Almost a film noir, this dark film tells the story of Celestine, a young girl (Paulette Goddard) who comes to work for a well to do family. The parents (Reginald Owen and Judith Anderson) have a son (Hurd Hatfield) who seems to be too ill to care about life or love and the mother wants Celestine to seduce her son and make him happy. Meanwhile, next door is a neighbor, Burgess Meredith, who is a bit looney yet lovable. He causes all sorts of raucus in his mischief and courts Celestine as well.

One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky. This appreciation of Tarkovsky made by his friend Chris Marker for the French television series ‘Cinema du Notre Temps’ is both an illuminating personal portrait and a poetic study of the Russian master’s films. Granted access to the set of ‘The Sacrifice’ Marker captured fascinating and insightful behind-the-scenes footage, including the editing process which the then gravely ill Tarkovsky conducted from his sickbed. Marker’s analysis of Tarkovsky’s work is brief but pertinent, using clips from all his films and noting common themes and techniques – the use of the elements in all his films, the significance of shooting angles and how they often incorporate art and painting.

The Sorrow and the Pity. From 1940 to 1944, France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival footage with 1969 interviews of a German officer and of collaborators and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature, details and reasons for the collaboration, from anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and fear of Bolsheviks, to simple caution. Part one, "The Collapse," includes an extended interview with Pierre Mendès-France, jailed for anti-Vichy action and later France's Prime Minister. At the heart of part two, "The Choice," is an interview with Christian de la Mazière, one of 7,000 French youth to fight on the eastern front wearing German uniforms.

In Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" war is viewed in terms of power. This mesmerizing, urgent film about a true episode in World War I combines the idea that class differences are more important than national differences with the cannon-fodder theory of war, the theory that soldiers are merely pawns in the hands of generals who play at war is if it were a game of chess.The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack.

This critically acclaimed moral drama is taken from a book written in 1760 by Denis Diderot. Suzanne (Anna Karina) is an intelligent, freedom-loving woman who is forced into a convent against her will. The fact that she was sired by a man who is not her mother's husband -- and that a suitable dowry cannot be paid for her -- brings her to the church. Suzanne endures continual harassment from one Mother Superior (Micheline Presle). Transferred to a different convent, she becomes subject to lesbian leanings from another Mother Superior (Liselotte Pulver), who flees with a priest (Francisco Rabal) who says he too was forced into a life of religion. The controversial subject matter caused the feature to be banned for two years, despite assurances to director Jacques Rivette by censors. The subsequent ban helped the film (shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966) gain more recognition. Rivette's cynical references to Catholicism as the ultimate theater enraged the Catholic Film Office, the agency that spearheaded the opposition to the film. "La religieuse" caused a big scandal when it was released in the mid-sixties.The Church insisted on calling the movie Suzanne Simonin ,la religieuse de Diderot.

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. After the death of the father of an upper-class family, his wife and daughter have to struggle to survive. Tensions arise when they moved in with a married son, so they continue to move around from one household to the next, but they are always unwelcomed. When her youngest son returns from work in Tianjin, he scolds his siblings for their selfishness. The first box-office hit for Ozu in Japan, "The Brothers And Sisters Of The Toda Family" anticipates the later masterpieces such as "Tokyo Story" and "The End Of Summer".

One Romanian newsman attempts to put his nation's revolution on the air after the fact in this satiric comedy from writer and director Corneliu Porumboiu. It's the sixteenth anniversary of the revolt that removed Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu from power in Romania, and Jderescu (Ion Sapdaru) is the host of a televised public affairs show who wants to do a special program on the revolution. Jderescu's idea is to bring on a handful of ordinary citizens to discuss their role in Ceausescu's overthrow and how their lives have changed since Communist rule was swept from Romania. However, Jderescu can only round up two guests for his broadcast -- elderly Piscoci (Mircea Andreescu), who's more interested in playing Santa Claus for the neighborhood kids than talking politics, and Manescu (Teo Corban), a schoolteacher nursing a brutal hangover. As Jderescu tries to lead a serious discussion of how Romania has changed since Ceausescu was driven from power, the conversation wanders off on a tangent about where the revolution actually took place, and the waters become even more muddied when Jderescu opens up the phone lines for questions from viewers, most of whom have their own distinct (and strongly conflicting) memories of the Revolution . . .

During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. Mother of Mine, the latest from the award-winning Klaus Haro (Elina), tackles that painful patch of history in a tale of 9-year-old Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish surrogate mom. When he is returned to Finland, his confusion intensifies.

If you want an introduction into the anarchic, surrealistic, bourgeois-baiting world of Luis Buñuel 'The Exterminating Angel' is the best place to start. The initial premise is simple, albeit puzzling - the guests at a dinner party mysteriously find themselves unable to leave their hosts house at the end of the evening. There's no logical reason why, they just can't. They are confused at first, but as the days go by and the food starts to run out, they become increasingly more desperate and turn on each other. Bunuel makes the most of the idea and creates a complex, multi-layered movie, packed with fascinating small details, intriguing dialogue and surprising situations, most of which is left up to the viewer to "explain".

Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse. Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a teacup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life — sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor.

Short Sharp Shock This film shows the life and fate of three young foreigners - Turk Gabriel, Greek Costa and Serb Bobby, all of them dreaming of love and money in the bleak surroundings of social welfare, crimes, industry, unemployment and cultural minorities. Of course it won't take long until the friendship of the three outsiders is about to break apart when Gabriel becomes a henchman for a local gangster boss, and a journey through violence and despair begins for all three of them...

The Great War stands as one of the essential films exemplifying the "commedia all'italiana" genre, that is, films which while being comedies often have a serious, even tragic undertone. Vittorio Gassman and Alberto Sordi play a couple of World War I soldiers, adept at sidestepping duty and responsibility, but courageous to the core when in a pinch.

Pixote: The Law of the Weakest. Pixote is the name of a chubby-cheeked 10-year-old runaway played by real-life slum kid Fernando Ramos da Silva. He's a natural, creating a childlike and vulnerable character left emotionally hardened and morally adrift by his brutal experiences. In an overcrowded São Paulo "reform school," a cross between a prison and an army barracks, he learns the hard facts of survival as he watches gangs prey on weaker kids, and the cops and guards abuse, beat, and even murder their charges. Pixote escapes and turns to street crime in Rio with a small gang, but his dreams of big money and a good life are dashed as they play at crime in a violent kill-or-be-killed world. Equal parts exposé and social drama, Pixote dramatizes the plight of millions of children who live on the streets or get ground up in the system that breeds hardened criminals from juvenile delinquents. Like Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados, one of Babenco's inspirations, this occasionally melodramatic portrait of poverty is shocking and affecting, but no more so than da Silva's own life story. After completing the film he sank back into poverty and crime, and died on the streets.

In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local city, while his brother-in-law Tobei wishes to become a samurai. Their village is sacked by the marauding armies, but Genjuro's kiln miraculously survives, and they and their wives head for the city. However, Genjuro soon sends his wife Miyagi back home, promising to return to her soon, and Tobei, in his keenness to follow the samurai, abandons his wife Ohama. Meanwhile, a wealthy noblewoman, the Lady Wakasa, shows an interest in Genjuro's pots, and invites him to her mansion.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour--a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko (played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine), who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern postwar Ginza district, who entertains businessmen after work. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs shows the largely unsung yet widely beloved master Naruse at his most socially exacting and profoundly emotional.