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New York Times Critic's Picks

New York Times Critic's Picks

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New York Times Critic's Picks
  • Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

    Directed by Ric Burns • Documentary • 2020 • US • English
    Featuring Oliver Sacks, Temple Grandin, Atul Gawande

    A month after receiving a fatal diagnosis, esteemed neurologist Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of interviews in his apartment in New York City. For eighty hours, surrounded by famil...

  • On Broadway

    Directed by Oren Jacoby • Documentary • 2020 • US • English
    Featuring Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman

    As theatergoers prepare for the return of Broadway after COVID, an all-star cast, including Hugh Jackman, Helen Mirren, James Corden, Viola Davis, and Ian McKellen, tell the story of th...

  • Pasolini

    Directed by Abel Ferrara • Drama • 2019 • France, Belgium, Italy • English, Italian, French with English subtitles • Mature Content
    Starring Willem Dafoe, Ninetto Davoli , Riccardo Scamarcio

    Abel Ferrara's "Pasolini"​ stars frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe as film director Pier Paolo Pasolini...

  • Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

    Directed by Matt Wolf • Documentary • 2019 • US • English
    Featuring Marion Stokes, Anne Stokes Hochberg, Frank Hollman

    Matt Wolf’s documentary delves into the strange life of Marion Stokes, who obsessively and privately recorded American television news twenty-four hours a day. A civil rights-e...

  • Scarlet

    Directed by Pietro Marcello • Arthouse • 2023 • France, Italy • French with English subtitles
    Starring Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thiéry, Noémie Lvovsky

    Pietro Marcello follows his breakthrough "Martin Eden" with this enchanting period fable about a WWI veteran raising his daughter in rural France....

  • Studio 54

    Directed by Matt Tyrnauer • Documentary • 2018 • US • English
    Featuring Ian Schrager Steve Rubell, Norma Kamali

    A haven of hedonism, glitz, and glamour, the infamous New York nightclub Studio 54 was the ultimate escapist fantasy until it imploded in financial scandal. With unprecedented access a...

  • Sweet Bean

    Directed by Naomi Kawase • Drama • 2015 • Japan, Germany, France • Japanese with English subtitles
    Starring Kirin Kiki, Masatoshi Nagase, Etsuko Ichihara

    Shot during the height of cherry blossom season and selected to open the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, this touc...

  • Synonyms

    Directed by Nadav Lapid • Comedy • 2019 • Israel, France, Germany • French, Hebrew with English subtitles
    Starring Tom Mercier, Quentin Dolmaire, Louise Chevillotte

    Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Nadav Lapid's "Synonyms" follows a disaffected young Israeli who flees Tel A...

  • The Competition

    Directed by Claire Simon • Documentary • 2016 • France • French with English subtitles
    Featuring Alain Bergala, Emilie Deleuze, Xanae Bove

    Claire Simon, one of France’s leading documentarians, gives an enlightening all-access tour behind the scenes at France’s premiere film school, La Femis, dur...

  • The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future

    Directed by Francisca Alegría • Arthouse • 2023 • Chile • Spanish with English subtitles
    Starring Leonor Varela, Mía Maestro, Alfredo Castro

    Singing cows, fish, and bees introduce a world of magical realism in this stunning Sundance hit. Long-dead Magdalena (Mia Maestro) surfaces in a polluted r...

  • The Messenger

    Directed by Su Rynard • Documentary • 2015 • France, Canada • English, German, Dutch, French with English subtitles
    Featuring Bill Evans, Erin Byne, Peter Marra

    For thousands of years, songbirds were regarded by mankind as messengers from the gods. Under threat from climate change, pesticides an...

  • The Pearl Button

    Directed by Patricio Guzmán • Documentary • 2014 • Chile, Spain, France • Spanish with English subtitles
    Featuring Patricio Guzmán

    Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival, "The Pearl Button" explores the supernatural landscape of Chile. With its 2,670 miles of c...

  • The Raft

    Directed by Marcus Lindeen • Documentary • 2018 • Sweden • English, Swedish, French, German, Japanese, Spanish with English subtitles
    Featuring Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Fe Seymour, Maria Bjornstam

    In the summer of 1973, a young international crew of six women and five men embarked together on an un...

  • There Is No Evil

    Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof • Arthouse • 2021 • Germany, Czech Republic, Iran • Farsi with English subtitles
    Starring Ehsan Mirhosseini, Shaghayegh Shoorian, Kaveh Ahangar

    Shot in secret and smuggled out of Iran, this Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner by Mohammad Rasoulof is an anthology...

  • The Return

    Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev • Drama • 2004 • Russia • Russian with English subtitles
    Starring Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko

    Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice and nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, this brilliant mix of psychological thrill...

  • The Son of Joseph

    Directed by Eugene Green • Arthouse • 2017 • France, Belgium • French with English subtitles
    Starring Victor Ezenfis, Natacha Regnier, Fabrizio Rongione

    The American-born expatriate filmmaker Eugene Green exists in his own special artistic orbit and his film "The Son of Joseph" is perhaps his mo...

  • The Super 8 Years

    Directed by Annie Ernaux, David Ernaux-Briot • Documentary • 2022 • France • French with English subtitles
    Featuring Annie Ernaux, David Ernaux-Briot, Blanche Madeleine Dumenil Duchesne

    The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devote...

  • The War Tapes

    Directed by Deborah Scranton • Documentary • 2006 • US • English
    Featuring Zack Bazzi, Duncan Domey, Ben Flanders

    Immediate, raw, and direct, “The War Tapes” is the first film shot by the soldiers themselves, bypassing the embedded reporter filter and providing an intimate front-row look at how ...

  • The Woman Who Left

    Directed by Lav Diaz • Arthouse • 2017 • Philippines • Tagalog with English subtitles
    Starring Charo Santos-Concio, John Lloyd Cruz, Michael De Mesa

    Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz’s epic story of revenge deferred functions as a tale of urb...

  • The Worst Ones

    Directed by Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret • Arthouse • 2023 • France • French with English subtitles
    Starring Mallory Wanecque, Timéo Mahaut, Johan Heldenbergh

    Winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, "The Worst Ones" captures a film within a film a...

  • The Wound

    Directed by John Trengove • Drama • 2017 • South Africa, Germany, Netherlands, France • Xhosa with English subtitles
    Starring Mallory Wanecque, Timéo Mahaut, Johan Heldenbergh

    Shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, "The Wound" is an exploration of tradition and sexuali...

  • Tommaso

    Directed by Abel Ferrara • Arthouse • 2020 • Italy, US • English, Italian with English subtitles
    Starring Willem Dafoe, Anna Ferrara, Cristina Chiriac

    Abel Ferrara’s delicately surrealistic work of autofiction reteams the filmmaker and his frequent lead Willem Dafoe, who delivers a career-best p...

  • Tower

    Directed by Keith Maitland • Documentary • 2016 • US • English
    Featuring Keith Maitland, Susan Thomson, Megan Gilbride

    On August 1, 1966, a sniper from the top floor of the University of Texas Tower opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes. Combining archival footage with rotosco...

  • Trouble the Water

    Directed by Carl Deal, Tia Lessin • Documentary • 2008 • US • English
    Featuring Brian Nobles, Wink Rivers, Kimberly Rivers Roberts

    Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, this powerful documentary is at once horrifying and exhilarating. “Trouble the Water” takes you inside ...