May's Top 30 Films

May's Top 30 Films

Check out the top 30 films most watched and well-liked on OVID last month!

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May's Top 30 Films
  • Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989

    Movie

    Directed by Göran Hugo Olsson • Documentary • 2025 • 206 minutes

    Television broadcasting debuted in Sweden in 1957. And Swedish public broadcaster SVT began covering Israel and Palestine almost from day one.

    In ISRAEL PALESTINE ON SWEDISH TV 1958-1989, filmmaker GĂśran Hugo Olsson (The Black Pow...

  • Only the River Flows

    Movie

    Directed by Wei Shujun • Drama • With Zhu Yilong • 2023 • 112 minutes

    When a woman’s body is discovered on the banks of a river near a small town in southern China, it’s up to police investigator Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong), working out of an abandoned cinema, to find the killer—but what at first appear...

  • Prague Nights

    Movie

    Directed by Miloš Makovec, Evald Schorm, Jiří Brdečka • Drama • 1969 • 100 minutes

    The long-lost Sixties Czech occult horror anthology film Prague Nights is filled with magic, giant golems and satanic visitors. In the vein of horror anthologies like Bava’s Black Sabbath, this long-unseen gem is ...

  • Christopher Nolan Presents: Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hourglass

    Movie

    Directed by Quay Brothers • Animation • 2024 • 76 minutes

    A ghostly train journey on a forgotten branch line transports a son, Jozef, visiting his dying father in a remote Galician Sanatorium. Upon arrival, Jozef finds the Sanatorium entirely moribund and run by a dubious Doctor Gotard, who tell...

  • Love & Diane

    Directed by Jennifer Dworkin • Documentary • 2003 • 155 minutes

    Jennifer Dworkin’s groundbreaking documentary LOVE & DIANE presents a searingly honest and moving examination of poverty, welfare and drug rehabilitation in the United States today. Filmed in New York City over a five-year period, D...

  • Berkeley in the Sixties

    Directed by Mark Kitchell • Documentary • With Ronald Reagan, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mario Savio, Huey Newton, Allen Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix • 1990 • 117 minutes

    Berkeley in the Sixties recaptures the exhilaration and turmoil of the unprecedented student protests that sha...

  • Maborosi (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

    Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda • Drama • With Makiko Esumi, Tadanobu Asano • 1995 • 110 minutes

    One of the finest films of Japanese cinema, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first feature film Maborosi is a story of love, loss, and ultimately, regeneration.

    Haunted by the mysterious loss of her grandmother m...

  • The Mohican

    Movie

    Joseph (Alexis Manenti) is the last shepherd on the island still grazing his goats on clifftop pastures overlooking the sea. But his land—passed down through generations—is coveted by the mafia and the forces of unchecked greed.

    When a group of menacing strangers arrives at his door to pressure ...

  • We Loved Each Other So Much

    Directed by Jack Janssen • Documentary • 2004 • 80 minutes

    For half a century, the Lebanese singer Fairuz has been a living legend in the Arab world. Her home is Beirut, once a thriving seaport known as "the Paris of the Middle East," and a haven for those fleeing religious or ethnic persecution...

  • 12 Days

    Directed by Raymond Depardon • Documentary • 2017 • 87 minutes

    Every year in France, 92,000 people are placed under psychiatric care without their consent. 12 DAYS focuses on those who have been involuntarily remanded to a mental hospital, and more specifically documents the hearings that, accor...

  • The Golden Fern

    Movie

    Czech director Jiří Weiss's breathtaking B&W fairy tale is one of the most unjustly neglected treasures of 1960s fantasy filmmaking with overtones of Cocteau's BEAUTY & THE BEAST.  A handsome young shepherd (VĂ­t Olmer) stumbles across a magical golden fern in the forest. A stunning forest fairy (...

  • Genesis 2.0

    Movie

    On the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, hunters searching for tusks of extinct mammoths discover a surprisingly well-preserved mammoth carcass. Resurrecting the woolly mammoth is a first manifestation of the next great technological revolution - genetics. Werner Herzog meets Juras...

