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Staff Picks

Staff Picks

The OVID staff picks their favorite films.

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Staff Picks
  • The Embassy

    Directed by Chris Marker • Drama • 1973 • 21 minutes

    One of Chris Marker's few fiction films, THE EMBASSY shows political dissidents seeking refuge in a foreign embassy after a military coup d'état in an unidentified country. Over the next few days, more and more people fleeing the military assa...

  • Searching For Gerda Taro

    Directed by Camille Ménager • Documentary • 2021 • 58 minutes

    SEARCHING FOR GERDA TARO celebrates the life and work of Taro — a charismatic Jewish refugee from Germany, an anti-fascist, and a trailblazing photographer whose work would be forgotten for decades.

    In 1935, Taro (then going by her b...

  • Lourdes

    Directed by Thierry Demaizière & Alban Teurlai • Documentary • 2021 • 92 minutes

    Lourdes is a beautiful mountainous village in the foothills of the French Pyrenees that went from a sleepy scenic town to a sacred wonder in 1858, when a 14-year-old peasant girl claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary...

  • 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...

  • Propaganda: The Manufacture of Consent

    Directed by Jimmy Leipold • Documentary • With Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Stuart Ewen, David Miller • 2020 • 53 minutes

    In 1916, Woodrow Wilson ran on a platform strongly opposing US entry into WWI. But just a few months after taking office, the United States declared war on Germany. Soon after...

  • 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...

  • National Diploma

    Directed by Dieudo Hamadi • Documentary • 2014 • 92 minutes

    NATIONAL DIPLOMA follows a group of Congolese high-school students about to take the state exam in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dieudo Hamadi's documentary closely follows them as they prepare for the test, from the benches of the ...

  • Tell Them Anything You Want (with Maurice Sendak)

    Directed by Lance Bangs, Spike Jonze • Documentary • With Maurice Sendak • 2009 • 39 minutes

    From Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze, acclaimed director of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, comes A PORTRAIT OF MAURICE SENDAK, a loving look at one of the most cherished and controversial figures in children's l...

  • Murder in the Cathedral

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by George Hoellering • Drama • 1952 • 114 minutes • British Film Institute

    George Hoellering’s powerful adaptation of T.S. Eliot's classic verse drama is a stark and highly atypical example of British historical cinema. Little-seen despite winning a top prize at the Venice Film Festival...

  • Los Sures

    Directed by Diego Echeverria • Documentary • 1984 • 57 minutes

    Diego Echeverria’s LOS SURES probes the residents of the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, pre-gentrification. Poverty, drugs, gang violence, crime, abandoned real estate, racial
    tension, single-parent homes, and inadequate local ...

  • White Balls on Walls

    Directed by Sarah Vos • Documentary • 2023 • 90 minutes

    The slogan “Meet the Icons of Modern Art” needs to be scraped off the glass wall of the Stedelijk, Amsterdam’s Museum of Modern Art. Because precisely who these icons of modern art are is very much the question.

    Who gets to decide? And who...

  • Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

    Directed by Tamra Davis • Documentary • With Jean-Michel Basquiat • 2010 • 88 minutes

    Centered on a rare interview that director and friend Tamra Davis shot with Jean-Michel Basquiat more than 20 years ago, this film chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of the young artist. In the crime-ridden ...

  • Expedition Content

    Directed by Ernst Karel & Veronika Kusumaryati • Documentary • 2020 • 78 minutes

    Note: For best viewing results, please manually adjust the streaming quality to 720p or higher.

    An immersive marvel of sonic ethnography, Expedition Content draws on audio recordings made by recent college graduate...

  • Matter Out of Place

    Directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter • Documentary • 2023 • 105 minutes

    Waste on the shores, waste on the mountains. On ocean floors and deep down in the earth. The term “matter out of place” refers to objects in a place they originally do not belong to. And there are many such objects in the places ...

  • Meru

    Directed by Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi • Documentary • With Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk, Jon Krakauer • 2015 • 90 minutes

    In the high-stakes pursuit of big-wall climbing, the Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru may be the ultimate prize. Sitting 21,000 feet above the sacred Ganges Ri...

  • What If Babel Was Just a Myth?

    Directed by Sandrine Loncke • Documentary • 2019 • 56 minutes

    According to Unesco, a human language disappears every two weeks. Within a century, 50 to 90 percent of all languages will be gone.

    Does it matter?

    Linguist Florian Lionnet of Princeton University emphatically believes it does. For ...

  • Thank You for the Rain

    Directed by Julia Dahr and Kisilu Musya • Documentary • 2017 • 87 minutes

    Five years ago Kisilu, a Kenyan farmer, started to use his camera to capture the life of his family, his village and the damages of climate change. When a violent storm throws him and a Norwegian filmmaker together we see ...

  • Truth or Consequences

    Directed by Hannah Jayanti • Documentary • 2020 • 103 minutes

    Truth or Consequences is a speculative documentary about time and how we weave the past into the present and our possible future. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the film takes place in the shadow of...

  • Today

    Directed by Su Friedrich • Documentary • 2022 • 57 minutes

    TODAY opens with filmmaker Su Friedrich’s left foot stretched out in front of her as she lies in bed. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirs. Friedrich takes another deep breath and says to no one in particular, “Try to pay attention to the momen...

  • The Botanical Avatar of Mademoiselle Flora

    Directed by Jeanne Barbillon • Drama • With Bernadette Lafont, Louis Mesuret • 1965 • 15 minutes

    In a small French town, Flora (Bernadette Lafont) has a six-week fling with a soldier. But this is no passionate affair. Her lover, the cartoonish Charles (Louis Mesuret), ignores her advances, insis...

  • An Ecology of Mind

    Directed by Nora Bateson • Documentary • 2011 • 60 minutes

    AN ECOLOGY OF MIND is a portrait of Gregory Bateson, celebrated anthropologist, philosopher, author, naturalist, and systems theorist. His story is lovingly told by his youngest daughter, Nora, with footage from Gregory's own films shot ...

  • 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 ...

  • Sankara's Orphans

    Directed by Géraldine Berger • Documentary • 2022 • 84 minutes

    Thomas Sankara came to power in Burkina Faso in 1983, with the promise of a revolutionary government that would transform the West African country. To help build the revolution, he sent 600 children — many orphans from rural areas — ...

  • 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...