Powerful Stories

Powerful Stories

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Powerful Stories
  • Poison

    Movie

    Directed by Todd Haynes • Arthouse • 1991 • US • English
    Starring Edith Meeks, Larry Maxwell, John Leguizamo

    Winner of the Grand Jury Prizes at both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, "Poison", directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Todd Haynes ("Carol"), is a groundbreaking American indie f...

  • Tommy Guns

    Movie

    Directed by Carlos Conceição • Arthouse • 2023 • Angola, Portugal, France • Portuguese, Nyaneka with English subtitles
    Starring João Arrais, Vicente Gil, Anabela Moreira

    Angolan-Portuguese director Carlos Conceição’s audacious and enigmatic “Tommy Guns” invokes the ghosts of Angola’s colonial pa...

  • Body and Soul

    Movie

    Directed by Oscar Micheaux • Drama • 1925 • US • Silent with English intertitles
    Starring Paul Robeson, Marshall Rodgers, Lawrence Chenault

    This bold and controversial film by pioneer independent filmmaker Oscar Micheaux follows the path of an escaped convict who poses as a pastor in a small s...

  • Fear and Desire: Uncut Premiere Version

    Movie

    Directed by Stanley Kubrick • Arthouse • 1953 • US • English
    Starring Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Paul Mazursky

    Stanley Kubrick’s debut feature feels like a waking dream rather than a conventional war film. In this existential drama, four soldiers return to their senses after crash-landing in a...

  • The Retrieval

    Movie

    Directed by Chris Eska • Drama • 2014 • US • English
    Starring Ashton Sanders, Keston John, Tishuan Scott

    On the outskirts of the Civil War, white bounty hunters send a young boy on a mission into the north to find a fugitive freed man by earning his trust and luring him back to the south. Groun...

  • Millennium Mambo

    Movie

    Directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien • Drama • 2001 • Taiwan • Mandarin with English subtitles
    Starring Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Tuan Chun-hao

    Hou Hsiao-hsien's stylish and seductive submersion into Taipei nightlife stars Shu Qi ("The Assassin") as an aimless bar hostess drifting away from her blowhard boyfrien...

  • Lash of the Penitentes

    Movie

    Directed by Harry J. Revier, Roland Price • Drama • 1936 • US • English
    Starring Marie DeForrest, William Marcos, Victor Justi

    Los Hermanos Penitentes celebrated Lent by enacting elaborate tableaus of flagellation, self-mutilation, and crucifixion. Envisioning the box-office potential of such a ...

  • Last and First Men

    Movie

    Directed by Jóhann Jóhannsson • Arthouse • 2020 • Iceland • English
    Starring Tilda Swinton

    A stunning feature debut and final cinematic testament from the late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, "Last and First Men" is a poetic, hopeful, and tragic work as well as an allegory of remembrance, ideals, an...

  • Birthright

    Movie

    Directed by Oscar Micheaux • Drama • 1938 • US • English
    Starring Carman Newsome, Ethel Moses, Alec Lovejo

    An idealistic young man attempts to establish a school in a rural location, but encounters opposition from both the black and white communities. Oscar Micheaux himself was a former homestea...

  • Down Down the Deep River

    Movie

    Directed by Will Sheff • Drama • 2017 • US • English
    Starring Duston Cornouyer, Griffin Gamache, Luke Bonner

    This dreamlike, nostalgic film is a fictionalized representation of writer/director Will Sheff (of Okkervil River)'s childhood in smalltown New Hampshire, filtered through the best childr...

  • Downtown 81

    Movie

    Directed by Edo Bertoglio • Arthouse • 1981 • US • English
    Starring Jean-Michel Basquiat, Debbie Harry, Richard Weigand

    Shot in New York City in the eighties and written by Warhol associate Glenn O’Brien, "Downtown 81" features graffiti innovator and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat moving through th...

  • Native Son

    Movie

    Directed by Pierre Chenal • Drama • 1951 • Argentina • English
    Starring Richard Wright, Jean Wallace, Gloria Madison

    A new restoration of the 1951 film version of Richard Wright's novel, "Native Son" exposes the injustices of urban African-American life through the eyes of Bigger Thomas, played ...

