Obscure Films from Sight & Sound
by dimat-32597 | created - 6 months ago | updated - 6 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Born in Flames (1983)
Not Rated | 79 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Set ten years after the most peaceful revolution in United States history, it presents a dystopia in which the issues of many groups - minorities, liberals, gay rights organizations, feminists - are dealt with by the government.
Director: Lizzie Borden | Stars: Honey, Adele Bertei, Jean Satterfield, Florynce Kennedy
Votes: 2,061
2. Oh, Sun (1970)
98 min | Drama
A native of Mauritania is delighted when he is chosen to work in Paris. However, he is disappointed when he sees racial inequity as blacks are relegated to manual labor while less skilled whites are given preferential treatment.
Director: Med Hondo | Stars: Robert Liensol, Théo Légitimus, Ambroise M'Bia, Gabriel Glissant
Votes: 836
3. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
PG-13 | 84 min | Drama, Music
The lives of an English working-class family are told out of order in a free-associative manner. The first part, "Distant Voices", focuses on the father's role in the family. The second part, "Still Lives", focuses on his children.
Director: Terence Davies | Stars: Pete Postlethwaite, Freda Dowie, Angela Walsh, Dean Williams
Votes: 5,168 | Gross: $0.69M
4. Syndromes and a Century (2006)
105 min | Drama
Story about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents, who were both doctors, and the director's memories about growing up in the hospital environment.
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Stars: Nantarat Sawaddikul, Jaruchai Iamaram, Sophon Pukanok, Jenjira Pongpas
Votes: 4,600 | Gross: $0.02M
5. The Intruder (2004)
Unrated | 130 min | Drama
An emotionally cold man leaves the safety of his Alpine home to seek a heart transplant and an estranged son.
Director: Claire Denis | Stars: Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin, Yekaterina Golubeva, Bambou
Votes: 2,146 | Gross: $0.04M
6. Morvern Callar (2002)
R | 97 min | Drama
After her beloved boyfriend's suicide, a mourning supermarket worker and her best friend hit the road in Scotland, but find that grief is something that you can't run away from forever.
Director: Lynne Ramsay | Stars: Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Linda McGuire, Paul Popplewell
Votes: 11,050 | Gross: $0.27M
7. In Vanda's Room (2000)
Not Rated | 171 min | Drama
The film follows the daily life of Vanda Duarte, a heroin addict in Lisbon, and the community she lives in.
Director: Pedro Costa | Stars: Vanda Duarte, Lena Duarte, Zita Duarte, Manuel Gomes Miranda
Votes: 1,733
9. I, You, He, She (1974)
86 min | Drama
'Je' is a girl voluntarily lock up in a room. 'Tu' is the script. 'Il' is a lorry driver. 'Elle' is the girlfriend.
Director: Chantal Akerman | Stars: Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire Wauthion
Votes: 2,966
10. Petite Maman (2021)
PG | 73 min | Drama, Fantasy
Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods. One day she meets a girl her age building a tree-house.
Director: Céline Sciamma | Stars: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne
Votes: 17,720
11. Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
Unrated | 113 min | Drama
In the "flower houses" (upscale brothels) of Shanghai, various interweaving stories of love, loyalty, and deceit play out subtly.
Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou | Stars: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Michiko Hada, Michelle Reis, Carina Lau
Votes: 4,079
12. Blue (1993)
Not Rated | 79 min | Biography, Drama
In his final - and most daring - cinematic statement, Jarman the romantic meets Jarman the iconoclast in a lush soundscape pulsing against a purely blue screen, laying bare his physical and spiritual state.
Director: Derek Jarman | Stars: Derek Jarman, Tilda Swinton, John Quentin, Nigel Terry
Votes: 2,736 | Gross: $1.72M
13. By the Bluest of Seas (1936)
71 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
Two best friends shipwreck on an island in the Caspian Sea and fall in love with the same woman while helping the villagers of their new home.
Directors: Boris Barnet, Samad Mardanov | Stars: Yelena Kuzmina, Lev Sverdlin, Nikolay Kryuchkov, Alexei Dolinin
Votes: 1,162
14. One Way or Another (1977)
78 min | Drama, Romance
In Miraflores, Cuba, the growing romance between Mario, a factory worker, and Yolanda, a schoolteacher, throws into relief the differences in their perspectives and values in Revolutionary Cuba.
Director: Sara Gómez | Stars: Mario Balmaseda, Yolanda Cuéllar, Mario Limonta, Isaura Mendoza
Votes: 647
15. Zama (2017)
Unrated | 115 min | Drama, History
Based on the novel by Antonio Di Benedetto written in 1956, on Don Diego de Zama, a Spanish officer of the seventeenth century settled in Asunción, who awaits his transfer to Buenos Aires.
