David Farnor | On 30, Apr 2022

With the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this weekend, there’s no better time to sit back and enjoy Miles Davis’ smooth soundtrack for Lift to the Scaffold, and MUBI’s showcase of Louis Malle’s classic film noir sets the groove for a week of old classics, as Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project begins its partnership with the streaming service with the restoration of Lütfi Ömer Akad’s 1966 The Law of the Border.

There are modern gems aplenty, though, including the latest from Ryusuke Hamaguchi and MUBI’s ongoing retrospective of Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy.

For MUBI Go subscribers, there’s a free cinema ticket available (in participating UK cinemas) for The Velvet Queen.

In the meantime, it’s your last chance to stream a bunch of Sergei Loznitsa titles, including The Trial, Christian Petzold offerings, including Jerichow, and Chantal Akerman’s Letters Home.

What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon? Read on for your weekly MUBI Digest.

 

This week on MUBI

Lift to the Scaffold – 30th April

Femme fatale Florence recruits her lover, Julien, to murder her husband in his office. The man does the dirty deed eagerly, but gets trapped in an elevator when he returns to remove a key piece of evidence. Julien’s unfortunate oversight will unintentionally provoke an ill-fated chain of events. Starring Jeanne Moreau, Louis Malle’s classic film noir may have set the tone for the forthcoming French New Wave, but it’s Miles Davis’ sultry blues accompaniment—improvised live!—that makes it truly unforgettable.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy – 1st May

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest follows three women — one tangled in a messy love triangle, another victim to a failed seduction, the other caught in a case of mistaken identity — tracing their quests for love and desire. Told in three parts, this compelling exploration of relationships and coincidences operates with a lightness of touch and emotional resonance clear across Hamaguchi’s body of work, marking him as a master storyteller.

Love Steaks – 2nd May

Clemens works as a masseur, Lara as a cook, but their clientele is the same: the guests of a luxury hotel. As sparks begin to fly between the two, his sensitivity clashes with her more fiery temperament—opposites attract, but harmony is nowhere in sight.

The Souvenir – 3rd May

Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical drama is an aching articulation of dignified destruction.

The Law of the Border – 4th May

In Deliviran, a village near Urfa close to the Syrian border, Hidir’s chief is involved in smuggling and gets shot. Hidir tries to stay out of illegal activities but circumstances contrive to push him in the opposite direction until he accepts to take a herd of sheep across the border.

Great Freedom – 5th May

The exquisite latest film from writer-director Sebastian Meise, Great Freedom (2021) paints a stirring portrait of gay resistance and resilience in post-war Germany. Sensual yet arresting, Austria’s official submission to the 2022 Academy Awards turns a humanist eye towards a heartrending past.

Oslo, August 31st – 6th May

Recovering drug addict Anders is given a day’s leave from his rehab center to apply for a job in the city. Over the course of one day and night, he tries to reconnect with his old friends and family in Oslo, where the ghosts of his past mistakes wrestle with the hope to see some future by morning.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

Reprise

The first in Joachim Trier’s masterful “Oslo Trilogy” is an electric and affecting dual portrait of two writer friends whose ambitions are challenged by the trials of life.

Lizzie

In 1892 Lizzie Borden lives a quiet life in Massachusetts under the strict rules established by her father. Lizzie finds a kindred spirit in the live-in maid, Bridget, and friendship soon blossoms into a secret romance. But tension mounts in the Borden household, leading to a violent breaking point.

Luzifer

Johannes, a man with the heart of a child, lives secluded in an Alpine hut with his mother. Daily life is governed by prayer and rituals. But suddenly, modernity intrudes into their world of nature and divine worship. A tourist development threatens to poison their paradise and awaken the devil.

The Turin Horse

After witnessing a carriage driver whipping his horse, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche ran to the scene, threw his arms around the horse and collapsed—never to recover. This is the story of what happened to the carriage driver, his family, and his steed.

In the Aisles

The reclusive Christian takes a job working the night shift at a big box store, when he becomes enamored by his charming but mysterious co-worker Marion. But Marion has secrets of her own and when she suddenly goes on sick leave, Christian is tempted to fall into habits of his dark past.

Prayers for the Stolen – 29th April

Three young girls live in a rural village in Guerrero dominated by the violent presence of the local drug trade and the threat of human trafficking. Trained by their mothers to flee at any moment and forced into extreme measures to evade capture, they must learn to navigate their harsh surroundings.

The Souvenir: Part II

Joanna Hogg’s meta follow-up to her superb The Souvenir continues to follow film student Julie in the aftermath of her relationship with a manipulative older man. In making her graduation film, she begins to untangle her fraught love for him, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction, while also pushing against the constraints of the London independent film scene.

Songs for Drella

Twenty years after Lou Reed and John Cale broke up The Velvet Underground, they briefly reunited to record Songs for Drella. Captured on camera in this concert film, the album explores the life, dreams, aspirations and fears of the band’s mentor and manager Andy Warhol.

Waltz with Bashir

One night, a friend tells director Ari Folman about a recurring nightmare. They conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the 1982 Lebanon War. Ari realises that he can’t remember anything about it and decides to interview his old comrades to discover the truth about that time. The result is a visually jaw-dropping animation that lingers in the memory long after watching.

You Don’t Nomi

This engaging documentary takes an astute look at the rehabilitation of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Read our full review

The Tale of King Crab

Today, some still call him a saint, an outcast or a murderer: Luciano, fueled by his love for the fiery Emma, stood for his freedom till committing the unforgivable. Exiled to the distant and hostile Tierra del Fuego, there he might find his way towards salvation in a quest for a legendary treasure.

The Tango Lesson

Sally Potter is being courted by Hollywood after the success of her last film, but she longs for the freedom of dance. Pablo Veron is a brilliant tanguero but fears that dance leaves no trace.

Sunset

This bewitchingly crafted period drama is brimming with atmosphere. Read our full review.

The Woman in the Fifth

Tom, a novelist in his forties, comes to Paris to win back the love of his daughter. When things don’t go as planned, he ends up in a shady hotel, having to work as a night guard to make ends meet. Just when he can sink no lower, Margit, a sensual, mysterious woman, suddenly appears in his life.

Chess of the Wind

A murder mystery in 1920s Tehran, Chess of the Wind unfolds in an ornate, candlelit mansion where a web of greed, violence, and betrayal ensnares the heirs to a family fortune, as they vie for control of their recently-deceased matriarch’s estate—erupting in a ferocious final act.

Teenage

Leaping between the UK, US, and Germany, this fascinating documentary from filmmaker Matt Wolf maps the social and cultural development of teenagers as a political entity. Employing multiple narrators—including Ben Whishaw and Jena Malone—Teenage is a vibrant examination of pre-war youth culture.

White Building

Aspiring dancer Samnang and his family are part of a close-knit community in the White Building—a prominent apartment block and cultural landmark of the Cambodian capital. They find their lives suddenly shattered by the news of their home’s impending demolition, to make way for a new development.

Satantango

A defunct agricultural collective, living in a post-apocalyptic landscape after the fall of Communism, set out to leave their village. As a few members conspire to take off with all of the earnings, a mysterious character, long thought dead, returns and alters the course of everyone’s lives forever.

Oedipus Rex

Following The Gospel According to Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini turned to another classical text for this deeply personal take on Sophocles’ immortal tragedy. It opens in 1920s Italy, recounting a birth that is the product of a bourgeoise’s affair with a military officer. The mid section depicts the myth of Oedipus, one of patricide and incest. An epilogue finds Oedipus playing his flute for a bustling citizenry in 1960s Bologna.

In Fabric

This weird, brilliantly entertaining horror is a frightening, funny number with a uniquely disturbing style.

Autumn Almanac

In a grim, claustrophobic apartment owned by a rich elderly woman, the inhabitants— her son, her nurse, her nurse’s discontented lover, and a new lodger—desperately try to relate to each other as they go about their bleak lives, revealing their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions, and hostilities.

The Second Mother

Having left her daughter Jessica to be raised by relatives, Val works as a loving nanny in São Paulo. When Jessica visits 13 years later to take her college entrance exams, her confident presence upsets the unspoken power balance in the household. Soon, Val must decide where her allegiances lie.

My Fat Arse and I

One morning a girl tries on a pair of new pants, yet they don’t quite fit her. More precisely, they are impossible to zip. The girl is bewildered. In the mirror she sees herself like the fattest piglet the world has seen. She decides to go on a strict diet as quickly as possible.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

A lonely Japanese woman becomes convinced that the satchel of money buried in Fargo is, in fact, real. Abandoning her structured life in Tokyo for the frozen Minnesota wilderness, she embarks on an impulsive quest to search for her lost mythical fortune.

Lemon

Isaac has seen better days. His acting career is tanking, his blind girlfriend of 10 years plans to leave him, and his own family singles him out as a constant disappointment. Even as he takes a chance on new romance, he struggles to define his place in a world that has seemingly turned against him.

Drive My Car

This finely tuned, deliberately paced exploration of grief is required viewing for anyone who’s ever been touched by art. Read our full review

Goodnight Mommy

Twin boys who do everything together, from collecting beetles to feeding stray cats, welcome their mother home after her reconstructive surgery. But with her face wrapped in bandages, and her demeanor distant, they grow suspicious of her identity.

