DRAMA MOVIES (XXI CENTURY)
TETRIS (UK 2023) Jon S. Baird
Taron Egerton, Mara Huf, Miles Barrow
In 1988, Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software markets his newest video game at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While there, he instead becomes enamored with the game Tetris, created by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov, who works for government-owned ELORG in the Soviet Union.
THE BEAST (SPAIN 2023) Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Denis Menochet, Marina Fois, Luis Zahera, Diego Anido.
Set in the Galician countryside, the story follows a French couple (Antoine and Olga Denis) settled in a small village seeking to connect with nature, growing and selling their own eco-friendly crops and rehabilitating abandoned properties so they can be reinhabited. However their presence arouses hostility from a couple of neighbors,
1976 (CHILE 2022) Manuela Martelli
Aline Kuppenheim, Nicolas Sepulveda, Hugo Medina
Carmen, a 50-year-old housewife from a middle-class family, enjoys a comfortable life in Santiago with her successful and respected doctor husband Miguel and their adult children. In the winter of 1976, three years after Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile through a coup and established a military dictatorship, Carmen travels to her summer house to oversee renovation work and take some time for herself.
THE FABELMANS (USA 2022) Steven Spielberg
Michelle Williams, Gabriel LaBelle, Paul Dano
On a January night in 1952, in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Jewish couple Mitzi and Burt Fabelman take their young son Sammy to see his first film: The Greatest Show on Earth. Dazzled by a train scene, Sammy asks for a model set for Hanukkah, which he crashes late one night.
THE SWIMMERS (UK-USA 2022) Sally El Hosaini
Ali Suliman, Manal Issa, Matthias Schweighofer
The plot follows the life story of teenage Syrian refugees Yusra Mardini and her sister Sarah Mardini, who swam alongside a sinking dinghy of refugees to lighten it, and eventually help 18 refugees to reach safety across the Aegean Sea while being smuggled from İzmir towards Lesbos.
THIRTEEN LIVES (UK 2022) Ron Howard
Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton
On June 23, 2018, twelve boys of the junior football team "Wild Boars" and their assistant coach Ekkaphon Chanthawong leave practice to explore the Tham Luang cave. When the team fails to arrive at a birthday party organized by their parents, their families head to the caves, only to find them flooded and the boys missing, their bikes left at the entrance. The parents immediately alert emergency services.
HOUSE OF GUCCI (USA 2021) Ridley Scott
Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto, Salma Hayek
In Italy 1978, Patrizia Reggiani is the office manager of her father's small trucking firm. At a party, she meets Maurizio Gucci, a law student and heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house through his father Rodolfo. Patrizia aggressively pursues the awkward Maurizio, charming him into love.
THE MAURITANIAN (USA 2021) Kevin Macdonald
Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Nouhe Hamady Bari, Saadna Hamoud
In November 2001, Mohamedou Ould Slahi is in Mauritania, two months after the September 11 attacks. A Mauritanian policeman tells Mohamedou that Americans want to have a talk with him. Mohamedou agrees to go with them. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February 2005, lawyer Nancy Hollander is told by French lawyer Emmanuel that a lawyer from Mauritania approached his firm in Paris on behalf of Mohamedou’s family.
THE IRISHMAN (USA 2019) Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano
In 1950s Philadelphia, Sheeran works as a delivery truck driver and starts to sell some of the contents of his shipments to local gangster Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio. After his company accuses him of theft, union lawyer Bill Bufalino gets him off after Sheeran refuses to name his customers to the judge. Bill introduces Sheeran to his cousin Russell Bufalino, head of the Northeastern Pennsylvania crime family. Sheeran begins to do jobs for Russell and members of the local South Philadelphia underworld, including "painting houses," a euphemism for murder.
THE TRAITOR (ITALY 2019) Marco Bellocchio
Pierfrancesco Favino, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Fabrizio Ferracane, Luigi Lo Cascio, Fausto Russo Alesi.
The real life of Tommaso Buscetta the so called "boss of the two worlds", first mafia informant in Sicily 1980's.
BALLON (GERMANY 2018) Michael Herbig
Friedrich Mücke, Karoline Schuch, David Kross, Alicia von Rittberg, Thomas Kretschmann.
Balloon is a German thriller that deals with the crossing of the inner German border of the families Strelzyk and Wetzel from the GDR to West Germany with a homemade hot-air balloon.
BIRDS OF PASSAGE (COLOMBIA 2018) Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra.
