Red Meat

1997

The Red Meat Club is a gathering of male friends who discuss macho topics over a steak after a trip to the spa. Stefan and Chris meet to partake in the masculine ritual and run into Victor, an old friend. Sitting in a restaurant, the three men regale each other with tales of their most lurid sexual experiences -- but Victor tops them all with a shocking story concerning a woman (Lara Flynn Boyle) with whom he had a relationship as she was dying.

2.3 Average Rating

The Shoe

1998

Set in the 1950s and shot in black-and-white, Laila Pakalnina's clever take on the Cinderella fairy tale begins on the coast of Latvia, where Soviet patrolmen comb the shore for any evidence that spies have infiltrated the Russian border. When three guards discover a woman's shoe on the shore and footsteps leading toward a small village, they're ordered to find the owner of the slipper. Igor Buraks, Vadims Grossmans and Jaan Tatte star.

2.3 Average Rating

In Passing

2006

With New York City as a backdrop, actress Vanessa Kelly (Veronica Mittenzwei) and playwright Julia Garrison (Lisa Rothe) fall in love in this tender lesbian romance that faces a singular set of challenges. Being a couple proves complicated as Vanessa and Julia open their hearts, becoming more involved and more vulnerable -- and when one of the women violates the other's hard-earned trust, their relationship lands on the rocks.

2.3 Average Rating

Half-Life

2008

Growing up is tough for Timothy (Alexander Agate) and Pamela (Sanoe Lake). Global catastrophes abound and their self-destructive mother (Julia Nickson-Soul) stays with a manipulative boyfriend who doesn't love her. Fortunately, their active imaginations help them cope. Combining live action and animated flights of fancy, Jennifer Phang wrote and directed this dreamlike official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

2.3 Average Rating

Temps

1999

Maria Burton directs this independent comic drama about five postcollege pals who struggle to reconcile their dreams and ambitions for the future with the need to bring home a regular paycheck right now. As some use temp jobs to buy time while they pursue their art, others see their positions as the first rung on the corporate ladder. The ensemble cast includes Gabrielle Burton, Robert Pemberton, Katrina Stevens, Tim Bohn and Ursula Burton.

2.2 Average Rating

The Departure

1991

A young girl of German ancestry (Halina Winiarska) who's spent most of her life living in Poland's Mazurian Lake District does her best to talk her homesick mother (Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska) out of returning to their native land. All the while, their connections to the birthplace of Hitler create tension in their small community. Henryk Bista, Maria Ciunelis, Krzysztof Janczar and Grazyna Jedras co-star.

2.2 Average Rating

Solitude

2005

A woman finds herself caught in the middle of a twisted sibling rivalry in this indie drama from directors Pi Ware and Susan Kraker. Artist Soledad (Ronne Orenna) gets more than she bargained for when she and her partner, Hilary (Mary Thornton), make a pit stop at the home of Hilary's brother, Louis (Patrick Belton), during a road trip. Hilary and Louis soon start bickering and end up in an all-out war as they stir memories of their sordid past.

2.2 Average Rating

The Future of Emily

1985

When popular movie star Isabelle (Brigitte Fossey) returns home to visit her parents and daughter, family secrets and accusations emerge. The night is made even more complex when Friedrich (Hermann Treusch), Isabelle's love-struck co-star, arrives. Writer-director Helma Sanders-Brahms crafts a poignant, often painful look at the relationship between three generations of strong women in this German production.

2.2 Average Rating

Secret Shorts

2005

This collection of eight well-crafted shorts from indie filmmakers in America, Britain and Australia features Oscar nominee Melissa Leo as a troubled woman who has a fateful meeting with a mysterious hitchhiker in "No Shoulder." Leo also appears in "Dear Lemon Lima," a tale about love and broken hearts. Other titles in the anthology include "Birth," in which a lab worker is confronted with a clone, and "La même nuit," about an observant concierge.

2.2 Average Rating

Tokyo Cowboy

1994

Obsessed with living in the kind of Wild West depicted in his favorite movies, wannabe cowboy No Ogawa (Hiromoto Ida) quits his dead-end job in Tokyo and heads to Canada to meet his childhood pen pal, Kate (Christianne Hirt). Unfortunately for No, Kate has no intention of being his cowgirl, and soon, the endearing "Tokyo Cowboy" is forced to find his way alone on the dusty prairies of the Great White North.

2.2 Average Rating

Lime Salted Love

2006

After engaging in an affair with his brother's lonely wife, Isabella (Kate del Castillo), affection-hungry hipster Chase (Joe Hall) becomes entangled in a confusing love triangle with emotionally damaged Ellie (Danielle Agnello) and sexually aggressive Zephyr (Kristanna Loken). Set in Los Angeles, this surreal drama employs an intriguing nonlinear structure and explores such themes as abandonment, guilt and pain.

2.2 Average Rating

Tarantella

1995

Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino plays photographer Diane Di Sorella in this poignant homecoming story. When her mother dies suddenly, Diane must return to her New Jersey home after years of being estranged from her family. Among her Italian-American neighbors, Diane connects with her heritage. When she reads the journal her mother (Maryann Urbano) kept as a young woman, Diane finally begins to understand her own relationship with her mother.heritage.

2.2 Average Rating

Whatever It Takes

2008

Desperate to trade their painful lives for a fresh start in America, two Russian women (Lika Levskaya and Elena Carnicki) leave everything behind but find that there are still problems waiting for them in their adopted country. Each starts out by trying to navigate her strange and unfamiliar world alone, but ultimately, they find strength in each other. Levskaya and Carnicki also write and direct this drama, which contains graphic sexual content.

2.2 Average Rating

The Early Works of Cheryl Dunye

1990

The endearing, provocative wit of filmmaker Cheryl Dunye is on full display in this collection of early works that preceded her breakout first feature, Watermelon Woman. The short films featured here -- the lesbian dating odyssey "Greetings from America," "The Potluck and the Passion," "An Untitled Portrait," "Vanilla Sex," "She Don't Fade" and "Janine" -- uniquely blend narrative and documentary techniques with entertaining results.

2.2 Average Rating

Scrubbers

1983

Two girls escape a detention center: Annetta wants to visit her baby daughter, and Carol wants to be recaptured and sent to the prison where her girlfriend is an inmate. But things don't quite work out as planned.

2.2 Average Rating

Come Along with Me

1982

When her husband dies, Mabel Lederer (Estelle Parsons) sells all her possessions, changes her name and begins a brand-new life in a distant town, where she begins strange experiments with the occult. Oscar winner Paul Newman provides the voice of Mabel's late husband, Hughie, in this made-for-television drama based on Shirley Jackson's unfinished novel and marking the directorial debut of Newman's wife, Oscar winner Joanne Woodward.

2.2 Average Rating