Foreign - Movies

Beauty of the Devil

Foreign

Michel Simon and Gérard Philipe star in this imaginative retelling of the Faust legend. Approaching the end of his life, a prominent professor of alchemy (Simon) makes a bargain with the Devil (Philipe) that will gain him youth, fame and riches in exchange for his soul. Master filmmaker René Clair creates an allegorical fantasy that is at times both whimsical and tragicomic.

Magical Girl

Foreign

An unemployed father seeking a gift for his dying daughter, a disturbed woman with a dark past, and a math teacher turned criminal find their fates bound together in this bracing thriller from Spanish director Carlos Vermut. When his young daughter is diagnosed with terminal leukemia, Luis becomes obsessed with fulfilling her dying wish: to own an exorbitantly expensive dress inspired by her favorite anime character, "Magical Girl Yukiko." After an encounter with the beautiful, rich, and mentally unstable Barbara, Luis decides to extort her for the money he needs. Barbara agrees to meet Luis' demands, but events soon take a shocking turn.

The Master

Foreign

In 19th-century China, during the infamous Qing Dynasty, the population is suffering at the hands of greedy landlords, corrupt officials, and unwelcome invaders. Hoping to unite his people, martial arts master Chen Xiang opens a school integrating techniques from both the North and South. But after Chen refuses to join the armies of the Qing Prince, his mother and his students are seized. To save them, Chen has only one path: all-out war.

Touki Bouki

Foreign

With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a fractured portrait of the disenchantment of postindependence Senegal in the early 1970s. In this picaresque fantasy-drama, the disaffected young lovers Anta and Mory, fed up with Dakar, long to escape to the glamour and comforts they imagine France has to offer, but their plan is confounded by obstacles both practical and mystical. Alternately manic and meditative, TOUKI BOUKI has an avant-garde sensibility characterized by vivid imagery, bleak humor, unconventional editing, and jagged soundscapes, and it demonstrates Mambéty’s commitment to telling African stories in new ways.

The Man from Beijing

Foreign

Based on the international bestselling novel by Henning Mankell, The Man From Beijing is a two-part thriller that begins with the stunning murder of 19 people. The only clue left behind is a red ribbon. When Judge Brigitta Roslin discovers that almost all of the victims were related to her, she starts an investigation of her own. Her search for the killer leads her to China, where she is confronted with the gruesome machinations of a millionaire businessman.

Sphinx

Foreign

During a night round gone wrong, Simon and Julie, two rank-and-file police officers, wound a young executive after he shoots a fellow officer without cause. Wrongly accused of excessive use of force, they lose their badges in the episode. They decide to prove their innocence by investigating the drug responsible for their aggressor’s altered state. Officers by day and dealers by night - lovers, on top of that - they work their way up the drug cartel’s chain of command to a new and dangerous line of designer amphetamines known on the street as sphinx. Once they infiltrate the cartel, Simon and Julie try to find its secret meth kitchen. Their double life could be exposed by the Department or the dealers at any moment.

La Strada

Foreign

With this breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife and collaborator Giulietta Masina to international stardom, breaking with the neorealism of his early career in favor of a personal, poetic vision of life as a bittersweet carnival. The infinitely expressive Masina registers both childlike wonder and heartbreaking despair as Gelsomina, loyal companion to the traveling strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn, in a toweringly physical performance), whose callousness and brutality gradually wear down her gentle spirit. Winner of the very first Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, LA STRADA possesses the purity and timeless resonance of a fable and remains one of cinema’s most exquisitely moving visions of humanity struggling to survive in the face of life’s cruelties.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons

Foreign

Balancing physical action with Buddhist musings on life and death, the most spiritual of the Lone Wolf and Cub films finds Ogami’s combat skills put to the test by five different warrior-messengers.

The Vertical Ray of the Sun

Foreign

In contemporary Hanoi, three sisters discuss their parents' relationship as they plan a memorial banquet on the anniversary of their mother's death. Yet a man named Toan from their mother's past casts a shadow on their idealized image. After the banquet, the calm exteriors of the sisters' lives give way to more turbulent truths. Eldest sister Suong (Nguyen Nhu Quynh) resumes an affair when her husband (Chu Hung) works out of town. Middle sister Khanh (Le Khanh) is married to Kien (Tran Manh Cuong), who goes to Saigon to research Toan and is tempted by a mysterious woman in a luxury hotel. Meanwhile youngest sister Lien (Tran Nu Yên-Khê) is convinced she is pregnant. As the sisters approach the anniversary of their father’s death, they reveal their secrets, discovering some surprises in the process.

The Taste of Betel Nut

Foreign

Li Qi works for a dolphin show, his friend Ren Yu works karaoke on the beach along the coast where they live. When a young woman Bai Ling joins the two men, a three-way relationship seems possible. Together, they set out to test the limitations of a restrictive society and their own sexuality. But a shocking event that rocks them to the core will have a deep and lasting effect on them.

