo
Feat. Jean Daste
- Three early, formative short works from seminal French filmmaker Jean Vigo.
A PROPOS DE NICE (1930, 21 min): Vigo juxtaposes the affluence and…
Prix de Beaute (1930)
- Dir. Augusto Genina
Feat. Louise Brooks, Georges Charlia, Augusto Bandini
- Louise Brooks is vivacious beyond compare in her first sound film, a jazz–age classic about a young office worker who enters a beauty…
Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
- Dir. G.W. Pabst
Feat. Louise Brooks
- Exceptional follow–up to the eye–opening PANDORA’S BOX, with Louise Brooks again provoking disorder with her unrestrained vitality and…
New Gentlemen, The (Les Nouveaux Messiers) (1929)
- Dir. Jacques Feyder
Feat. Albert Prejean
- A satirical French silent film, which uses a number of inventive visual techniques to comic effect. A dancer at the Paris Opera is the mistress of an…
People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) (1929)
- Dir. Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer
- Scripted by a young Billy Wilder, this pivotal silent film harnessed the nascent talents of many other German film–makers that would come to…
Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond) (1929)
- Dir. Fritz Lang
Feat. Willy Fritsch, Fritz Rasp, Gerda Maurus…
- Silent–era sci–fi from director Fritz Lang. Based on the 1928 novel "The Rocket to the Moon" by his collaborator (and wife at the time)…
L'Argent (Money) (1928)
- Dir. Marcel L'Herbier
Feat. Pierre Alcover, Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel…
- Classic of the late silent era from French filmmaker, writer and film theorist Marcel L'Herbier, based on the book of the same name by Émile…
Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
- Dir. Carl Dreyer
Feat. Renee Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, Michel Simon…
- An intense recreation of Joan of Arc’s trial and sentence that qualifies as one of cinema’s most transcendental achievements.
Consisting…
Un Chien Andalou (1928)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Salvador Dali
- Bunuel and Salvador Dali collaborated for this sensational short film that blew the lid off convention in a way history could never repeat. A…
Chess Player, The (Le Joueur d'échecs) (1927)
- Dir. Raymond Bernard
Feat. Pierre Blanchar, Charles Dullin
- French silent film based on the novel by Henry Dupuy–Mazuel, set in the 18th century, during the Russian domination of Polish Lithuania. After…
End of St. Petersburg, The (1927)
- Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin
Feat. Vera Baranovskaya, Aleksandr Chistyakov
- The tensions that exploded with the 'October Revolution' in Russia, 1917 are schematised here using understated characterisations (of workers and…
Gribiche (Mother of Mine) (1926)
- Dir. Jacques Feyder
- A silent French film by Jacques Feyder. A 13–year–old working–class boy lives alone with his mother. While shopping in a Paris…
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
- Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Feat. Alexander Antonov, Vladimir Blasky, Grigori Alexandrov
- This landmark Soviet propaganda film about the 1905 revolution is one of the greatest classics of all time. The smart use of visual metaphor and that…
Carl Theodor Dreyer: Master Filmmaker (Master of the House, Day of Wrath, Ordet, Gerturd, My Metier.) (1925-1995)
- Dir. Carl Dreyer
- Fetching boxset featuring four films – MASTER OF THE HOUSE, DAY OF WRATH, ORDET, GERTRUD – by admired but often underrated Danish film…
Late Mathias Pascal, The (Feu Mathias Pascal) (1925)
- Dir. Marcel L'Herbier
Feat. Ivan Mosjoukine, Michel Simon
- A French silent film, based on the novel by Luigi Pirandello. Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine stars as Mathias, an assistant librarian from a…
Master of the House (Thou Shalt Honour Thy Wife, Du Skal Aere Din Hustru) (1925)
- Dir. Carl Dreyer
Feat. Johannes Meyer
- Deceptively simple, penetrating chamber piece from Dreyer, centered on an abusive husband who is dealt to by the long–suffering family’s…
Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)
- Dir. Yakov Protazanov
Feat. Nikolai Tseretelli, Valentina Kuindzhi
- Russian silent science–fiction film based on Alexei Tolstoy's novel about a young man in post–war Soviet Union given the chance to travel…
Kean (1924)
- Dir. Alexandre Volkoff
Feat. Ivan Mosjoukine
- A French silent film depicting the life of Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, played by Ivan Mosjoukine, focusing on his romance with countess Elena de…