All Recommendations
For a Fistful of Fries
For several days, a team of police officers (backed by Judge Anne Gruwez, the revelation from their previous So Help Me God) sift through the evidence in a murder case that’s tougher than it appears. Jean Libon and Yves Hinant lead a police investigation unlike anything you’ve ever seen. With every banal turn of events, camaraderie and professionalism go hand in hand as humour meets tragedy and a handful of fries, a Tupperware container and St. Rita heighten the suspense. Hilariously scathing, yet filled with tenderness.
The Man Who Sleeps
A young student decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around him.
Hôtel du Nord
A young couple's suicide pact goes awry, leaving the woman to face her survival with a new admirer while pining for her lost love.
Steaming
Steaming is the final film directed by Joseph Losey. It was adapted from Nell Dunn's play by Patricia Losey and Nell Dunn. It is about three women who meet regularly in a steam room and decide to fight its closure.
Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls
John Considine plays the flamboyant Dr. Death, a thousand-year-old magician who has mastered he art of transferring souls from one body to another and thereby manages to perpetuate himself by jumping from one body to the next. Apparently the Doc is a kindred spirit since his blood is a highly-corrosive acid that can strip flesh from bone
Small Talk
In the table that symbolizes the value of traditional women, a woman who wants to break free from her family must face her daughter.
Color Sequence
One of Grant's most interesting and important films is Color Sequence (1943) which consists only of pure solid-colour frames that fade, mutate and flicker. He made the film as a research into colour rhythms and perceptual phenomena, and although it now appears not only visually exciting but also as a precedent for the work of younger film-makers like Paul Sharits, Grant himself found the film to be too disquieting when it was first screened (cf. the Film Exercises), and it received little further play until the 70s.
The Painting
Three characters living in an unfinished painting venture out into the real world in search of their creator to convince him to finish his work.
The Net
A poor North Korean fisherman finds himself an accidental defector, and is groomed to be a spy by an ambitious South Korean military officer.
House of Games
A psychiatrist comes to the aid of a compulsive gambler and is led by a smooth-talking grifter into the shadowy but compelling world of stings, scams, and con men.
Beau Travail
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.
Paddleton
An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The Passenger
David Locke is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, but he makes little progress with the story. When he discovers the body of a stranger who looks similar to him, Locke assumes the dead man's identity. However, he soon finds out that the man was an arms dealer, leading Locke into dangerous situations. Aided by a beautiful woman, Locke attempts to avoid both the police and criminals out to get him.
PlayTime
Clumsy Monsieur Hulot finds himself perplexed by the intimidating complexity of a gadget-filled Paris. He attempts to meet with a business contact but soon becomes lost. His roundabout journey parallels that of an American tourist, and as they weave through the inventive urban environment, they intermittently meet, developing an interest in one another. They eventually get together at a chaotic restaurant, along with several other quirky characters.
Straw Dogs
David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.
The Grapes of Wrath
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
Blue Jay
Meeting by chance when they return to their tiny California hometown, two former high-school sweethearts reflect on their shared past.
Hysteria
Two doctors in Victorian England use manual stimulation of female genitalia to cure their patients' ills, leading to the invention of the vibrator.
Inland Empire
An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.
Un Chien Andalou
Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.