Carmiña Martínez, José Acosta, Jhon Narváez, Natalia Reyes, José Vicente
In the 1960s Zaida, a young Wayuu woman comes of age. She meets Rapayet who tells her he wants to marry her. Zaida comes from the influential Pushaina family and when Rapayet proposes to her her mother, Ursula, sets her dowery high. Rapayet comes across white Americans working for the Peace Corps. He is informed by his friend, Moisés, that they are desperate to find weed. Rapayet goes to a cousin of his, Gabriel, who grows marijuana and sells it to the Peace Corps. One of them, impressed, offers Rapayet a business deal exporting the drugs.
HOTEL MUMBAI (AUSTRALIA 2018) Anthony Maras
Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Jason Isaacs, Anupam Kher
On 26 November 2008, young waiter Arjun reports for work at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, India, under head chef Hemant Oberoi, who reminds his staff that "Guest is God". The day's guests include British-Muslim heiress Zahra and her American husband David, with their infant son Cameron and his nanny Sally, as well as ex-Spetznaz operative Vasili.
CAPERNAUM (LEBANON 2018) Nadine Labaki
Zain Alrafeea, Yordanos Shifera, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Kawsar Al Haddad
Zain El Hajj, a 12-year-old from the slums of Beirut, is serving a five-year prison sentence in Roumieh Prison for stabbing someone who he refers to as a "son of a bitch". Neither Zain nor his parents know his exact date of birth as they never received an official birth certificate. Zain is brought before a court, having decided to take civil action against his parents, his mother Souad and his father Selim. When asked by the judge why he wants to sue his parents, Zain answers "Because I was born" (or, more precisely, "because you had me"). Meanwhile, Lebanese authorities process a group of migrant workers, including a young Ethiopian woman named Rahil.
THE PHOTOGRAPHER OF MAUTHAUSEN (SPAIN 2018) Mar Targarona
Mario Casas, Alain Hernández, Luka Peros, Emilio Gavira, Igor Szpakowski
1943. With the World War II in the maximum exchange of hostilities, life is too merciless and cruel for the inmates who live in the camp of Mauthausen, where between others they are the soldiers who fought and lost in the Spanish Civil War, exiled from Spain by General Franco after to won the war, considering them as no men's land and gifted to Third Reich as free workforce. In this scenery of eternal horror and brutality caused by the Nazis and the Kapos (violent inmates who work as guards to keep the order), young Francesc Boix tries to survive in the camp working as photographer being Paul Ricken's right-hand, Mauthausen's warden.
MIRAGE (SPAIN 2018) Oriol Paulo
Adriana Ugarte, Chino Darín, Javier Gutiérrez, Nora Navas, Miquel Fernández
In 1989, during the fall of the Berlin Wall and a 72-hour-long electrical storm, a boy named Nico, while recording a video in his house, hears some noises and sees a fight scene in his neighbor's house through a window. He goes to the house only to find a body of Miss Weiss, the wife of the house-owner Angel Prieto. Seeing Mr. Prieto with a knife, Nico tries to escape and is accidentally hit by a car on the road. Prieto is arrested and he confesses that he would have buried the body under his butcher-house if he had not got arrested.
FIRST MAN (USA 2018) Damien Chazelle
Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll
In 1961, NASA test pilot Neil Armstrong is flying the X-15 rocket-powered spaceplane when it inadvertently bounces off the atmosphere. Although he manages to land the plane in the Mojave Desert, his colleagues express concern that his recent record of mishaps is due to distraction, and he is grounded. His two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Karen, is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Desperate to save her, Armstrong keeps a detailed log of her symptoms and feverishly tries to find possible treatments, but she dies soon afterwards. Grief-stricken, Armstrong applies for Project Gemini and is accepted to NASA Astronaut Group 2.
THE FAVOURITE (IRELAND-UK 2018) Yorgos Lanthimos
Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, James Smith
It is 1708, and the recently formed Kingdom of Great Britain is at war with France. Queen Anne is in frail health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as racing ducks and playing with her 17 rabbits, one for each of the children she has lost. Her confidante, adviser, and furtive lover Sarah Churchill effectively rules the country through her influence over the Queen. Sarah's efforts to control Anne are undermined by Robert Harley (who was later created, in May 1711, The 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer), the Leader of the Opposition, who, as a landowner, argues against a doubling of property taxes proposed in order to fund the war.
BLACKKKLASMAN (USA 2018) Spike Lee
John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier, Ryan Eggold
The film starts with footage of wounded Confederate soldiers lying in the streets of Atlanta, Georgia from Gone with the Wind in 1939 which transitions to a black-and-white PSA, where a man (named as Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard) comically fumbles a hate-filled screed decrying minorities. The film abruptly jumps ahead to the central plot.
