Across 6 decades Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio has made some of the great masterworks of his homeland’s cinema—this sublime 2016 entry finds him in a tender register, examining the eternal bonds between mother and son. A perceptive look at the ties that bind and the long shadow cast by childhood.

Winner of the FIPRESCI award, this haunting portmanteau from director Marco Bellocchio is a shrewd social commentary steeped in striking gothic imagery. Set in a convent-prison, the film shifts from past to present, crafting a story that is a love letter to Italy’s past and a critique of its stasis.