Director: Yang Li
Stars: Yixiang Li, Baoqiang Wang, Shuangbao Wang
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: China | Germany | Hong Kong
Two Chinese coal miners have hit upon the perfect scam: murder one of their fellow mine workers, make the death look like an accident, and extort money from the boss to keep the incident hushed up. For their latest “mark,” they choose a naive teenager from a small village, and as they prepare to carry out their newest plan, things start to get complicated…
Director: Nimród Antal
Stars: Sándor Csányi, Eszter Balla, Zoltán Mucsi
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Hungary
A tale about a strange young man, Bulcsú, the fellow inspectors on his team, all without exception likable characters, a rival ticket inspection team and racing along the tracks – and a tale about love.
Director: Gary Ross
Stars: Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, Elizabeth Banks
Genre: Drama, History, Sport
Country: USA
True story of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.
Director: André Téchiné
Stars: Emmanuelle Béart, Gaspard Ulliel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France | UK
Emmanuelle Béart stars as a widowed schoolteacher who flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her children. A teenaged boy comes to their rescue by leading them into the forest — their best shot at survival.
Director: Siddiq Barmak
Stars: Marina Golbahari, Zubaida Sahar, Khwaja Nader
Genre: Drama
Country: Afghanistan | Ireland | Japan | Iran | Netherlands
After the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the restriction of women in public life, a pre-teen girl is forced to masquerade as a boy in order to find work to support her mother and grandmother.
Director: Patrice Chéreau
Stars: Bruno Todeschini, Éric Caravaca, Nathalie Boutefeu
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Two brothers with a problematic relationship in the past, find together again when the elder one gets a dangerous disease and asks his brother to accompany him to several doctors.
Director: Terry Zwigoff
Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, Lauren Graham
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Germany | USA
A miserable conman and his partner pose as Santa and his Little Helper to rob department stores on Christmas Eve. But they run into problems when the conman befriends a troubled kid.
Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Stars: Yo Hitoto, Tadanobu Asano, Masato Hagiwara
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan | Taiwan
The story revolves around Yoko Inoue, a pregnant woman in search for a cafe that’s frequented by a Taiwanese composer whose life she is researching.
Director: Je-yong Lee
Stars: Mi-sook Lee, Yong-jun Bae, Do-yeon Jeon
Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea
In late 1700s Korea, Lady Cho challenges the playboy Lord Jo-won into seducing and sleeping with her husband’s coming young, virgin concubine. Lady Cho agrees to sleep with him if he succeeds.
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Hossain Emadeddin, Kamyar Sheisi, Azita Rayeji
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Iran
An Iranian pizza delivery man sees the worst of corruption and social unbalance in his city and is driven to crime.
Director: Hector Babenco
Stars: Enrique Diaz, Wagner Moura, Caio Blat
Genre: Drama, Crime
Country: Brazil | Argentina | Italy
Brazilian MD Drauzio Varella starts AIDS prevention in Brazil’s largest prison, Carandiru, in São Paulo, where the population is nearly double its 4,000 maximum. Doc learns from experience and mainly stories the tragic stories of hideous crimes which landed scum there and passionate dramas adding otherwise decent people. Just when he believes to leave the prisoners happy with a soccer tournament, a silly clothing line argument kick-starts a politically opportune revolt repression.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Börje Ahlstedt
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Sweden | Denmark | Norway | Italy | Finland | Germany | Austria
Marianne, some thirty years after divorcing Johan, decides to visit her ex-husband at his summer home. She arrives in the middle of a family drama between Johan’s son from another marriage and his granddaughter.
Director: Jacques Doillon
Stars: Pascal Greggory, Najat Benssallem, Ilham Abdelwahed
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Morocco
A cross-cultural drama about a wealthy middle-aged Frenchman’s yearning for a nineteen year local girl. Raja is an orphan literally and figuratively scarred by life. Fred is an emotionally bankrupt westerner living amid his plush garden. Fred’s attempt to seduce Raja, and their mutual attempt at manipulation, are fractured by their gross disparity of income, age and cultural sophistication.
Director: Martin Doblmeier
Stars: Martin Doblmeier, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Adele Schmidt
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: USA
Dramatic documentary about the young German pacifist and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who resisted the Nazi regime and was hanged two weeks before World War II was over.
Director: Sue Brooks
Stars: Toni Collette, Gotaro Tsunashima, Lynette Curran
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Australia
Against the background of an Australian desert, Sandy, a geologist, and Hiromitsu, a Japanese businessman, play out a story of human inconsequence in the face of the blistering universe. The end of the journey leaves no one capable of going back to where they started from.
Director: Roger Michell
Stars: Anne Reid, Daniel Craig, Anna Wilson-Jones
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK
A woman has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.