L’Atalante

Following a whirlwind romance, barge captain Jean marries country girl Juliette. They board the L’Atalante to embark on their new married life together.

Ghost World

In suburban AnyAmerica of 2001, best friends Enid and Rebecca are two too-smart girls using caustic wit to shield themselves from the toxic effects of living in a cultural wasteland. One day, they discover an amiably creepy kindred spirit, Seymour, a weedy record collector who comes between them. Terry Zwigoff’s Oscar-nominated Ghost World sees Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson hilariously nailing the dynamic of a proud sisterhood of misfits.

Samouni Road

In the rural outskirts of Gaza City a small community of farmers, the Samouni extended family, is about to celebrate a wedding, the first celebration since the last war. Through survivors’ recollections, Samouni Road conveys a deep, multifaceted portrait of a family in the midst of tragic events.

Zero Fucks Given

Cassandra is a flight attendant for a low-cost airline, always willing to take on extra hours and carrying out her duties efficiently. On the side, she floats between dating apps, parties, and lazy days. When she suddenly gets fired, will she finally confront what she was running away from?

I’m Gonna Explode

Teenage lovebirds Maru and Roman, sick of their restrictive and overbearing parents and school, go on the run in this Mexican youth film.

Amour

Michael Haneke’s powerfully frank romantic drama is painful and profound. Read our review

A Tale of Springtime

Jeanne may have the keys to two apartments, she nevertheless feels as though she has nowhere to sleep. All Natasha wants is someone to share her Parisian flat where her father stays far too rarely. They meet one evening when they both feel particularly out of sorts, and soon become inseparable.

Zero for Conduct

In a repressive all-boys boarding school with rigid rules of behaviour, students decide to rebel and set about turning the institution’s uptight rules on their head. Their revolt includes pranks, epic battles, and ill-advised schemes.

Love Meetings

Pier Paolo Pasolini travels throughout Italy, from the factories to the beaches, and interviews passersby about their attitudes toward sex. He questions them, mic in hand, on a wide range of topics: the importance of sex in everyday life, prostitution, homosexuality, and the legalisation of divorce.

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing

Scatterbrained, aspiring photographer Polly lands a job at a gallery run by the curator and painter Gabrielle. A strong connection builds between them as Polly idolises Gabrielle’s artwork. However, as she gets to know her lover Mary, Polly realises Gabrielle isn’t exactly who she appears to be.

Mouthpiece

Patricia Rozema’s 2018 drama sees two women play one character’s fractured self, as we follow Cass, who finds herself in crisis and unable to think straight after the sudden death of her mother, C. While she tries to accomplish an overwhelming set of funeral arrangements, her family tries to convince her not to give a eulogy. She insists it must be her, but what will she say? A compelling exploration of grief and womanhood. Read our review

Louder than Bombs

A moving, nuanced family drama exploring life, death and stories we tell to get through each. Read our review

Titane

Weird, wild and eccentric, Julia Ducournau’s disturbing, graphic tale of reconnection and acceptances is like nothing you’ve seen before. Read our review

I Am Not a Witch

A brazen, unique debut feature with real energy and ambition. Read our review

The Gospel According to St Matthew

Starting from his Immaculate Conception, the life of Jesus is retraced according to the Gospel of St Matthew in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 drama. When Jesus begins to travel through Palestine with his disciples to spread the word of God, the Romans conspire to have him silenced, leading to his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection.

Short Term 12

Smart, funny, sad and visually stunning, this moving ensemble drama is an absolute must-watch. Read our review

A Screaming Man

Adam Ousmane is a pool attendant at a local resort. When the new managers decide to downsize, Adam loses his job to his own son, Abdel. Shattered by the turn of events, Adam is pressured into contributing to the Chadian war effort. With no money to speak of, the only asset he can donate is his son.

Lingui, The Sacred Bonds

On the outskirts of the capital of Chad, determined single mother Amina works tirelessly to provide for herself and her 15-year old daughter Maria. When Amina discovers Maria is pregnant and does not want a child, the two women begin to seek out an abortion, condemned by both religion and law. Read our full review

The Square

Swedish director Ruben Östlund takes aim at multiple subjects in this surreal and unsettling social satire. Read our full review

À Propos de Nice

This documentary and cinematic poem captures the life and the essence of the seaside resort of Nice, while portraying the contrasting lifestyles of its inhabitants. Starting with a series of aerial takes, Jean Vigo’s film continues with scenes that pivot around the Promenade des Anglais.

Accattone

Vittorio Accattone has never worked a day in his life, leading a hand-to-mouth existence on the margins of society: prostituting women, scrounging, and exploiting. When his most successful sex worker Maddalena is jailed, his fortunes begin to dwindle, forcing him to confront his own existence. A work of first starts and last stands, Pasolini’s vivid debut is often cited as the last of the Italian neorealist films.

The Gospel According to Andre

Fashion icon Andre Leon Talley is hugely entertaining to watch in this light, accessible documentary. Read our review

Feast

A dramatic reconstruction of the infamous Groningen case, in which three men drugged and infected guests with HIV-infected blood during sex parties. Unfolding over seven individual vignettes, Feast blends unpacks the repercussions and reverberations of this singularly shocking series of events.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

David Gelb’s underseen classic profiles sushi chef Jiro Ono, an 85-year-old master whose 10-seat, $300-a-plate restaurant is legendary among Tokyo foodies.

Funny Games (2007)

Michael Haneke’s remake of his own self-aware violent thriller makes the same point but loses none of its edge.

For Ellen

So Yong Kim’s drama about an estranged father and daughter is a quiet, moving tale powered by raw performances. Read our full review

The Reflecting Skin

Coming-of-age drama and American gothic collide in Philip Ridley’s striking, disturbing feature debut.

Mister John

Aidan Gillen is exception in this hypnotic, seductive trip into the psyche of a broken man. Read our full review

Train Again

18 years after L’Arrivée (1999), Peter Tscherkassky’s Train Again (2021) pays homage to Kurt Kren once again tapping into a classic motif in film history – a collision ride through the history and love story between trains and cinema.

Howards End

Helen Schlegel falls for Paul Wilcox, but is rebuffed. Her sister Margaret becomes friends with Paul’s mother Ruth, who promises her the family house, Howards End. Unfortunately, after her death, the will disappears and so might their inheritance—until Ruth’s widower becomes attracted to Margaret. One of Merchant Ivory’s greatest films, this adaptation of the E.M. Forster classic is an emotional epic of forsaken love.

Lamb

A couple living alone on a remote farm in Iceland find their quiet existence shaken by the astonishing discovery of a mysterious newborn amongst their sheep. They decide to raise the child as their own, but soon face the consequences of defying the will of nature. Read our full review

Boarding Gate

A departure for Olivier Assayas, Boarding Gate is also one of his most divisive films: a pure thriller, stylishly shot, deceptively experimental, and starring the dark star of cult cinema, Asia Argento.

Funny Games

Michael Haneke’s 1997 thriller sees a wealthy family terrorised by a pair of sadistic bullies who invade their home. It’s tendency to lecture as well as entertain may irk some, but this deliberately disturbing horror is provocative for a reason.

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao

This sweeping tale of two separated sisters is a moving, absorbing melodrama.

The Child of Another

A Cameroonian tale of star-crossed lovers who come up against the strictures of tradition, The Child of Another broods with an aching, bubbling intensity.

White Afro

Employing an archival instructional video on how to offer curly perms or body waving services to white clientele, White Afro intermingles the training video with the director’s mother’s experience of working as a hairstylist at a a predominantly white hair salon in Alexandria, Virginia.

Petite Maman

Céline Sciamma deals with grief and memory in this tender, beguiling, deeply profound gem. Read our full review

For Lucio

A tribute to Italian singer Lucio Dalla, whose songs captured the underdogs and marginalised of Italy at a time of social and cultural change. Pairing Dalla’s music with personal testimonies and archive footage, this film shows Italy’s historic journey through tragic events to the economic boom.

Taste

Bassley, a Nigerian footballer living in Vietnam, has been unable to make a living since he broke his leg. He and four middle-aged women he sometimes works for decide to escape to an old house, where together they create a special world for themselves. But this intimate utopia cannot last forever.

Human Factors

Couple Nina and Jan sign a politically charged client at the advertising agency they co-own, forcing them to confront their clashing priorities. To escape mounting tensions, they whisk their kids away to a seaside vacation, where a mysterious home invasion sets everything off balance.

Asako I & II

Asako is a young woman who meets and falls madly in love with a drifter, Baku, who one day drifts right out of her life. Two years later, in Tokyo, Asako sees Baku again—or, rather, a young, solid businessman named Ryohei who bears a striking resemblance to her old flame.

L’Amant Double

After starting therapy, Chloé falls in love with her psychoanalyst Paul. When they move in together, everything seems perfect until some discoveries lead her to suspect that he may be living a double life. As she begins investigating, she dives into a dark world of smoke, mirrors and doppelgangers. Read our full review

Love Affair

Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer are chic strangers who fall in love aboard an ocean liner bound for NYC. Though they are both involved with other people, they intend to reconnect six months later at the top of the Empire State Building—until the hand of fate throws their affair tragically off course.