CUSTODY (FRANCE 2017) Xavier Legrand
Denis Ménochet, Léa Drucker, Thomas Gioria, Mathilde Auneveux, Mathieu Saikaly
A broken marriage leads to a bitter custody battle with an embattled son at the centre.
WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY (NORWAY 2017) Iram Haq
Maria Mozhdah, Adil Hussain, Ekavali Khanna, Rohit Saraf, Ali Arfan, Sheeba Chaddha
What will people say is inspired by the director, Iram Haq's own life. The film opens in Norway and we see a sixteen year old Nisha running to her home . Her father checks if everyone is asleep and Nisha manages to get into bed in time. Nisha is living a double life. She loves playing basketball with her Norwegian friends. But she belongs to a Pakistani family and behaves like an ideal daughter at home. She has a love interest and we see them return smiles and glances.
LOVELESS (RUSSIA 2017) Andrej Zvjagincev
Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvey Novikov, Marina Vasilyeva
In 2012 in a city in Leningrad region, children are leaving school. A twelve-year-old boy named Alyosha walks along a path through a wooded area on the outskirts of town. He throws a strip of tape onto a tree. His parents, Zhenya and Boris, are divorcing and are trying to sell their apartment. Both parents have new relationships: Boris with Masha, a young woman who is pregnant with his child; and Zhenya with Anton, an older and wealthier man with an adult daughter. Alyosha overhears a fight between his parents, neither of whom claim to want him and are considering placing him in an orphanage.
THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE (USA-UK 2017) Niki Caro
Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl, Tomothy Radford, Efrat Dor
Dr. Jan Żabiński is director of the Warsaw Zoo, one of the largest in 1930s Europe, assisted by his wife, Antonina. On September 1, 1939, the aerial bombardment of Warsaw and Invasion of Poland commences. Antonina and her son Ryszard barely survive. As Polish resistance collapses, Dr. Lutz Heck, head of the Berlin Zoo and Adolf Hitler's chief zoologist and Jan's professional rival, visits the zoo while Jan is away. He offers to house the prized animals until after the war, later returning with Nazi soldiers to shoot the rest. He develops a romantic interest in Antonina.
BRAWN IN CELL BLOCK 99 (USA 2017) S. Craig Zahler
Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Marc Blucas, Tom Guiry
Bradley Thomas goes to his job at an auto-repair, and discovers he has been laid-off by his employer. As he arrives home, he sees his wife, Lauren, sitting in her car using her cellphone. Bradley approaches her and sees a lovebite on her neck. Lauren confesses that she has been seeing somebody else. Bradley orders her inside the house, before he violently dismantles her car with his bare hands. When calmed, he enters the house to speak to Lauren about their failing relationship, his past with alcoholism and an unborn child which they once lost. Bradley decides to forgive Lauren and to return to work as a drug mule, a life he previously left behind.
I TONYA (USA 2017) Craig Gillespie
Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Paul Walter Hauser
In 1970s Portland, Oregon, four year-old Tonya Harding is forced to ice skate by her abusive mother, LaVona Golden. As Tonya grows up, her parents take her out of school to focus on her skating career, as she trains under coach Diane Rawlinson. Tonya rapidly becomes one of the best figure skaters in the United States, but is held back by her "white trash" reputation, home-made costumes and unconventional choice of performance music (ZZ Top). At 15, she begins dating 18-year-old Jeff Gillooly, and the two marry, but Jeff becomes abusive. When LaVona scorns Tonya for putting up with it, Tonya blames LaVona for her raising her badly.
WONDER (USA 2017) Stephen Chbosky
Julia Roberts, Jacob Tremblay, Owen Wilson, Mandy Patinkin, Ali Liebert
August "Auggie" Pullman is a 10-year-old boy living in a brownstonein Brooklyn, New York, with his mother Isabel, father Nate, older sister Olivia "Via", and dog Daisy. He was born with a rare medical facial deformity, which he refers to as "mandibulofacial dysostosis", and has undergone 27 different surgeries as a result. Auggie has been home-schooled, but as he approaches fifth grade, his parents decide to enroll him in Beecher Prep, a private school. Before the school year begins, Auggie meets with Mr. Tushman, the principal, who arranges a tour for him with three other students: Jack Will, Julian Albans, and Charlotte Cody.
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (USA 2017) Martin McDonagh
Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish
In the town of Ebbing, Missouri, Mildred Hayes is grieving the rape and murder of her teenage daughter, Angela, seven months earlier. Angry over the lack of progress in the investigation, Mildred rents three abandoned billboards near her home and posts on them: "RAPED WHILE DYING", "STILL NO ARRESTS?", and "HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?" The billboards upset the townspeople, including Chief Bill Willoughby and the racist, violent, alcoholic Officer Jason Dixon. The open secret that Willoughby suffers from terminal pancreatic cancer adds to everyone's disapproval.
