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Staff Picks

Staff Picks

Newly updated! Favorites from the staff at OVID.

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Staff Picks
  • A Real Job (w/ Adèle Exarchopoulos & Vincent Lacoste)

    Directed by Thomas Lilti • Drama • With Vincent Lacoste, François Cluzet, Adèle Exarchopoulos • 2024 • 102 minutes

    In A Real Job, director Thomas Lilti (Hippocrates, The Freshman) turns his humanistic eye to an overlooked subject: the personal and professional lives of school teachers. Lacking s...

  • Lyd

    Directed by Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland • Documentary • 2024 • 79 minutes

    The film Lyd (the Arabic name of Lod, a city now in Israel) is about a 5,000-year-old bustling Palestinian town that was taken over when Israel was established in 1948. An exploration of what it once was, and what ...

  • Terrorists in Retirement

    Directed by Mosco Boucault • Documentary • 1983 • 71 minutes

    Too controversial to be shown on French TV when first released – after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1983 – TERRORISTS IN RETIREMENT is the story of men and women from Armenia, Poland, and Romania, mostly Jews, who fough...

  • Before Summer Ends

    Directed by Maryam Goormaghtigh • Documentary • 2017 • 80 minutes

    After five years of studying in Paris, Arash is fed up with France. Haunted by feelings of unhappiness and despair, the sensitive Iranian student firmly believes that the French are a breed of their own. His friends Hossein and As...

  • El Mar La Mar

    Directed by Joshua Bonnetta & J.P. Sniadecki • Documentary • 2017 • 94 minutes

    An immersive and enthralling journey through the Sonoran Desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, EL MAR LA MAR weaves together harrowing oral histories from the area with hand-processed 16mm images of flora, fauna and items...

  • La Moustache

    Directed by Emmanuel Carrère • Drama • With Vincent Lindon, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric • 2005 • 86 minutes

    Marc Thiriez (Vincent Lindon) is an architect who's worn a mustache for many years. Now approaching middle age, he decides to shave it off, naturally expecting others to notice. But ...

  • In the Aisles (w/ Franz Rogowski & Sandra Huller)

    Directed by Thomas Stuber • Drama • With Franz Rogowski, Sandra Huller • 2018 • 125 minutes

    When the reclusive Christian (Franz Rogowski, TRANSIT) takes a job working the night shift at a big box store, his new manager, Bruno from the Beverage Department (Peter Kurth, BABYLON BERLIN), teaches hi...

  • The Hole

    Directed by Tsai Ming-liang • Drama • With Lee Kang-Sheng; Yang Kuei-Mei • 1998 • 89 minutes

    Set just prior to the start of the 21st century, this vaguely futuristic story follows two residents of a quickly crumbling building who refuse to leave their homes in spite of a virus that has forced th...

  • The Wolf House

    Directed by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña • Animation • 2018 • 72 minutes

    Maria, a young woman finds refuge in a house in the south of Chile after escaping from a sect of German religious fanatics. She is welcomed into the home by two pigs, the only inhabitants of the place. Like in a dream,...

  • Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune

    Directed by Kenneth Bowser • Documentary • With Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Tom Hayden, Christopher Hitchens, Sean Penn, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow • 2010 • 97 minutes

    As our country continues to embroil itself in foreign wars, PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE is a timely and relevant tribute to an u...

  • Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

    Directed by Kevin Rafferty • Documentary • With Vic Gatto, Brian Dowling , Tommy Lee Jones
    • 2008 • 105 minutes

    An incredible true story that unfolds like "a ripping good yarn... with an uproarious, impossible Hollywood ending" (Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com), Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 is filmmaker...

  • Bob’s Birthday

    Directed by David Fine and Alison Snowdon • Animation • 1993 • 12 minutes

    Surprise birthday parties can be risky. Especially when the guest of honour is turning 40! When Margaret plans a celebration for her husband, Bob, she underestimates the sudden impact of middle age on his mood. A witty, of...

  • Milestones

    Directed by Robert Kramer and John Douglas • Documentary • 1975 • 195 minutes

    MILESTONES is a lilting, free-associative masterpiece that follows dozens of characters — including hippies, farmers, immigrants, Native Americans, and political activists — as they try to reconcile their ideals with t...

  • The First Year

    Directed by Patricio Guzmán • Documentary • 2023 • 96 minutes

    THE FIRST YEAR is a jubilant record of the 12 months following the election of Chile’s first socialist president, Salvador Allende. Director Patricio Guzmán travels the country, meeting workers who no longer have to answer to the capr...

  • When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism

    Directed by Corneliu Porumboiu • Drama • With Diana Avramut • 2014 • 89 minutes

    A director asks his actress whether she’s comfortable doing a nude scene. As long as its justified, she says. Don’t worry, he replies. So begins Corneliu Porumboiu’s deliciously witty new film. Shot inside non-descri...

  • Heimat is a Space in Time

    Directed by Thomas Heise • Documentary • 2019 • 218 minutes

    In HEIMAT IS A SPACE IN TIME, German filmmaker Thomas Heise shares the stories of three generations of his family, in their own words.

    Heise sets the tone early, reading an anti-war essay written in 1912 by his grandfather Wilhelm, whe...

  • Leila

    Directed by Dariush Mehrjui • Drama • With Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa • 1999 • 125 minutes

    Reza and Leila, an attractive and affluent young couple deeply in love and recently married, discover that Leila is unable to conceive. Invoking tradition, Reza's mother convinces her daughter-in-law that R...

  • After Blue (Dirty Paradise)

    Directed by Bertrand Mandico • Drama • With Elina Löwensohn, Paula Luna • 2021 • 129 minutes

    In a faraway future, on a wild and untamed female inhabited planet called After Blue, a lonely teenager named Roxy (Paula Luna) unknowingly releases a mystical, dangerous, and sensual assassin from her p...

  • The Gays

    Directed by Wayne Koestenbaum • Documentary • With Wayne Koestenbaum • 2022 • 13 minutes

    This film is a flashy document of an improvised monologue by Koestenbaum’s alter ego, October Castelnuovo Spielhaus, who tragi-comically inveighs against the studio system and other passé networks of power. ...

  • Jai Bhim Comrade

    Directed by Anand Patwardhan • Documentary • 2012 • 168 minutes

    For thousands of years India’s Dalits were abhorred as “untouchables,” denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and fought for the emancipation of his people. He ...

  • Death by Design: Where Parallel Worlds Meet

    Directed by Peter Friedman, JF Brunet • Documentary • With Martin Raff, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Robert Horvitz, Pierre Golstein, Polly Matzinger, Klaus-Michael Debatin • 1995 • 70 minutes

    There exists a world where death creates life, where suicides without sadness occur billions of times an hour,...

  • Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise

    Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Sun Ra and his Arkestra • 1980 • 59 minutes

    Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poet...

  • Spare Keys

    Directed by Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan • Drama • With Céleste Brunnquell, Quentin Dolmaire • 2023 • 108 minutes

    In Nancy, situated in eastern France, 15-year-old Sophie (Céleste Brunnquell) yearns to break free from her dysfunctional family. After one argument too many, she seizes an oppor...

  • The Emoji Story

    Directed by Martha Shane, Ian Cheney • Documentary • 2021 • 79 minutes

    The rapid rise of emoji (Japanese for 'picture character') is a global phenomenon without precedent. Their widespread use and ability to convey complex messages have not only cemented emoji's place as an emerging digital lang...