In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
A formal dinner party starts out normally enough, but after the bourgeois group retire to the host’s music room, they inexplicably find themselves unable to leave.
This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.
After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.
In 1930s Shanghai, 'The White Countess' is both Sofia, a fallen member of the exiled Russian aristocracy, and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.
Olga is a complex young woman desperate to break free from her unfeeling family and social conventions. With her Louise Brooks-like tomboyish looks she drags herself, chain-smoking, from one job to another until she appears to find her niche as a truck driver. Although she has female lovers she does not form a bond with any of them; instead she clashes, time and again, venting herself in wordless emotional outbursts and other behavioural extremes.
When Englishman Jonathan Harker visits the exotic castle of Count Dracula, he is entranced by the mysterious aristocrat. But upon learning that the count has sinister designs on his wife, Mina, Harker seeks help from vampire slayer Van Helsing.
At age 19, Stratos committed a crime of passion. He spent half his life in prison, where underground boss Leonidas took him under his wing. One day during a rival gang attack, Leonidas saved his life. Stratos never forgot this. A free man now, Stratos works the night shift at a bakery workshop, a far cry from the killing contracts he executes by day. He gives away all his money to spring Leonidas out of prison, funding an escape plan managed by Leo’s brother, Yorgos. The fulfillment of his debt is the only thing that matters to Stratos, everything else is indifferent and he lives detached, surrounded by ghosts and fallacies. The day of the escape, the most important day of his life, is near…
Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.
A very free adaptation of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", Goethe's "Faust" and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.
An adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare. Prospera (a female version of Shakespeare's Prospero) is the usurped ruler of Milan who has been banished to a mysterious island with her daughter. Using her magical powers, she draws her enemies to the island to exact her revenge.
A few days in the life of a Czechoslovak teenager when he starts work.
Eight space cargo-ships disappear without a trace within three days. And the orbit station "Margot" has suddenly fallen silent. The space council is faced with a mystery and the scientist in charge, Maria Scholl, sees no other solution than ordering a total flight stop to this mysterious sector of space. Her colleague, Prof. Tal seems to be suspicious since he knows things before they are even released. A forbidden look into his personal file brings to light that Tal was part of the Eolomea project that never found approval of the commission in charge.
Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next thirty-five years, she captured the “surfaces” of those who visited her studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.
Ex-army officer accidentally kills a woman's son, tries to make up for it by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Indian territory.
A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.
American Reflexxx is a short film documenting a social experiment that took place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Alli Coates filmed performance artist Signe Pierce as she strutted down a busy oceanside street in stripper garb and a reflective mask. The pair agreed not to communicate until the experiment was completed, but never anticipated the horror that would unfold in under an hour. The result is a heart wrenching technicolor spectacle that raises questions about gender stereotypes, mob mentality, and violence in America.
In a small Breton town, a 10-year-old girl is found murdered. René, her art teacher, a professional painter, is the last person to have seen her alive. The inspector in charge of the investigation immediately questions him. In this small provincial town where people all know each other and regularly meet at the Bar des Amis, René is increasingly unsettled by the other inhabitants' suspicions and by the inspector's investigation. Children stop coming to him for lessons. His wife, Viviane, a district nurse, protects him and supports him with her love. However, a self-centred media-star writer adds to René's confusion...
Filmed in one sequence-shot of 1 hour and 25 minutes, Ana Arabia is a moment in the life of a small community of outcasts, Jews and Arabs, who live together in a forgotten enclave at the “border” between Jaffa and Bat Yam, in Israel. One day, Yael, a young journalist, visits them. In these dilapidated shacks, in the orchard filled with lemon trees and surrounded by mass public houses, she discovers a range of characters far removed from the usual clichés offered by the region. Yael has the feeling of having discovered a human goldmine. She no longer thinks of her job. Faces and words of Youssef and Miriam, Sarah and Walid, of their neighbors, their friends tell her about life, its dreams and its hopes, its love affairs, desires and disillusions. Their relation to time is different than that of the city around them. In this tinkered and fragile place, there is a possibility of coexistence. A universal metaphor.
Two police pursuit drivers, a hothead rookie and his long-suffering, almost-retired mentor, face off against an escape car driver from the latter's past.
Fear and paranoia consume a middle-aged teacher as his grasp on reality deteriorates while overseeing detention.
When a psychotic Santa tries to destroy Chanukah by hypnotizing Jewish children with bootlegged copies of the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life," it's up to the Hebrew Hammer to save the day. Together with Mohammed, head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, the Hammer takes no prisoners in his quest to hunt down the renegade Santa and make the holiday season safe for all.
Set in Bratislava in the 1930s, about a clerk at a humanitarian foundation who is unjustly accused of embezzling a large sum of money.
Hubert de Tartas' life becomes a complete muddle when his wife's grandfather is unearthed after having spent 65 years in frozen hibernation in the polar circle. After being de-frosted, the Hibernating Man believes it is still the beginning of the century. Nothing is spared to keep that illusion alive. At the end of his rope, Hubert blurts out the truth and takes the man from Edwardian times on a crazy spree through an ultramodern Twentieth Century.
In this enchantingly cracked fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Buttercup and the dashing Westley must overcome staggering odds to find happiness amid six-fingered swordsmen, murderous princes, Sicilians and rodents of unusual size. But even death can't stop these true lovebirds from triumphing.
Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.
Larry Burrows is unhappy and feels powerless over his life. He believes his entire life could have turned out differently had he not missed that shot in a baseball game when was a kid. One night he meets this mysterious man, who could change his fate by offering him that alternative life he always dreamed of. But as Burrows embarks on this journey of self discovery he realises that even this new life has its problems and drawbacks..
Geeky teenager David and his popular twin sister, Jennifer, get sucked into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom called "Pleasantville," and find a world where everything is peachy keen all the time. But when Jennifer's modern attitude disrupts Pleasantville's peaceful but boring routine, she literally brings color into its life.
A faulty computer causes a passenger space shuttle to head straight for the sun, and man-with-a-past Ted Striker must save the day and get the shuttle back on track – again – all the while trying to patch up his relationship with Elaine.
A series of vignettes involving various Biblical characters, including 'The Divine Mr. J', the Virgin Mary, a lecherous priest, King Herod, among others.
The intersecting stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—connect to the music business in Nashville, Tennessee.
When a Harvard-educated CIA agent is killed during an operation, the secret agency recruits his twin brother.
A group of self-absorbed actors set out to make the most expensive war film ever. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys.
After losing the woman of his dreams, Anderson is convinced he'll never fall in love again. But at the urging of his best friend, he spontaneously proposes to a dissatisfied waitress named Katie and an innocent dare evolves into the kind of love that both have been looking for all along.
In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.
A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.
Margaret O'Halloran is a dog trainer with a unique talent and a nose for a mystery. Now an old lady has been savaged to death, her faithful dog is the prime suspect. But Margaret smells a murderer of the two legged variety.
The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, guided through the gloom by a ray of hope.
Heidi, star of the "Meet The Feebles Variety Hour" discovers her lover Bletch the Walrus is cheating on her. And with all the world waiting for the show, the assorted co-stars must contend with drug addiction, extortion, robbery, disease, drug dealing, and murder.
An array of outrageous people, including a desperate nymphomaniac and a terrorist with an acute sense of smell, seek love and happiness in Madrid.