Staff Picks

Staff Picks

Newly updated! Favorites from the staff at OVID.

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Staff Picks
  • 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...

  • 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,...

  • Maidentrip

    Directed by Jillian Schlesinger • Documentary • 2013 • 82 minutes

    14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out - camera in hand - on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long battle with Dutch authorities that sparked...

  • Bright Future

    Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Joe Odagiri, Tatsuya Fuji, Tadanobu Asano • 2003 • 115 minutes

    "Casts its spell by drawing out the horror of everyday existence bit by bit, and then tossing in some otherworldly weirdness that makes the hair on the back of your neck try to run for cove...

  • A Man Vanishes

    Directed by Shohei Imamura • Documentary • 1967 • 130 minutes

    One of the most important and complex works by two-time Palme d'Or winning director Shohei Imamura, A MAN VANISHES begins as an investigation into one of the thousands of missing persons cases that occur in Japan each year.

    The film ...

  • A Grin Without a Cat (Chris Marker)

    Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1977 • 178 minutes

    Newly restored! A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT is Chris Marker's epic film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 60's and 70's: Vietnam, Bolivia, May '68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left.

    Released in France in 1978, restored a...

  • Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell)

    Directed by John Cameron Mitchell • Drama • With Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Justin Vivian Bond • 2006 • 101 minutes

    NSFW. Contains nudity and graphic depictions of sex.

    John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic an...

  • Rebels of the Neon God

    Directed by Tsai Ming-liang • Drama • With Lee Kang-sheng • 1992 • 106 minutes

    Tsai Ming-liang emerged on the world cinema scene in 1992 with his groundbreaking first feature, Rebels of the Neon God. His debut already includes a handful of elements familiar to fans of subsequent work: a deceptiv...

  • Charlotte and Her Boyfriend

    Directed by Jean-Luc Godard • Drama • 1958 • 13 minutes

    “Let me finish,” Jules (Jean-Paul Belmondo, voiced by Jean-Luc Godard) repeatedly tells his ex Charlotte (Anne Colette) without ever pausing long enough for her to actually say anything. When Charlotte appears in his apartment eating an ice...

  • NY Export: Opus Jazz

    Directed by Jody Lee Lipes & Henry Joost • Documentary • 2010 • 60 minutes

    In 1958, Jerome Robbins’ “ballet in sneakers,” NY Export: Opus Jazz, became a smash hit when it was broadcast on The Ed Sullivan Show and toured around the world. Set to an evocative jazz score by Robert Prince, the dance...

  • The Deep Blue Sea (w/ Rachel Weisz & Tom Hiddleston)

    Directed by Terrence Davies • Drama • With Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston • 2012 • 98 minutes

    In The Deep Blue Sea, Master chronicler of post-War England, Terence Davies directs Rachel Weisz as a woman whose overpowering love threatens her well-being and alienates the men in her life. In a deeply ...

  • Sherman's March (Ross McElwee)

    Directed by Ross McElwee • Documentary • 1986 • 155 minutes

    When First Run released Ross McElwee's Sundance Award winning Sherman's March in 1986, it went on to become one of the largest grossing documentaries ever. Audiences and critics alike fell in love with McElwee's "quirky, funny and fasci...

  • Ida

    Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski • Drama • With Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska • 2014 • 80 minutes

    From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) comes Ida, a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, ...

  • 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 ...