Action & AdventureEnglish dub available. In the midst of WWII, following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, a convoy of 35 civilian cargo ships from around the world embark on a journey to bring vital military supplies to a Norwegian outpost under the protection of Allied naval vessels. When the leader of the convoy decides to proceed through treacherous, enemy infested waters despite the recall of their military escort the supposedly safe expedition turns deadly. Fighting for their lives against merciless German air and naval attacks, the civilian merchant ships brave brutal Arctic seas to bring critical support to soldiers on the front lines. Caught at sea without defense or war experience, courage becomes their only lifeline.
Action & AdventureAcademy Award® Winner Best Visual Effects. In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.
DramaHer story touched the hearts of millions: Waris Dirie's book DESERT FLOWER, which recounts her incredible journey from an African nomad to an international top model, became a worldwide bestseller with more than 11 million copies sold. This is the inspiring story of an extraordinary, proud and brave woman. Director and screenwriter Sherry Hormann (FATHER'S DAY) and producer and Oscar winner Peter Herrmann (NOWHERE IN AFRICA) have adapted Dirie's autobiography for the screen: a modern fairy tale of dazzling glamour and archaic rituals, full of vitality, emotional depth and enormous compassion. Top model and actress Liya Kebede shines in the main role alongside an ensemble of brilliant actors including Silver Bear and Golden Globe winner Sally Hawkins (HAPPY-GO-LUCKY), Timothy Spall (HARRY POTTER, SECRETS AND LIES), Craig Parkinson (CONTROL), Juliet Stevensen (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM), Anthony Mackie (THE HURT LOCKER, 8 MILE) and Meera Syal (SCOOP). DESERT FLOWER is produced by Peter Herman
DocumentaryA majestic visual symphony with the filmmaker’s father as our guide, bringing us through a breathtaking journey of Norway’s most scenic valley. He grew up where generations have lived alongside nature to survive. The sounds of the earth harmonize in this breathtaking journey. Executive produced by Liv Ullmann and Wim Wenders.
ForeignFifty years ago, the Japanese Defense Forces killed Godzilla or so they thought. When a series of terrifying natural disasters begin to plague Japan, including the inexplicable offshore sinking of a U.S. submarine, a mystic old man warns his nation that Godzilla has come back to destroy Japan as revenge for all the souls lost in the Pacific War. When mere military might can not squash the monster, the mystic man awakens the Holy Beasts of Yamato - King Ghidorah, Mothra and Baragon, sleeping giants that protected Japan in ancient times. These untamed mammoth beasts take on Godzilla with frightening supernatural brute power that has been 2,000 years in the making. Tradition and technology collide in this chilling high-tech, cutting-edge fable.
ForeignThe year is 2044: artificial intelligence controls all facets of a stoic society as humans routinely "erase" their feelings. Hoping to eliminate pain caused by their past-life romances, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) continually falls in love with different incarnations of Louis (George MacKay). Set first in Belle Époque-era Paris, Louis is a British man who woos her away from a cold husband, then in early 21st Century Los Angeles, he is a disturbed American bent on delivering violent "retribution." Will the process allow Gabrielle to fully connect with Louis in the present, or are the two doomed to repeat their previous fates? Visually audacious director Bertrand Bonello (SAINT LAURENT, NOCTURAMA) fashions his most accomplished film to date: a sci-fi epic, inspired by Henry James' turn- of-the-century novella, THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE, suffused with mounting dread and a haunting sense of mystery. Punctuated by a career-defining, three-role performance by Seydoux, THE BEAST poignantly conv
ThrillerA hitman who wants out of killing decides to leave town with the woman he loves, but his plans to escape are disrupted by a mysterious young man and his deadly boss with a ruthless agenda of their own.
DramaCelebrated with worldwide acclaim, this powerful true story of crime and redemption has won numerous prestigious awards around the globe! The streets of the world's most notorious slum, Rio de Janeiro's "City of God" are a place where combat photographers fear to tread, police rarely go and residents are lucky if they live to the age of 20. In the midst of the oppressive crime and violence, a frail and scared young boy will grow up to discover that he can view the harsh realities of his surroundings with a different eye, the eye of an artist. In the face of impossible odds, his brave ambition to become a professional photographer becomes a window into his world and ultimately his way out!
DramaFollowing the collapse of his clan, an unemployed samurai (Tatsuya Nakadai) arrives at the manor of Lord Iyi, begging to be allowed to commit ritual suicide on the property. Iyi’s clansmen, believing the desperate ronin is merely angling for a new position, try to force his hand and get him to eviscerate himself—but they have underestimated his beliefs and his personal brand of honor. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize, Harakiri, directed by Masaki Kobayashi is a fierce evocation of individual agency in the face of a corrupt and hypocritical system.
Sci-Fi & FantasyThis contemporary film has an updated look and a high-tech polish while still retaining the spirit of past 'Godzilla' films. In it, Japan is threatened not only by Godzilla, but by a gigantic flying monster and its legions of hungry larva. As the monsters go at it, the Japanese military scrambles to destroy all them all.