  • Test Pattern

    Movie

    Directed by Shatara Michelle Ford • Drama • 2020 • US • English
    Starring Brittany S. Hall, Will Brill, Gail Bean

    Part psychological horror, part realist drama, this exhilarating debut feature from Shatara Michelle Ford follows an interracial couple whose relationship is put to the test after a B...

  • The Outside Man

    Movie

    Directed by Jacques Deray • Crime • 1972 • US, France • English
    Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret

    In this gritty 70s action classic from Jacques Deray ("La Piscine"), Jean-Louis Trintignant plays a French hitman hired to kill a Los Angeles mafia boss by his son and daugh...

  • The Wanderers

    Movie

    Directed by Philip Kaufman • Drama • 1979 • US • English
    Starring Ken Wahl, Karen Allen, Linda Manz

    Featuring a golden oldies soundtrack and a talented cast of young up-and-comers, this cult classic from Phillip Kaufman follows the exploits of an Italian-American gang in the Bronx in 1963, turni...

  • Two Small Bodies

    Movie

    Directed by Beth B • Arthouse • 1994 • US • English
    Starring Suzy Amis, Fred Ward

    After the disappearance of her two children, a nightclub hostess (Suzy Amis) is confronted in her home by an aggressive police lieutenant (Fred Ward) who subjects her to a series of ruthless interrogations. Directe...

  • Alps
    Movie

    Alps

    Movie

    Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos • Arthouse • 2011 • Greece • Greek with English subtitles
    Starring Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia, Aris Servetalis

    Before "The Favourite", Academy Award nominee Yorgos Lanthimos created this darkly comedic, absurdist vision of (in)human relationships, focusing on a ...

  • 52 Tuesdays

    Movie

    Directed by Sophie Hyde • Drama • 2013 • Australia • English
    Starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Sam Althuizen, Del Herbert-Jane

    16-year-old Billie's reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for a gender transition and their time together becomes limited to Tuesday a...

  • Losing Ground

    Movie

    Directed by Kathleen Collins • Comedy • 1982 • US • English
    Starring Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane Jones

    The inimitable Kathleen Collins's second film is the story of two remarkable people: Sara Rogers, a Black professor of philosophy who embarks on an intellectual quest just as her painter husb...

  • Alma's Rainbow

    Movie

    Directed by Ayoka Chenzira • Drama • 1994 • US • English
    Starring Kim Weston-Moran, Victoria Gabrielle Platt, Mizan Kirby Nunes

    An essential film in the ‘90s Black cinema canon, Ayoka Chenzira's overlooked classic "Alma's Rainbow" is a coming-of-age comedy-drama about three Black women living in...

  • The Measure of a Man

    Movie

    Directed by Stéphane Brizé • Drama • 2015 • France • French with English subtitles
    Starring Vincent Lindon, Karine de Mirbeck, Matthieu Schaller

    Vincent Lindon won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance as unemployed everyman Thierry in his search for work. Nothing ...

  • My Friend Victoria

    Movie

    Directed by Jean-Paul Civeyrac • Drama • 2021 • France, Belgium • French with English subtitles
    Starring Guslagie Malanda, Catherine Mouchet, Pascal Greggory

    When an 8-year-old black child is taken in for a night by the wealthy white family of one of her schoolmates, the experience haunts her fo...

  • Made in Hong Kong

    Movie

    Directed by Fruit Chan • Crime • 1997 • Hong Kong • Cantonese with English subtitles
    Starring Sam Lee, Neiky Hui-Chi Yim, Wenders Li

    The first independent film released in post-Handover Hong Kong, director Fruit Chan’s atmospheric character study is a rough-and-ready piece of work that ends in t...

  • Maigret Sets a Trap

    Movie

    Directed by Jean Delannoy • Crime • 1958 • France • French with English subtitles
    Starring Jean Gabin, Annie Girardot, Lino Ventura

    Inspector Maigret tries to trap a killer and discovers why a happily married, wealthy, and talented man should want to bump off women at night. Jean Gabin is perfec...