Cow

Andrea Arnold follows the life of a British dairy cow in this mooving documentary. Read our full review

Rams

Family tensions, dark humour and magnificent knitwear collide in this measured but gripping farming drama. Read our full review

Dog

A teenage girl gets ready to go out to meet her boyfriend, despite her mother’s disapproval of her clothes. She goes out to a deserted area with him and he begins to touch her up and have sex with her. However, a stray dog reveals the true nature of her boyfriend.

My Life as a Courgette

This delicately heartwarming study of loss, family and friendship is a tiny stop-motion masterpiece. Read our full review

The Night Doctor

Mikaël is a doctor on night call. He looks after patients from underprivileged neighborhoods, as well as drug addicts. Torn between his wife and his mistress, and embroiled in trafficking fraudulent prescriptions, Mikaël is left with no choice: tonight, he has to reclaim control over his life. This 2020 crime drama is another highlight from this year’s MyFrenchFilmFestival.

Ballad of a White Cow

Mina’s life is turned upside down after learning that her husband Babak was innocent of the crime for which he was executed. Running out of money, when a stranger knocks at her door to repay a debt he owed Babak, she lets him into her life unaware of the secret that ties them to one another. Read our full review

Kaboom

Gregg Araki’s foray into science fiction delves deep into the mind of a hallucinating freshman. Smith’s everyday life in his college dorms—hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor — all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.

Ashes of Time Redux

In ancient China, on the edge of a vast desert, swordsman Ouyang Feng lives the life of a vagabond, controlling a network of assassins. Pitiless, his heart has long been wounded by a love he neglected then lost. But as seasons, friends and enemies come and go, he reflects back upon his solitude.

Black Medusa

Nada is a young woman leading a double life. During the daytime she’s quiet and reserved, but after dark she dives into the nightlife of Tunis and picks up men. She seduces them only to destroy them, like a modern-day Medusa.

The Monopoly of Violence

This thoughtful documentary about police brutality is a sobering watch.

Looking for Venera

Living in a crowded, multi-generational household in a small village in Kosovo, the quiet teenager Venera can rarely find privacy. However, when she befriends the rebellious Dorina, a new, liberating world opens up to her. Slowly, Venera begins to push against her conservative family’s expectations.

Never Gonna Snow Again

The Eastern European masseur Zhenia possesses an almost magical gift. Working in a gated community in Poland, he quickly becomes a guru-like figure to his wealthy clients. However, Zhenia’s background remains a mystery—leaving the residents to wonder what secrets he might be carrying with him.

Hissene Habre, A Chadian Tragedy

With Lingui, the Sacred Bonds getting a UK release, take the chance to revisit this searing documentary from the figurehead of Chadian cinema, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Through a series of testimonials of immense emotional charge, Hissène Habré mounts a gut-punching reckoning with a nation’s collective trauma.

Milk

Following a miscarriage, Hetty decides not to attend the funeral for her child, despite her husband’s pleading. After wandering around town, she meets Martin, and together they embark on an impulsive, drunk joyride in his car.

Water Lilies

Céline Sciamma’s 2007 debut traces a young woman’s sexual awakening in the cut-throat world of synchronised swimming. The paths of three 15-year-old girls living in a modern Paris suburb cross at the local swimming pool, where love and desire make a dramatic appearance.

Skies of Lebanon

In the fifties, young Alice leaves her natal Swiss mountains for the sunny and vibrant shores of Beirut. She falls madly in love with Joseph, a quirky astrophysicist intent on sending the first Lebanese national into space. However, after years of bliss, the civil war threatens their Garden of Eden.

There Will Be No More Night

The pilots and gunners of attack helicopters use thermal cameras to observe movement on the ground in war zones. Using video recordings of French and American missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, There Will Be No More Night observes, interprets, and reflects on the modern form of war.

Liborio

Unfolding from multiple perspectives, Liborio reveals the true story of an enigmatic Afro-Dominican folk hero and his commune of followers at the birth of a new religious movement.

Heaven Reaches Down to Earth

Tebogo Malebogo’s poetic short unabashedly revels in the euphoria of self-discovery.

Mysterious Skin

Based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Scott Heim, Gregg Arraki’s haunting story of sexual abuse follows two very different young men—one a smooth-talking hustler, the other a shy student obsessed with UFOs—as they cross paths, both haunted by disturbing events one summer when they were eight years old.

Wildland

An orphaned teen discovers her aunt is the head of a crime family in this supremely suspenseful Danish drama. Read our full review

Tokyo Sonata

In a seemingly ordinary Japanese family, the father loses his job and conceals the truth. The eldest son in college hardly returns home. The youngest takes piano lessons without telling his parents. The mother, who knows she is supposed to keep the family together, can’t find the will to do so.

My American Uncle

To illustrate his theory on the complexities of human behavior, Professor Laborit selects three destinies: Jean, a careerist middle class man, Janine, an actress of humble origins, and René, a farmer’s son who manages his own textile company. All face difficult choices in life-changing situations. Gérard Depardieu stars in Alain Resnais’ 1980 comedy.

Martin Eden

Jack London’s novel is relocated to pre-war Naples in this epic adaptation with a standout lead turn from Luca Marinelli. Read our full review

Comets

Three decades after their separation, Irina and Nana remain mesmerized by memories of earlier days. But when Irina returns to the small community she left—where Nana stayed to start a traditional family—the women must reconcile with the past and their complex feelings.

Galveston

After surviving a setup by his criminal boss, Roy, a mob hitman, rescues a young and frightened sex worker who was being held captive, and flees with her to Galveston, Texas. There, the two find strength in each other as dangerous pursuers and the shadows of their pasts follow close behind.

Honey Cigar

In 1993 Paris, a French Algerian teenager falls for a new classmate, only to realize for the first time how restrictive the rules of her patriarchal family are. As the terror of fundamentalism emerges in her homeland and her family crumbles, she explores the powers and dangers of her own desire.

Apostasy

As devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, Alex and Luisa and their mother Ivanna are united in The Truth. But when Luisa starts to question the Elders’ advice, she makes a transgression that could expel her from the congregation. Unless Ivanna and Alex can persuade her to return, they must shun her completely. Read our full review

Wasp

Andrea Arnold’s 2003 short follows a poor single mother of four who must figure out what to do with her children after the guy she fancies asks her on a date, determined not to let them become an obstacle in her pursuit of a relationship.

The Happiest Girl in the World

With his most recent feature Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn included on many best-of-2021 lists, MUBI takes us back to Radu Jude’s debut, a satire that’s a key work of the Romanian New Wave.

The Life of Jesus

Bruno Dumont’s 1997 debut follows Freddy, who is young, unemployed and suffers from epilepsy. He spends his days riding scooters with his friends or hanging out with his girlfriend, Marie. An Arab family arrives in town, setting off the racist prejudices of his gang. Marie ignores them and takes up with Kader, the immigrant boy.

Japan

Carlos Reygadas’ 2002 debut sees a cynical and disillusioned man travel from Mexico City to a remote canyon to prepare for his death. There he stays with a pious elderly widow in her rickety home. Although only a few words are spoken, the widow’s quiet humanity incites a reawakening of his desires and instincts for life.

Rat Film

What can we learn about a society from the way that it treats its lowest echelons, both in terms of humans and animals? In Rat Film, the catastrophic failures of urban society in Baltimore is explored via the brown Norway rat, dirty pest to man but also an ideal subject for experimental study.

Red Road

Andrea Arnold’s low-key thriller follows a CCTV operator who uses the camera to watch an ex-convict and eventually becomes obsessed with him.

A Swedish Love Story

Roy Andersson’s 1970 drama follows two adolescents meet and cautiously fall in love in beautiful surroundings during the peak of an idyllic Swedish summer. Oblivious to social boundaries, they innocently create their own milieu in contrast to the distorted relationships, disillusionment, and world-weariness of adult life around them.

Below Dreams

Garrett Bradley’s Below Dreams follows the lives of three people—Elliott, newly arrived from NYC, single mother Leann, and unemployed father Jamaine—as they negotiate New Orleans’ streets to fulfill their dreams. But as each one faces the city’s realities, it gets clear that with change must also come sacrifice.

La Bouche de Jean-Pierre

After witnessing her mother’s suicide attempt, the young Mimi moves in temporarily with her aunt Solange in a council flat in the suburbs of Paris. But from the first night on, her sleep is disturbed by the arrival of Solange’s boyfriend, Jean-Pierre. Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s feature directorial career began with this 1996 drama.

Bye Bye Africa

Moussa Hassan is a filmmaker who has lived in France for 15 years and returns to Chad because his mother has died. There, he discovers the faltering state of the film industry and finds that cinemas have been replaced by video rooms. With his old friend, he documents the cause of this decline. The debut of Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, the first Chadian feature film director.

Pickpocket

Jia Zhangke’s debut takes us back to 1997 in Fengyang. Xiao Wu is a pickpocket. Having never managed to get away from the streets like his friends, he finds himself alone with his troubles. A cop is out to get him and his love affair with local karaoke hostess Mei Mei is going nowhere. He realises it’s time to think about his future.

