30 DAYS OF CINEMA

Three lovers spin in a vortex of pent-up desire and resentment in Ira Sachs’ fresh, honest and acerbically funny take on messy, modern relationships. Just like its dynamic leads—Franz Rogowski, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Ben Whishaw—this refreshingly fluid relationship drama simply oozes sex appeal.

Moviegoing dreamers, there is hope for us still in this timeless, tender romance from living legend Aki Kaurismäki. Imbued with the filmmaker’s idiosyncratic playfulness and deadpan humor, this bittersweet comedy charmed even the most dour of critics and, delightfully, won the Jury Prize at Cannes.

Reimagining the road movie with the next generation of misfits, celebrated directorial duo the Ross Brothers make a coming-of-age film that runs on free-flowing feeling. Alive with friendship and the promise of the moment, Gasoline Rainbow is a beautiful reminder of what matters and what’s real.

Winner of the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay at Cannes, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s intricately structured drama delves into the fragility of boyhood. Bookended by fires and storms, delicate feelings of anger, confusion, and love swell through an exquisite final score from the late maestro Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Fatalistic daydreams uncannily invade the monotony of office life in Rachel Lambert’s darkly comic drama, starring a revelatory Daisy Ridley. Tempering surreal reveries with down-to-earth feelings, this idiosyncratic character portrait finds love—and the will to live—in the most unlikely of places.

Abbas Kiarostami’s first feature made outside his native Iran is this sumptuous, brain-teasing romance, in which a deceptively simple relationship morphs into something more complex—and keeps the audience guessing. Cannes winner Juliette Binoche is enigmatic, vulnerable and perfect in the lead role.

Thirteen years before he won an Oscar® for Drive My Car, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi delivered this shattering Rohmerian drama as his university thesis film. An intricately knitted tale of love, friendship, and recrimination, Passion sees one of the great contemporary writer-directors emerge fully formed.

Ultra-contemporary and entirely unique, Radu Jude’s anarchic film takes aim at late capitalism and internet culture with a mischievous swipe. As a dogged gig worker with an outrageous alter-ego, actor and content creator Ilinca Manolache gives a powerhouse performance in this award-winning satire.

In this inimitable cult classic starring a magnetic Lee Pace, singular filmmaker Tarsem crafts a magical love letter to the power of storytelling and the human imagination. Now restored in spectacular 4K, this visual feast of magnificent costumes and stunning locations rivals the wildest of dreams.

Following a celebrated performance piece about creative evolution, Zia Anger turns narrative cinema inside out with this meta-fiction, starring Odessa Young and Devon Ross. Transforming failure into rituals of rebirth, this poignant film captures the zeitgeist and comes straight from the heart.

With sharp wit and cathartic intensity, Coralie Fargeat turns toxic beauty culture inside out in her mind-blowing latest feature. Powered by a career-best performance from Demi Moore, The Substance fearlessly bulldozes its way into the midnight-movie pantheon and the feminist canon.

As the pandemic rages, Kentridge turns his mind to the human body. Employing the techniques of early cinema—and a Marx Brothers mirror gag—Episode 2 is alive with Méliès magic, as figures dance across blackboards and notebooks for a sprightly discourse on selfhood and corporeal representation.