HorrorA remote manor; hushed, candlelit atmosphere; and shivery, supernatural menace. With his first English-language feature, Chilean Spanish writer-director-composer Alejandro Amenábar resurrected the classic gothic chiller to create a ghost story of uncommon emotional resonance. Nicole Kidman stars as a World War II–era mother whose imperiousness masks a terrifying pain, as she keeps her light-sensitive children enshrouded in darkness on her country estate. The arrival of three new servants punctures her insular world—and seems to disturb the balance between the living and the dead. With each stunning twist and turn, Amenábar immerses us more deeply in a realm haunted not only by spirits but also by guilt, trauma, and repression.
Action & AdventureD'Artagnan is forced to join forces with Milady to save Constance, who was kidnapped before his eyes. But as war is declared and Athos, Porthos and Aramis have already joined the front, a secret from the past shatters old alliances.
Romance“Jeanne du Barry” follows Jeanne Vaubernier (Maïwenn), a working-class woman determined to climb the social ladder, using her charms to escape her impoverished life. Her lover, the Comte du Barry (Melvil Poupaud), wishes to present her to King Louis XV (Johnny Depp) and orchestrates a meeting through the influential Duke of Richelieu (Pierre Richard). The encounter goes far beyond his expectations for it was love at first sight for the King and Jeanne. Through this ravishing courtesan, the king rediscovers his appetite for life and feels he can no longer live without her. Making Jeanne his last official mistress, scandal erupts as no one at Court will accept a girl from the streets into their rarified world.
ThrillerMemories of Murder tells the harrowing true story of the hunt for a sadistic serial rapist and murderer terrorizing a small province in 1980s South Korea. Marking the first of many successful collaborations between four-time Oscar® winner Bong Joon Ho and leading man Song Kang Ho, the film follows the paths of three increasingly desperate detectives as they attempt to decipher the violent mind of a killer in an effort to solve the case. Now, seventeen years after its initial release, and a year after the real culprit was identified, this cult classic takes its place as a modern masterpiece.
HorrorKiyoshi Kurosawa’s arresting international breakthrough established him as one of the leaders of an emerging new wave of Japanese horror while pushing the genre into uncharted realms of philosophical and existential exploration. A string of shocking, seemingly unmotivated murders—each committed by a different person yet all bearing the same grisly hallmarks—leads Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) into a labyrinthine investigation to discover what connects them, and into a disturbing game of cat and mouse with an enigmatic amnesiac (Masato Hagiwara) who may be evil incarnate. Awash in hushed, hypnotic dread, CURE is a tour de force of psychological tension and a hallucinatory journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind.
ForeignMay 1940. Charles de Gaulle, newly appointed French General, joins the Government in Paris while his wife and children stay behind. Facing the defeatist attitude of Pétain ready to negotiate with Hitler, de Gaulle has one purpose: continue fighting.
DramaEven across thousands of miles, the special bond between a mother and son can never be broken. It gives hope to Carlitos, a scrappy nine-year-old boy whose mother, Rosario, has gone to America to build a better life for both of them. While Rosario struggles for a brighter future, fate forces Carlitos' hand and he embarks on an extraordinary journey to find her. Critics and audiences alike have praised this inspirational and heartwarming tale of a mother's devotion, a son's courage and a love that knows no borders.
Sci-Fi & FantasyA dazzling mix of state-of-the-art visual effects, amazing action sequences, and nail-biting horror set in contemporary Moscow, Day Watch (Dnevnoi Dozor) revolves around the conflict and balance maintained between the forces of light and darkness -- the result of a medieval truce between the opposing sides. From the Director of Wanted.
DramaThis legendary film from Soviet director Elem Klimov is a senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanizing horrors of war. As Nazi forces encroach on his small village in what is now known as Belarus, teenage Flyora (Alexei Kravchenko, in a searing depiction of anguish) eagerly joins the Soviet resistance. Rather than the adventure and glory he envisioned, what he finds is a waking nightmare of unimaginable carnage and cruelty—rendered with a feverish, otherworldly intensity by Klimov’s subjective camera work and expressionistic sound design. Nearly blocked from being made by Soviet censors, who took seven years to approve its script, COME AND SEE is perhaps the most visceral, impossible-to-forget antiwar film ever made.
DramaThe sensation of the Cannes Film Festival and the most controversial film of the year, Blue is the Warmest Color made cinema history as the first film ever awarded the Palme d'Or to both its director and its actresses. In a star-making role, Adèle Exarchopoulos is Adèle, a passionate young woman who has a yearning she doesn't quite understand until a chance encounter with the blue-haired Emma ignites a flame and brings her to life. Léa Seydoux (Midnight in Paris) gives a fearless performance as Emma, the older woman who excites Adèle's desire and becomes the love of her life. Abdellatif Kechiche's (The Secret of the Grain) intimate epic of tenderness and passion charts their relationship over the course of several years, from the ecstasy of a first kiss to the agony of heartbreak. Pulsing with gestures, embraces, furtive exchanges, and arias of joy and devastation, Blue is the Warmest Color is a profoundly moving hymn to both love and life.
ForeignThis is the story of Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey becomes the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style.
ComedyAn inspired motion-picture masterpiece,“Life Is Beautiful” (La vita è bella) was nominated in 1998 for 7 Academy Awards® – winning 3 Oscars®, including one for Best Actor Roberto Benigni.
In this extraordinary tale, Guido (Benigni) – a charming but bumbling waiter who’s gifted with a colorful imagination and an irresistible sense of humor – has won the heart of the woman he loves and created a beautiful life for his young family. But then, that life is threatened by World War II, and Guido must rely on those very same strengths to save his beloved wife and son from an unthinkable fate! Honored with an overwhelming level of critical acclaim, this truly exceptional, utterly unique achievement will lift your spirits and capture your heart!