Katalin Varga

Banished by her husband and her village, Katalin Varga has no choice but to set off to find the real father of her son Orbán. Peter Strickland’s 2009 drama charts her journey across the Carpathians, where she decides to reopen a sinister chapter from her past and take revenge—leads her to a place to which she had vowed never to return.

Faces Places

Who better to spend Christmas Day with than the legendary Agnès Varda, whose humanism and wit are here paired with the optimistic vitality of photographer JR. Celebrating remote lives—as well as their own—with heart-warming playfulness, this irresistible duo enchanted the Croisette and Oscars alike!

The Big Short

The Big Short is a patronising, awkward and uneven comedy about the financial crisis. And, against all the odds, that’s a good thing.

Dogtooth

Yorgos Lanthimos’ scary, witty tale of a dysfunctional Greek family is daring and brilliant.

It Must Be Heaven

Palestinian director-writer-star Elia Suleiman charms in these absurd yet beguiling quotidian vignettes that poignantly ponder statehood and home.

Arab Blues

A charming fish-out-of-water comedy, this debut feature places local cultural anxieties on the therapist’s couch. Starring Golshifteh Farahani, Arab Blues maps the social landscapes of post-revolution Tunisia with wit and warmth.

Like Someone in Love

Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami took to the neon-glazed cityscapes of Tokyo for this 2012 drama about an old man and a young woman who meet in the city. She knows nothing about him, he thinks he knows her. He welcomes her into his home, she offers him her body. But the web that is woven between them in the space of twenty four hours bears no relation to the circumstances of their encounter.

House of Tolerance

Bertrand Bonello explores the transactional margins of sexuality in this 2011 drama set in the dying days of the 19th century.

Norwegian Wood

In late 1960s Tokyo, Toru Watanabe is a student besotted with Naoko. But their love is complicated by the tragic suicide of their best friend years before. When Midori, a girl who is everything that Naoko is not, marches into his life, Watanabe is forced to choose between his past and his future. Vietnamese-French director Trần Anh Hùng (The Scent of Green Papaya) goes to Japan to adapt Haruki Murakami’s novel. He brings with him Jonny Greenwood’s music and Mark Lee Ping-bin’s photography to envelope you in Murakami’s melancholy romance of self-discovery.

The Great Beauty

Paolo Sorrentino’s beautiful satire is a swooning, scathing portrait of a city you can fall in love with, again and again.

A Night at the Opera

Using archive footage, Sergei Loznitsa revisits the Opéra de Paris’ gala evenings during the 1950s and ’60s. Between prestige and protocol, these events gathered the crème de la crème of the French and international elite, while crowds of ordinary people assembled to watch the spectacle from afar.

Deerskin

Jean Dujardin is a natural fit for this darkly offbeat number from Quentin Dupieux.

A Winter’s Tale

Éric Rohmer’s 1992 drama is set during one summer when the young Felicie and Charles fall deeply, passionately in love. Five years later, after accidentally giving him a false address, she is raising his child and drifting back and forth between two infatuated men with whom she’s unwilling, or unable, to settle down.

Gritt

Gritt left Norway with the dream of becoming an actress, but failed to find fame in Hollywood and Berlin. Back in Oslo, she manages to get an internship at an underground theater company and secretly moves into their performance space, embarking on a mission to bury capitalism and the patriarchy.

The Prince of Nothingwood

Churning out B-movie magic on shoestring budgets in a war-torn country, Salim Shaheen is Afghanistan’s most popular and prolific filmmaker. Director Sonia Krunland follows this force of nature for this poignant documentary portrait.

Il Divo

Paolo Sorrentino tuns his gaze on Giulio Andreotti, arguably the most famous and notorious Italian politician of the post-war era, who was prime minister no less than seven times.

Holy Beasts

Aging punk diva Vera arrives in the Caribbean to direct an unfinished project by her beloved friend the late filmmaker Jean-Louis Jorge, alongside two old friends and her loyal choreographer. As preparations for the musical film begin, conflicts and death start to creep up on the haunted production.

Ali in Wonderland

Ali in Wonderland exposes in plain sight the condition of the female and male immigrant workers in and around Paris in the 1970s. It is a raging cry to French society, a place where, the documentary posits, exploitation and racism thrive, where domination and the colonial spirit live on.

Incident by a Bank

Long before he won the Palme d’Or for The Square, Swedish provocateur Ruben Östlund took home the Golden Bear from Berlin for this short. Reconstructing a real-life event in a single take, Incident by a Bank is a hilariously prickly examination of societal apathy and self-absorption.

The New Kid

Celebrating the misfits and the “losers,” Rudi Rosenberg’s charming coming-of-age film features mostly unknown young actors, whose spontaneity adds a fresh coat of paint to a familiar genre.

Voyage of Time: An IMAX Documentary

The 4K digital premiere of this rare version of Terrence Malick’s 2016 documentary. Decades in the making, this journey of discovery is a celebration of existence and the grand history of the cosmos, transporting audiences into a vast odyssey that spans the eons from the Big Bang to the dinosaur age to our present human world, and beyond.

Gagarine

This visually inventive voyage of magical realism is grounded in creativity, self-preservation and community. Read our full review

Two Friends

Clément, a film extra, is madly in love with Mona, a salesgirl in a sandwich bar. Mona has a secret that makes her elusive. When Clément is desperate to win her heart, Abel, his best and only friend, comes to the rescue. Soon after, a love triangle starts to unfold in Louis Garrel’s 2015 drama.

Los Huesos

The world’s first stop-motion animation film is excavated as Chile drafts a new Constitution. The film shows a girl performing a ritual exorcism to free Chile from its feudal heritage. Among a dance of bones, organs, and body parts, the spirits of two damned Secretaries of State are invoked.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

The inside story of one of history’s biggest business scandals, in which top executives of America’s 7th largest company walked away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything. A story of corporate greed and CEO hubris which foreshadowed the global financial crisis.

The Consequences of Love

Paolo Sorrentino’s 2004 crime drama follows Titta Di Girolamo, a 50-year-old Italian man, who lives in an anonymous hotel room in Switzerland. His time is spent smoking and observing the hotel’s denizens, constantly waiting for something to happen. What is his dark secret, and what is the story of the mysterious suitcases delivered to his door?

Junior

Justine, a.k.a. Junior, is a 13-year-old tomboy with pimples and her own brand of humor. She’s just a tad misogynous. After being diagnosed with stomach flu, Junior’s body undergoes a bizarre metamorphosis in Julia Ducournau’s 2011 short.

This Filthy World

John Waters’ one-man show celebrate the film career and obsessional tastes of the man William Burroughs once called ‘The Pope of Trash’. Waters speaks of his movies, his early artistic influences and his fascination with true crime, exploitation films, and the extremes of the contemporary art world.

Lean on Pete

Andrew Haigh’s quietly poignant coming-of-age tale gallops along at its own unique pace.

Maeve

During the Troubles, Maeve returns to Belfast after a long absence in London. She stays in her family home with her sister Roisín and her parents. She also meets up with her ex-boyfriend Liam. Her arrival in the city stimulates a series of memories of childhood both in herself and other people.

Onibaba

A primal horror film from Japanese master Kaneto Shindo, this reimagining of a Buddhist folk tale is an expressionistic interrogation of the consequences of war.

Azor

Andreas Fontana’s Azor is the kind of directorial debut that astounds with its confidence and complexity. The film takes us into the wealthy elite of 1970s Argentina, where outsider Yvan (Fabrizio Rongione) arrives from Geneva. A private banker, he is there to replace a colleague who has mysteriously gone missing. Accompanied by his wife, he journeys into the heart of darkness where power, corruption and colonialism all linger in the shadows…

Idol

After his son runs over a man, successful politician Myung-hui persuades him to turn himself in. Following the death of his son, Joon-sik sees his life fall apart. When a woman who was there the night of the accident disappears, the two men will desperately search for her, but for different reasons.

Le Bel Indifferent

A volatile adaptation of a one-act Jean Cocteau play, Jacques Demy’s stylised chamber piece brims with crimson jealousy and rage.

The Blue Angel

With their seven film partnership, Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich traced a path of lush, scandalous romantic fantasies, of which The Blue Angel was their first. Respected schoolteacher Rath learns of his pupils’ infatuation with postcards depicting a nightclub songstress. To investigate the source of indecency, Rath goes to the Blue Angel nightclub and is fatefully seduced by the smoldering Lola-Lola, triggering the downward spiral of his life and fortune.

Annette

A seemingly perfect couple — a provocative stand-up comedian and internationally renowned opera singer — live glamorous lives in contemporary Los Angeles. However, when they welcome their daughter Annette into the world, her mysterious gifts will change their lives forever. Leos Carax, Adam Driver, Marion Cottilard and Sparks team up for this musical epic. Read our full review

025 Sunset Red

025 Sunset Red is a kind of quasi-autobiographical reckoning. An indiscernibility of then and now. Recollection and immediacy. The Basque Country and California. It’s a set of echoes of an upbringing by communist radicals, as a way of finding practical applications of the past in the present.

