Directed by Axelle Ropert • 2021 • France
Starring Jade Springer, Léa Drucker, Philippe Katerine

Taking a child’s-eye view of a disintegrating family, director Axelle Ropert offers a supremely sensitive, richly layered reimagining of the divorce drama. Solange (Jade Springer, in a revelatory per...

Directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen • 1952 • Argentina
Starring Ángel Magaña, Renée Dumas, Diana de Córdoba

Based on two short stories by American master of suspense fiction Cornell Woolrich, NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR is a significant example of the cross-cultural cinematic legacy shared by the Unite...

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck • 2006 • Germany
Starring Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch

Set in East Berlin in the early 1980s, this acclaimed debut feature from Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck focuses on GDR’s pervasive and chilling surveillance state. The successful ...

Directed by Phillip Noyce • 1989 • Australia
Starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, Billy Zane

It’s anything but smooth sailing in this tightly wound maritime thriller, featuring a sensational Nicole Kidman in her international breakthrough performance. Adapted from a novel by pulp master Charles Wi...

Criterion Collection Edition #535

Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1983 • Japan
Starring David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti

In this captivating, skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima, David Bowie regally embodies Celliers, a British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Rock star R...

Directed by Paul Verhoeven • 2021 • France, Netherlands, Belgium
Starring Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Daphné Patakia

The ever-provocative Paul Verhoeven brings his subversive vision to a seventeenth-century convent for this ecstatically blasphemous tale of religion, sex, scandal, and pla...

Directed by David Schickele • 1971 • United States
Starring Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam, Elaine Featherstone, James Earl Garrison

When Paul Okpokam arrived in the U.S. in 1968, David Schickele decided to make a film about his Nigerian friend’s experience of coming to teach at San Francisco State Coll...

Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien • 2015 • Taiwan, China, Hong Kong
Starring Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Zhou Yun

The last film to date by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien is a wondrous take on the traditional wuxia film that earned him the Best Director prize at Cannes. The story is simple, if elusive: in ni...

Directed by Catherine Breillat • 2004 • France
Starring Amira Casar, Rocco Siffredi

After attempting suicide, a young woman (Amira Casar) makes a startling proposition to the man (Rocco Siffredi) who rescued her: she will pay him to watch her naked body over the course of four nights as long as ...

Directed by Med Hondo • 1979 • Algeria, Mauritania, France
Starring Robert Liensol, Roland Bertin, Hélène Vincent

Mauritanian French director Med Hondo’s staggering WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY is a sui generis amalgam of historical epic, Broadway revue, Brechtian theater, and joy...

Directed by Catherine Breillat • 1976 • France
Starring Charlotte Alexandra, Hiram Keller, Rita Maiden

Filmed in 1976 but not released until 2000, A REAL YOUNG GIRL is Catherine Breillat’s taboo-busting directorial debut and one of the boldest explorations of female sexuality ever committed to c...

Directed by Jacques Audiard • 2005 • France
Starring Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Jonathan Zaccaï

A visceral remake of James Toback’s 1978 film FINGERS played at fever-pitch intensity, this gritty neonoir, which swept the César Awards, centers on Tom (Romain Duris), a thuggish real-estate broke...

Directed by Takashi Miike • 1999 • Japan
Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki Matsuda

In one of the most notorious horror films ever made, recent widower Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) sets out to find a new wife by staging an “audition.” Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes encha...

Direcyed by Na Hong-jin • 2016 • South Korea
Starring Chun Woo-hee, Hwang Jung-min, Kwak Do-won

In this unrelentingly tense supernatural thriller, a foreigner’s mysterious appearance in a quiet, rural village unleashes a wave of suspicion among the locals—a gathering mistrust that quickly turns ...

Directed by Jennifer Kent • 2014 • Australia
Starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall

An instant cult classic of psychological horror, the feature debut from Jennifer Kent packages a disquieting exploration of trauma, grief, and healing in the form of a spellbinding fairy-tale nightma...

Directed by Hideo Nakata • 1998 • Japan
Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani

The film that launched the craze for J-horror in the West, director Hideo Nakata’s international sensation melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of techn...

Directed by Park Chan-wook • 2000 • South Korea
Starring Lee Yeong-ae, Lee Byung-hun, Song Kang-ho

Superstar director Park Chan-wook achieved his first major success with this masterful mystery thriller, which explores the complex relationship between North and South Korea with searing humanity....

Directed by Dario Argento • 1970 • Italy
Starring Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Eva Renzi

In his stunning first film as writer-director, Dario Argento singlehandedly created the giallo genre and instantly emerged as the filmmaker critics worldwide hailed as the “Italian Hitchcock.” Tony Musante an...

Directed by Vittorio De Sica • 1964 • Italy, France
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo Puglisi

Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren cemented their status as one of the all-time great screen couples in Vittorio De Sica’s classic battle-of-the-sexes farce. He’s Domenico, a suave, b...

Directed by Emilio Fernández • 1951 • Mexico
Starring Ninón Sevilla, Tito Junco, Rodolfo Acosta

A treasure of Mexico’s cinematic golden age, this deliriously plotted blend of gritty crime film, heart-tugging maternal melodrama, and mambo musical is a dazzling showcase for iconic star Ninón Sevi...

Directed by Youssef Chahine • 1958 • Egypt
Starring Youssef Chahine, Farid Shawqi, Hind Rostom

Youssef Chahine established his international reputation with this masterpiece, which, though initially a commercial flop at home, would become one of the most influential and celebrated works in all ...

Directed by Mikio Naruse • 1960 • Japan
Starring Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Reiko Dan

WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse’s finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko (played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine), who works as a bar hoste...

Directed by Youssef Chahine • 1969 • Egypt
Starring Mahmoud el-Meliguy, Ezzat el-Alaili, Nagwa Ibrahim

Adapted from a classic novel by Abd al-Rahman Sharqawi, this howl of rage against social injustice is one of director Youssef Chahine’s most influential works, crowned by a career-best perform...