  • The Perfect Meal, Episode 1: A Mediterranean Discovery

    Directed by Alexandros Merkouris • Documentary • 2023 • 26 minutes

    Upcoming London cook Marianna Leivaditaki returns to her homeland in Chania, Crete, reconnecting with her family and seeking inspiration for her new menu. “People are always looking for the next best diet and the superfoods that ...

  • Initials S.G.

    Directed by Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia • Drama • With Diego Peretti, Julianne Nicholson • 2019 • 98 minutes

    Down on his luck, an aging Serge Gainsbourg wannabe struggles with an acting career he can't seem to get on track, an affair he doesn't want, and a crime he didn't mean to commit.

    "Peret...

  • The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians

    Movie

    A unique and almost indescribable mix of Gothic fiction, steampunk gadgetry (designed by Czech animation wizard Jan Švankmajer), slapstick comedy and romantic opera, director Oldřich Lipský's wonderfully bonkers mystery has elements of Terry Gilliam, Mel Brooks and "The Benny Hill Show." Based on...

  • Blum: Masters of Their Own Destiny

    Directed by Jasmila Žbanić • Documentary • 2024 • 76 minutes

    After the Second World War, in devastated, rural Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country of illiterate people, the entrepreneur Emerik Blum created a large and successful global company, "Energoinvest," that operated worldwide with a billion...

  • Far Out: life on & after the commune

    Directed by Charles Light • Documentary • 2024 • 85 minutes

    Far Out: Life On & After the Commune tells the story of two rural New England communal farms. The film traces fifty years in the lives of a group of New England writers, activists and artists. It conveys not only how these “hippies” tra...

  • Anxious in Beirut

    Directed by Zakaria Jaber • Documentary • 2023 • 93 minutes

    This documentary serves as Zakaria Jaber’s personal diary, capturing moments of revolution, destruction, and protest in Lebanon. Living with constant anxiety, Zakaria narrates his own life as a series of unfortunate events prevents him ...

  • Personale

    Movie

    PERSONALE is set at a four-star hotel in northeastern Italy — a luxurious spot in the Dolomite Mountains, where guests come to ski, swim, and relax. But instead of the scenery, the film focuses on the unseen: the housekeeping staff who are at the bottom of the hotel hierarchy, and whose work is a...

  • Gaadi - Children Of The Sun

    Movie

    From Prasanna Vithanage, one of Sri Lanka's most acclaimed directors, comes this sweeping historical drama of a Sinhala noble woman (Dinara Punchihewa) forced to choose between suicide or marriage to a low-caste outcast (Sri Lankan star Sajitha Anuththara) -- the two opposites are forced to depen...

  • Silverlake Life

    Directed by Tom Joslin, Peter Friedman • Documentary • With Tom Joslin, Mark Massi • 1993 • 99 minutes

    Independent Filmmaker Tom Joslin and his longtime lover Mark Massi battle AIDS in the days before effective medication existed. Silverlake Life debuted in 1993 — a time when demonizing queerne...

  • A Crack in the Mountain

    Directed by Alastair Evans • Documentary • 2022 • 99 minutes

    Deep in the jungle of Central Vietnam, lies a magnificent underground kingdom. Hang Son Ðoòng which translates as “mountain river cave”, is located in the Phong Nha-Ke Bàng National Park in Quang Bình Province. It is the largest cave p...

  • The Devil's Bride

    Movie

    In the early 1970s, behind the Iron Curtain, Lithuanian director Arōnas Žebriōnas created one of the wildest rock operas of the decade. A mash-up of TOMMY, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and THE WICKER MAN filled with ecstatic hippie orgies in heaven, legions of female demons on hors...

  • The Films of Maya Deren: Experimental Films 1943-1959

    Directed by Maya Deren • Documentary • 1959 • 76 minutes

    Maya Deren's fascinating and beautiful films are masterpieces of their era and provide an important insight into the history of the avant-garde. MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943, 14 minutes), AT LAND (1944, 14 minutes, Silent), A STUDY IN CHO...