GIFTED (USA 2017) Marc Webb
Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Octavia Spencer
In a small town near Tampa, Florida, seven-year-old Mary Adler lives with uncle and de facto guardian, Frank. Her best friend is her 40-ish neighbor, Roberta. On her first day of first grade, she shows remarkable mathematical talent, which impresses her teacher, Bonnie Stevenson. There, despite her initial disdain for average children her own age and her boredom with their classwork, she begins to bond with them when she brings her one-eyed cat, Fred, for show-and-tell and later defends a classmate from a bully. Mary is offered a scholarship to a private school for gifted children.
NEERJA (INDIA 2016) Ram Madhvani
Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Yogendra Tikku, Abrar Zahoor, Jim Sarbh, Ali Baldiwala
The film opens with 22-year-old Neerja Bhanot (Sonam Kapoor) arriving late for a house party. Later that evening, her mother Rama Bhanot (Shabana Azmi) expresses concern about Neerja's job as a flight attendant, suggesting that Neerja should return to her old modelling career. Neerja insists on keeping her job. She is driven to the airport by her boyfriend Jaideep (Shekhar Ravjiani).
THE SALESMAN (IRAN 2016) Asghar Farhadi
Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Babak Karimi, Farid Sajadi Hosseini, Mina Sadati
Emad and Rana are a married couple who both work in the theatre, currently starring in a production of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, with Emad portraying Willy Loman and Rana playing Linda. Emad is also a popular instructor at a local school, where the youth joke about him being a "salesman." One night, their apartment begins to collapse and they flee the building with the other residents. Desperate to find a place to live, their fellow actor Babak secures another apartment for them, where a woman has recently moved out, although she left in a hurry abandoning numerous belongings.
LION (USA-UK 2016) Garth Davis
Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Nawazuddin Siddiqui
In 1986, Saroo, a five-year-old boy lives with his elder brother Guddu, his mother and his younger sister in Khandwa, India. Guddu and Saroo steal coal from freight trains to trade for milk and food. One day, Saroo follows his brother to a job and they arrive at a nearby train station, where Saroo decides to stay back and take a nap. Guddu tries to wake him up, but Saroo is too tired. When Guddu does not return, Saroo searches for him and boards a train presuming Guddu is aboard.
SULLY (USA 2016) Clint Eastwood
Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Anna Gunn, Autumn Reeser
On January 15, 2009, US Airways pilots Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles board US Airways Flight 1549 from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Three minutes into the flight, at an approximate altitude of 2,800 feet (approx. 850 m), the Airbus A320 strikes a flock of birds, disabling both engines. Without engine power and judging themselves unable to reach nearby airports (Teterboro Airport being the closest), Sully ditches the aircraft on the Hudson River.
MOONLIGHT (USA 2016) Barry Jenkins
Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali
In Liberty City, Miami, Cuban drug dealer Juan finds Chiron, a withdrawn child nicknamed "Little", hiding from a pack of bullies in an abandoned crackhouse. Juan allows Chiron to spend the night with him and his girlfriend, Teresa, before returning Chiron to his mother, Paula. Chiron continues to spend time with Juan, who teaches him how to swim and advises him to make his own path in life. One night, Juan encounters Paula smoking crack with one of his customers. Juan berates her for her growing addiction only for Paula to rebuke him for selling crack to her in the first place.
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (USA 2016) Matt Ross
Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso
Ben Cash, his wife Leslie and their six children live in the Washington wilderness. Ben and Leslie are former liberal activists disillusioned with capitalism and American life, and chose to instill survivalist skills, left wing politics, and philosophy in their children – educating them to think critically, training them to be self-reliant, physically fit and athletic, guiding them without technology, demonstrating the beauty of coexisting with nature and celebrating "Noam Chomsky Day" instead of Christmas. Leslie is hospitalized for bipolar disorder and eventually commits suicide.
SOUTHPAW (USA 2015) Antoine Fuqua
Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Naomie Harris
Billy "The Great" Hope is an undefeated professional boxer living in the suburbs of New York City with his wife Maureen and their daughter Leila. During a match in which he defends his light heavyweight world title, Billy sustains an eye injury and is convinced by Maureen to retire while he is on top. During the press conference at the post-match, an up-and-coming boxer Miguel "Magic" Escobar taunts Billy and tries to get Billy to fight him.