DramaFrom the director of Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) comes a post-apocalyptic comedy that’s both bitingly hilarious and absolutely one-of-a-kind. When meat becomes so rare that it is used as currency, residents living above a delicatessen must depend on a menacingly strange butcher (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) for their supply. But when a new tenant (Dominique Pinon) arrives and takes a job as the building's handyman, he unknowingly steps into the butcher’s trap...to serve him as the next meal!
DramaSeeking the promise of America, a beautiful young woman, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), joins her father on an odyssey to cross the gauntlet of the Latin American countryside. Along the way, she crosses paths with a teenaged Mexican gang member, El Casper (Edgar M. Flores), who is maneuvering to outrun his violent past. Together they have to rely on faith, trust and street smarts if they are to survive their increasingly perilous journey towards the hope of new lives.
DramaMathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La haine, a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income banlieue districts on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui)—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis.
DramaSet in a suburb of north-east Paris between December 1935 and July 1936 during the "revolutionary" period of the Popular Front (who introduced the first paid holidays and a shorter working week). Three unemployed performers decide to take over by force the music hall where they worked a few months earlier and stage a show there.
Sci-Fi & FantasyAfter learning that the sun is rapidly burning out, humans engage in a desperate attempt to propel Earth to a new solar system, leaving the fate of humankind in the hands of the individuals brave enough to accept the perilous mission.
Action & AdventureD'Artagnan arrives in Paris trying to find his attackers after being left for dead, which leads him to a real war where the future of France is at stake. He aligns himself with Athos, Porthos and Aramis, three musketeers of the King.
ForeignAt 16, Justine is a brilliant, promising student and a strict vegetarian. But when she starts veterinary school, she quickly encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. Desperate to fit in during the first week of hazing rituals, she strays from her principles and eats raw meat for the first time and faces the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions as her true self emerges.
HorrorOne of the most notorious J-horror films ever made, Takashi Miike’s Audition exploded onto the festival circuit at the turn of the century to a chorus of awards and praise. The film would catapult Miike to the international scene and pave the way for such other genre delights as Ichii the Killer and The Happiness of the Katakuris. Recent widower Shigharu Aoyama is advised by his son to find a new wife, agreeing Shigeharu seeks the advice of a colleague having been out of the dating scene for many years. Taking advantage of their position as a film company they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes enchanted by Asami, a quiet, 24-year-old woman, who is immediately responsive to his charms. But soon things take a very dark and twisted turn as we find that Asami isn’t what she seems to be… Pulling the audience into a story that will lead to one of the most harrowing climaxes in cinema history, Miike twists and turns us through delirious editing and sho
ForeignThis multiple award winner from Tom Tykwer (The Princess And The Warrior) stars Franka Potente as Lola, the orange-haired punk girlfriend of Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), a small-time courier for a big-time gangster. Manni is working a standard pickup/drop-off, and everything is going fine until an unforeseen incident makes Lola late to pick him up. One stroke of bad luck leads to another, and by the time Manni calls Lola, he has a big problem: He is supposed to meet his unforgiving boss in 20 minutes with 100,000 marks that suddenly he does not have. Lola rushes out of her apartment, attempting to get to Manni and somehow pick up 100,000 marks along the way. As the seconds tick down, the tiniest choices become life-altering (or -ending) decisions, and the fine line between fate and fortune begins to blur.
RomanceIn this celebrated Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, a famous Italian filmmaker, haunted by the memories of his first love, returns to his hometown after an absence of 30 years. Upon his return, he connects with the community and remembers the highlights and tragedies that shaped his life and inspired him to follow his dream of becoming a filmmaker. Featuring a memorable score by Ennio Morricone, it's an irresistible, and romantic celebration of the movies.
For those who have never seen it -- and those who have never forgotten it -- director Giuseppe Tornatore's (MALENA, THE STAR MAKER) cherished Academy Award®-winning motion picture (1990, Best Foreign Language Film) is now fully restored and digitally remastered!
Action & AdventureAcademy Award® Winner Best Visual Effects. In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.
DramaFrom Academy Award-nominee Hirokazu Kore-eda—After learning a teacher is bullying her son, a mother demands answers, eventually resorting to legal action. But as the truth is gradually revealed, it proves more complex than anyone imagined.
Action & AdventureThis dark comedy is about a man who gets involved in the wildly dangerous and bloody narco business after being deported from the United States.
ThrillerWhen Blanche (Virginie Efira) meets the charismatic Gregoire (Melvil Poupaud) at a party her twin sister Rose drags her to, she thinks she has found the one. The ties that bind them grow quickly, and a passionate affair ensues. Rose has serious reservations about Gregoire, but against her better judgment, they decide to marry and move in together. Blanche and Gregoire soon relocate far from Blanche’s family where her new life begins; having two children, working as an elementary school teacher, and learning to tiptoe around Gregoire’s unfounded burgeoning insecurities. Little by little Blanche finds herself caught in the grip of a deeply possessive and dangerous man, desperate to escape his increasingly threatening affections. Adapted from Éric Reinhardt’s prize-winning novel L’amour et les forêts by Valérie Donzelli and Audrey Diwan (Happening), Just the Two of Us is a closely observed and tense thriller that doubles as an acute psychological study of a profoundly perilous
ThrillerProvocative, thrilling and sensual, Lust, Caution is the daring new film from acclaimed Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Set against the backdrop of a transforming country, a young woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless and secretive intelligence agent. As she immerses herself in her role as a cosmopolitan seductress, she becomes entangled in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue, love and betrayal.