The Trouble with Being Born

Elli is an android and lives with a man she calls her father. Together they drift through the summer, swimming during the day until he takes her to bed at night. She shares his memories and anything else he programs her to recall. Yet, one night she sets off into the woods following a fading echo.

Microhabitat

31-year-old Mi-so is barely getting by in Seoul. Her joys in life are: cigarettes, one glass of whiskey after work, and her poor boyfriend who dreams of becoming an artist. As cigarette prices and rent start to rise, Mi-so couch surfs with old friends while reconsidering her place in life.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Horrifying, entertaining, disturbing and funny, this dark satire is rivetingly awkward. Read our full review

Autoficción

Borrowing its title from a literary genre, the film acknowledges the indeterminacy of both fiction and the self. Field recordings made in New Zealand are heard as women speak with each other about motherhood, abortion, breakups and anxiety.

Night Comes On

After serving a stint in juvenile detention, Angel, 18, is thrown back onto the streets. Her little sister Abby is stuck in foster care while her dad, who murdered their mother, roams free. But Angel has a plan. Authentically shot on location in New York, Jordana Spiro’s raw and tender coming-of-age debut, starring Dominique Fishback, draws attention to how young, queer Black women are repeatedly failed by state institutions.

Sweet Thing

Billie is a 15-year-old girl who fantasizes Billie Holiday as a sort of fairy godmother and plays mother to her younger brother, Nico. Meeting up with their friend Malik, they run away from home to roam free from their parents’ eye, discovering freedom and enchantment among boats and railway tracks.

Babylon

Long suppressed due to its confrontation of racial oppression in Thatcher’s England, Franco Rossi’s reggae drama follows a young dancehall DJ in South London, who pursues his musical ambitions, battling fiercely against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbours, police and the National Front.

Winter’s Night

A middle-age couple visit a temple in Chuncheon where they spent their first night together 30 years prior. On the way, one of them cannot find their phone and hurries to find it. As the night unravels, they will come across an ex-lover, a friend, and a young couple who resemble them 30 years ago.

The Third Wife

In this sensual 2018 debut from Ash Mayfair, the pastoral sumptuousness of rural life in feudal Vietnam belies the systematic cruelty of patriarchal traditions and values. Brimming with forbidden yearning, the film’s portrayal of women’s subjugation remains relevant still.

Donbass

When war is called peace, when propaganda is uttered as truth, when hatred is declared to be love, then life itself begins to resemble death. In the Donbass, a region of Eastern Ukraine, a hybrid war takes place, involving an open armed conflict alongside mass scale robberies perpetrated by gangs.

Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus

Martin tried to fight the system, and now he’s on the run. Sara is a conceptual artist. Together they join the revolutionary commune in the countryside. The police are on their trail. Inspector Ambroz knows the right questions are more important than the answers. Because maybe none of this is true.

Friends and Strangers

When Ray and Alice bump into each other, they impulsively decide to go camping. On the trip, a series of bumbling romantic attempts fills the air with awkward tension. Back in Sydney, the mishaps continue as Ray hopes to secure a wedding videography gig at the home of a bizarre potential client.

Unsane

This enjoyably grubby B-movie from Steven Soderbergh is a superb showcase for Claire Foy.

Moments Like This Never Last

A graffiti artist and prolific photographer, Dash Snow used the streets of pre-9/11 NY as his canvas. Vividly capturing his decadent scene through intimate home movies and insider testimony, Cheryl Dunn’s beautifully edited portrait is at once a vital time-capsule and a spirited ode to outsider art.

Heart

Gayoung, a filmmaker, visits Seongbum, an art instructor, to consult on her affair with a married man. The two were once lovers of each other, though that does not stop Seongbum from becoming a love counselor for Gayoung. Yet, they don′t just consult, but begin exploring new feelings for each other.

Destiny

In medieval Córdoba, Spain, under Arab rule, a secular and multicultural society flourished. There, young philosopher Ibn Rushd (known in the West as Averroes) is lured away from his decadent lifestyle and indoctrinated into a fundamentalist sect.

Blue

A woman lies awake at night. Nearby, a set of theatre backdrops unspools itself, unveiling two alternate landscapes. Upon the woman’s blue sheet, a flicker of light reflects and illuminates her realm of insomnia.

Censor

Prano Bailey-Bond’s striking feature directorial debut is a gloriously atmospheric trip into retro-horror chills. Read our full review

The First Lap

Kim Dae-hwan won the Best Emerging Director award at Locarno for this playful and moving drama. Steeped in the politics and societal expectations of South Korea, and with echoes of Hong Sang-soo’s formal ingenuity, The First Lap is a sharp portrait of young adulthood and stagnant relationships.

The Nun

Before his more fantastical and spectacular stretch of work throughout the ‘70s, Jacques Rivette followed his Nouvelle Vague breakthrough Paris Belongs to Us with this adaptation of Denis Diderot’s controversial 18th-century novel—starring an entrancing Anna Karina at the height of her fame.

80,000 Years Old

It’s summer in Normandy. Céline works on an archeological site and takes the opportunity to spend a weekend in her childhood village that she has not seen for a long time. Her archaeological research mingles with more or less probable reunions during her walks.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Mira Nair’s faithful adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s bestselling novel is a piercing take on xenophobia and alienation in post 9/11 U.S.A. Profound in its analysis of capitalism and fundamentalism, this drama is enriched by Riz Ahmed’s succinct portrayal of the Muslim protagonist’s emotional dualities.

Mauvais Sang

Alex, an ex-con and the teenage son of a murdered criminal, is coerced by two former associates of his father into stealing the antidote to a deadly, mysterious STD. As he falls for the crime boss’s mistress, a rival gang lurks in the shadows, also intent upon securing the precious serum.

Maelstrom

Bibiane, 25, is successful but finds her life lacks purpose. Following several unfortunate events, she gets drunk and hits a man with her car. She can’t recall anything but soon learns she is to blame for his death. Just as she is about to end it all, she meets Evian, the son of the man she killed.

The Bacchus Lady

Youn Yuh-jung gained international fame after winning an Oscar for her masterful performance in her Hollywood debut, Minari. In The Bacchus Lady, the actor shows why she is a cherished fixture of Korean cinema, bringing subtlety and poignancy to this compelling portrait of an elderly sex worker.

Play It Ssfe

Winner of a Grand Jury Prize at SXSW, Play It Safe is an ingeniously tense interrogation of unconscious racism in seemingly liberal spaces. Shot on 16mm, the film’s audacious finale stamps a visceral exclamation point on a remarkable calling card for director Mitch Kalisa and actor Jonathan Ajayi.

The Sweet Hereafter

Arriving in a small town after a tragic accident, a big-city lawyer driven by his own demons stirs up the anger of the members of the community in Atom Egoyan’s powerful drama.

Alexandria Why?

Living in Alexandria amid the harsh reality of World War II, teenager Yehia retreats into a world of fantasy. Obsessed with Hollywood, he dreams of studying filmmaking in America. However, when he falls in love and discovers the lies of the European occupation, he begins to reevaluate his identity.

Hidden

A little miracle of a short from Iranian master Jafar Panahi, this beautiful film finds echoes of his 2018 feature 3 Faces. A moving examination of performance and personal liberty in the face of religious oppression, Hidden is a tender and intimate mystery that builds to a piercing conclusion.

The Babadook

Jennifer Kent’s storybook horror brings a devastating sadness to the genre’s scares.

The Return of the Prodigal Son

This raw psychological drama about an engineer unable to adjust to the world around him following his suicide attempt is at heart a scathing portrait of social alienation and moral compromise.

Lucky Chan-Sil

With the death of her long-time director, Chan-sil, a film producer, is now unemployed. While working as a cleaning lady at an actress’ house, she meets a young man. Attracted to him, Chan-sil realizes old anxieties are about to emerge: her already gone-youth, messed-up love life, and broken career.

Cryptozoo

In a world inhabited by humans and rare mythical creatures known as “Cryptids”, zookeeper Lauren brings these beings under the protection of her sanctuary—the Cryptozoo. As she tracks down a dream-eating beast, she enters into a dangerous mission to find it before it is captured by the military.

Endless Night

Poignant memoirs, Bressonian acting, and jaw-dropping chiaroscuros make Eloy Enciso’s study in fascism an entrancing journey into the depths of the night.

Panic

A technological civilisation takes three intelligent salamander creatures captive to conduct experiments on them. The experiments go awry and the salamander creatures wreak havoc in the city of humans.

The Love Witch

This 60s sexploitation homage is a unique, wry and empowering horror-comedy.

Miss Violence

On her 11th birthday, Angeliki jumps off the balcony and dies. While the police and Social Services try to discover the reason for this apparent suicide, Angeliki’s family insist that it was an accident. What is the secret Angeliki took with her? Why does her family try to “forget” her and move on? Sweeping five awards at the Venice Film Festival, Alexandros Avranas’s 2013 drama is an under-seen gem from the Greek Weird Wave film movement.