ROOM (IRELAND 2015) Lenny Abrahamson
Brie Larson, Megan Park, William H. Macy, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen
In Akron, Ohio, 24-year-old Joy and her five-year-old son Jack live in a squalid shed they call Room. They share a bed, toilet, bathtub, television, and rudimentary kitchen; the only window is a skylight, all of which Jack calls by name, as if they were living. They are captives of a man they call Old Nick, Jack's biological father, who abducted Joy seven years prior, and routinely rapes her while Jack sleeps in the closet. She tries to stay optimistic for her son, but is suffering malnutrition and is sometimes overcome with depression.
CHILD 44 (USA 2015) Daniel Espinosa
Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine
In 1933, a child orphaned during the Ukrainian Holodomor runs away from his orphanage and is taken in by a Red Army unit and adopted by its kindly commander, who gives him the name Leo Demidov. In 1945, now a sergeant with the unit, Leo becomes an icon across the Soviet Union when he is photographed planting the Soviet flag atop the Reichstag in Berlin. He becomes a Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1953, Leo, now married to Raisa and living in Moscow, is a captain in the Ministry of State Security (MGB), commanding a unit tasked with tracking down and arresting dissidents.
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (USA 2014) Josh Boone
Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Nat Wolff
Hazel Grace Lancaster is a teenager living in Indianapolis, who has terminal thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. Believing she is depressed, her mother Frannie urges her to attend a weekly cancer patient support group to help her make friends with individuals who are going through the same thing. There Hazel meets Augustus Waters, a charming teenager who lost a leg from bone cancer but has since apparently been cancer-free. He invites Hazel to his house where they bond over their hobbies and agree to read each other's favorite book.
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (UK 2014) James Marsh
Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson
In 1963, Cambridge University astrophysics student Stephen Hawking begins a relationship with literature student Jane Wilde. Although Stephen excels at mathematics and physics, his friends and professors are concerned over his lack of a thesis topic. After Stephen and his professor Dennis Sciama attend a lecture on black holes, Stephen speculates that black holes may have been part of the creation of the universe and decides to write his thesis on time.
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (USA 2013) Jean-Marc Vallée
Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Denis O'Hare
In 1985, Dallas electrician and rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with AIDS and given 30 days to live. He initially refuses to accept the diagnosis, but remembers having unprotected sex with an intravenous drug-using prostitute. He is soon ostracized by family and friends, gets fired from his job, and is eventually evicted from his home.
THE GREAT GATSBY (AUSTRALIA 2013) Baz Luhrmann
Leonardo Di Caprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton
In the winter of 1929, Nick Carraway, a Yale University graduate and World War I veteran, is staying at a psychiatric hospital to treat his alcoholism. He talks about Jay Gatsby, describing him as the most hopeful man he had ever met. When he struggles to articulate his thoughts, his doctor, Walter Perkins, suggests writing them down, since writing is Nick's true passion. In the summer of 1922, Nick moves from the Midwest to New York, taking a job as a bond salesman after abandoning writing.
THE PAST (FRANCE-ITALY 2013) Asghar Farhadi
Bérénice Bejo, Tahar Rahim, Ali Mosaffa, Pauline Burlet
Ahmad, an Iranian man, returns to France after four years to finalise his divorce with his wife Marie. On the way to her home, he learns that she has begun a relationship with Samir, the owner of a dry cleaning service and he is to share a room with Samir's son Fouad. At Marie's request, he speaks to her daughter from a previous marriage, Lucie, regarding her recent troubled behavior. Lucie disapproves of Marie's new relationship. Ahmad and Marie attend court to complete their divorce.
THE IMPOSSIBLE (USA-SPAIN 2012) Juan Antonio Bayona
Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Geraldine Chaplin
Henry Bennett, his physician wife Maria, and their three sons Lucas, Tomas, and Simon go on a Christmas holiday in 2004 to Khao Lak, Thailand. Arriving on Christmas Eve, they settle in and begin to enjoy the brand new Orchid Beach Resort. Two days later the massive 2004 tsunami inundates the area. Maria and Lucas eventually emerge from the swirling water, with Maria having sustained serious injuries. They are found by locals, who transfer them to a local hospital in the city of Takua Pa where Maria encourages Lucas to help others find their family members at the facility.
...WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (UK-USA 2011) Lyanne Ramsay
Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly, Jasper Newell
Teenager Kevin Katchadourian is in prison after committing a massacre at his high school. His mother, Eva, a once-successful travel writer, lives alone in a rundown house and works in a mall travel agency in a town near the prison, where she visits Kevin. She looks back at her memories of him growing up as she tries to cope with the anger and hostility of her neighbors, who know she is Kevin's mother. Kevin is detached and difficult even from childhood.