Sci-Fi & FantasySLEEP DEALER is a Sundance award-winning sci-fi thriller packed with stunning visuals, strong social and political themes, and is being hailed by audiences and critics alike as "impressive, eye-opening…a timely message, deftly delivered… like Blade Runner and other big-brained sci-fi flicks, it’s about ideas..." (Wired)
Memo Cruz (Luis Fernando Peña) is a young man in near-future Mexico. When his family is victim of a misguided drone attack he finds himself with no option but to head north, towards the U.S./Mexico border. But migrant workers cannot cross this new world border – it's been sealed off. Instead, Memo ends up in a strange digital factory in Mexico where he connects his body to a robot in America.
Memo's search for a better future leads him to love, loss, and a confrontation with a mysterious figure from his past.
Sci-Fi & FantasyWith Earth in disrepair and no longer inhabitable, the human race begins to leave the planet for a new home on Mars. One of the departing vessels, the ship Aniara, runs through a field of space wreckage shortly after takeoff and is damaged beyond repair. With Aniara knocked off-course and drifting powerlessly out of control, the crew and passengers alike must wrestle with the reality of their fate. Crew member MR (Emelie Jonsson) operates a sentient computer that allows humans to experience idyllic memories of their lives on Earth. As the ship drifts further into space, the passengers begin to lose hope and sanity amid the growing sense of disaster. Pressure builds on MR as she is the only one who can keep the burgeoning insanity and lethal depression at bay.
ComedyThe year is 1984, and on the rural East Coast of New Zealand“Thriller” is changing kids’ lives. Boy, a young dreamer obsessed with Michael Jackson, lives with his brother and cousins and dreams of his long-lost father, who was sent to prison for robbery not long after Boy was born. When his father returns home after seven years away, Boy is forced to confront the man he thought he remembered and learn to get along without the hero he had been hoping for. “Boy” is the hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age tale about heroes, magic and Michael Jackson.
ForeignGraceful, enigmatic, and often frightening, DOGTOOTH is an ingenious dark comedy that won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, propelling Yorgos Lanthimos to the forefront of contemporary cinema's most ambitious young filmmakers. In an effort to protect their three children from the corrupting influence of the outside world, a Greek couple transforms their home into a gated compound of cultural deprivation and strict rules of behavior. But children cannot remain innocent forever. When the father brings home a young woman to satisfy his son's sexual urges, the family's engineered "reality" begins to crumble, with devastating consequences. Like the haunting, dystopic visions of Michael Haneke and Gaspar Noé, DOGTOOTH punctuates its compelling drama with moments of shocking violence, creating a biting social satire that is as profound as it is provocative.
ForeignThis critically-acclaimed, Oscar®-winning film (Best Foreign Language Film, 2006) is the erotic, emotionally-charged experience Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly) calls "a nail-biter of a thriller!" Before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's population was closely monitored by the State Secret Police (Stasi). Only a few citizens above suspicion, like renowned pro-Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman, were permitted to lead private lives. But when a corrupt government official falls for Georg's stunning actress-girlfriend, Christa, an ambitious Stasi policeman is ordered to bug the writer's apartment to gain incriminating evidence against the rival. Now, what the officer discovers is about to dramatically change their lives - as well as his - in this seductive political thriller Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) proclaims is "the best kind of movie: one you can't get out of your head."
AnimeForty years ago, the Mythical Pokémon Celebi fled from a vicious hunter, and a young Trainer named Sammy rushed to protect it. Sammy and Celebi vanished in the forest—becoming yet another strange legend that the townspeople tell. In the present day, Ash and friends arrive in the forest, and find that the story is true when both boy and Pokémon turn up again! This time, the Iron Masked Marauder is after Celebi, armed with a cruel device that makes any Pokémon mindlessly obedient and evil. Can Ash, Sammy, Misty, and Brock withstand the power of the corrupted Celebi, and restore it to its true self?
Action & AdventureSergeant Gerry Boyle is an eccentric small-town cop with a confrontational and crass personality and a subversive sense of humor. A longtime policeman in County Galway, Boyle is a maverick with his own moral code. He has seen enough of the world to know there isn’t much to it and has had plenty of time to think about it. When a fellow police officer disappears and Boyle’s small town becomes key to a large drug trafficking investigation, he is forced to at least feign interest when dealing with the humorless FBI agent Wendell Everett assigned to the case. Left to run his territory to his liking for many years, he is not at all impressed when the FBI comes to town.
Kids & FamilyIn Belle Epoque Paris, the young Dilili with the help of her delivery-boy friend investigates a spate of mysterious kidnappings of young girls. Over the course of her investigation, she encounters a series of extraordinary characters, each of whom provides her with clues that will help her in her quest.
HorrorTRAIN TO BUSAN is a harrowing zombie horror-thriller that follows a group of terrified passengers fighting their way through a countrywide viral outbreak, trapped on a suspicion-filled, blood-drenched bullet train ride to the Safe Zone…which may or may not still be there.
Action & AdventureOne of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour ride from Akira Kurosawa—featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura—seamlessly weaves philosophy and entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action, into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope.
RomanceHong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career.
Action & AdventureToshiro, a former special forces operative, now lives a quiet life in the Japanese countryside. Despite his seemingly peaceful existence, Toshiro struggles to contain the destructive impulses that once made him the top soldier in an elite unit of killers. But when his former commanding officer, the enigmatic Phantom, comes out of the shadows seeking revenge, Toshiro goes on a kill-crazy rampage against a squad of ruthless assassins.
DramaIn this breathtaking, Oscar-winning journey to Rome, a reporter begins to take stock of his life on his sixty-fifth birthday, looking past the lavish nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find the city itself, in all its monumental glory. This transporting experience, created by the brilliant Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, is a breathtaking Felliniesque tale of decadence and lost love.
Action & AdventureNamed "Best Picture of the Year" by over 100 critics nationwide! Two master warriors (Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh) are faced with their greatest challenge when the treasured Green Destiny sword is stolen. A young aristocrat (Zhang Ziyi) prepares for an arranged marriage, but soon reveals her superior fighting talents and her deeply romantic past. As each warrior battles for justice, they come face to face with their worst enemy - and the inescapable, enduring power of love. Set against 19th-century China's breathtaking landscape, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the action-packed, box office smash from acclaimed director Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm) featuring stunning martial arts choreography by Yuen Wo Ping (The Matrix).
DramaDr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is a driven plastic surgeon haunted by personal tragedies. After many years of trial and error, he finally prefects a new skin – a shield which could have prevented the death of his wife in an accident years earlier. His latest “guinea pig” is a mysterious captive whose true identity masks a shocking mystery. THE SKIN I LIVE IN is a masterful tale of secrets, obsession and revenge from Academy Award winning writer/director Pedro Almodovar.
ComedyAdopted by his grandmother, Madame Souza, Champion is a lonely little boy. Noticing that this lad is never happier than on a bicycle, Madame Souza puts him through a rigorous training process. Years go by and Champion becomes worthy of his name. Now he is ready to enter the world-famous cycling race, the Tour de France. However during this cycling contest two mysterious men in black kidnap Champion. Madame Souza and her faithful dog Bruno set out to rescue him. Their quest takes them across the ocean to a giant Megalopolis called Belleville where they encounter the renowned "Triplets of Belleville", three eccentric female music-hall stars from the 30's who decide to take Madame Souza and Bruno under their wing. Thanks to Bruno's brilliant sense of smell, the brave duo are soon on to Champion's trail. But will they succeed in beating the devilish plans of the evil French mafia?
Action & AdventureHERO starring martial arts legend Jet Li in a visually stunning martial arts epic where a fearless warrior rises up to defy an empire and unite a nation! With supernatural skill ... and no fear ... a nameless soldier (Jet Li) embarks on a mission of revenge against the fearsome army that massacred his people. Now, to achieve the justice he seeks, he must take on the empire's most ruthless assassins and reach the enemy he has sworn to defeat! Acclaimed by critics and honored with numerous awards, HERO was nominated for both an Oscar®* and Golden Globe!
*2002 Best Foreign Language Film
DramaA Cannes premiere from internationally acclaimed auteur Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket, Devil in the Flesh, Vincere, The Traitor), Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara tells a true story that attracted worldwide attention and would play a part in the unification of Italy. In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year- old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortara's struggle quickly take a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power. The story Edgardo Mortara was at one point being developed by Steven Spiel
Action & AdventureInternational superstar Jet Li delivers non-stop thrills in this martial arts masterpiece, which was inspired by the incredible true story of a real-life hero. When a fight destroys the reputation of a renowned martial arts champion (Li) along with the lives of his family, his path to redemption brings him face-to-face with the most ferocious opponents in the world. This riveting epic from the producers of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon features explosive, innovative fight sequences from the legendary action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping.
DramaNow nominated for four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature. Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of "Uncle Vanya" at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koshi Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins - with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR is a haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, accep
ThrillerA young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a mild-mannered professor with a diabolically clinical mind. An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.
HorrorBefore The Grudge, before Dark Water, there was Pulse, one of the scariest films ever made from the master of Japanese horror, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. A group of young friends is rocked by the sudden suicide of one of their own. When his ghostly image appears on their computer screens, something far more horrifying is unleashed. The terror mounts as more deaths and disappearances occur. Kurosawa’s Pulse is a psychologically unsettling tale, which effects will endure long after the chills have subsided.
DramaCarla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a dedicated, idealistic young teacher in her first job at a middle school. Her relaxed rapport with her seventh-grade students is put under stress when a series of thefts occur at the school, and a staff investigation leads to accusations and mistrust among outraged parents, opinionated colleagues, and an enigmatic student. Caught in the middle of these complex dynamics, the more Carla tries to do everything right, the more desperate her position becomes.
AnimeAsh gets a special peek into the secret home of Latias and her brother, Latios, but this peaceful place is soon threatened by the thieves from before—Annie and Oakley—who are after both Legendary Pokémon and a mysterious jewel called the Soul Dew. These elements combined will let them control a powerful machine that normally protects against danger. When the machine malfunctions, though, it not only puts Latias and Latios at serious risk, but the entire city of Alto Mare, as well!
