Movies You Should Watch

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

One of the most beautiful looking films i have seen. 

In 1983, deep within the mysterious Arboria Institute, a beautiful girl (Eva Allan) is held captive by a scientist, Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). Her mind is under the influence of a sinister technology (a mysterious pyramid-shaped light). Speechlessly, she waits for her next session with the deranged Dr. Nyle. She eventually escapes her cell and journeys through the darkest reaches of the Institute - but Dr. Nyle won’t easily part with her.

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Director: Panos Cosmatos
Writer: Panos Cosmatos
Stars: Eva Allan, Michael Rogers, Scott Hylands | See full cast and crew

Thirst (2009) Korean with english subs

Through a failed medical experiment, a priest is stricken with vampirism and is forced to abandon his ascetic ways.

Director: Chan-wook Park
Writers: Chan-wook Park (screenplay), Émile Zola
(inspired by the book “Thérèse Raquin”), 
Stars: Kang-ho Song, Ok-bin Kim and Hae-suk Kim 

I Saw the Devil (2010) Korean with English Subs

When his pregnant fiancee becomes the latest victim of a serial killer, a secret agent blurs the line between good and evil in his pursuit of revenge.

Director: Jee-woon Kim
Writer: Hoon-jung Park (screenplay)
Stars: Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik Choi and Gook-hwan Jeon

Stalker (1979) Russian with English subs

A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.

Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy 

Symbol (2009) Japanese with English Subs

A man wakes up alone in a brightly illuminated white room with no windows or doors. When he presses a mysteriously phallic protuberance that appears on one wall, a pink toothbrush materializes from nowhere, clattering to the floor and setting in motion a genuinely bizarre chain of events. Soon the imprisoned man is engaged in absurd and hilarious attempts to escape the gleaming room, releasing random objects from the walls, creating a life sized mouse trap game in which a rope, a toilet plunger and an earthenware jug full of sushi might just be the keys to his escape. Meanwhile, in a dusty town, a green masked Mexican wrestler known as Escargot Man prepares for an important match. His family gathers around him, worried about his seeming impassivity before battle.

Jeff Who Lives At Home (2011)

Dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife.

Directors: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Writers: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Stars: Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Judy Greer 

Welcome to the Rileys (2010)

On a business trip to New Orleans, a damaged man seeks salvation by caring for a wayward young woman.

Director: Jake Scott
Writer: Ken Hixon
Stars: James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart and Melissa Leo

Caché (Hidden) (2005) 

A married couple is terrorized by a series of surveillance videotapes left on their front porch.

Director: Michael Haneke
Writer: Michael Haneke (screenplay)
Stars: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche and Maurice Bénichou

The Kid with a Bike (French: Le Gamin au vélo) is a 2011 drama film written and directed by the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, starring Cécile de France and Thomas Doret. Set in Seraing, it tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who turns to a woman for comfort after his father has abandoned him.^[2]

The film was produced through companies in Belgium, France and Italy. While it does not deviate from the naturalistic style of the Dardenne brothers’ earlier works, a brighter aesthetic than usual was employed, and the screenplay had a structure inspired by fairytales. Unusually for a film by the directors, it also uses music. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and won the festival’s Grand Prix.

Take Shelter (2011)

Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Jeff Nichols
Stars: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain and Shea Whigham 

Curtis LaForche lives in a small town in Ohio with his wife, Samantha, and daughter, Hannah, a six-year-old deaf girl. When Curtis begins to have terrifying dreams, he keeps the visions to himself, channeling his anxiety into obsessively building a storm shelter in his backyard. His seemingly inexplicable behavior concerns and confounds those closest to him, but the resulting strain on his marriage and tension within his community can’t compare with Curtis’s privately held fear of what his dreams may truly signify.

The Piano Teacher (2001)

Director: Michael Haneke
Writers: Michael Haneke, Elfriede Jelinek (novel)
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot and Benoît Magimel

Based on Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek’s novel “Die Klavierspielerin.”
Winner of three major awards at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, The Piano Teacher features a tour-de-force performance by Isabelle Huppert as Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed music professor who becomes obsessed with one of her young students (rising European actor Benoit Magimel).

Julien Donkey-Boy is a 1999 American drama film written and directed by Harmony Korine. The story concentrates on the schizophrenic Julien, played by Scottish actor Ewen Bremner, and his dysfunctional family. The film also stars Chloe Sevigny as Julien’s sister, Pearl, and Werner Herzog as his father. Julien Donkey-Boy is the sixth film to be made under the self-imposed rules of the Dogme 95 manifesto, and the first non-European film to be made under the Dogme 95 “vow of chastity”. Julien Donkey-Boy utilizes several cinematographic styles, including stop-motion photography, parallel cuts, and still photographs in order to tell its story. It was filmed on MiniDV tape, transferred onto 16mm film, and finally blown-up on 35mm film, giving it a grainy aesthetic.

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 1999. It received a limited release in Los Angeles at a single cinema on October 15, 1999; the film showed for a month’s time at the Los Angeles theater, and grossed a total of $80,226 by that November.^[2] It was given a wide theatrical release in European countries the following year, particularly in France and the Netherlands.

This Must Be the Place (2011)

Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, written by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello. It stars Sean Penn and Frances McDormand. The film deals with a middle-aged wealthy rock star who becomes bored in his retirement and takes on the quest of finding his father’s tormentor, a Nazi war criminal who is a refugee in the United States.

The film was an Italian majority production with co-producers in France and Ireland. Principal photography began in August 2010. Filming took place in Ireland and Italy, as well as the states of Michigan, New Mexico and New York. The film was in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.