HERMANO (VENEZUELA 2011) Marcel Rasquin
Eliù Armas, Fernando Moreno, Beto Benites, Gonzalo Cubero, Marcela Giron
In Caracas, Julio and his mother are walking through a gateway near La Planta prison. He thinks he's heard a cat but when he runs closer, he notices an abandoned baby crying in the middle of a street dump. The mother hesitates to take the child with them, but does.
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (USA 2011) Francis Lawrence
Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz
In 2011, Charlie O'Brien, the proprietor of a small traveling circus, encounters an elderly man, Jacob Jankowski, who is separated from his nursing home group. The two strike up a conversation and Jacob reveals he had a career in the circus business and was present during one of the most infamous circus disasters of all time, the 1944 Hartford circus fire and the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus wreck. Jankowski tells his story to O'Brien, starting in 1931 when he was a 23-year-old veterinary medicine student at Cornell.
INCENDIES (CANADA 2010) Denis Villeneuve
Mohamed Majd, Lubna Azabal, Remy Girard, Allen Altman, Yousef Shweihat
Following the death of Nawal Marwan, a Canadian immigrant, her two children, fraternal twins Jeanne and Simon, meet with French Canadian notary Jean Lebel, their mother’s employer and family friend. Nawal's will makes reference to not keeping a promise, denying her a proper gravestone and casket, unless Jeanne and Simon track down their mysterious brother, whose existence they were previously unaware of, and their father, whom they believed was dead.
ABOUT ELLY (IRAN 2009) Asghar Farhadi
Golshifteh Farahani, Taraneh Alidoosti, Mani Haghighi, Shahab Hosseini
A group of middle-class Iranians, former classmates at the law faculty of the university, go to the Caspian Sea for a three-day vacation: Sepideh, her husband Amir and their young daughter; Shohreh, her husband Peymān and their two children, including their son Arash and Nāzy and her husband Manuchehr. Sepideh, who planned the trip, brings along her daughter's kindergarten teacher, Elly, in order to introduce her to Ahmad, a divorced friend visiting from Germany.
FELON (USA 2008) Ric Roman Waugh
Val Kilmer, Stephen Dorff, Harold Perrineau, Jr., Sam Shepard
Family man Wade Porter is living the American Dream with his girlfriend Laura and their son Michael: they have a nice house, Wade has just raised a loan to make his company grow and they are going to get married. However, their dream becomes a nightmare when Wade unintentionally kills a burglar on his lawn that had broken into their house in the middle of the night. By attacking the fleeing unarmed intruder outside of the house, he is arrested for murder, and during the first night in the county jail, Wade gets into a brawl after being attacked by an inmate in the community cell.
HACHI : A DOG'S TALE (USA 2008) Lasse Hallstrom
Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Sarah Roemer
Hachi is someone special... Students are giving oral presentations about personal heroes. Ronnie's subject is his grandfather's dog, Hachikō. Years earlier, a puppy is sent from Japan to the United States, but escapes when his cage falls at an American train station. Professor Parker Wilson finds the dog, and after Carl (the station manager) does not want to lock the dog up in the office overnight, Parker takes it home with the intention of returning the animal to its owner.
FREEDOM WRITERS (USA-GERMANY 2007) Richard LaGravenese
Hilary Swank, Patrick Dempsey, Imelda Staunton, Scott Glenn
Woodrow Wilson Classical High School is a formerly high-achieving school which has encountered some difficulties bearing its new racial integration plan. In 1994, in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Erin Gruwell, an enthusiastic young teacher starts at the school. Her enthusiasm is challenged when she finds her class is composed of "at-risk" students, the "untouchables," and not the eager-for-college students she expected. Her students self-segregate into racial groups within the classroom. This causes problems, as gang fights break out and, consequently, most of her students stop attending class.
BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (USA 2007) Sidney Lumet
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei
Andy Hanson is a finance executive at a real estate firm in New York City. Facing an upcoming audit he knows will reveal his having embezzled from his employer (in support of a drug habit), Andy decides to escape to Brazil, believing there to exist no extradition treaty between Brazil and the United States. To raise the necessary funds for the trip and to establish himself once there, he hatches a scheme and enlists the aid of his brother, Hank, himself in need of money to pay three months' back child support as well as his daughter's private school tuition.