ComedyCreating "one of the jauntiest of all war-of-the-sexes comedies" (Pauline Kael), Pedro Almodóvar, Spain's premiere writer-director, creates an off-kilter universe of madness, mayhem and pure fun. High atop one of Spain's poshest penthouses, three women have come to the end of their mental ropes. Super-sexy Pepa (Carmen Maura) is forever teetering around atop her skyscraper spikes as she obsesses over Iván (Fernando Guillén), the lover who just jilted her over the answering machine! Her neurotic best friend Candela (María Barranco) is seeking refuge at Pepa's place because she recently realized her lover is a Shiite terrorist. And Iván's ex-wife Lucía (Julieta Serrano) was just released from a 20-year stint in a mental institution. They're all mighty mad -- in fact, they're on the verge of a nervous breakdown and one of them is about to commit murder unless the other half-crazed femmes fatales can stop her!
HorrorIn this unbelievably tense supernatural thriller, a foreigner’s mysterious appearance in a quiet, rural village causes suspicion among the locals - suspicion which quickly turns to hysteria as the townspeople begin killing each other in brutal outbursts for seemingly no reason. As the investigating officer watches his daughter fall under the same savage spell, he agrees to consult a shaman for answers - unknowingly escalating the situation into something far more dangerous. Over six years in the making, director Na Hong-jin’s meticulously crafted follow-up to the globally acclaimed THE YELLOW SEA and THE CHASER (his third to premiere at the Festival de Cannes) smashed box office records upon its debut in South Korea, where fans are already making return viewings to catch new clues and debate what’s sure to be the most talked-about ending of 2016.
DramaIn the highly-acclaimed suspense thriller Incendies, a mother's dying wish creates a painful puzzle her children are forced to solve. At the reading of their mother's will, twins Jeanne and Simon are given instructions to locate the father they believed was dead and the brother neither knew existed. They travel to the Middle East, to piece together the story of the woman who brought them into the world only to make a shocking discovery.
ComedyWith university life not all it's cracked up to be, best friends Will, Neil and Simon decide to travel to Australia to meet up with Jay, whose life Down Under on a gap year is the epitome of sun, surf and sex. Or so he claims.
ComedyAfter three successful years living and working in America, French-Jewish actor and comedian Gad Elmaleh decides to move back home to Paris. He misses his family and friends. Or, at least that's what Gad tells his loving yet overbearing parents, Régine and David. However, it's not long before his parents find out the true reason for their son's return — after a long period of ambivalence towards his own Jewishness, Gad has officially decided to convert to Catholicism. Dumbfounded by his sudden obsession with the Virgin Mary, and with only five weeks before his baptism, Gad's family endeavor to bring him back to Judaism for fear of losing him forever. Inspired by the director's own fraught relationship to the Jewish faith and starring Elmaleh's real-life family, Stay With Us is a heart-warming and charming story about faith, family and acceptance.
Action & AdventureCult director Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition) delivers a bravado period action film set at the end of Japan’s feudal era. 13 Assassins - a “masterful exercise in cinematic butchery” (New York Post) - is centered around a group of elite samurai who are secretly enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord to prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war torn future.
DramaGround control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness. In Solaris, legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky creates a brilliantly original science-fiction epic that challenges our preconceived notions of love, truth, and humanity itself.
HorrorThe crew of a horror web show plan to stream live from inside an asylum. To attract more viewers, the show's host arranges fake scares, but as they move deeper into the building, they find much more than expected.
ThrillerWhat happens when an object of suspicion becomes a case of obsession? Winner of Cannes Best Director in 2022, Park Chan-wook (OLDBOY, THE HANDMAIDEN) returns with a seductive romantic thriller that takes his renowned stylistic flair to dizzying new heights. When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) arrives at a murder scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei) may know more than she initially lets on. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, Hae-joon finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire, proving that the darkest mysteries lurk inside the human heart.
ForeignDetective Ma Seok-do investigates a murder case uncovering a Yakuza drug operation in South Korea. Conflict arises with the DEA Captain Joo when Ma's squad clashes with his jurisdiction, hindering their investigation. When Yakuza boss Ichizo senses his business is in danger, he sends hitman Ricky and his gang to South Korea to bring about order...
DramaTae-Sik is a widower with a mysterious past. When a young girl he befriends is kidnapped by a vicious drug gang, Tae-Sik rushes to save her. Hell-bent on justice after being framed by the nasty criminals, he takes the law into his own hands.
DramaAcclaimed director François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women) helms this erotic tale of sexual awakening. After losing her virginity, 17-year-old budding beauty Isabelle (Marine Vacth) takes up a secret life as a call girl, meeting her older gentlemen clients for erotic hotel room trysts. Throughout, she remains curiously aloof, showing little interest in the encounters themselves or the money she makes, while Ozon slyly refrains from offering easy answers. As the enigmatic Isabelle, Marine Vacth is magnetic, delivering a star-making breakout performance in this sleek and sexy coming-of-age drama.
RomanceThe whiplash, double-pronged CHUNGKING EXPRESS is one of the defining works of 1990s cinema and the film that made Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu Wai), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out food stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing.
