What Could Have Been

Stalker

May 1979 •Russian

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.

Best Seller

September 1987 •English

Hit man Cleve approaches writer/cop Dennis about a story for his next book: How Cleve made a living, working for one of the most powerful politicians in the country. To get the story right, they travel around the country to gather statements and evidence, while strong forces use any means they can to keep the story untold.

Hannah and Her Sisters

February 1986 •English

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

Synecdoche, New York

October 2008 •English

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Smoulder

November 2021 •English

Fresh off a relationship, Briar finds a waning comfort in an old script, and a new friend.

Wildcat

May 2024 •English

Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing? In 1950, writer Flannery O'Connor visits her mother Regina in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief.

Pather Panchali

August 1955 •Bengali

Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1996.

Listen If It's Raining...

November 1999 •Russian

Follows the present and past, and in a surreal environment where the motifs of Kazakov’s stories intersect. The hero can easily meet with Stalin or drink vodka with a homeless person in the basement.

Decomposing Tony Maslow

January 2009 •English

Distraught by a recent breakup, Tony moves into a new house while he finishes his latest book. But what begins as a peaceful setting for his composition, turns deadly. He finds himself implicated in a murder and locked in a fight for his life against someone or something in the house.

Moulin Rouge!

May 2001 •English

A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.

Afire

April 2023 •German

Self-important author Leon joins his best friend on a summer holiday near the Baltic Sea to complete his novel. When they arrive, they find their house is already occupied by a carefree woman who challenges Leon to open up. Meanwhile, forest wildfires rage around them and impending disaster looms.

Closer

December 2004 •English

A love story about chance meetings, instant attractions, and casual betrayals. Four strangers - with one thing in common: each other.

Kafka

November 1991 •English

Kafka, an insurance worker gets embroiled in an underground group after a co-worker is murdered. The underground group is responsible for bombings all over town, attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society. He eventually penetrates the secret organization and must confront them.

Le Pion

October 1978 •French

Humiliated and down on his luck, a superintendent turns his life around when he decides to write a book.

Naked Lunch

December 1991 •English

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.

Adaptation.

December 2002 •English

Nicolas Cage is Charlie Kaufman, a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.

The Door in the Floor

July 2004 •English

The lives of Ted and Marion Cole are thrown into disarray when their two adolescent sons die in a car wreck. Marion withdraws from Ted and Ruth, the couple's daughter. Ted, a well-known writer, hires as his assistant a student named Eddie, who looks oddly similar to one of the Coles' dead sons. The couple separate, and Marion begins an affair with Eddie, while Ted has a dalliance with his neighbor Evelyn.

Do Útero Ao Túmulo

December 2022 •Portuguese

The Squid and the Whale

October 2005 •English

Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.

Frost/Nixon

October 2008 •English

For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost's team harboured doubts about their boss's ability to hold his own. But as the cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted.