Un homme et une femme / A Man and a Woman (1966) Claude Lelouch, Anouk Aimée, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pierre Barouh, Drama, Romance

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A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens’ boarding school. Slowly they reveal themselves to each other, finding that each is a widow/widower. Each is slow to reveal anything personal so that each revelation is hidden by a misperception. They become friends, then close friends, and then she reveals that she can’t have a lover because, for her, her husband’s memory is still too strong. Much of the film is told wordlessly in action, or through hearing one of their thoughts as they go about their day.
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The Phantom of Paris (1931) John S. Robertson, John Gilbert, Leila Hyams, Lewis Stone, Drama, Thriller

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Bibi is a world class escape artist, but he cannot escape the false murder charge that is placed on him. Max has killed Bourrelier before he was removed from the will so that he will be rich when he marries Cecile. Together with Vera, they put the blame on Bibi, who is a romantic rival to Max, and he is sentenced to death. But Bibi escapes before his execution and hides in Herman’s secret cellar. When he learns that Max is dying, Bibi goes to his house for his confession, but Max dies before it is told to anyone else. So Bibi, has just one chance, and he goes to Dr. Gorin who will make him look like Max so that he can clear his name and put the blame where it belongs – on Max, even in death.
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Of Time and the City (2008) Terence Davies, Documentary, Biography

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Terence Davies (1945- ), filmmaker and writer, takes us, sometimes obliquely, to his childhood and youth in Liverpool. He’s born Catholic and poor; later he rejects religion. He discovers homo-eroticism, and it’s tinged with Catholic guilt. Enjoying pop music gives way to a teenage love of Mahler and Wagner. Using archival footage, we take a ferry to a day on the beach. Postwar prosperity brings some positive change, but its concrete architecture is dispiriting. Contemporary colors and sights of children playing may balance out the presence of unemployment and persistent poverty. Davies’ narration is a mix of his own reflections and the poems and prose of others.
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The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) Ken Loach, Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, Drama, History, War

The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)
In 1920, rural Ireland is the vicious battlefield of republican rebels against the British security forces and Irish Unionist population who oppose them, a recipe for mutual cruelty. Medical graduate Damien O’Donovan always gave priority to his socialist ideals and simply helping people in need. Just when he’s leaving Ireland to work in a highly reputed London hospital, witnessing gross abuse of commoners changes his mind. He returns and joins the local IRA brigade, commanded by his brother Teddy, and adopts the merciless logic of civil war, while Teddy mellows by experiencing first-hand endless suffering. When IRA leaders negotiate an autonomous Free State under the British crown, Teddy defends the pragmatic best possible deal at this stage. Damien however joins the large seceding faction which holds nothing less than a socialist republic will do. The result is another civil war, bloodily opposing former Irish comrades in arms, even the brothers.
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Die Blechtrommel / The Tin Drum (1979) Volker Schlöndorff, David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Drama, War

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Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on…
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Hara Kiri (2016) Henry Alberto, Ruth Connell, Mojean Aria, Jesse Pimentel, Adventure, Drama, Romance

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When August suggests a suicide pact to his lover Beto, the skater soul mates emerge to defiantly ride through one final Los Angeles day punctuated by moments of lyricism, chaos, and contention. How far can love take you? To the very end? On their final night, August and Beto will discover an unpredictable environment and a unique cast of characters as they skate toward a certain end. As dawn rises on their final morning, the only question remaining will be…who ends it first?
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Dororo (2007) Akihiko Shiota, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Ko Shibasaki, Kiichi Nakai, Action, Fantasy, Horror

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In the year 3048, the wounded Lord Kagemitsu Daigo proposes a deal to rule the whole world to forty-eight demons in their sealed temple. In return, the demons ask forty-eight parts of the body of his unborn son. When the mutilated baby is born, his mother puts him in a basket in the river flow to save his life. The baby survives and becomes the demon slayer Hyakkimaru that slash demons to retrieve his body parts. During his journey, he meets the female thief Dororo, who was raised as a boy after the death of her parents by the evil Lord Daigo, in a small town and she befriends Hyakkimaru and joins him in his quest seeking revenge against the Daigo’s clan.
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