ForeignParis in the 1930s — a playground for industrial heirs and debonair architects, but the City of Lights does not shine evenly for all. Struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Terezkiewicz) and her best friend Pauline (Rebecca Marder), an unemployed lawyer, live in a cramped flat and owe five months’ rent. Opportunity knocks after a lascivious theatrical producer who made an inappropriate advance towards Madeleine turns up dead. Madeleine stands trial for murder and ascends to decadent stardom, with Pauline serving as defense counsel and media circus ringmaster. A new life of fame, wealth, and tabloid celebrity awaits — until the truth comes out. Adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil and featuring a murder’s row of a supporting cast including Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon, and Fabrice Luchini, The Crime Is Mine is a rollicking farce and scabrous satire with a wily feminist edge from one of French cinema’s most chameleonic stylists, François Ozon.
DocumentaryKon Ichikawa viewed the world as a place of beauty and sadness. He eschewed protocol and craved the informal. He begins Tokyo Olympiad (Tokyo Orinpikku) with a punch to the face—almost literally. First, the rising sun is viewed through a telephoto lens in lingering close-up—Japan, and its national symbol. Then an abrupt cut to a mighty steel ball crashing into aged buildings, demolishing facade after facade to make way for the new. A new Japan, recovering from the shame and cinders of World War II, making ready at last to welcome the world after a quarter of a century’s delay. A new Tokyo, seething with crowds, replete with futuristic new stadia. For Tokyo had been scheduled to host the 1940 Olympic Games, and even as late as the spring of 1938, the Olympic rings could be seen on public buildings in the city. But the country, concentrated on sending troops west to China and Manchuria, had to withdraw on June 16, 1938.
HorrorA strange man known only as the "metal fetishist", who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese "salaryman", out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of disease that is turning his body into scrap metal, and that his nemesis is not in fact dead but is somehow masterminding and guiding his rage and frustration-fueled transformation.
RomanceThe bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this alluring work of slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Formerly one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin)—unleashing a gathering wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, LA PISCINE dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces.
Music DocumentariesA celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO OPUS is the definitive swan song of one of the world’s greatest musicians. In late 2022, as a parting gift, Ryuichi Sakamoto mustered all of his energy to leave us with one final performance: a concert film featuring just him and his piano. Curated and sequenced by Sakamoto himself, the twenty pieces featured in the film wordlessly narrate his life through his wide-ranging oeuvre. The selection spans his entire career, from his pop-star period with Yellow Magic Orchestra and his magnificent scores for filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci to his meditative final album,"12." Intimately filmed in a space he knew well and surrounded by his most trusted collaborators, including director Neo Sora, his son, Sakamoto bares his soul through his exquisitely haunting melodies, knowing this was the last time he would be able to present his art.
DramaFrom the Academy Award®-winning director of THE REVENANT and BIRDMAN comes AMORES PERROS, the acclaimed director's first feature film, nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award®. Inventively structured with intersecting narratives, the movie dramatically brings three different story lines together in the wake of a terrible car crash. From Mexico City's mean streets to its posh high-rises, no one is exempt from destiny.
Comedy2010 Academy Award (R) nominee for best adapted screenplay, and on over 50 Top Ten critics lists, In the Loop is a smart comedy from the acclaimed team who created the award-winning BBC TV comedy series Alan Partridge and The Thick of It. The film is drawing instant comparisons to some of the great political and absurdist comedies such as Doctor Strangelove, Wag the Dog, and Monty Python. With razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud dialogue, the film pokes fun at the absurdity and ineptitude of our highest leaders. With everyone looking out for number one and the fate of the free world at stake (but apparently incidental), the hilarious ensemble cast of characters bumbles its way through Machiavellian political dealings across continents and toward comic resolutions that are unforeseeable. This must-see indie comedy from IFC Films stars James Gandolfini , Peter Capaldi and Steve Coogan.
DramaThis wickedly funny and precisely observed psychodrama tells the story of a model Swedish family—handsome businessman Tomas, his willowy wife Ebba and their two blond children— on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche suddenly bears down on the happy diners. With people fleeing in all directions and his wife and children in a state of panic, Tomas makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.
Sci-Fi & FantasyMartina Gedeck, star of the Academy Award®-winning film The Lives of Others, brings a vivid intensity to this mysterious and riveting tale of survival set in a spectacularly beautiful Austrian mountain landscape. In a tour-de-force performance, Gedeck stars as a woman who suddenly finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall inexplicably surrounds the countryside where she is vacationing. Accompanied by her loyal dog Lynx, she becomes immersed in a world untouched by civilization and ruled by the laws of nature. As she grapples with her bizarre circumstances, she begins an inward journey of spiritual growth and transcendence. Based on Marlen Haushofer’s eponymous classic novel, The Wall is a gorgeous, mesmerizing adventure film that raises profound questions about humanity, solitude, and our relationship to the natural world.
DramaThis powerful and emotional romance/drama centers on a middle-aged man who, when visiting his childhood town, is flooded with memories of his first gay love. Celebrated novelist Stéphane Belcourt (Guillaume de Tonquédec) travels to his hometown after over 30 years. There, he meets Lucas (Victor Belmondo, grandson of Jean-Paul Belmondo), the son of Thomas, his secret teenage love. Lucas, inquisitive for information on his now deceased father, sets off turbulent emotions in the writer as his mind is flooded with memories of Thomas and their summer of love. The film contrasts the wintry present with the sun-splashed summer past when the shy, bespectacled Stéphane (Julien De Saint Jean) meets and falls for the rough and tumble Thomas (Rémy Gillet.) LIE WITH ME is erotic, tender, romantic and heartbreaking.
