This widely acclaimed film from Soviet director Elem Klimov is a stunning, senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanizing horrors of war. As Nazi forces encroach on his small village in present-day Belarus, teenage Flyora (Aleksei Kravchenko, in one of the screen’s most searing depictions of anguish since Renée Falconetti’s Joan of Arc) 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 camerawork and expressionistic sound design. Nearly suppressed by Soviet censors who took eight years to approve its script, Come and See is perhaps the most visceral, impossible-to-forget antiwar film ever made.
Isabella, a young model, is murdered by a mysterious masked figure at a fashion house in Rome. When her diary, which details the house employees' many vices, disappears, the masked killer begins killing off all the models in and around the house to find it.
Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig), the widowed mother of a teenage son, Sylvain (Jan Decorte), ekes out a drab, repetitive existence in her tiny Brussels apartment. Jeanne's days are divided between humdrum domestic chores -- shopping, cooking, housework -- and her job as an occasional prostitute, which keeps her financially afloat. She seems perfectly resigned to her situation until a series of slight interruptions in her routine leads to unexpected and dramatic changes.
Mikhail Kalatozov’s astonishing Soy Cuba is a stirring and unforgettable experience. Blessed with some of the most extraordinary camerawork in film history, it’s still pushing at the boundaries of pure cinema today.
Ostensibly, it’s Communist propaganda, celebrating the progress achieved by the Cuban Revolution and dramatising four examples of injustice to the common man in pre-Revolutionary Cuba. The link that holds the film together is a spoken monologue beginning each sequence with the words “Soy Cuba”.
“‘Ten years after its belated US release, it seems as if Mikhail Kalatozov’s Soy Cuba has always been with us, always staking out its tiny, idiosyncratic turf as Communist agitprop’s most unrestrained diva hymn and one of the most visually titanic works in the century of movies. Famously, superhuman cinematographic stunt work and unearthly infrared-stock exposures mate with an unfettered revolutionary outrage – abstractly detailing life before and during Castro’s rebel war – and the resulting assault is so epically impassioned it’s less about Cuba per se than the fusillade of movement, shadow, light, vertigo and landscape on the viewer’s tender optic nerves.” The Village Voice
This version of Soy Cuba is the English-subtitled, full Spanish-language version, previously unreleased in the UK.
While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.
The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous “ramen western” by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges—our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.
After college student Taguchi (Kenji Mizuhashi) commits suicide, a number of young adults living in Tokyo witness terrifying visions transferred across the Internet. As more people disappear throughout the city, the Internet becomes a breeding ground for malevolent spirits. Three seemingly disconnected stories follow Michi (Kumiko Asô), Ryosuke (Haruhiko Katô) and Harue (Koyuki) as they attempt to solve the mystery behind the ghostly visions that are seeping beyond their computer monitors.
After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
The extraordinary, internationally embraced Yi Yi (A One and a Two . . .), directed by the late Taiwanese master Edward Yang, follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-age father NJ's tentative flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang's attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, the filmmaker deftly imbues every gorgeous frame with a compassionate clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.
A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances are sweeping Tokyo.
Every day, Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) buys a can of pineapple with an expiration date of May 1, symbolizing the day he'll get over his lost love. He's also got his eye on a mysterious woman in a blond wig (Brigitte Lin), oblivious of the fact she's a drug dealer. Cop 663 (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) is distraught with heartbreak over a breakup. But when his ex drops a spare set of his keys at a local cafe, a waitress (Faye Wong) lets herself into his apartment and spruces up his life.
A winner of awards across the world including Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, 5 BAFTA Awards including Best Actor, Original Screenplay and Score, the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and many more.
Giuseppe Tornatore's loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier.
Dae-Su is an obnoxious drunk bailed from the police station yet again by a friend. However, he's abducted from the street and wakes up in a cell, where he remains for the next 15 years, drugged unconscious when human contact is unavoidable, otherwise with only the television as company. And then, suddenly released, he is invited to track down his jailor with a denouement that is simply stunning.
