**Staff Picks 2026!** Strange things are afoot in Bad City. The Iranian ghost town, home to prostitutes, junkies, pimps, and other sordid souls, is a place that reeks of death and hopelessness, where a lonely vampire is stalking the towns most unsavory inhabitants. But when boy meets girl, an unusual love story begins to blossom...blood red. Winner—Jury Award, Directorial Revelation Award, and Special Mention at SITGES "Launches itself into a dreamspace of its own that has a unique power and pull...a fresh and exciting re-imagining of a well-worn oft-told genre."—Sheila O'Malley, RogerEbert.com In Persian with English subtitles

**Staff Picks 2026!** A 1960s secret agent is brought out of cryofreeze to oppose his greatest enemy in the 1990s, where his social attitudes are glaringly out of place.

**Staff Picks 2026!** Beautiful young housewife Severine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Severine pays a visit and eventually begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life. Winner—Golden Lion at Venice In French w/English subtitles

**Staff Picks 2026!** The Toro cheerleading squad from Rancho Carne High School in San Diego has got spirit, spunk, sass and a killer routine that's sure to land them the national championship trophy for the sixth year in a row. But for newly-elected team captain Torrance, the Toros' road to total cheer glory takes a shady turn when she discovers that their perfectly-choreographed routines were in fact stolen from the Clovers, a hip-hop squad from East Compton, by the Toro's former captain.

The combustible chemistry between a Polish florist and a British tourist in this charming postcard of sapphic synchronicity. "A work of novelistic amplitude...the web of secrets and confessions, schemes and counterplots, short-term pleasures and far-reaching decisions, are couched in dialogue that is pugnacious, vulnerable, comedic, and sometimes richly poetic, and which feels as spontaneous as it is carefully crafted."—Richard Brody, The New Yorker "A movie about the things we don’t say, and the things we project onto each other...Pete Ohs’ best film yet"—The A.V. Club In English, Polish w/English subtitles

**Staff Picks 2026!** Four vignettes on the lives of pre-revolutionary era Cuban people; in Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista’s army. Both a landmark of radical political cinema and one of the most visually ravishing films ever made, this legendary hymn to revolution shimmers across the screen like a fever dream of rebellion. The result of an extraordinarily ambitious collaboration between the Soviet and Cuban film industries, director Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba unfolds in four explosive vignettes that capture Cuban life on the brink of transformation, as crushing economic exploitation and inequality give way to a working-class uprising. Backed by Carlos Fariñas’s stirring score, the dazzling camera work by Sergei Urusevsky—an inspiration for generations of filmmakers to follow—gives flight to the movie’s message of liberation. In Spanish w/English subtitles

**Staff Picks 2026!** Stunning in scope, visually magnificent, and filled with compelling performances, David Lean's epic masterpiece is one of the great achievements in cinematic history. Peter O'Toole stars as T.E. Lawrence, a British officer who is sent to Arabia in 1917, and becomes a heroic leader in the Arabic rebellion against the Turks. As he grows more integrated into Arab society, his loyalties become conflicted. Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn co-star in this sweeping historical action-adventure classic. 1963 Academy Awards—Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction-Set Decoration, Sound, Editing, and Original Score

**Staff Picks 2026!** A lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood and unsuccessful attempts to connect with the people around her is sent into a murderous tailspin. Winner—Best Actress, Screenplay at SITGES

When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008. Blah blah blah blah blah. Winner—Audience Award at SXSW Winner—People's Choice Award at TIFF "It’s movies like these that prove that cinema still has the capacity to surprise, even in criminally goofy comedies like this."—RogerEbert.com "Part guerrilla prank saga, part heartwarming friendship story, and part riff on Back to the Future, the result is an incredibly fine-tuned mishmash of styles and ideas that keeps evolving in surprising ways."—IGN

A happily engaged couple is put to the test when an unexpected turn sends their wedding week off the rails. "Led by immaculate performances, it’s one of the most delightfully nerve-wracking rabbit holes you’re likely to tumble down this year."—IGN "It’s Zendaya’s movie. Her layered performance holds back then lets go as Emma’s full complexity is gradually revealed. If you can’t get onboard with Emma, then you’re the problem—which partly is Borgli’s intention."—S.F Chronicle "I save the zero star designation for movies that I think have no redeeming value whatsoever or are morally repugnant. “The Drama” meets both criteria."—Boston Globe

**Staff Picks 2026!** Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

**Staff Picks 2026!** Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother-in-law is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions. Winner—Best Director at Cannes In Mandarin w/English subtitles