Breaking Surface

Foreign

A few days after Christmas, half-sisters Ida and Tuva venture out on a recreational winter dive to the remote Norwegian coast. When a rockslide traps Tuva 33 meters deep underwater, the less-experienced Ida must act quickly to save her sister. Surfacing to call for help, Ida discovers that the rockslide has struck their camp as well, burying their equipment, phones and car keys, and cutting them off completely from outside rescue. As Tuva's air dwindles and a frantic race against time unfolds, Ida is put to the ultimate test of character and resourcefulness. As the stakes rise, a fractured family life is exposed and Ida finds herself fighting for more than just basic survival in this breathlessly cinematic, edge-of-your-seat aquatic thrill ride.

Coffee

Foreign

Belgium: A pawnshop owner has his precious coffee pot stolen during a violent street riot. He decides to seek revenge, only to become a victim. Italy: A passionate coffee sommelier is trying to make this a proper profession but his past is fighting him. China: A successful young manager marries the boss’s daughter and all seems perfect until his job requires him to move back to his birthplace.

The Black Book of Father Dinis

Foreign

THE BLACK BOOK OF FATHER DINIS explores the tumultuous lives of Laura (Lou de Laâge), a peasant maid, and Sebastian (Vasco Varela da Silva), the young orphan in her charge, against a backdrop of overflowing passion and revolutionary intrigue in Europe at the twilight of the 18th century. An unlikely adventure yarn that strides the continent, from Rome and Venice to London and Paris, with whispers of conspiracies from the clergy, the military, and the gentry, this sumptuous period piece ponders the intertwined nature of fate, desire, and duty. Conceived by director Valeria Sarmiento as an appendix to the expansive literary maze of her late partner Raul Ruiz's landmark MYSTERIES OF LISBON, this picaresque chronicle both enriches the earlier work and stands on its own as a grand meditation of the stories we construct about ourselves.

Brief Encounters

Foreign

Kira Muratova’s first solo feature already displays her sui generis approach to cinema, in an impressionistic portrait of women at work and in love. Through an intricate play of flashbacks and shifting perspectives, BRIEF ENCOUNTERS reveals the tangled romantic triangle that connects a hard-nosed city planner (played by Muratova herself), her free-spirited geologist husband (legendary Soviet protest singer Vladimir Vysotskiy), and the young woman from the countryside (Nina Ruslanova) whom she hires as her housekeeper. Blending observational realism with striking New Wave–style experimentation, Muratova crafts a wryly perceptive study of two very different women bound by chance and each navigating her own career, dreams, and disappointments.

Alanis

Foreign

Alanis is a prostitute. She and her baby share an apartment with her girlfriend, where she lives and works. Two inspectors ask for a permit to function as a massage parlor; they don’t have one and are thrown out. Alanis must now try to recover her dignity, her belongings and her friend. She must care for her son and sell what she knows how to do on the streets in order to survive.

Sunrise

Foreign

(Marathi) Inspector Joshi is a grieving father searching for his daughter Aruna, kidnapped years ago when she was six. In his despair, his past and current reality converge as he pursues a shadowy figure who leads him to 'Paradise', a night-club where teenage girls dance to a leering crowd. He is convinced he will find Aruna there and vows to bring her back to Leela, his broken wife.

Life of Riley

Foreign

In the Yorkshire countryside, the life of three couples is upset for a few months, from spring to fall, by the enigmatic behavior of their friend George Riley.When general practitioner Dr. Colin inadvertently tells his wife Kathryn that the days of his patient George Riley should be numbered, he doesn’t know that George was Kathryn’s first love. Both spouses, who are rehearsing a play with their local amateur theatre company, convince George to join them. It allows George, among other things, to play strong love scenes with Tamara, who is married to Jack, his best friend, a rich businessman and unfaithful husband. A tearful Jack tries to persuade Monica, George’s wife who left him to be with Simeon the farmer, to go back to her husband in order to support him during his last months. George has a strange seductive power over Monica, Tamara and Kathryn, which highly upsets those men sharing their lives with the three women. Which one will George Riley take on holidays in Tenerife with him?

Stray Dogs

Foreign

WINNER OF THE GRAND JURY PRIZE AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL, the new film from master filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang (Rebels of a Neon God, What Time Is It There) is a haunting vision of a father and his two young children struggling to survive on the streets of Taipei. When a mysterious woman shows up to care for the kids, the father starts to come apart. Exquisitely photographed in dark neon-lit tones, STRAY DOGS is a bold, nightmarish depiction of a society on the brink.

Hunting the Northern Godard (Chasse au Godard d'Abbittibbi)

Foreign

In 1968, an internationally renowned French film director unexpectedly lands in Abitibi, in the northwest of Quebec, to conduct political and mass-media experiments. This event fuels the revolutionary tendencies of Michel, a local young man, and the desire to travel the world of Marie, his girlfriend.

De Gaulle

Foreign

May 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.

Foreign Movies