Films and media

Documentaries, films and series, with one sentence on what each covers.

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The Wedding Banquet
Ang LeeFilm1993
A gay Taiwanese man in New York stages a marriage of convenience to satisfy his traditional parents, who then arrive to throw an elaborate wedding banquet.
Pain and Glory
Pedro AlmodóvarFilm2019
An ageing film director in physical and creative decline revisits his childhood, his first desires, his mother and his past loves as he confronts his own mortality.
Poor Things
Yorgos LanthimosFilm2023
A woman revived by a scientist with the brain of an infant sets off across the world, discovering sex, freedom and her own mind as she rapidly matures.
Burning
Lee Chang-dongFilm2018
A young man reconnects with a childhood acquaintance, then grows obsessed and suspicious of the wealthy stranger she introduces after she suddenly disappears.
A Beautiful Mind
Ron HowardFilm2001
A brilliant mathematician builds his career while a hidden world of people who are not there slowly takes it apart.
Black Swan
Darren AronofskyFilm2010
A ballerina cast in Swan Lake comes apart under the demand to be perfect and the double she begins to see everywhere.
Shine
Scott HicksFilm1996
A gifted Australian pianist, crushed by a domineering father, suffers a breakdown and years later rebuilds his life and his playing with the help of those around him.
Girl, Interrupted
James MangoldFilm1999
After a suspected overdose, a young woman is admitted to a 1960s psychiatric hospital, where she is diagnosed as borderline and drawn to a charismatic fellow patient.
Requiem for a Dream
Darren AronofskyFilm2000
Over one year, a widow hooked on diet pills and three young heroin users chase their dreams as addiction pulls each of them into ruin.
Pi
Darren AronofskyFilm1998
A reclusive mathematician convinced that a single number underlies all of nature is hunted by others for his discovery as his obsession destroys his mind.
Take Shelter
Jeff NicholsFilm2011
A rural Ohio husband and father, plagued by apocalyptic visions and dreams, builds a storm shelter as he fears he is developing the mental illness that afflicts his mother.
Melancholia
Lars von TrierFilm2011
As a rogue planet drifts toward a collision with Earth, a severely depressed bride grows strangely calm while her composed sister falls apart.
Joker
Todd PhillipsFilm2019
A mentally ill, isolated party clown in a decaying city is failed by every system around him and descends into violence, becoming a symbol of chaos.
The Magdalene Sisters
Peter MullanFilm2002
In 1960s Ireland, three young women judged to have sinned are confined to a Magdalene laundry run by nuns, where they endure abuse and plan escape.
Awakenings
Penny MarshallFilm1990
A shy neurologist revives patients frozen for decades by an encephalitis epidemic, giving one man a brief return to a full waking life before the drug fails.
The Deer Hunter
Michael CiminoFilm1978
Three friends from a Pennsylvania steel town go to Vietnam, are captured and forced to play Russian roulette, and return home unable to leave the war behind.
Sophie's Choice
Alan Jay PakulaFilm1982
A Polish Auschwitz survivor living in postwar Brooklyn draws a young writer into her turbulent romance while the secret of an impossible wartime choice destroys her.
Waltz with Bashir
Ari FolmanDocumentary2008
An Israeli veteran, unable to remember his part in the 1982 Lebanon war, interviews old comrades in an animated attempt to recover the massacre his mind has erased.
The Pianist
Roman PolanskiFilm2002
A Jewish pianist in occupied Warsaw survives the ghetto and years of hiding alone, clinging to bare existence as the city and his family are destroyed around him.
Oldboy
Park Chan-wookFilm2003
A man imprisoned in a room for fifteen years without explanation is suddenly released and given days to discover who took him and why.