Directed by Joyce Chopra • 1985 • United States
Starring Laura Dern, Treat Williams, Mary Kay Place
Suspended between carefree youth and the harsh realities of the adult world, a teenage girl experiences an unsettling awakening in this haunting vision of innocence lost. Based on Joyce Carol Oates’s celebrated short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” the narrative debut from Joyce Chopra features a revelatory breakout performance by Laura Dern as Connie, the fifteen-year-old black sheep of her family, whose summertime idyll of beach trips, mall hangouts, and innocent flirtations is shattered by an encounter with a mysterious stranger (a memorably menacing Treat Williams). Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, SMOOTH TALK captures the thrill and terror of adolescent sexual exploration, and it transforms the conventions of a coming-of-age story into something altogether more troubling and profound.
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A Brighter Summer Day
Directed by Edward Yang • 1991 • Taiwan
Starring Chang Chen, Lisa Yang, Chang Kuo-huAmong the most praised and sought-after titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang, finally comes to home video in the United States. Set in the early...
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To Die For
Directed by Gus Van Sant • 1995 • United States, United Kingdom
Starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin PhoenixThe all-American obsession with celebrity turns monstrous in this deliciously subversive (and disturbingly prescient) satire of our television-mediated, true-crime-obsessed age. I...
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La cérémonie
Directed by Claude Chabrol • 1995 • France, Germany
Starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Jacqueline BissetClaude Chabrol’s forty-ninth feature stands as the crowning achievement of his prolific career—a coolly riveting study of class dynamics, the psychology of crime, and the sordid se...
