Bunuel’s absurdly fun penultimate feature seems to have been beamed directly from his unconscious—a provocative, taboo-smashing take on the idiocy of institutions and the irrational lunacy of human beings.
Isabelle Huppert plays a Jewish working-class woman who agrees to be secretly impregnated by her rich friend’s husband in order to help the couple conceive in this morally complex tale set in the backdrop of rising Nazism in the 1930s.
Dolan takes an unexpected left turn with this largely solid suspense-laden drama about grief, death and hidden secrets, with a sprinkle of male-on-male masochism.
An unconventional, mosaic-like, though not always engaging account of the last day of Pasolini’s life—capturing the values, ideals and artistry of a filmmaker who was also an ideological provocateur.
A delightful Rohmer omnibus as four short films featuring the two titular characters—one a countryside girl, the other a city girl—give us an intellectual if light-hearted take on how independent women can thrive in a manipulative society.
One of the defining highlights of the New French Extremity canon, Noe’s reverse-chronological film about the repugnant extremes of toxic masculinity belies the fact that it is not just an incredible work of formal brilliance but a deeply human treatise on the permanence of action and consequence.
Chabrol was no stranger to Hitchcockian mystery-dramas and this is one of his better outings centering on the masks that people wear to hide their true selves.
Ruiz’s stylish, surreal visual style here is breathtaking at times, but the film is challenging to get into because of its nebulous storytelling.
Shot like a stage play on a minimalist set, Rohmer’s experiment with narration and storytelling about a man who dreams of becoming one of King Arthur’s knights is interesting but may be a tad too long.
Adam Driver is sensational in this unorthodox if tonally-uneven musical about the perils of celebrity culture that oscillates between feeling inspired and overdrawn.
