☆ february '26 watchlist ☆
Items in this hypelist
Movies
The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh
Sergio Martino · 1971
When socialite and heiress Julie Wardh begins receiving blackmail letters attributed to a mysterious serial killer, she suspects her cruel and sadistic former lover Jean is behind them. With her husband Neil frequently out of town, she falls into the arms of her friend's cousin George, and as the unknown assassin begins to make his move, she fears that one of the three men in her life may be the killer.
Death of Yazdgerd
Bahram Beyzai · 1982
Bahram Beyzai's poetic imagining of the circumstances that led to the death of Yazdgerd III, the last of the Sassanid kings of Iran. His death in 651, during the Arab invasions that brought Islam to this Zoroastrian realm, was mysterious: his corpse was discovered in a mill, but the cause of his death—and the whereabouts of his remains—are unknown.
The Cold Summer of 1953
Aleksandr Proshkin · 1988
In 1953, the year Stalin died, many prisoners (some political, but mostly common criminals) were released from the Soviet Gulags. This is the story of a remote settlement which was under attack by a bunch of these recently-released blood-thirsty thugs in the summer of 1953, and the townspeople, along with a two political prisoners, who try to stop them.
Siberiade
Andrei Konchalovsky · 1979
The story about a very small god-forgotten village in Siberia reflects the history of Russia from the beginning of the century till the early 1980s. Three generations try to find the land of happiness and to give it to the people. One builds the road through taiga to the star over horizon, the second 'build communism' and the third searches for oil.
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame
Hana Makhmalbaf · 2007
A young girl zealously wants to go to school and learn to read and write. Almost everywhere she is met with hostility or indifference. The only young boy who takes her to his school is thrown out by the teacher, because helping her prevented him from arriving in time. On her way home she and other girls are taken as prisoners by boys playing as Taliban fighters. They tear her school book to pieces and threaten to stone their female captives.
Lesson of a Dead Language
Janusz Majewski · 1979
An officer stationed in a remote Ukranian outpost at the end of the First World War is dying of consumption. Suffering from feverish dreams and hallucinations, he begins to collect religious art and attends seances.
The Flowers of St. Francis
Roberto Rossellini · 1950
In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly convey the universal teachings of the People’s Saint: humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice. Gorgeously photographed to evoke the medieval paintings of Saint Francis’s time, and cast with monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment.
Bruges-La-Morte
Ronald Chase · 1978
The story of Paul who one day meets a young dancer who is the double of the dead wife he worships. Their meeting triggers a nightmare that takes him on a midnight journey through dark canals, memories, to a theater performance in a graveyard where he learns darker truths. Filmed on location in historic Bruges.
Damnation
Béla Tarr · 1988
Karrer plods his way through life in quiet desperation. His environment is drab and rainy and muddy. Eaten up with solitude, his hopelessness would be incurable but for the existence of the Titanik Bar and its beautiful, haunting singer. But the lady is married and Karrer is determined to keep her husband away...
The Fifth Horseman Is Fear
Zbyněk Brynych · 1965
In Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, a doctor-turned-warehouse employee reluctantly agrees to treat a gravely wounded political fugitive, putting himself and everyone living in his building complex in danger.
The Lynx
Stanisław Różewicz · 1982
Set during the German occupation of Poland during WWII. A priest in a small village meets a revolutionary who is on an assignment to kill a supposed Nazi collaborator.
Chimes at Midnight
Orson Welles · 1965
Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.
Le Cercle Rouge
Jean-Pierre Melville · 1970
When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.
The Manchurian Candidate
John Frankenheimer · 1962
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.
Black God, White Devil
Glauber Rocha · 1964
Wanted for killing his boss, Manuel flees with his wife Rosa to the sertão, the barren landscape of Northern Brazil. Thrust into a primordial violent region, Manuel and Rosa come under the influence and control of a series of frightening figures.
The Age of the Earth
Glauber Rocha · 1980
Drawing inspiration from a poem penned by Castro Alves, this film vividly captures the political, cultural, and intellectual climate of Brazil during the late 1970s. At its core, the story revolves around four distinctive embodiments of Christ's image: a black man, a soldier, an Indian, and a guerrilla fighter. These courageous individuals, hailed as the harbingers of doom in the tupiniquim lands, valiantly combat the insatiable avarice and oppressive "civilizing" brutality propagated by the formidable John Brahms—a foreign exploiter devoid of morals.
Nostos: The Return
Franco Piavoli · 1990
At the end of the war, Odysseus, the wandering hero, with his companions begins his sail back home to the Mediterranean. The conclusion of his adventure is delayed by many natural obstacles and he takes an internal journey of fleeting memories of his childhood, his parents, love for a beautiful girl, nostalgia for the past, regret for what he did, and the deep silence that envelops everything. He confronts the most terrible loneliness following a shipwreck in which all the comrades perish.
The Valley of the Bees
František Vláčil · 1968
Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life
Stephen Quay · 1995
Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?
Matewan
John Sayles · 1987
Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
Children of Nature
Fridrik Thor Fridriksson · 1991
An elderly couple leave their retirement home to make one last journey back to their home in the Western Fjords.
Illumination
Krzysztof Zanussi · 1973
Film chronicles a decade in the life of a young physics student whose absolute faith in the primacy of rationality and science is shaken by tragedy and affairs of the heart.
Howards End
James Ivory · 1992
A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.
That Damned Meat
André Klotzel · 1985
Nhô Quim has only one dream in his life: to eat red meat. He meets Carula, a young woman anxious to get married, who promises him that in their wedding her father will kill him an ox. But, before that, Nhô Quim must pass a series of tests.
Modulations
Iara Lee · 1998
Less a documentary than a primer on all electronic music. Featuring interviews with nearly every major player past and present, as well as a few energetic live clips, Modulations delves into one of electronica's forgotten facets: the human element. Lee travels the globe from the American Midwest to Europe to Japan to try to express the appeal of music often dismissed as soulless. Modulations shows that behind even the most foreign or alien electronic composition lies a real human being, and Lee lets many of these Frankenstein-like creators express and expound upon their personal philosophies and tech-heavy theories. Lee understands that a cultural movement as massive and diverse as dance music can't be contained.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog · 1972
A few decades after the destruction of the Inca Empire, a Spanish expedition led by the infamous Aguirre leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon River in search of the lost city of El Dorado. When great difficulties arise, Aguirre’s men start to wonder whether their quest will lead them to prosperity or certain death.
Diamonds of the Night
Jan Němec · 1964
Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Beyond themes of war and anti-Nazism, the film concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity.
Letter Never Sent
Mikhail Kalatozov · 1960
Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find their luck and put the diamond mine on the map. The map must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods.
I've Heard the Ammonite Murmur
Isao Yamada · 1992
A young geologist is traveling by train to visit his sister in the countryside after having received a mysterious letter from her.
Dead Man's Letters
Konstantin Lopushansky · 1986
In a world after the nuclear apocalypse a scholar helps a small group of children and adults survive, staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. In his mind he writes letters to his son — though it is obvious that they will never be read.
