Kinji Fukasaku is known in the West, if at all, as the director of Battle Royale or the Battles Without Honor or Humanity films, but this is the real humdinger. The plot involves a disillusioned cop (Tetsuya Watari) who gets sucked into the orbit of a yakuza gang, but the plot matters far less than the downwardly mobile vibes an more »
The story of competitive swimmer Trudy Ederle, who, in 1926, was the first woman to ever swim across the English Channel. more »
Pregnant from a one-night-stand, Eden leans on her best friend and mother of two, Dawn, to guide her through gestation and beyond. more »
The origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa before her encounter and teamup with Mad Max. more »
Two teenagers bond over their love of a supernatural TV show, but it is mysteriously cancelled. more »
When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. more »
Follows the life of writer Flannery O'Connor while she was struggling to publish her first novel. more »
Little more than a decade after he served as the literary clarion for the civil rights movement, writer James Baldwin revisits some of the sites of its critical moments and finds that not nearly enough has changed. This powerful and long-obscure documentary from Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley speaks to the current moment as much more »
Documentary master Frederick Wiseman turns his unblinking eye on 21st-century fine dining in a fashion that fascinates, tantalizes, and occasionally appalls. His camera follows the Troisgros family as they shop, plan, prep, cook, and oversee service at their three restaurants in rural France (including one with three Michelin st more »
Pop existentialism at its most ‘70s, and the film that parked the Dodge Charger in the cinematic pantheon. Barry Newman powers a pill-popping gear-jammer who spends the entire film in flight from the law and his past (doled out in flashbacks) as he hurtles toward an inevitable fate. Journeyman director Richard Sarafian lensed th more »
Samuel Fuller pummels the screen with his two-fisted filmmaking style, this time applied to a crafty noir that pits wily pickpocket Richard Widmark against the feds and the reds after he lifts some atomic secrets off an unwitting moll played by Jean Peters. Almost worth seeing just for the great character actor Thelma Ritter as more »
The next time someone trots out the canard about using narration as a sign of weak filmmaking skills, throw Terence Malick’s debut back in their face. Forget the writer/director's nascent visual style. It’s the pitch-perfect narration that Malick puts in the voice of Sissy Spacek’s smalltown teen that imbues this retelling of a more »
When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life. more »
After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club. more »
A man seeks to break free from his predetermined path, a cop questions his wife's demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning, and a woman searches for an extraordinary individual prophesied to become a renowned spiritual guide. more »
This Japanese anime isn't merely a cartoon version of Fritz Lang's 1927 vision, with a screenplay by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, Roujin Z), it's actually adapted from the 1949 work of groundbreaking illustrator Osamu Tezuka. In Tezuka's dystopia, technology is both more »
A 21-year-old construction worker in New Mexico joins a community of queer rodeo performers in search of their own version of the American dream. more »
A cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student. more »
