Staff Picks

Staff Picks

Newly updated! Favorites from the staff at OVID.

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Staff Picks
  • The Woodmans

    Directed by C. Scott Willis • Documentary • With Betty Woodman, Francesca Woodman, Charles Woodman George Woodman • 2010 • 83 minutes

    The Woodmans are a family of well-known artists bonded in their belief of art-making as the highest form of expression. But for their daughter Francesca — one of ...

  • Beautiful Losers

    Directed by Aaron Rose, Joshua Leonard • Documentary • With Thomas Campbell, Harmony Korine, Shepard Fairy, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Mike Mills, Steve Espo Powers • 2009 • 90 minutes

    BEAUTIFUL LOSERS celebrates the spirit behind one of the most influential cultural moments of a generation. In...

  • I am Secretly an Important Man

    Directed by Peter Sillen • Documentary • With Jesse Bernstein • 2012 • 89 minutes

    'I Am Secretly an Important Man' is a portrait of writer and poet Steven J. Bernstein (aka Jesse Bernstein), one of Seattle's most celebrated and troubled voices. His angry, surprisingly fresh and lyrical writings ...

  • Until the Light Takes Us

    Directed by Aaron Aites & Audrey Ewell • Documentary • With Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, Harmony Korine • 2010 • 93 minutes

    Until The Light Takes Us tells the story of black metal. Part music scene and part cultural uprising, black metal rose to worldwide notoriety in...

  • The Plains

    Directed by David Easteal • Drama • With Andrew Rakowski, David Easteal • 2022 • 180 minutes

    Every evening a man in his late 50s commutes home at the end of the working day in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. As the seasons pass in gentle rhythm we observe dramatic events of his life as well as m...

  • 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 ...

  • Peel (Jane Campion)

    Directed by Jane Campion • Drama • 1982 • 9 minutes

    On a hot Australian summer's day, a recalcitrant, freckled, red-headed family of three go on a Sunday drive in the country. Their outing results in an intrigue of awesome belligerence.

    Cannes, Golden Palm for Best Short Film

  • Terrorists in Retirement

    Movie + 1 extra

    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...

  • 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...

  • Transit

    Directed by Christian Petzold • Drama • With Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer • 2019 • 102 minutes

    In Christian Petzold’s brilliant and haunting modern-day adaptation of Anna Seghers’s 1942 novel, Transit Visa, Georg, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski, Happy End), flees to Marseille assuming the identi...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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 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 (Robert Kramer)

    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 (Dariush Mehrjui, w/ Leila Hatami)

    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...