Moving On

During a summer vacation, Okju and Dongju move into their grandpa’s house. While Dongju adapts to his new home, Okju feels awkward about this new environment. Once their soon-to-be-divorced aunt also moves in, and as Okju spends time with her family, the house and her grandpa start to grow on her.

Corporate Accountability

During Argentina’s dictatorship (1976 -1983), several civil accomplices contributed to repression and were never taken to justice. In 2015, a report was issued with cases of proven corporate responsibility. Jonathan Perel reads excerpts from the report in front of many of these companies’ factories.

I Like Life a Lot

The drawings of this film were made by gypsy children at a school in a small town. Interviews, drawings and paintings tell us about their lives and experiences.

Burning an Illusion

A young Black woman in England becomes increasingly frustrated with her life with a lazy, demanding boyfriend. With the help of friends, she seeks something better, and begins to question her attitude to love, life, and desire for middle-class respectability and security through marriage. The groundbreaking debut from Menelik Shabazz, Burning an Illusion was the first British film to feature a Black female lead.

Fay Grim

MUBI continues its Hal Hartley retrospective with this 2006 thriller, a 10-years-later continuation of Hartley’s Henry Fool. Fay Grim is coerced by a CIA agent to try and locate notebooks that belonged to her ex-husband. Published in them is information that could compromises the security of the U.S., causing Fay to first head to Paris to fetch them…

The Arbor

Clio Barnard’s remarkable debut, which paved the way for the equally excellent The Selfish Giant, is an ambitious, experimental docudrama about playwright Andrea Dunbar.

Hey You!

Péter Szoboszlay’s 1976 animated short is set in the allegorical space of an abandoned room. A frustrated mind feels the distorting effects of aggression and paranoia—including visions of butterflies, the Mona Lisa, and nuclear fallout.

Prevenge

Without a doubt the best pregnant serial killer movie you’ve ever seen, Alice Lowe’s Prevenge is a masterpiece of maternal nightmares. Read our full review

Shelley

Ali Abbasi’s 2016 horror follows privileged couple Louise and Kasper, who live off the grid in a home in the woods. Unable to conceive, they arrange for their Romanian maid Elena to act as a surrogate mother and be paid for it. But as Elena becomes mysteriously sicker while pregnant, fears mount about what may be growing inside her.

Boy Meets Girl

Alex, 22, wants to become a filmmaker. His girlfriend, Florence, has just left him for his best friend Thomas. After trying to strangle him, Alex gives up and wanders around Paris, where he sees Mireille being left by her boyfriend. Later on, the two tormented souls run into each other at a party. MUBI continues its Leos Carax retrospective with this 1984 drama.

Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time

Lili Horvát’s mystery finds a neurosurgeon in fugue to a romance that she may have imagined. Read our full review

Angel-A

André owes money to a crime boss. In despair, he heads to a bridge over the Seine, intending to commit suicide. But there he sees a woman apparently preparing to end her life too. The two end up spending a memorable summer night in nearly deserted Paris, where she exposes herself as a true angel.

Chevalier

In the middle of the Aegean Sea, on a luxury yacht, six men on a fishing trip decide to play a game. During this game, things will be compared. Things will be measured. Friends will become rivals and rivals will become hungry. But when the game is over, the man who wins will be the best man.

The Guerilla Fighter

After escaping from police custody, the political activist Sumit is on the run. He receives shelter in a luxurious apartment owned by a sensitive young upper-class woman. Being in solitary confinement, Sumit starts to question his ideological path and slowly begins to protest against his own party.

Anne at 13,000ft

Anne has a seemingly stable life as a daycare worker. But after skydiving for her best friend’s bachelorette party, the ground shifts beneath her feet. The pressures of her daily life threaten to overwhelm her, and when she meets Matt, she begins to push the limits of what’s socially acceptable. Read our full review

Mandabi

Ibrahima is without work and has a large family to support. One day, he receives a money order from his nephew in Paris. However, when he goes to cash the cheque, he is asked for his identity card, which he does not have. Thus, an absurd foray into the corrupt world of Senegalese bureaucracy begins.

Youssef Chahine: The Land

A rural Egyptian village unsuccessfully attempts to retain access to its water. Told that they can only irrigate their land a few days a month, several of the villagers are arrested for overwatering. Although the outside threat originally seems to unite the villagers, divisions resurface.

Limbo

A group of refugees adjust to life on a remote Scottish island in Ben Sharrock’s delightfully deadpan comedy-drama. Read our full review

Youssef Chahine: Cairo Station

In Cairo’s chaotic central station, Qinawi, an impoverished newspaper vendor, develops an infatuation with the free-spirited Hannuma, who dodges the authorities to peddle soft drinks to passengers. When he faces rejection, Qinawi’s obsession becomes dangerous as he falls into a state of insanity.

Editing

A woman is confronted by a stranger, who believes she’s been edited out of their story.

Simple Men

Dennis is a quietly handsome and bookish college student. His older brother, Bill, is a rough ladies’ man and thief. Thrown together to search for their long-lost dad, they confront their expectations of each other, themselves, and their attitudes towards women.

David Lynch: The Art of Life

Filmmaker David Lynch takes us on a journey through his formative years. From an idyllic upbringing in small-town America to the dark streets of Philadelphia, we follow Lynch as he traces the events that have helped shape his career, while gaining a greater understanding of the revered director. Read our full review

The Heiresses

In 1936, Irèn, a quiet Jewish shop girl is employed by her rich but sterile friend Szilvia to have a baby for her with her husband Ákos, so that the resulting child inherits the vast fortune. Their plan goes well, but as relationships between them change and fascism rises, many challenges emerge.

Scenes with Beans

An extra-terrestrial arrives on a planet inhabited by beans and observes their daily lives, including a traffic accident, farming, a football match, and the launch of a spaceship.

Sweat

The “perfect” life of a Polish fitness influencer comes under scrutiny in Magnus von Horn’s gripping and stylish drama.

Dona Flor and her Two Husbands

Dona Flor’s passionate yet irresponsible husband Vadinho drops dead while dancing in the streets. Seeking a stable life, the widowed Dona remarries a respectable pharmacist shortly after. However, when her new love life turns out to be less than satisfying, the ghost of her late husband returns. Made during Brazil’s military dictatorship, Bruno Barreto’s magic realist feature propelled Sônia Braga from soap star to national deity.

Downstream to Kinshasa

Over six days in June 2000, the city of Kisangani was the scene of deadly violence between the Ugandan and Rwandan armies. Victims of the war have fought for recognition and compensation since. Now, they take a long journey down the Congo River to voice their claims and seek justice in Kinshasa.

The Unbelievable Truth

Charting a new generation lost amid the tides of corporate America, Hal Hartley’s witty, unpredictable debut follows the college-bound Audrey, a young woman who is preoccupied with the threat of nuclear destruction and falls in love with a handsome and mysterious ex-con who is rumoured to have murdered the father of his high school sweetheart.

Our Defeats

In 2018, Jean-Gabriel P?riot collaborated with 10 students in a film class at a high school in the suburbs of Paris on a project that unites cinema with politics. The students restaged scenes of strikes, resistance, and labour disputes from films made post May 1968. Our Defeats assembles the results.

Youssef Chahine: The Blazing Sun

Ahmed, a young agricultural engineer, helps the farmers produce a superior sugar cane crop. Taher Pasha, a wealthy land owner, feels threatened by his recent production prosperity. Ahmed is in love with Pasha’s daughter, but due to their fathers’ rivalry, he is compelled to hide their relationship.

New Order

In contemporary Mexico City, a lavish high society wedding is interrupted by violent rioters who take the house by siege. It soon becomes apparent that this seemingly random attack is part of a violent, nationwide uprising, as one political system collapses and a more harrowing replacement arises. Fresh from cinemas, Michel Franco’s latest is released exclusively by MUBI online.

Genus Pan

Lav Diaz’s winner at Venice’s Orrizonti sidebar in 2020 sees three gold mine workers leave their jobs to travel home through the unforgiving wilderness of the mythical island of Hugaw. When they arrive at the end of their arduous journey, they see that a tragic event has shaken their village. As buried histories emerge, a sense of psychosis invades the scene.

Wife of a Spy

Winner of Best Director at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s drama is set in 1940, when the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband, but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.

Mama

Selected for the 2020 Venice Film Festival, Li Dongmei’s debut follows 12-year-old Xiaoxian, who remembers what happened over seven days in her village in rural China during the Summer of 1992. During those seven days, she witnesses three deaths and two births, including the death of her own mother who dies giving birth to her fourth sister.

Fucking with Nobody

Hannaleena Hauru’s comedy premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2020. It follows Hanna, who teams up with her sister to create a parody Instagram romance with a young actor and raise awareness on how hungry society is for romantic narratives. Once her love story begins, however, Hanna finds herself tangled up in the unresolved past with her “you were never my boyfriend” friend Lasse.

Holy Motors

From dawn to dusk, a few hours in the life of Monsieur Oscar, a mysterious man who journeys from one life to the next, while being chauffeured around Paris in a limousine by a loyal driver. He is, in turn, assassin, beggar, monster, family man. He seems to be playing roles—but where are the cameras?