Foreign Legion officer Galoup recalls his once glorious life, training troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, until the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind.
A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.
Monsieur Hulot visits the technology-driven world of his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but he can't quite fit into the surroundings. 1959 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film.
In Hong Kong of 1962, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow, a journalist, move into neighbouring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their respective spouses creates an intimate bond between them.
In 1986, Park (Song Kang-ho) and Cho (Kim Roi-ha) are two simple-minded detectives assigned to a double murder investigation in a South Korean province. But when the murderer strikes several more times with the same pattern, the detectives realize that they are chasing the country's first documented serial killer. Relying on only their basic skills and tools, Park and Jo attempt to piece together the clues and solve the case in this thriller based on true events.
Sergei Parajanov's celebrated masterpiece paints an astonishing portrait of the 18th century Armenian poet Sayat Nova, the 'King of Song'. Parajanov's aim was not a conventional biography but a cinematic expression of his work, resulting in an extraordinary visual poem. Key moments in his subject's life are illustrated through a series of exquisitely orchestrated tableaux filled with rich colour and stunning iconography, each scene a celluloid painting alive with stylised movement.
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin's resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Yuddy, a Hong Kong playboy known for breaking girls' hearts, tries to find solace and the truth after discovering the woman who raised him isn't his mother.
An assassin goes through obstacles as he attempts to escape his violent lifestyle despite the opposition of his partner, who is secretly attracted to him.
In a corrupt, greed-fueled world, a powerful alchemist leads a messianic character and seven materialistic figures to the Holy Mountain, where they hope to achieve enlightenment.
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
A couple take a trip to Argentina but both men find their lives drifting apart in opposite directions.
Hatred breeds hatred...
24 hours in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs the day after a violent riot.
Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.
When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave traders. Under Kenji Mizoguchi's dazzling direction, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema's greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.
On a dark, wet night a historic and regal Chinese cinema sees its final film. Together with a small handful of souls they bid "Goodbye, Dragon Inn".
China was once divided into seven kingdoms that warred with each other constantly. It took one man to conquer all the kingdoms and create China. A nameless man (Jet Li) is brought to meet the king of Qin (Daoming Chen) in his palace. Nameless is being honoured for killing three assassins from the kingdom of Zhao.
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Maurizio Merli stars as a hot-shot police driver who has more guts than brains, often landing him in hot water with his middle-aged mentor, who was once a legendary police interceptor responsible for numerous large scale arrests.
The chaotic worlds of the Japanese Mafia (Yakuza) and an alcoholic doctor collide in this film noir classic from Akira Kurosawa. Gangster Toshiro Mifune visits doctor Takashi Shimura, after an unfortunate incident with a bullet. The doctor, who despises the Yakuza, discovers the young man is suffering from tuberculosis, a disease symbolic of what is happening to the doctor and the community he serves. Facing his own anger and fear, the doctor aligns himself with the gangster's world.
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku), the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa. Adapting Ed McBain's detective novel King's Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo's sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal's lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami's own dark side. Starring Toshiro Mifune as the rookie cop and Takashi Shimura as the seasoned detective who keeps him on the right side of the law, Stray Dog (Nora inu) goes beyond crime thriller, probing the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.
Three back-to-back anime films by three different directors make up this sci-fi trilogy three years in the making. In the chilling "Magnetic Rose," engineers on a spacecraft board an abandoned space station and encounter disturbing paranormal forces. A young lab worker accidentally swallows a chemical weapon and becomes a walking killing machine in "Stink Bomb." In "Cannon Fodder," a young boy and his father fight for survival in a city functioning on paranoia.
In an unnamed country at an unspecified time, there is a fiercely protected post-apocalyptic wasteland known as The Zone. An illegal guide (Aleksandr Kajdanovsky), whose mutant child suggests unspeakable horrors within The Zone, leads a writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) and a scientist (Nikolay Grinko) into the heart of the devastation in search of a mythical place known only as The Room. Anyone who enters The Room will supposedly have any of his earthly desires immediately fulfilled.