Spotlight
Wondering which films to watch? Spotlight presents thematically grouped, must see films, hand-picked by Fandor's curators.
Blast From The Past
Just what is our collective obsession with the past all about? Few film choices are more exciting than when contemporary filmmakers revive costumes and set designs from earlier historical periods. In this Spotlight, we journey across the Oregonian desert with three 1840s pioneer families; travel across Germany following WWI with 5 siblings; witness the antics of a draughtsman in 17th century England; and find ourselves riding a timeline rollercoaster. Come time travel with us.
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Selected Films
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Wuthering Heights
Andrea Arnold's WUTHERING HEIGHTS is an excitingly fresh and distinct take on the classic novel by Emily Brontë. An epic love story that spans childhood well into the young adult years, the film follows Heathcliff, a boy taken in by a benevolent Yorkshire farmer, Earnshaw....Watch Movie
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Meek's Cutoff
Three 1840s' pioneer families become dangerously lost amidst the dust of the Oregon desert in Kelly Reichardt's sensory update of the Western genre, focusing not on typical fare like gun battles, card sharks or dramatic rescues but instead on the long, arduous journey westward. Having hired the...Watch Movie
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Low Down
LOW DOWN, based on Amy-Jo Albany's powerful memoir of growing up in the care of her gifted, tormented and frequently absent musician father, the bebop jazz pianist Joe Albany, focuses on the years 1974 to 1976, when Amy had few resources other than the love of her aging grandmother and a ragtag...Watch Movie
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White Lies
Paraiti is the healer and midwife of her rural, tribal people - she believes in life. But new laws in force are prohibiting unlicensed healers, making the practice of much Maori medicine illegal. She gets approached by Maraea, the servant of a wealthy woman, Rebecca, who seeks her knowledge and...Watch Movie
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Aguirre, the Wrath of God
The first collaboration between director Werner Herzog and star Klaus Kinski, this freely-imagined yet fact-inspired tale of Spanish conquistadors searching for a mythical "city of gold" in 16th-century Peru was a career landmark for both Herzog and Kinski and an artistic...Watch Movie
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Lore
Left to fend for themselves after their SS officer father and mother, staunch Nazi believers, are interned by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II, five German children undertake a harrowing journey that exposes them to the reality and consequences of their parents' actions. Led by...Watch Movie
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Vision
Hildegard von Bingen was truly a woman ahead of her time. A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed 12th-century Benedictine nun was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist and ecological activist. In VISION, New German...Watch Movie
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The Draughtsman's Contract
Set in a richly exaggerated 17th-century England, Peter Greenaway's sumptuous brainteaser catapulted him to the forefront of international art cinema. Adorned with intricate wordplay, extravagant costumes and opulent photography, Greenaway's first narrative feature weaves a...Watch Movie
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The Turin Horse
On January 3, 1889, in Turin, Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, a cab driver is having trouble with a stubborn horse. The horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche puts an...Watch Movie
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Russian Ark
Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (THE SUN) broke boundaries with his dreamlike vision of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, RUSSIAN ARK. It's the first feature-length narrative film shot in a single take (on digital video, using a specially designed disc instead of tape). RUSSIAN ARK is shot...Watch Movie
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Caravaggio
Jarman’s most profound reflection on art, sexuality and identity retells the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld. CARAVAGGIO incorporates the painter’s precise aesthetic into the movie’s own...Watch Movie
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Conceiving Ada
In this award-winning film (which was the first to use "virtual sets"), Academy Award® winner Tilda Swinton embodies Lady Ada Lovelace, daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron and the mathematics genius who developed what became the world's first computer language one hundred years before computers...Watch Movie
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Passionflower
On the brink of puberty in 1962 suburban Winnipeg, Sarah Matthews is increasingly challenged and confused by her mother's instability. While her father refuses to acknowledge that the family is fracturing under the stress of his wife's mental illness, Sarah uses her creativity, inner strength,...Watch Movie
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The Mill and the Cross
THE MILL AND THE CROSS is a "film of great beauty and attention" (Roger Ebert) that stunningly recreates one of the great masterpieces of painting, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "The Way to Calvary." Lech Majewski brings the viewer inside the painting with immersive period detail...Watch Movie