Yellow Cat

Ex-con Kermek and his beloved Eva want to leave their crime-infested lives on the Kazakh steppes behind. He has a dream: building a movie theater in the mountains. Will Kermek’s love of Alain Delon be strong enough to keep them out of the violent clutches of the mafia?

Visit, or Memories and Confessions

The director, Manoel de Oliveira, is in the Porto house where he has lived for decades, preparing to leave due to mounting debts. He addresses the audience directly, discussing family history, cinema, and architecture, sharing home movies, and reenacting his run-in with the military dictatorship.

Only God Forgives

Ryan Gosling impresses in Nicolas Winding Refn’s indulgent piece of Bangkok gothic.

Lions Love (… and Lies)

Warhol superstar Viva floats into a ménage à trois with James and Gerome, the two creators of the rock musical Hair, as they live in a rented house in the sun-soaked Hollywood hills. They delight in one another’s bodies while musing on love, stardom, and politics.

The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears

A woman disappears. Her husband investigates the strange circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Has she left him? Is she dead? As he proceeds with his inquiries, his apartment becomes more of and more of an an abyss which seems to have no way out…

Metropolis (1927)

In a highly stylised city, a wealthy utopia exists above a bleak underworld where mistreated workers live. When privileged youth Freder discovers the grim scene below, he sets out to help the workers and befriends the rebellious teacher Maria. One of the most iconic films ever made, Fritz Lang’s dystopian sci-fi classic is as thrilling today as it was on release in 1927.

Brother

Danila returns from his army service and is unemployed. On his mother’s advice, he leaves for St Petersburg where his older brother Viktor has been making good money. However, when he finds him, Viktor turns out to be a contract killer. Soon, Danila agrees to carry out an assignment for him.

Purple Sea

As the way to Europe remained blocked for Syrian artist Amel Alzakout, she decided to cross the Mediterranean Sea with smugglers. However, just before reaching the coast of Lesbos, the overcrowded boat she was on capsized. With a waterproof camera strapped to her wrist, Amel recorded the events.

Open Hearts

Cecilie and Joachim, a young couple in love, are soon to be married. But all of a sudden everything is turned upside down when Joachim is paralyzed in an accident, and Cecilie falls in love with the husband of the woman who caused the accident.

When You’re Strange: A Film About the Doors

The chemistry of four artists made The Doors one of America’s most influential rock bands. With previously unseen footage shot from their formation in 1965 to Jim Morrison’s death in 1971, the film follows the band through their career, providing insight into the revolutionary impact of their music.

Black Panthers

A film shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organised by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their leaders, and to turn his trial into a political debate. They tried and succeeded in catching America’s attention.

Lina from Lima

Lina is a Peruvian woman who works as a domestic helper for a wealthy Chilean family. She earns enough to make ends meet, and to send money back to her son in Lima. But when she prepares for her annual trip home for Christmas, she comes to the stark realization that no one is really waiting for her.

White God

A pack of dogs run wild through the streets of Budapest in this captivating revenge parable from Kornél Mundruczó, an idiosyncratic allegory on authority, rebellion, power, and protest. Rise of the Planet of the Dogs. If your ears have already perked up, then White God is for you. Read our full review

24 Hour Party People

A vibrant portrait of the Manchester music scene during the mid-to-late 1970s, through the eyes of TV presenter Tony Wilson, founder of Factory Records, as he introduces the world to such notable musical acts as Joy Division, New Order, and The Happy Mondays.

Menarca

​In a Brazilian village infested with piranhas, Nanã and Mel are fast growing into adolescence as they dream of ways of protecting themselves

Apples

An amnesia pandemic is the backdrop for this poignant tragicomedy. The deadpan debut of former Yorgos Lanthimos collaborator Christos Nikou, Apples is an allegorical meditation on memory, identity and technology. Read our full review.

Happy End

When her mother falls ill, Eve is sent to live with her estranged father’s relatives, a bourgeois family living in a mansion. As a series of intergenerational back-stabbings threaten to tear the family apart, the family fails to notice that their new arrival has a sinister secret of her own. Michael Haneke’s ensemble drama is a dark, biting satire. Read our full review

Diva

Jules, an opera enthusiast, is particularly enchanted by American diva Cynthia Hawkins, who refuses to be recorded. So enamored with her, he makes an illegal tape at her concert. But when the tape is confused with one implicating a police chief with the mob, he must use all his ingenuity to survive.

The Harder They Come

In partnership with Cinema Rediscovered, MUBI presents Jamaica’s first feature film: a restored cult classic that helped make reggae music popular worldwide.

Treasure Island

Returning to the water park of his childhood, Guillaume Brac’s graceful documentary sees the seemingly mundane recreational space as an urban oasis, a refuge from the hustle and bustle of Paris. Underneath the playfulness, however, is a commentary on immigration in France.

All Hands on Deck

A warm summer evening in Paris: Félix meets Alma by chance. They laugh, dance, and spend the night in a park. But she is about to go on a family vacation and their time together is cut short. On an impulse, Félix decides to surprise her where she is holidaying and enrols a friend in the adventure.

Black Bear

Aubrey Plaza is terrific as a creatively blocked filmmaker in this engaging and thought-provoking indie thriller. Read our full review

Something Different

Věra, a bored housewife with a defiant son and an unappreciative husband, seeks an escape from her frustrations in an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, the headstrong gymnast Eva Bosáková trains for the 1962 World Championship in Prague. Her lack of motivation prompts her coach to put pressure on her.

Salut Les Cubains

A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their post-revolution culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the filmmaker took while on the island.

April’s Daughter

Valeria is 17 and pregnant. She lives in Puerto Vallarta with Clara, her half sister. Valeria has not wanted her long-absent mother, April, to find out about her pregnancy, but due to the economic strain Clara decides to call their mother.

Welcome II The Terrordome

In the near future, black residents living in the Terrordome ghetto battle oppression from powerful whites. Black Rad fights for black power after his wife’s death while gangster Spike engages in an illicit affair with a white woman.

Joy Division

An account of the musical journey and ongoing legacy of Joy Division, the influential Manchester post-punk rock band of the late 1970s. Features interviews with the surviving band members (now known as New Order) and never-before-seen live performance footage and newly discovered audio tapes.

Diary for My Children

This deeply personal work explores Mészáros’ own experiences via Juli, a young woman returning home to Budapest from the Soviet Union where her exiled parents had died. Scarred by the wounds of the past, she’s repulsed to see the very same spectre of socialist oppression now rife in her homeland.

Hotel New York

Jackie Raynal returned to filmmaking in 1981, over a decade since Deux fois, with the autobiographical tale New York Story — later expanded into a feature as Hotel New York (1984) — which featured both her and her husband Sidney Geffen as themselves.

The Cloud in Her Room

Zhao Muzi went back to her hometown Hangzhou for spring festival. Her parents divorced years ago, her mother is dating a foreigner now while her father started a new family and had a new kid.

The Human Voice

This scathingly witty and sumptuously performed short film is a superbly stylish English-language debut for Pedro Almodóvar. Read our full review

Jessica Forever

In a dystopian world dominated by an oppressive regime, a woman, Jessica, rescues orphaned boys and gives them love and understanding, offering them an escape from their violent past. Bound by a united hope for peace and harmony, this matriarchal family fight for a better future.

Barrage

Working with renowned cinematographer Hélène Louvart and chronicling three generations of women, director Laura Schroeder expertly creates an atmosphere of eerie unease in this subtly suspenseful and foreboding family drama. Starring real-life mother-daughter duo Isabelle Huppert and Lolita Chammah.

Freedom Fields

Freedom Fields follows three women and their football team over five years in post-revolution Libya. As the country descends into war, “Determination, Will, Strength” is their motto. Community is key in this intimate story of hope, struggle, joy, and sisterhood.

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki

Bittersweet and shot through with the romance of defeat, this unconventional boxing movie is knock-out cinema. Read our full review

The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak

Approximately two hundred sex workers occupied the church of Saint-Nizier, in Lyon, in the spring of 1975. They speak of their personal stories, their relationships to society, their labour conditions, and their demands to stop police and social harassment.

Air Conditioner

One day, air conditioners in the Angolan capital Luanda start to mysteriously fall from the buildings. When security guard Matacedo is told to get his overheating boss an airco unit by end of day, he embarks on a mission that brings him into contact with the eccentric owner of an electronics store.

First Cow

Two men use a landowner’s cow for their business venture in Kelly Reichardt’s superlative period drama about male friendship, capitalism and creativity. Read our full review

Princess Cyd

This low-key coming-of-age drama is a gorgeous, generous showcase for two contrasting, complex women. Read our full review

The Congress

Ari Folman followed the Oscar-nominated Waltz With Bashir with this striking adaptation of Stanisław “Solaris” Lem’s novella. Folman blends live-action with hallucinatory animation for a vivid, sci-fi satire – beginning with Robin Wright agreeing to be scanned by Miramount so that the film studio has the rights to her digital image.