Director: Tamás Sas
Stars: Patricia Kovács, Gábor Máté, Józsa Hacser
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Hungary
A one-room drama about a very young woman and her middle-aged lover.
Director: Jonathan Demme
Stars: Jean Dominique, Aboudja, Ronald Reagan
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: USA
The true story of Jean Dominique, a Haitian radio journalist and human rights activist.
Director: Bent Hamer
Stars: Tomas Norström, Joachim Calmeyer, Bjørn Floberg
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Norway | Sweden
A scientific observer’s job of observing an old cantankerous single man’s kitchen habits is complicated by his growing friendship with him.
Director: Icíar Bollaín
Stars: Laia Marull, Luis Tosar, Candela Peña
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Spain
One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what’s more, “She gave him her eyes”…
Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Anaïs Demoustier, Béatrice Dalle
Genre: Drama, Horror
Country: France | Austria | Germany
When Anna and her family arrive at their holiday home, they find it occupied by strangers. This confrontation is just the beginning of a painful learning process.
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Stars: Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Jasmine Trinca
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy
An Italian epic that follows the lives of two brothers, from the 1960s to the 2000s.
Director: Dong-won Kim
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: North Korea | South Korea
North Korean spies return to their homeland.
Director: Ross McElwee
Stars: Allan Gurganus, Paula Larke, Marilyn Levine
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Comedy
Country: USA | UK
North Carolina produces more tobacco than any other state in America. Bright Leaves describes a journey taken across the social, economic, and psychological tobacco terrain of North Carolina by a native Carolinian, Ross McElwee, whose great-grandfather created the famous brand of tobacco known as Bull Durham. The comedic chronicle is a subjective, autobiographical meditation on the allure of cigarettes and their troubling legacy for the state of North Carolina. It’s also a film about family history, addiction, denial, and filmmaking–as McElwee, noted director of Sherman’s March, grapples with the legacy of an obscure Hollywood melodrama that is purportedly based on this curious man that was his great-grandfather.
Director: Julie Bertuccelli
Stars: Esther Gorintin, Nino Khomasuridze, Dinara Drukarova
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Belgium | Georgia
The one joy in the lives of a mother and daughter comes from the regular letters sent to them from Paris from the family’s adored son, Otar. When the daughter finds out that Otar has died suddenly, she tries to conceal the truth from her mother, changing the course of their lives forever.
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Stars: Leonor Silveira, Filipa de Almeida, John Malkovich
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Portugal | France | Italy
Lisbon, Marseilles, Naples, Athens, Istanbul, Cairo, Aden, and Bombay. Along with a university teacher and her little daughter, we embark on a long journey, experiencing different cultures and civilizations.
Director: Alain Resnais
Stars: Sabine Azéma, Isabelle Nanty, Audrey Tautou
Genre: Comedy, Musical, Romance
Country: Switzerland | France
A romantic musical story having the vibes both France and USA.
Director: Erik Van Looy
Stars: Koen De Bouw, Werner De Smedt, Jan Decleir
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Belgium
Vincke and Verstuyft are the best detectives of the Antwerp police department. They are confronted with the murder on a leading executive and put all their effort to catch the murderer.
Director: Gabriele Salvatores
Stars: Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Dino Abbrescia, Giorgio Careccia
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Italy | Spain | UK
A young boy accidentally discovers a deep hole in the ground, where another boy is kept prisoner.
Director: Jane Campion
Stars: Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK | Australia | France | USA
New York City writing professor, Frannie Avery, has an affair with a police detective, who is investigating the murder of a beautiful young woman in her neighborhood.
Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: The Dalai Lama, Lama Lhundup Woeser, Takna Jigme Sangpo
Genre: Documentary
Country: Germany | Austria | Italy
Wheel of Time is Werner Herzog’s photographed look at the largest Buddhist ritual in Bodh Gaya, India.
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Stars: Simon Yates, Joe Simpson, Brendan Mackey
Genre: Documentary, Adventure, Drama
Country: UK | USA
The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
Director: Paul Devlin
Stars: Dennis Bakke, Piers Lewis, Butch Mederos
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | Georgia
Corruption, assassination and street rioting surround the story of the award-winning film, Power Trip, which follows an American multi-national trying to solve the electricity crisis in Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Power Trip provides insight into today’s headlines, with a graphic, on-the-ground depiction of the challenges facing globalization in an environment of culture clash, electricity disconnections and blackouts.
