Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen

2009

Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent biopic chronicles the fascinating story of 12th-century Christian mystic and scientist Hildegard von Bingen (Barbara Sukowa). Despite living in an era when women are proscribed from preaching and interpreting scripture, Hildegard believes that the visions she experiences are a gift from God that she must reveal -- even at the risk of condemnation.

3.5 Average Rating

Take My Eyes

2005

Winner of seven Goya Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor and Actress, Iciar Bollain's raw drama exposes the hard truths about domestic abuse. With her son in tow, battered wife Pilar (Laia Marull) finally flees her violent husband, Antonio (Luis Tosar), taking asylum at her sister Ana's (Candela Peña) home. Free from the clutches of her abusive husband, Pilar struggles to start a new life; problem is, she still loves Antonio.

3.5 Average Rating

Inch' Allah Dimanche

2001

French-Algerian director Yamina Benguigi brings us the passionate story of an immigrant struggling against old world traditions. Zouina (Fjeria Deliba) leaves her homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where he's been living for the past 10 years. In a land and culture foreign to her, Zouina struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and her husband's distrustful bitterness as she adjusts to her life in exile.

3.5 Average Rating

Sequins

2004

After learning she's five months pregnant, 17-year-old Claire (Lola Naymark) leaves her former life behind to give birth in anonymity. An excellent embroiderer, Claire finds work with a professional in the business, Madame Melikian (Ariane Ascaride). Both women bear a heavy burden -- the Madame can't cope with her son's death, and Claire doesn't want to have a child. As they pour themselves into the work they love, the two develop a strong bond.

3.5 Average Rating

Silent Waters

2003

Religious extremism takes its toll on a small Pakistani village in this drama set in 1979. Now living under martial law, the widow Ayesha (Kiron Kher) struggles to adapt to Muslim rule. Her teen son Saleem (Aamir Malik) resists pressure from his girlfriend (Shilpa Shukla) to get a job and takes up with a group of Muslim fundamentalists. When Sikh pilgrim Jaswant (Navtej Johar) comes to town, Ayesha remembers long-forgotten secrets from her past.

3.5 Average Rating

The Countess

2009

Blaming her advancing age for a failed romance with a younger man, 16th-century Hungarian countess Erzebet Báthory begins murdering virgin girls and bathing in their blood, believing that the grim ritual will restore her youthful beauty.

3.4 Average Rating

Hop

2002

All young Justin and his father want to do is sit down and enjoy watching a soccer game together. When this simple act sparks a chain of events leading to Justin running from the law, the boy must now embark on a thrilling adventure to reunite with his father. In order to fight the system, however, he must enlist the help of a former anarchist, and together they'll need to apply the secret of the Hop.

3.4 Average Rating

Stander

2003

Disgusted by corruption within the force, South African cop Andre Stander begins robbing banks incognito and then investigating his own heists. He's soon caught and sent to jail, but he escapes and becomes a cult hero.

3.4 Average Rating

Caramel

2007

A Lebanese beauty salon is the setting for this romantic comedy about five women and the various troubles they face, with director Nadine Labaki leading the cast as the shop's owner, Layale, who's heartbroken from a foundering affair.

3.4 Average Rating

Peepli Live

2010

When indigent farmers Natha (Omkar Das) and Budhia (Raghuvir Yadav) stand to lose their land over a loan they can't repay, a government official comes up with a modest proposal: Commit suicide and collect a subsidy that's paid to the relatives of deceased farmers. As Natha weighs his options, a journalist learns of his predicament and the media circus begins. Anusha Rizvi directs this satirical take on a real-life crisis afflicting India's underclass.

3.4 Average Rating

Her Name Is Sabine

2007

French actress turned filmmaker Sandrine Bonnaire crafts a deeply personal portrait of her sister Sabine Bonnaire, a 38-year-old autistic woman, and examines the inadequacies of the health care system in this moving foreign-language documentary. After languishing for five years in a psychiatric hospital, Sabine was ultimately transferred to a home in the Charente region of France, where her innate talents blossomed and flourished.

3.3 Average Rating

Salt of This Sea

2008

Born in Brooklyn to Palestinian refugee parents, Soraya (Suheir Hammad) decides to journey to the country of her ancestry when she discovers that her grandfather's savings have been frozen in a Jaffa bank account since his 1948 exile. She soon finds, however, that her simple plan is a complicated undertaking -- and one that takes her farther from her comfort zone (both geographically and emotionally) than she'd imagined in this romantic drama.

3.3 Average Rating

Leaving

2009

Bored with her life of leisure, Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) decides to reestablish her career as a physiotherapist. But first, she'll need an office ... and that's where her troubles begin in this drama from Catherine Corsini. As soon as Suzanne meets the man her husband hired to construct her backyard office, she falls hard -- and the attraction is mutual ... and dangerous. Sergi López and Yvan Attal co-star.

3.3 Average Rating

Sweetgrass

2010

As much a work of cultural anthropology as it is a documentary, this unique film traces the path of a family of Montana sheepherders as they drive their flock down from the treacherous and beautiful Absaroka Beartooth mountain range.

3.2 Average Rating

The Man of My Life

2006

When Frédéric (Bernard Campan) and his family meet a gay man named Hugo (Charles Berling) while vacationing in the Provençal countryside, their lives are irrevocably changed, as the two men develop a strong yet unconventional friendship. Although Frédéric is happily married to his wife, Frédérique (Léa Drucker), his bond with Hugo challenges the strength of his marriage and ultimately inspires him to reevaluate his life.

3.2 Average Rating

The Vanished Empire

2008

Noted Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov offers this lyrical drama that follows rebellious 1970s-era Soviet university student Sergei (Aleksandr Lyapin), who literally trades his family's intellectual and ideological heritage for black-market loot from the West. But as Sergei loses himself in American clothes, music and ideas, he may also lose his beautiful lover, Lyuda (Lidiya Milyuzina), to his best comrade, Stepan (Yegor Baranovsky).

3.2 Average Rating