7.6
Nothing else has ever looked or felt like director René Laloux's animated marvel FANTASTIC PLANET, a politically minded and visually inventive work of science fiction. The film is set on a distant planet called Ygam, where enslaved humans (Oms) are the playthings of giant blue native inhabitants (Draags). After Terr, kept as a pet since infancy, escapes from his gigantic child captor, he is swept up by a band of radical fellow Oms who are resisting the Draags' oppression and violence. With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by Roland Topor; brilliant psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer; and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-awarded 1973 counterculture classic is a perennially compelling statement against conformity and violence.
6.1
With this intimate supernatural drama, the celebrated French filmmaker Olivier Assayas conjures a melancholy ghost story set in the world of celebrity and haute couture. Starring Kristen Stewart, whose performance in Assayas’s CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA made her the first American actress to win a César Award, this evocative character study tells the story of a young fashion assistant and spiritual medium who is living in Paris and searching for signs of an afterlife following the sudden death of her twin brother. A stirring depiction of grief in the form of a psychological thriller, PERSONAL SHOPPER—which won Assayas the best director award at Cannes—is a chilling meditation on modern modes of communication and the way we mourn those we love.
7.9
Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.
7.2
When Rakel finds out she's six months pregnant after a one-night stand, her world changes. She is absolutely not ready to be a mother, but since abortion is no longer an option, adoption is the only answer. That's when Ninjababy, an animated character who makes Rakel's life a living hell, turns up.
7.9
Paul Schrader's visually stunning, collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima's last day, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer's life as well as by gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.
7.7
One of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple traveling through Argentina and locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. Setting out to depict the dynamics of a queer relationship with empathy and complexity on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong—when the country’s LGBTQ community suddenly faced an uncertain future—Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that is by turns devastating and deliriously romantic. Shot by ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle in both luminous monochrome and luscious saturated color, HAPPY TOGETHER is an intoxicating exploration of displacement and desire that swoons with the ache and exhilaration of love at its heart-tearing extremes.
6
Dean and Sal are the portrait of the Beat Generation. Their search for "It" results in a fast paced, energetic roller coaster ride with highs and lows throughout the U.S.
6.6
IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (AI NO CORRIDA), by the always provocative Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, remains one of the most controversial films of all time. Based on a true incident, it graphically depicts the all-consuming, transcendent—but ultimately destructive—love of a man and a woman (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone, still censored in its own country. WARNING: THIS FILM IS SEXUALLY EXPLICIT AND INCLUDES DEPICTIONS OF HARM AGAINST CHILDREN
7.2
In this warmhearted comic yarn from Aki Kaurismäki, fate throws the young African refugee Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) into the path of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a kindly old bohemian who shines shoes for a living in the French harbor city Le Havre. With inborn optimism and the support of his tight-knit community, Marcel stands up to the officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation. A political fairy tale that exists somewhere between the reality of contemporary France and the classic French cinema of the past, LE HAVRE is a charming, deadpan delight and one of the Finnish director’s finest films.
8.2
Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Marker’s LA JETÉE is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel told in still images.
7.8
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand (THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG) and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
6.3
Selma, a psychoanalyst, deals with a cast of colorful new patients after returning home to Tunisia to open a practice.
7.6
The chilly landscapes of Helsinki are warmed by the gentle humanism and wry humor of Aki Kaurismäki in the first installment of his FINLAND TRILOGY, a deadpan tale of everyday survival in the face of overwhelming obstacles. Misfortune begets misfortune when, in short order, Lauri (Kari Väänänen) loses his job as a tram driver and the restaurant where his wife, Ilona (Kati Outinen), works announces it is closing to make way for a chain. With few job prospects, the two find themselves facing a crisis that tests the strength of their bond.
7.7
Hailed as one of the finest films ever made, JULES AND JIM charts, over twenty-five years, the relationship between two friends and the object of their mutual obsession. The legendary François Truffaut directs, and Jeanne Moreau stars as the alluring and willful Catherine, whose enigmatic smile and passionate nature lure Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) into one of cinema’s most captivating romantic triangles. An exuberant and poignant meditation on freedom, loyalty, and the fortitude of love, JULES AND JIM was a worldwide smash in 1962 and remains every bit as audacious and entrancing today.
7.8
A cornerstone of the French New Wave, the first feature from Alain Resnais is one of the most influential films of all time. A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) engage in a brief, intense affair in postwar Hiroshima, their consuming mutual fascination impelling them to exorcise their own scarred memories of love and suffering. With an innovative flashback structure and an Academy Award–nominated screenplay by novelist Marguerite Duras, HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (“Hiroshima My Love”) is a moody masterwork that delicately weaves past and present, personal pain and public anguish.
7.6
Arriving in Helsinki, a nameless man is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs, miraculously recovering only to find that he has completely lost his memory. Back on the streets, he attempts to begin again from zero, befriending a moody dog and becoming besotted with a Salvation Army volunteer.
7
Vincent, a young Parisian uncomfortable with his appearance, installs a brain chip named Reality+ which allows users to see themselves and fellow users with their dream body. However, Reality+ only works over 12-hour intervals, proving infuriating for Vincent as he falls for Stella, another user.
7.1
The wry, incisive debut feature by Cheryl Dunye gave cinema something bracingly new and groundbreaking: a vibrant representation of Black lesbian identity by a Black lesbian filmmaker. Dunye stars as Cheryl, a video-store clerk and aspiring director whose interest in forgotten Black actresses leads her to investigate an obscure 1930s performer known as the Watermelon Woman, whose story proves to have surprising resonances with Cheryl’s own life as she navigates a new relationship with a white girlfriend (Guinevere Turner). Balancing breezy romantic comedy with a serious inquiry into the history of Black and queer women in Hollywood, THE WATERMELON WOMAN slyly rewrites long-standing constructions of race and sexuality on-screen, introducing an important voice in American cinema.
6.8
Accompanied by his friend Miyata, Sano returns to Izu, a seaside resort in Japan where five years before he fell in love with his wife Nagi.