Director: Liz Garbus
Stars: Edith Hahn Beer, Julia Ormond, Susan Sarandon
Genre: Documentary, History, War
Country: USA
Edith Han was an outspoken young woman studying law in Vienna when the Gestapo forced Edith and her mother into a Jewish ghetto. Edith was taken away to a labor camp, and when she returned home months later, she found her mother had been deported. Knowing she would become a hunted woman, Edith went underground, scavenging for food and searching each night for a safe place to sleep. Her boyfriend, Pepi, proved too terrified to help her, but a Christian friend was not. Using the woman’s identity papers, Edith fled to Munich. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite her protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity a secret.
Director: Megan Mylan, Jon Shenk
Stars: Santino Majok Chuor, Jarrid Geduld, Peter Kon Dut
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
Lost Boys of Sudan is a feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America. Orphaned as young boys in one of Africa’s cruelest civil wars, Peter Dut and Santino Chuor survived lion attacks and militia gunfire to reach a refugee camp in Kenya along with thousands of other children. From there, remarkably, they were chosen to come to America. Safe at last from physical danger and hunger, a world away from home, they find themselves confronted with the abundance and alienation of contemporary American suburbia.
Director: Robert Lepage
Stars: Robert Lepage, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Marco Poulin
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada
After the death of his mother, a man tries to discover a meaning to his life, to the universe and to rebuild a relationship with the only family he has left: his brother.
Director: Alain Corneau
Stars: Sylvie Testud, Kaori Tsuji, Tarô Suwa
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France | Japan
A Belgian woman looks back on her year at a Japanese corporation in Tokyo in 1990. She is Amélie, born in Japan, living there until age 5. After college graduation, she returns with a one-year contract as an interpreter. The vice president and section leader, both men, are boors, but her immediate supervisor, Ms. Mori, is beautiful and trustworthy. Amélie’s downfall begins when she speaks perfect Japanese to clients. She compounds her failure by writing an excellent report for an enterprising colleague. The person she least expects to stab her in the back exposes her work. Thus begins her humiliations. What can become of her and of her relationship with Ms. Mori and with Japan?
Director: Andy Byatt, Alastair Fothergill
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Michael Gambon, David Attenborough
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK | Germany
Join a voyage through aquatic realms where humans have rarely dared to go. Waddle with playful penguins, dart with lightning speed through schools of sharks, ride over stormy waves with massive whales and view rare alien-like creatures.
Director: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Stars: Tadanobu Asano, Sinitta Boonyasak, Takashi Miike
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Thailand | Japan | Netherlands
A suicidal, obsessively compulsive Japanese librarian is forced to lie low in Thailand with a pot-smoking woman coping with the recent loss of her sister.
Director: Denys Arcand
Stars: Rémy Girard, Dorothée Berryman, Stéphane Rousseau
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Canada | France
During his final days, a dying man is reunited with old friends, former lovers, his ex-wife, and his estranged son.
Director: Laura Gabbert
Stars: Lucille Alpert, Irja Lloyd
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
Lucille and Irja are retired residents of Sunset Hall, a Los Angeles home for the elderly. Residents of Sunset Hall are retired radicals; they have retired from work but not from protesting against injustice. Bitter Lucille considers herself a realist. Wheelchair-bound Irja is sunny and optimistic. Lucille was raised a Jew but always aspired to assimilate. Irja wants to explore all sorts of new traditions. Through the lives of these women, Sunset Story shows the life at Sunset Hall: teachers, a dancer, an engineer, a social worker, and others, all living out their golden years in a unique environment.
Director: Stan Brakhage
Stars: n/a
Genre: Short, Biography
Country: USA
Stan Brakhage’s final film, made shortly before his death by wetting a filmstrip with saliva and using his fingernail to scratch marks into the emulsion.
Director: Geramie Barmé, Richard Gordon, Carma Hinton
Stars: Xiaoping Deng, Qing Jiang, Nanyang Li
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
About the shifting, unpredictable currents behind the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this documentary shows the various phases of the 12 years from 1964 through the purging of the Gang of Four at the end of 1976, with some retrospective information about the Long March and the 1958 Great Leap forward.
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Iran | Japan | France
Five sequences : 1) A piece of driftwood on the seashore, carried about by the waves 2) People walking on the seashore. The oldest ones stop by, look at the sea, then go away 3) Blurry shapes on a winter beach. A herd of dogs. A love story 4) A group of loud ducks cross the image, in one direction then the other 5) A pond, at night. Frogs improvising a concert. A storm, then the sunrise.
Director: Jim Fields, Michael Gramaglia
Stars: Rick Rubin, Tommy Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA
The story of the punk rock band The Ramones.