THE UNKNOWN WOMAN (POLAND 2006) Giuseppe Tornatore
Ksenia Rappoport, Michele Placido, Claudia Gerini, Clara Dossena, Pierfrancesco Favino
Irena, a Ukrainian prostitute on the run, is determined to find a job in an elegant apartment building in northern Italy, and starts by cleaning the stairs. She does it in order to inch her way into working for a family residing in that building. She befriends Gina, the nanny of the family's child, Thea, who also lives with them in their apartment. When the nanny is crippled in a fall—tripped by Irena—but presumed to be accidental, Irena is hired to take her place.
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (USA 2006) Paul McGuigan
Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu, Bruce Willis
During the film's opening credits, two bookies are separately ambushed and murdered by their unseen killers; elsewhere, a young man is killed by a sniper. In a bus terminal, a young man is approached by Goodkat, who tells the story of Max and the Kansas City Shuffle: two decades earlier, Max borrowed money from the mob to bet on a fixed horse race, only for the horse to die mid-race. To set an example to make sure nobody else would try to bet on a fixed race, the mob killed Max, his wife and young son Henry.
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (USA 2006) Gabriele Muccino
Will Smith, Thandie Newton, Jaden Smith, Cecil Williams, Kurt Fuller
In 1981, San Francisco salesman Chris Gardner invests his entire life savings in portable bone density scanners, which he demonstrates to doctors and pitches as a handy quantum leap over standard X-rays. The scanners play a vital role in Chris' life. While he is able to sell most of them, the time lag between the sales and his growing financial demands enrage his already bitter and alienated wife Linda, who works as a hotel maid. The financial instability increasingly erodes their marriage, in spite of them caring for their five-year-old son, Christopher.
BABEL (USA-MEXICO 2006) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Kôji Yakusho
In a desert in Morocco, Abdullah, a goatherder, buys a .270 Winchester M70 rifle and a box of ammunition from his neighbor Hassan Ibrahim to shoot the jackals that have been preying on his goats. Abdullah gives the rifle to his two young sons, Yussef and Ahmed, and sends them out to tend the herd. Ahmed, the older of the two, criticises Yussef for spying on his sister while she changes her clothes. Doubtful of the rifle's purported three-kilometer range, they decide to test it out, aiming first at rocks, a moving car on a highway below, and then at a bus carrying Western tourists.
GREEN STREET (UK-USA 2005) Lexi Alexander
Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, Claire Forlani, Marc Warren, Leo Gregory, Henry Goodman
Journalism major Matt Buckner is expelled from Harvard University after cocaine is discovered in his room. Though it belongs to his roommate, Matt is afraid to speak up because his roommate Jeremy comes from a wealthy and powerful family, and is offered $10,000 for taking the blame. Matt accepts the money and uses it to visit his sister Shannon, her husband Steve and their young son Ben in London. There, Matt meets Steve's brother, Pete, a teacher and football coach who leads the local football hooligan firm – Green Street Elite (GSE).
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (USA 2005) Rob Marshall
Ksenia Rappoport, Michele Placido, Claudia Gerini, Clara Dossena, Pierfrancesco Favino
Chiyo Sakamoto, a young girl from a poverty stricken fishing village, is sold along with her older sister Satsu into a life of servitude by her aging father. Chiyo is taken in by Mrs Nitta, the Mother (proprietress) of a geisha house in Gion, one of the most prominent geisha districts in Kyoto, whereas Satsu is sold to a prostitution brothel. At the okiya, Chiyo meets another young girl named Pumpkin, the cranky Granny, and the okiya's only working geisha, Hatsumomo who is famous for her breathtaking beauty.
LIVE AND BECOME (FRANCE-ISRAEL 2005) Radu Mihaileanu
Yaël Abecassis, Roschdy Zem, Moshe Agazal, Sirak M. Sabahat, Moshe Abeba
Shlomo, an Ethiopian boy, is placed by his Christian mother with an Ethiopian Jewish woman whose child has died. This woman, who will become his adoptive mother, is about to be airlifted from a Sudanese refugee camp to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984. His birth mother, who hopes for a better life for him, tells him “Go, live, and become,” as he leaves her to get on the bus. The film tells of his growing up in Israel and how he deals with the secrets he carries: not being Jewish and having left his birth mother.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (USA-ITALY 2004) Mel Gibson
James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci, Rosalinda Celentano, Claudia Gerini
The film opens in Gethsemane during the night as Jesus, at the height of his cause, prays while his disciples Peter, James and John (James' brother) sleep. After he wakes them and tells them to pray, Satan appears in a hooded androgynous, albino form, and tempts him with reasonable doubt, stating - "It is not right for one man to die for their (humanity) sins." Ignoring it and praying on, Jesus' sweat becomes like blood and drips to the ground while a snake emerges from Satan's guise.
