Spotlight
Wondering which films to watch? Spotlight presents thematically grouped, must see films, hand-picked by Fandor's curators.
Debut Feature
A director’s debut feature is our first glance at who they are. An introduction to their style, influences, aesthetic, voice- the sum of which frames their vision. The work of ambitious directors dedicated to making their mark often results in game changing, innovative films. Some of cinema’s most famous and celebrated films happen to be debut features. Lucky for Fandor, we have a rich collection of first films by iconic and emerging directors to share, and we are really good at sharing.
Presenting the stunning directorial debuts of George Miller, Baz Luhrmann, Kelly Reichardt, Todd Haynes, Michelangelo Antonioni, Damien Chazelle, John Carpenter, Shirley Clarke and so many more!
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Selected Films
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River of Grass
Kelly Reichardt's darkly funny debut feature, RIVER OF GRASS brought the writer/director back to the setting of her adolescence, the suburban landscape of southern Florida, where she grew up with her detective father and narcotics agent mother. Shot on 16mm, the story follows the misadventures of...Watch Movie
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Poison
The second feature directed by Todd Haynes, POISON is a groundbreaking American independent film and was the most fervently debated film of the 1990s as well as a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. A work of immense visual invention, Haynes' spectacular follow-up to his legendary SUPERSTAR:...Watch Movie
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Story of a Love Affair
STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR is the legendary Michelangelo Antonioni's debut feature, a powerful statement on the delusions and violence sparked by a passionate love. This deeply tragic romance already exhibits the astonishing formal control and penetrating insights into the human...Watch Movie
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Alice
When Alice follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland, so begins this dream expedition into the astonishing landscape of childhood, through many dangerous adventures, and ultimately to Alice's trial before the King and Queen of Hearts. Czech animator Jan Svankmajer has created a masterpiece of...Watch Movie
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Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
A full-fledged song-and-dance, tap-and-jazz musical, Damien Chazelle’s GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH boldly recasts the 1940s MGM musical tradition in a gritty, verite style, resulting in an exuberant celebration of romance and music and one of the most critically-acclaimed...Watch Movie
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Dark Star
In the mid twenty-first century, mankind has reached a point in its technological advances to enable colonization of the far reaches of the universe. DARK STAR is a futuristic scout ship traveling far in advance of colony ships. Armed with Exponential Thermosteller Bombs, it prowls the darkest...Watch Movie
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As Tears Go By
Though as gritty as any 80s Hong Kong gangster picture, AS TEARS GO BY is a watershed film heralding one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in international cinema. Wong Kar-Wai's visually stunning, tough and romantic 1988 first feature deftly smuggles the director's now celebrated genius...Watch Movie
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Black Sunday
In one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in movie history, Mario Bava bridged the gap between the gothic horror picture and the European art film with BLACK SUNDAY (aka LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO or THE MASK OF SATAN). Made in 1960 and now considered a cult classic, it continues to...Watch Movie
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I Killed My Mother
Focusing on the relationship between Hubert Minel (Xavier Dolan), a 16-year-old Quebecois living in suburban Montreal, and his single mother Chantale (Anne Dorval), I KILLED MY MOTHER beautifully captures the anxieties of a mother-son relationship. While he gauges her with...Watch Movie
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Pavilion
Tim Sutton’s debut feature, likened to films by Gus Van Sant and Pedro Costa, follows a laconic teenager (Max) who moves from an idyllic lakeside town to his father’s home in arid suburban Arizona. With mesmerizing imagery of hot summer bike rides and cool lake-bound dives, PAVILION captures the...Watch Movie
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L'age d'or
In 1930, following their short film triumph UN CHIEN ANDALOU, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's created an hour-long avant-garde tour de force that's both an aesthetic avalanche of boldness and a withering attack on a society. L'AGE D'OR delivers a gleeful fever dream of bizarre humor and shocking...Watch Movie
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I am Not a Hipster
A young singer/songwriter with a growing local following wanders through his apathetic life. When his dad and three sisters show up to spread his mother's ashes, he is reminded of the part of himself he left back in Ohio and is forced to deal with the person he has become. I...Watch Movie
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17 Girls
Based on a headline-grabbing incident in the U.S., sister directing duo Delphine and Muriel Coulin's provocative debut feature (which they also co-wrote) follows the fallout in a sleepy French coastal town of Brittany, when a group of seventeen teenage girls from the same high school all decide...Watch Movie
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The Connection
One of the most vital, fascinating films of the American independent world was created by a female director, Shirley Clarke, at a time when they were in very short supply. The film shattered stereotypes in just about every conceivable way. For her first feature film, she decided to take on a...Watch Movie
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Impolex
In his feature debut, Alex Ross Perry was loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." Taking place just after World War II, the film follows the shambling young soldier Tyrone S. as he wanders through the forest looking for German V2 rockets and encounters a number of inexplicable...Watch Movie
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Loving Couples
For her feature film directing debut, actress Mai Zetterling turned to Agnes von Krusenstjerna's controversial masterpiece of Swedish feminist literature, "The Misses von Pahlen," an intense and personal seven-part novel that has been likened to the great works of D.H. Lawrence. As three pregnant...Watch Movie
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It Felt Like Love
In this unflinchingly honest and refreshingly unsentimental coming-of-age story, fourteen-year-old Lila spends a languid South Brooklyn summer playing third wheel to her promiscuous friend Chiara and Chiara's boyfriend Patrick. Eager for her own sexual awakening, Lila gamely...Watch Movie
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Butter on the Latch
Former performance artist Josephine Decker's stunning debut feature is a deeply subjective and mysterious portrait of a frantic young woman, Sarah, who leaves the city for the apparent safety of a Balkan music camp hidden deep in the California woods. Once there she reconnects...Watch Movie
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52 Tuesdays
A sixteen year old's reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for gender transition and their time together becomes limited to Tuesday afternoons. Filmed over the course of a year, once-a-week every week (only on Tuesdays), these unique filmmaking rules bring a...Watch Movie