Director: Byambasuren Davaa, Luigi Falorni
Stars: Janchiv Ayurzana, Chimed Ohin, Amgaabazar Gonson
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Family
Country: Germany | Mongolia
When a Mongolian nomadic family’s newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Director: Guy Maddin
Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Mark McKinney, Maria de Medeiros
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Country: Canada
A musical of sorts set in Winnipeg during the Great Depression, where a beer baroness organizes a contest to find the saddest music in the world. Musicians from around the world descend on the city to try and win the $25,000 prize.
Director: Robert Altman
Stars: Neve Campbell, James Franco, Malcolm McDowell
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Germany | USA
Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who’s poised to become a principal performer.
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Stars: Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia
In the Russian wilderness, two brothers face a range of new, conflicting emotions when their father – a man they know only through a single photograph – resurfaces.
Director: Jee-woon Kim
Stars: Kap-su Kim, Jung-ah Yum, Soo-jung Lim
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Country: South Korea
A family is haunted by the tragedies of deaths within the family.
Director: Thom Andersen
Stars: Encke King, Ben Alexander, Jim Backus
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA
A documentary on how Los Angeles has been used and depicted in the movies.
Director: Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier
Stars: Claus Nissen, Majken Algren Nielsen, Daniel Hernandez Rodriguez
Genre: Documentary
Country: Denmark | Switzerland | Belgium | France
Filmmaker Lars Von Trier challenges Jørgen Leth, the filmmaker behind The Perfect Human (1967), to remake his classic short under circumstances of increasing constraint.
Director: Ziad H. Hamzeh
Stars: Ziad H. Hamzeh
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy a firestorm erupts when 1,100 Somali refugees relocate to predominately white Lewiston, Maine.
Director: Richard Schickel
Stars: Charles Chaplin, Sydney Pollack, Bill Irwin
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA
Narrated by Sydney Pollack, film critic Richard Schickel’s dazzling two-hour plus documentary to one of the towering figures in film: Charles Chaplin. Hardcore Chaplin fans may not find much new material here, but more unfamiliar admirers will gain some valuable information about one of the most famous personalities of the 20th century.
Director: Mark Moormann
Stars: Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA
A documentary about Tom Dowd, who was an innovative recording engineer and producer of noted albums with John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Otis Redding, Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers and many others.
Director: Kim Bartley, Donnacha O’Briain
Stars: Hugo Chávez, Pedro Carmona, Jesse Helms
Genre: Documentary
Country: Ireland | Netherlands | UK | Germany | France | Finland
In April 2002, an Irish film crew is making a documentary about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, when a coup from the opposition is made.
Director: Rithy Panh
Stars: Khieu ‘Poev’ Ches, Yeay Cheu, Nhem En
Genre: Documentary, History, War
Country: Cambodia | France | Belgium | Canada | Australia | Switzerland | Czech Republic | Finland
A unique documentary on the notorious S-21 prison, today the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with testimony by the only surviving prisoners and former Khmer Rouge guards.
Director: Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill
Stars: Aileen Wuornos, Nick Broomfield, Terry Humphreys-Slay
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Country: UK | USA
Nick Broomfield’s second documentary about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, focusing on her mental state on death row.
Director: Manish Jha
Stars: Tulip Joshi, Sudhir Pandey, Sushant Singh
Genre: Drama
Country: France | India
A disturbing saga about male chauvinism and mistreatment of women in India.
Director: Maren Ade
Stars: Eva Löbau, Daniela Holtz, Jan Neumann
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany
As an awkward idealistic high school teacher begins her first job in the city, things turn out to be much tougher than she had imagined.
Director: Satoshi Kon, Shôgo Furuya
Stars: Tôru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki, Aya Okamoto
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Country: Japan
On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.
Director: Peter Webber
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: UK | Luxembourg | France | Belgium | USA
A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.
Director: Blair Young, Lance Bangs
Stars: Isobel Campbell, Richard Colburn, Mick Cooke
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK
FANS ONLY is an excellent companion to Belle and Sebastian’s albums. It features all of Belle and Sebastian’s videos while on the Jeepster/Matador label (they recently switched to Rough Trade) and also some interesting live performances. These segments are linked together by vintage footage of the band that seems to have been shot for TV a few years ago and by photographs of the band.
Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Emmanuelle Béart, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Anne Brochet
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Country: France | Italy
Middle-aged Julien lives alone with his cat. He dreams of Marie, and a few minutes later, he sees her on the street and makes a date. He asks her to move in with him, and she does. Her boyfriend is dead, the rest of her past a mystery. Although they quickly seem to fall in love, she sometimes pulls away suddenly from him, is distant, and spends the night in a hotel. She also dreads something imminent and warns him that if he missteps, he will lose her and all memory of her. He responds by digging into her past: what explains her remodeling an upstairs garret room, her nightly dreams, her fears? What can he, now desperately in love, do when he learns why? Can either rescue the other?