A musical comedy special shot and performed by Bo Burnham, alone, over the course of the past year. 2021 Primetime Emmy Nominee—Outstanding Variety Special, Musical Direction, Original Music and Lyrics, Writing for a Variety Special, Directing for a Variety Special, and Editing for Variety Programming "Inspired...the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent."—NYTimes "Feels like Burnham achieving his ultimate form, as a parodist who proves again and again to be exceptionally original and wise."—RogerEbert.com

As the Empire of the Sun crumbles upon itself and a rain of firebombs falls upon Japan, the final death march of a nation is echoed in millions of smaller tragedies. This is the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, two children born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and now cast adrift in a world that lacks not the care to shelter them, but simply the resources. Forced to fend for themselves in the aftermath of fires that swept entire cities from the face of the earth, their doomed struggle is both a tribute to the human spirit and the stuff of nightmares. Beautiful, yet at times brutal and horrifying. Based on the retellings of survivor Nosaka Akiyuki and directed by Isao Takahata (co-founder, with Hayao Miyazaki, of Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli,) Grave Of The Fireflies has been universally hailed as an artistic and emotional tour de force. Now digitally remastered and restored, it is one of the rare films that truly deserves to be called a masterpiece. In Japanese with English subtitles.

After a global war, the seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth. Like Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and Ponyo, Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind will dazzle your senses with its intricately imagined storytelling and stunning animation! Experience the film that launched the Academy Award®-winning career of one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animation, Hayao Miyazaki! In Japanese with English subtitles.

Perfect for audiences of all ages, Ponyo centers on the friendship between five-year-old Sosuke and a magical goldfish named Ponyo, the young daughter of a sorcerer father and a sea-goddess mother. After a chance encounter, Ponyo yearns to become a human so she can be with Sosuke. As to be expected with Miyazaki, the film is awash in pure unbridled imagination and visual wonder — but it is the tender love, humor, and devotion exhibited by Ponyo and Sosuke that form the emotional heart of the film. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Princess Mononoke is a landmark of animation and a film of unsurpassed power and beauty. An epic story of conflict between humans, gods, and nature, the film has been universally acclaimed by critics and broke box office records on its original release in Japan. While defending his village from a demonic boar-god, the young warrior Ashitaka becomes afflicted with a curse that grants him super-human power in battle but will eventually take his life. Traveling west to find a cure or meet his destiny, he journeys deep into sacred depths of the Great Forest where he meets San (Princess Mononoke), a girl raised by wolf-gods who is waging battle against the human outpost of Iron Town, on the edge of the forest. The girl Mononoke is a force of nature – with blood smeared lips, riding bareback on a great white wolf, doing battle with both gods and humans, she is as iconic a figure as any from film, literature, or opera. In Japanese with English subtitles.

It’s one debacle after another for Alma (newcomer Sara Luna Zorić). When her long-estranged father is hospitalized in his native Bosnia, a not-quite-headstrong young woman leaves her home in The Netherlands to visit him. When she lands at the airport with a few Bosnian phrases and a new dress, her distracted older cousin Emir neglects to drive her to the hospital, preferring to hang out with his buddy Denis, “who has a girlfriend, so don’t even think about it.” After dyeing her hair and outlasting her patience, she hits the road on her own, quickly losing her luggage, her money, and her mooring. Along a bizarre chain of events and interactions with a cast of road-weary characters, Alma faces disappointment after disappointment with devil-may-care detachment and a newfound maturity. In its breathless series of hotels, cars, buses, and waiting rooms, Take Me Somewhere Nice captures the dreary, fish-out-of-water isolation of the unfamiliar highway. An endearing update of Chantal Akerman’s Les Rendez-Vous d’Anna, fused with the jazzy cynicism of Wim Wenders’ and Jim Jarmusch’s 70’s road movies, and the stark, sunlit despair of a David Hockney painting. Recipient of the Special Jury Prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival, Take Me Somewhere Nice is the unpredictable, neon-tinted feature debut for Ena Sendijarević, a Bosnian-born refugee raised in Holland who is now one of Dutch cinema’s fastest rising talents. Her film’s breezy wit and pastel color palette disguise dark truths about national identity, gender, and coming-of-age, making it the first essential road movie about the TikTok generation. Winner—Special Jury Award at Rotterdam "Optimism, eroticsim and menace are found on this incredible journey. A heady concoction of sun, surrealism and haywire sexuality transform this road movie into a strangely compelling fever dream."—The Times "I tried to capture a certain kind of existential fear that characterizes teenage years."—Director Ena Sendijarević

Interactive movie party, presented by Taste of Streep! Donna (Meryl Streep), an independent hotelier in the Greek islands, is preparing for her daughter's wedding with the help of two old friends. Meanwhile Sophie, the spirited bride, has a plan. She secretly invites three men from her mother's past in hope of meeting her real father and having him escort her down the aisle on her big day. Ticket price: $25 (Each ticket comes with a Taste of Streep Swag Bag and a complimentary specialty cocktail)

Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major Japanese engineering company in 1927 and becomes one of the world's most innovative and accomplished airplane designers. The film chronicles much of his life, depicting key historical events, including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan's plunge into war. Jiro meets and falls in love with Nahoko, and grows and cherishes his friendship with his colleague Honjo. In Japanese with English subtitles.

How does the Japanese women’s volleyball team from the late 1950s become an international sensation, feminist role models, the subject of a wildly popular comic book and a still-influential anime? Julian Faraut’s (JOHN McENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION) ferociously innovative and visually stunning THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT tells the tale of the Japanese women’s volleyball team’s thrilling rise, unbelievable 258 game winning streak, and eventual championship match at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. United by their jobs in a textile factory, the Japanese women’s volleyball team chased absolute perfection under the guidance of their coach’s grueling training methods. While the west viewed Japan as an alien upstart in the postwar years, it didn’t prevent the team from striking fear in the hearts of their competitors, earning them the racist and dismissive moniker “oriental witches.” Less an underdog tale than a saga of overwhelming determination that simultaneously subverts and feeds an orientalized mystique, the film conjures the tenor and tone of the team’s grip on the imagination of an entire nation seeking renewal and acceptance on the world stage of the post-war era. Faraut’s sparkling documentary uses fantastic contemporaneous manga and anime sequences about the volleyball heroes, with archival footage of blood-curdling matches, intense training sessions (driven by rhythmic editing and great music from French musician K-Raw) with testimony from the now-octogenarian teammates. The result charts the Witches’ meteoric rise without losing their overwhelmingly vital spirit. In Japanese with English Subtitles "The Japanese women’s volleyball team of the 1964 Olympics serves, spikes and scores again… (with) a dreamy, glitchy, immersive soundtrack, a crackling editing style and a facility with 16mm archive footage that practically puts you inside its gorgeous grain…Mesmerizing, trance-like interplay of vintage volleyball coverage, old newsreels and anime cartoons…Faraut and co-editor Andre Bogdanov create mythologies of motion and power."—Jessica Kiang, Variety "The movie uses chic archival footage to set up a mythic reconsideration of their triumphs…Montages are set to a hip electronic score, complete with Portishead needle drops…This documentary elegantly restores the glow of legend."—NYTimes Critic's Pick