Best by Month - 2023-2027 - First Views & Re-Views

1955 film by Mikio Naruse

1962 film by Yuzo Kawashima

1962 film by Michelangelo Antonioni

With the strange disappearance of Laura, two colleagues, her older boyfriend, Rafael, and Ezequiel, learn of their recent discoveries, which may help them locate her. However, the story is bigger and stranger than they could imagine.

As its title indicates, La Mort du Cygne is set in the special world of the ballet. Young dance student Rose Souris idolizes her teacher-role-model Mademoiselle Beaupré, and will do anything to help Mademoiselle Beaupré further herself. Thus, when rival ballerina Nathalie Karine lands a much-coveted role, Rose arranges an accident causing Nathalie to break her leg. The girl comes to regret her rash behavior when it appears as though Nathalie will never dance again.

From 1972 until 1974, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan, along with a Chinese film crew, documented the last days of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of an era. The vast amount of footage they shot was edited into 14 films of varying lengths. Focusing on ordinary people spread over a wide geographic area—many of whom were living and working in collectives—the filmmakers recorded a unique moment in history, and also captured some of the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture.

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

Zorns Lemma is a 1970 American structuralist film by Hollis Frampton. It is named after Zorn's lemma (also known as the Kuratowski–Zorn lemma), a proposition of set theory formulated by mathematician Max Zorn in 1935. Zorns Lemma is prefaced with a reading from an early grammar textbook. The remainder of the film, largely silent, shows the viewer an evolving 24-part "alphabet" (where i & j and u & v are interchanged) which is cycled through, replaced and expanded upon. The film's conclusion shows a man, woman and dog walking through snow as several voices read passages from On Light, or the Ingression of Forms by Robert Grosseteste.

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.

1974 film by Shūji Terayama

The epic saga continues as Luke Skywalker, in hopes of defeating the evil Galactic Empire, learns the ways of the Jedi from aging master Yoda. But Darth Vader is more determined than ever to capture Luke. Meanwhile, rebel leader Princess Leia, cocky Han Solo, Chewbacca, and droids C-3PO and R2-D2 are thrown into various stages of capture, betrayal and despair.

Heimat 号称是 People’s history of Germany，现代德国的史诗，Edgar Reitz自编自导。第一部 Heimat (A German Chronicle) 1984年播出，11集，全长16小时；第二部 Heimat (The Second Heimat: Chronicle of a Generation) 1994年播出13集，全长 26小时。第三部 Heimat (A Chronicle of The Endings and Beginnings) 2004 年播出，6集全长约700分钟。

1961 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

Madeleine, rendered mute after being sexually assaulted as a youth, accepts a lift from a wealthy and sadistic pimp who soon enslaves her into his prostitution racket. Despite her limited means, Madeleine embarks on a bloody road to revenge against her captors.

A group of five young friends face a nightmare of torment at the hands of a depraved Texas clan.