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

Matt Wolf’s engaging, reverential documentary explores the story of a woman who recorded US news for over 30 years. Read our full review

Undine

Paula Beer plays a water nymph who can’t escape her fate in Christian Petzold’s beautifully made fantasy romance. Read our full review

White on White

Late-19th century: Pedro arrives in Tierra del Fuego to photograph a landowner’s wedding. In capturing his future wife’s beauty, Pedro betrays the forces dominating these lands. Unable to escape, he becomes a participant in a new society being built through the genocide of the Selknam people.

Nadia, Butterfly

Nadia, 23, decides to retire from professional swimming after the Olympic Games in order to escape a life of sacrifice. After her final race, she drifts out of control with nights of excess, but this momentary elation is unable to hide her inner struggle: defining her identity outside of sports.

Yes

An American woman (Joan Allen), trapped in a loveless marriage with a devious politician, meets a Lebanese man (Sam Neill) living in exile. They begin a passionate, carefree affair, despite a conflict between their illicit love and religious beliefs, and travel from London to Belfast, Beirut and Havana in Sally Potter’s vivid drama.

Phoenix

After surviving Auschwitz, a former cabaret singer, her face disfigured and reconstructed, returns to her war-ravaged town to find a husband who may or may not have betrayed her. Without recognising her, he asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. She agrees, becoming her own doppelganger.

Circumstantial Pleasures

A feature-length collection of six animated short films by Lewis Klahr, combining collage animation with mid-century comic books, pop art, and magazines to explore “the pastness of the present”.

The Female Closet

Using groundbreaking research, newly discovered home movies, and archival photographs, and other visual sources, The Female Closet. is a cultural interrogation of the closeted and not-so-closeted lives of three women artists.

Shiva Baby

A highlight of 2020’s Toronto International Film Festival and SXSW, and featuring a standout lead performance from emerging actor-comedian Rachel Sennott, Emma Seligman’s bold, hilarious debut feature is a darkly playful comedy of chaos about a young bisexual woman grappling with tradition and independence over the course of one climactic day-long shiva. Read our review.

Lemebel

Joanna Reposi Garibaldi’s winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at 2019 Berlinale depicts a pioneering figure in Latin America’s LGBTQ+ movement and a tireless fighter who continued to speak out until the very end of his life. His sharp-tongued, poetic texts and provocative performances made him one of South America’s most important contemporary artists. In dictatorial Chile under Pinochet, Lemebel expressed things that only few dared to say.

Invasión

The city of Aquilea has fallen under siege by sinister forces. A group of middle-aged men, led by a somewhat older man, resolve to mount clandestine resistance to the invaders and defend their city. Meetings are held, maps are studied, strategies are proposed—but can the invasion really be overcome?

Correspondence

This filmed epistolary conversation between two acclaimed filmmakers blends digital and Super 8 footage, new material and family home movies, to form a reflection on family, history, motherhood, and current politics.

Petzold: Barbara

In 1980s East Germany, Barbara is a Berlin doctor banished to a country medical clinic for applying for an exit visa. Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays aloof, especially from the good natured clinic head, Andre. MUBI’s Christian Petzold retrospective continues with this 2012 drama.

Munyurangabo

The debut film by Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), Munyurangabo (2007) is a powerful and tender tale of a friendship between two teenagers as they deal with the effects of the Rwandan genocide. Quiet and authentic, the film also features a poem by Poet Laureate Edouard Uwayo.

Piercing

A darkly comic giallo-esque romance, torturously literalising all the dynamics of S&M, while accommodating the persistence of trauma.

PVT Chat

An erotic drama about love and loneliness, it follows a man as he becomes obsessed with a dominatrix met via video chat, played by Uncut Gems star Julia Fox.

2 Days in Paris

Julie Delpy’s delightfully prickly romantic comedy follows Marion, a bohemian French photographer, and Jack, a neurotic American, a couple living in New York and travelling around Europe. When they make a stopover in Marion’s hometown, Paris, the romantic trip takes a crooked turn as Jack meets her offbeat family and learns about her past.

Snowtown

After being introduced to a charismatic man, 16-year-old Jamie becomes friends with him. As the relationship grows so do Jamie’s suspicions, until he finds his world threatened by both his loyalty for, and fear of, his newfound father figure, John Bunting: Australia’s most notorious serial killer.

State Funeral

Sergei Loznitsa returns to take us back to Moscow, March 1953: in the days following the death of Joseph Stalin, countless citizens flooded the Red Square to mourn their leader’s loss and witness his burial. Though the procession was captured in detail by hundreds of cameramen, their footage has remained largely unseen until now. Read our full review

The Two of Them

Mari has a narrow-minded man for a husband, and Juli is fleeing her passionate marriage with an uncontrollable alcoholic. Both passing through a marital crisis, the two women turn to each other for comfort, and each of them gains necessary insights into her own life in seeing the other’s struggles.

Old Joy

Kelly Reichardt’s second feature follows two old friends, Kurt and Mark, who reunite for a weekend camping trip in the Cascade mountain range east of Portland, Oregon. When they arrive at their final destination, a hot spring deep in the forest, they must confront the divergent paths they have taken in life.

Personal Shopper

Olivier Assayas captures the uncertainty of the digital age in a haunting drama of isolation.

Atlantis

A winner at Venice Film Festival, and Ukraine’s official Oscar® submission for Best International Feature Film, Atlantis is a post-apocalyptic drama with an unexpectedly sweet love story at its core and dark humor around the edges.

Mayor

This unique documentary follows the daily duties of the mayor of Ramallah in the midst of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Warm and full of humour, but with a strong political stance.

Thirst

An operatic vampire tale from Park Chan-wook, this grand, tragic story an equal parts astonishing, romantic, and devastating.

X&Y (2018)

Artist Anna Odell conducts a social experiment in which she aims to challenge gender roles in our society. In a purpose-built set, she confronts herself with the actor and masculine icon Mikael Persbrandt, and invites seven other actors to live with them and act as alter egos of herself and Mikael.

Ghosts

In Istanbul, a day on the verge of a country-wide power surge unfolds with four characters—a mother whose son is in prison, a young woman committed to dancing, a female activist-artist, and a cunning middle man—all in a neighbourhood undergoing a process of gentrification for the “New Turkey”. Azra Deniz Okyay’s electrifying Venice prize-winner is a politically charged snapshot that reveals the rebellious rhythms of Istanbul’s ghettos with a focus on gender and social politics.

Compliance

You’ll hate every second – but you won’t stop watching this horribly gripping thriller. Read our full review

Brazil

Terry Gilliam’s darkly funny dystopian fantasy about a low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is eerily, brilliantly prescient.

IWOW: I Walk on Water

Returning to the intersection of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, Khalik Allah centres his new film on his long-time friendship with Frenchie, a homeless Haitian man, while also documenting his recent life: his relationships with his former girlfriend and an inner circle of friends.

Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Beautifully photographed in the badlands of the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, Chloé Zhao’s debut is a wistful and delicately observed tale of loss and familial bonds, featuring a wonderful cast of non-professional actors.

Gianfranco Rosi: Notturno

Shot in Iran, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon over the course of three turbulent years, it is an intimate and devastating depiction of the civilian populations who have no choice but to live on the frontlines. Told with compassion, grace and humanism, this is a breathtaking cinematic journey.

Beyond Clueless

Charlie Shackleton’s essay dissecting high school movies is a smart, entertaining ode to the teen movie legacy. Read our full review

Alex Ross Perry: The Color Wheel

JR, an aspiring news-anchor, forces her younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover’s place. Traveling through New England, they uncomfortably run into old school-mates or revisit familial history from which they have long since diverged.

Dead Pigs

The fates of an unlucky pig farmer, a feisty home-owner defending her property, a lovestruck busboy, a disenchanted rich girl, and an American expat pursuing the Chinese Dream converge and collide as thousands of dead pigs are found floating down the Huangpu River, towards a modernizing Shanghai. Don’t miss the rare chance to catch this Sundance-winning debut from Birds of Prey director Cathy Yan. Read our full review

 

A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £9.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial. A MUBI Go subscription costs £14.99 a month.

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Jerichow
Available until: 30th April 2022

Be Pretty and Shut Up!
Available until: 30th April 2022

Lover Other
Available until: 30th April 2022

Just Don’t Fuck
Available until: 30th April 2022

Letters Home
Available until: 30th April 2022

Born in Flames
Available until: 30th April 2022

Maso and Miso Go Boating
Available until: 30th April 2022

Yella
Available until: 30th April 2022

Still Processing
Available until: 30th April 2022

The Female Closet
Available until: 30th April 2022

Malina
Available until: 30th April 2022

The Event
Available until: 30th April 2022

The State I Am In
Available until: 30th April 2022

The Trial
Available until: 30th April 2022

F.H.A.R.
Available until: 30th April 2022

The Faculties
Available until: 30th April 2022

The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak
Available until: 30th April 2022

S.C.U.M. Manifesto 1967
Available until: 30th April 2022

La bouche de Jean-Pierre
Available until: 30th April 2022

Hotel New York
Available until: 30th April 2022

New York Story
Available until: 30th April 2022

Tender
Available until: 30th April 2022

The Trial (2018)
Available until: 30th April 2022

Alternative 3
Available until: 2nd May

The Wasps Are Here
Available until: 10th May

Add to Watchlist