Recalling the work of Jean-Pierre Melville and Samuel Fuller, Gela Babluani’s directing debut is a fantastically gritty and lean slice of neo-noir. When the owner of the house he’s working on ODs, Sebastian assumes the dead man’s identity in a ploy to make some easy money and enjoy a little adventure. Only after it’s too late does he realize that the game he’s playing is deadly serious, and there is no escaping from the world of power, violence, and chance he’s entangled himself in.  More...

When Richard Fleischer passed away earlier this year, Hollywood lost one of its finest journeyman directors. In a career that stretched over 40 years, he made some undisputed classics — The Narrow Margin, Fantastic Voyage, Soylent Green — but 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was one of the first and finest. A prime piece of live action Disneyana, this high-spirited adaptation of Jules Verne’s sci-fi adventure on, or rather under, the high seas boasts a fantastic cast that includes Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre, James Mason and the greatest giant squid ever.  More...

Wracked with jealousy, a man sits in a hotel room and makes a call for help.  More...

In the near future of a China ruled by a bizarre cult, brothers Xiaomian and Xiaozhuai are stuck in a gulag where tentative romances (Xiaomian with sickly Lanlan, Xiaozhuai with Korean-born Xuelan) develop. When the cult collapses, new challenges emerge, leading to emotional uncertainties. As Jia Zhangke's inventive cinematographer, Yu Lik-wai has displayed one of the most perceptive eyes for the world of the post-Mao generation. His second work is a major accomplishment, a beautiful and slyly elliptical examination of fears in the new China.  More...

Writer/director Mike Ott beautifully crafts this tale of gentle angst among a group of community college students in a dusty small town. Overwhelmed by the prospect of actually growing up and moving on, they watch their futures slowly atrophy as each day goes past. From the girl frustrated by the pretense of art school to a boy determined to fight injustice through vandalism, the young cast delivers performances of quiet naturalism, while Ott underscores their world of long, late night drives, dead-end jobs, and despondent friends with some great music for brooding.  More...

A precursor to the Hong Kong New Wave films of the late 70s and 80s, Cecile T'ang Shu-shuen’s debut feature immediately cast her as an artistic and socially conscious iconoclast. This stylized period melodrama stars Lisa Lu as a widow who suppresses her requited desire for a virile young man, in favor of feudal virtue and her daughter. Shot in part by Subrata Mitra, Satyajit Ray’s longtime cinematographer, and co-edited by the redoubtable Les Blank, The Arch became the first modern Chinese film to win international acclaim.  More...

Espinosa is a master taxidermist and an epileptic who often speculates about committing the perfect crime. When his friend invites him on an ill-fated hunting trip, the opportunity to put his idle thoughts into action becomes a tantalizing reality. But Espinosa’s keen observational skills and meticulous planning may not be enough to navigate through the nefarious world he uncovers in the dark woods and backroads of southern Argentina. The latest from the director of Nine Queens is both a compelling character study and a moody, noirish thriller.  More...

20-year-old Babooska doesn’t have to run away to join the circus. She already spends her life criss-crossing Italy with her family’s traveling show, setting up their big top tent in small towns and hoping someone, anyone, will buy a ticket to their performances. Following Babooska and her family with their cameras, co-directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel take an objective, episodic journey through a year in the life of contemporary wanderers striving to hang on to, and make the most of, their place at the margins of society and just outside of the spotlight.  More...

At the tag end of the 21st century, Tex Kennedy, a hapless descendant of American political royalty, emerges from his underground bunker, determined to find and enthrone the prophesied king of post-apocalyptic New America. With a pair of devoted but somewhat bumbling cyborgs at his side, a beautiful but hungry cannibal in a cage and a dreaded cult of sadistic beach partiers ahead of him, Tex sets out on his epic quest in this gleeful amalgamation of old school serial adventures, political satire and pulp horror.  More...

Huang is a taciturn detective, hired to catch the elusive Li Chonggao in an illicit tryst. Having failed that, he placates himself by collecting evidence: taking pictures of a rumpled bed or attempting to question the locals. When he meets the stunning Yu Ran, he suspects she may be the key to capturing Li, but she has secrets of her own. With resounding echoes of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, Before Born employs provocative character doublings, role reversals and disappearances to weave a mesmerizing study of isolation.  More...