THE NOTEBOOK (USA 2004) Nick Cassavetes
Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Gena Rowlands
At a modern-day nursing home, an elderly man, Duke, reads a romantic story from his notebook to a fellow patient. In 1940s Seabrook Island, South Carolina, Noah Calhoun is smitten with seventeen-year-old heiress Allie Hamilton after seeing her at a carnival, and they have a summer love affair. Noah takes Allie to an abandoned house, that he intends to buy for them. They try to make love, but are interrupted by Noah's friend Fin with the news that Allie's parents have the police looking for her.
OLD BOY (SOUTH KOREA 2003) Chan-Wook Park
Choi Min-sik, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang, Dae-han Ji, Dal-su Oh
In 1988, a businessman named Oh Dae-su is arrested for drunkenness, missing his daughter's 4th birthday. After his friend Joo-hwan retrieves him from the police station, they go to a phone booth for Dae-su to call home. While Joo-hwan is talking to Dae-su's wife, Dae-su is kidnapped, and wakes up in a sealed hotel room where food is delivered through a trap-door. By watching the television, Dae-su learns that his wife has been murdered and that he is the prime suspect. Dae-su passes the time shadow-boxing, planning revenge, and attempting to dig a tunnel to escape.
THE PIANIST (POLAND 2002) Roman Polanski
Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Emilia Fox
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman rejoices with his family at home when learning that Britain and France have declared war on Germany. But the promised aid does not come. Fighting lasts for just over a month, with both the German and Soviet armies invading Poland at the same time on different fronts. Warsaw becomes part of the Nazi-controlled General Government.
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (MEXICO 2001) Alfonso Cuaron
Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Maribel Verdú, Diana Bracho, Daniel Giménez Cacho
The film uses an omniscient narrator to provide information on the characters and their personal lives, historical Mexican events, and the settings depicted in the film. These "footnotes" also address economic and political issues in Mexico, particularly the impoverished lifestyle of people living in rural areas of the country. The story itself begins at the threshold of two friends' adulthood. Julio comes from a leftist, middle-class family, and Tenoch's father is a high-ranking political official. The film opens with a scene of each boy having sex with his girlfriend before the girls leave on a trip to Italy.
A BEAUTIFUL MIND (UK 2001) Ron Howard
Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany, Christopher Plummer
In 1947, John Nash arrives at Princeton University. He is co-recipient, with Martin Hansen, of the prestigious Carnegie Scholarship for mathematics. At a reception, he meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Richard Sol, Ainsley, and Bender. He also meets his roommate Charles Herman, a literature student. Nash is under extreme pressure to publish, but he wants to publish his own original idea. His inspiration comes when he and his fellow graduate students discuss how to approach a group of women at a bar.
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (USA 2000) Darren Aronofsky
Ellen Burstyn, Christopher McDonald, Jennifer Connelly, Louise Lasser
During the summer in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, widow Sara Goldfarb constantly watches television, particularly infomercials hosted by Tappy Tibbons. After receiving an unexpected phone call that she has won a spot to participate on a television game show, she becomes obsessed with regaining the youthful appearance she possesses in an old photograph from her son Harry's graduation many years earlier. To fit into her old red dress seen in the picture, the favorite one of her deceased husband Seymour, she goes on a crash diet. To reach her goal sooner, she goes to a doctor to discuss weight loss.
CAST AWAY (USA 2000) Robert Zemeckis
Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Chris Noth, Paul Sanchez, Lari White
In December 1995, Chuck Noland is a time-obsessed systems engineer, who travels worldwide resolving productivity problems at FedEx depots. He is in a long-term relationship with Kelly Frears, with whom he lives in Memphis, Tennessee. Although the couple wants to get married, Chuck's busy schedule interferes with their relationship. A Christmas with relatives is interrupted when Chuck is summoned to resolve a problem in Malaysia.
AMORES PERROS (MEXICO 2000) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Goya Toledo, Emilio Echevarria, Gael García Bernal, Alvaro Guerrero, Vanessa Bauche
The first segment stars Gael García Bernal and Vanessa Bauche as the title characters. Susana is Octavio's sister-in-law; however, Octavio is in love with her and does not like the way his brother, Ramiro (Marco Pérez), treats her. Octavio tries to persuade her to run away with him to get out from under Ramiro's abuse. Jarocho, a local thug, is happy after winning in a dog fight, so he decides to let his dog loose on some strays, but is stopped when a vagrant pulls out a machete from his junk cart; eventually, Jarocho sees Octavio's rottweiler, Cofi, wandering the streets, and lets his dog loose on it, but Cofi kills Jarocho's dog.