Image from Yojimbo from giphy.com at http://gph.is/2uHnIaK
Black Coal, Thin Ice
An ex cop and his ex partner decide to follow up on investigation of a series of murders that ended their careers and shamed them, when identical murders begin again.
Branded to Kill / Koroshi no rakuin
A gangster story about a hitman who lost his last target, and now another hitman is after him.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Two master warriors track the mysterious and highly skilled thief of the legendary sword Green Destiny who they suspect is hiding in the governor's household, while the governor's beautiful daughter, who is keeping secrets of her own, fights against her coming marriage as she admires the freedom of the wudan masters.
Kaidan/ Kwaidan
Consists of four stories of the supernatural based on Japanese folk material. In The black hair, a poor young samurai leaves his first wife to marry a rich woman. When he is unhappy in his second marriage, he returns to his first wife, who at first appears unchanged from when he last saw her. In The woman of the snow, a woodcutter is spared by a mysterious ghost-like woman in the snow, but must promise never to tell anyone what he has seen. In Hoichi, the earless, a blind musician-monk named Hoichi is commanded by a gathering of ghosts to sing the saga of their ancient deeds. The head monk paints Hoichi's body with prayer verses to protect him, but unfortunately overlooks Hoichi's ears. In In a cup of tea, a writer wonders what would happen to a person who drinks another's soul and finds out.
Oldboy/ Oldeuboi!
After being kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, Daesu is released and sets out to find his abductors.
Pale Flower
In this cool, seductive jewel of the Japanese New Wave, a yakuza, fresh out of prison, becomes entangled with a beautiful yet enigmatic gambling addict. What at first seems a redemptive relationship ends up leading him further down the criminal path.
Parasite / Kisaengch'ung / 기생충
Kim Ki-teak's family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family's luck changes. One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park's home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle.
Tampopo
The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe.
Tokyo Story
A self-centered couple is inconvenienced by a parental visit. When the mother falls ill, her children hasten to be with her.
Tsubaki Sanjūrō
A group of young men set out to clean up the corruption in their town. They are joined by a scruffy, cynical samurai who doesn't fit their concept of how a warrior should look and act.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
A unique tale of a man embracing life's greatest mystery. Choosing to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside, Boonmee is visited by his dead wife as a ghost, and his lost son as a strange hairy beast with red glowing eyes. They've come to guide him to his final resting place, a cave where his first soul began. With a wry sense of humor and a humanist spirit, it's a magical tale of reincarnation, karma, and nature.
Yojimbo
"To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, the wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage."--Container.
Image from A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/film-a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-ana-lily-amiour-DtN1uKSucxxsY
24 Frames
In his final film, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami created a dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and his work as a photographer. A sustained meditation on the process of image making, 24 frames is a graceful and elegiac farewell from one of the giants of world cinema.
The Big City
Set in mid-1950s Calcutta and directed by Satyajit Ray, this story follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati, who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family. With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working-class life, Ray gradually builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the contemporary Indian woman.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The first Iranian Vampire Western ever made. A joyful mash up of genre, archetype, and iconography, its prolific influences span spaghetti westerns, graphic novels, horror films and the Iranian New Wave.
The Hero
A matinee idol Arindam Mukherjee is going by train to collect an acting award. On the train, he is confronted by a journalist Aditi who somewhat unwillingly starts to take his interview. Arindam, won over by Aditi's naivete, starts to disclose his past, his fears and his secrets.
The Music Room
Director Satyajit Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat desperately clinging to his way of life. His greatest joy is the music room in which he has hosted lavish concerts over the years, now a shadow of its former vivid self. An incandescent depiction of the clash between tradition and modernity, and a showcase for some of India's most popular musicians of the day, The Music Room is a defining work by the great Bengali filmmaker.
A River Called Titas
The Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak's stunningly beautiful, elegiac saga concerns the tumultuous lives of people in fishing villages along the banks of the Titas River in pre-partition East Bengal. Focusing on the tragic intertwining fates of a series of fascinating characters - in particular, the poignant story of an entire community's vanishing way of life.
Taste of Cherry
The first Iranian film to win the Palme d'Or, this austere, humanist drama by Abbas Kiarostami raises complex questions about mortality and individual choice and challenges the viewer to consider what often goes unexamined in everyday life.
Taxi
Jafar Panahi drives a yellow cab through the vibrant streets of Tehran, picking up a diverse group of passengers in a single day. Each man, woman, and child candidly expresses his or her own view of the world while being interviewed by the curious and gracious driver.
The Wind Will Carry Us
When an engineer and his colleagues from Tehran arrive in a remote village in Iranian Kurdistan, the locals assume they are archaeologists or telecom engineers. Even though they form an ambivalent relationship with the community, the visitors' behavior and keen interest in the health of an ailing old woman appear strange, and their true motives are shrouded in mystery.
Image from Tampopo from filmlinc.orgat https://www.filmlinc.org/films/tampopo/
Image from Black Coal, Thin Ice from thecinemaspacecake.wordpress.com at https://thecinemaspacecake.wordpress.com/tag/black-coal-thin-ice/
Image from Parasite from twitter.com at https://twitter.com/lostinfilm/status/1211444987721928704
Image from Oldboy from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/arrowvideo-movie-film-oldboy-L331Yd0FFfYvHklzvy
.jpg?bwg=1547240709)
Image from Oldboy from /film-grab.com at https://film-grab.com/2014/02/28/oldboy/#bwg1254/77816
The Ascent
The crowning triumph of a career cut tragically short, Larisa Shepitko's final film won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and went on to be hailed as one of the finest works of late-Soviet cinema. In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard-swept landscape of Nazi-occupied Belarus.
Ballad of a Soldier
A soldier-boy earns a ten-day leave to go home to his mother by performing a desperate act of bravery at the front. On the way home he has many small adventures.
The Cranes are Flying
https://mysapl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S172C571394
Dersu Urzula
Tells of the friendship between Vladimir Arsenyev, a well-known Soviet explorer, and his guide, Dersu Uzala. It is the story of a man's unity with nature and of the struggle for survival in the wilderness.
Revenge
A child raised in Korea to avenge the death of his father's first child in this decades-spanning tale of obsession and violence.
Russian Ark
A modern filmmaker magically finds himself transported to the 18th century where he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history. The first feature film ever created in a single take.
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
Based on a famous fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin, THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN is one of director Aleksandr Ptushko's most sublime creations: a ravishingly beautiful fantasy about love, magic, betrayal, and abandoned family.
War and Peace
A titanic, awe-inspiring adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic tome in which the fates of three souls: the blundering, good-hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha, collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. Employing a cast of thousands and an array of innovative camera techniques, the director conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and breathtaking battles that overwhelm with their expressionistic power.
Zoology
An unmarried middle-aged Russian woman's life suddenly changes when she unexpectedly grows a tail.
Image from War and Peace (1966) from https://cinesavant.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/6030d.jpg