DramaBased on a true life story, The Motorcycle Diaries is an inspiring and thrilling adventure that traces the youthful origins of a revolutionary spirit. The film follows two daring friends, Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Gael García Bernal,, Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), who hop on the back of a beat-up motorcycle for a breathtaking and exciting road trip across Latin America. From executive producer Robert Redford and acclaimed director Walter Salles (Central Station) comes a life-changing journey that critics are hailing as "Magnificent!" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)
DramaThis surreal and erotic late-sixties daydream from provocateur for the ages Luis Buñuel is an examination of desire and fetishistic pleasure (its characters’ and its viewers’), as well as a gently absurdist take on contemporary social mores and class divisions. Fantasy and reality commingle in this burst of cinematic transgression, which was one of Buñuel’s biggest hits.
ComedyHow to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie "House" (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.
DramaThe life and controversial death of Vincent van Gogh told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death. Loving Vincent features 120 of Vincent van Gogh's greatest paintings. The plot, drawn from the 800 letters written by the painter himself, leads us to the significant people and events in the time prior to his unexpected death. Every shot is painted just as Vincent himself painted.
Action & AdventureDonnie Yen reprises his role as the legendary Wing Chun master in the grand finale of the revolutionary martial arts series. Following the death of his wife, Ip Man travels to San Francisco to ease tensions between the local kung fu masters and his star student, Bruce Lee, while searching for a better future for his son. From the action visionary behind Kill Bill and The Matrix, witness the heroic sendoff to the saga that inspired a new wave of martial arts movie fans.
Action & AdventureFour years after South Korea's total decimation in TRAIN TO BUSAN, the zombie thriller that captivated audiences worldwide, acclaimed director Yeon Sang-ho brings us PENINSULA, the next nail-biting chapter in his post-apocalyptic world. Jung-seok, a soldier who previously escaped the diseased wasteland, relives the horror when assigned to a covert operation with two simple objectives: retrieve and survive. When his team unexpectedly stumbles upon survivors, their lives will depend on whether the best—or worst—of human nature prevails in the direst of circumstances.
DramaMerchant Ivory Productions, led by director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, became a household name with A Room with a View, the first of their extraordinary adaptations of E. M. Forster novels. A cherubic nineteen-year-old Helena Bonham Carter plays Lucy Honeychurch, a young, independent-minded, upper-class Edwardian woman who is trying to sort out her burgeoning romantic feelings, divided between an enigmatic free spirit (Julian Sands) she meets on vacation in Florence and the priggish bookworm (Daniel Day-Lewis) to whom she becomes engaged back in the more corseted Surrey. Funny, sexy, and sophisticated, this gargantuan art-house hit features a sublime supporting cast—including Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Denholm Elliott, Maggie Smith—and remains a touchstone of intelligent romantic cinema.
HorrorOn a freezing, snowy night, a dangerous psychopath's latest victim is the beautiful Ju-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief and pregnant fiancée of elite special agent Soo-hyun (The Good, The Bad, The Weird’s LEE Byung-hyun). Obsessed with revenge, Soo-hyun decides to track down the murderer, even if doing so means becoming a monster himself. And when he finds Kyung-chul, turning him in to the authorities is the last thing on his mind.
ForeignAnne is a lawyer with a beautiful home, family and life. When her troubled step-son comes to live with them, she forms an intimate bond with him. Initially a liberating move, soon turns into a disturbing story with devastating consequences.
RomanceChen Kaige emerged as a leading figure of China’s Fifth Generation of filmmakers with this landmark epic which introduced international audiences to an exciting new voice in world cinema. Adapted from the novel by Lilian Lee (ROUGE), FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE traces the lifelong journey of two actors, Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi), whose shared passion for Peking Opera binds their fates into a complex, enduring friendship that is set against the political and social upheaval of twentieth century China. The challenges of the opera, civil unrest, and a love triangle with a headstrong courtesan (Gong Li) threaten to tear the duo apart as the line blurs between their lives on and offstage. The first Chinese-language film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, this visual and emotional tour de force is a moving ode to the transformative power of art, the indomitable human spirit, and the enduring impact of love and friendship.
Drama'Girl on the Bridge' is one of director Patrice Leconte’s ('The Hairdresser’s Husband') most intoxicating romances. Shot in gorgeous B&W, it follows the whirlwind courtship of carnival knife thrower Gabor (Daniel Auteuil, 'Caché') and lonesome wanderer Adele (Vanessa Paradis, 'Half a Chance'). Despairing of her future, Adele leaps into the Seine before being rescued by Gabor, and unexpectedly becomes the new assistant, and target, for his act. He flings knives at her across Europe, their love growing with each death-defying act. Living so close to the edge, how long can the luck of these lovers hold out?
DramaIn this celebrated adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic novel, an offshoot group of rabbits struggle to break from their failing, violent community to form a utopian society. With Watership Down, first-time director Martin Rosen and his team of animators created a dark, beautiful work that blends poetic mysticism and austere realism.
DramaA hired guide—the Stalker—leads a writer and a professor into the heart of the Zone, the restricted site of a long-ago disaster, where the three men eventually zero in on the Room, a place rumored to fulfill one’s most deeply held desires. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky created an immersive world with a wealth of material detail and a sense of organic atmosphere. A religious allegory, a reflection of contemporaneous political anxieties, a meditation on film itself—Stalker envelops the viewer by opening up a multitude of possible meanings.