Director: Lucrecia Martel | Stars: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lola Dueñas, Matheus Nachtergaele, Juan Minujín
Votes: 7,144 | Gross: $0.20M
16. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Not Rated | 114 min | Drama, Fantasy
Dying of kidney disease, a man spends his last, somber days with family, including the ghost of his wife and a forest spirit who used to be his son, on a rural northern Thailand farm.
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Stars: Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Natthakarn Aphaiwonk
Votes: 17,401 | Gross: $0.18M
17. The Headless Woman (2008)
Unrated | 87 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
After hitting something with her car, a bourgeois Argentine woman's life slowly descends into paranoia and isolation, as she fears she may have killed someone.
Director: Lucrecia Martel | Stars: María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón, Daniel Genoud
Votes: 5,729 | Gross: $0.10M
18. Thirst (1957)
Not Rated | 146 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
Vijay, a talented but indigent poet, struggles for love and recognition in this selfish world.
Director: Guru Dutt | Stars: Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha, Rehman Khan
Votes: 7,279
19. Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)
Not Rated | 97 min | Drama
A Cuban man cycles through his opinions and memories as the threat of foreign invasion intensifies and the rest of his family moves to Miami.
Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea | Stars: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Eslinda Núñez, Omar Valdés
Votes: 4,777 | Gross: $0.03M
20. A City of Sadness (1989)
157 min | Drama, History
The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror" that was wrought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government after their arrival from mainland China in the late 1940s.
Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou | Stars: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Shu-Fen Hsin, Sung-Young Chen, Jack Kao
Votes: 6,103
21. The Cloud-Capped Star (1960)
Not Rated | 126 min | Drama
A selfless young woman (Supriya Choudhury) sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family.
Director: Ritwik Ghatak | Stars: Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gyanesh Mukherjee, Bijon Bhattacharya
Votes: 3,240
22. West Indies (1979)
110 min | Drama, Musical
This vast musical fresco covers hundreds of years of history from enslavement to 20th-century immigration. Set on an enormous slave ship and boasts a dazzling array of brilliant choreography, wide-ranging musical styles and sharp satire.
Director: Med Hondo | Stars: Cyril Aventurin, Fernand Berset, Roland Bertin, Gérald Bloncourt
Votes: 198
23. India Song (1975)
Not Rated | 120 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Anne-Marie Stretter, wife of a French diplomat, lives in 1930s India. She takes many lovers as systems of oppression decay around her.
Director: Marguerite Duras | Stars: Delphine Seyrig, Michael Lonsdale, Mathieu Carrière, Claude Mann
Votes: 2,583
24. The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Unrated | 85 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.
Director: Cheryl Dunye | Stars: Cheryl Dunye, Guinevere Turner, Valarie Walker, Lisa Marie Bronson
Votes: 3,670
25. Sambizanga (1972)
Not Rated | 97 min | Drama
A man is wrongfully arrested and tortured to death after he is suspected of being part of a revolutionary group.
Director: Sarah Maldoror | Stars: Elisa Andrade, Domingos de Oliveira, Jean M'Vondo, Dino Abelino
Votes: 774
26. The Swamp (2001)
Not Rated | 103 min | Comedy, Drama
The life of two women and their families in a small provincial town of Salta, Argentina.
Director: Lucrecia Martel | Stars: Mercedes Morán, Graciela Borges, Martín Adjemián, Leonora Balcarce
Votes: 7,872 | Gross: $0.10M
27. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
82 min | Drama, Comedy
On a dark, wet night a historic and regal Chinese cinema sees its final film. Together with a small handful of souls they bid "Goodbye, Dragon Inn".
Director: Tsai Ming-liang | Stars: Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Kiyonobu Mitamura, Chun Shih
Votes: 6,177 | Gross: $0.03M
28. Black Girl (1966)
Not Rated | 65 min | Drama
A black girl from Senegal becomes a servant in France.
Director: Ousmane Sembene | Stars: Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek, Robert Fontaine, Momar Nar Sene
Votes: 6,024
29. Tropical Malady (2004)
Not Rated | 118 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A romance between a soldier and a country boy, wrapped around a Thai folk-tale involving a shaman with shape-shifting abilities.
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Stars: Banlop Lomnoi, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Huai Dessom, Sirivech Jareonchon
Votes: 6,318
30. Touki Bouki (1973)
Not Rated | 85 min | Drama
Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.
Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty | Stars: Magaye Niang, Myriam Niang, Christoph Colomb, Mustapha Ture
Votes: 4,105
31. Daughters of the Dust (1991)
TV-PG | 113 min | Drama, History, Romance
A languid, impressionistic story of three generations of Gullah women living on the South Carolina Sea Islands in 1902.
Director: Julie Dash | Stars: Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbarao, Trula Hoosier
Votes: 3,292 | Gross: $1.64M
32. Wanda (1970)
GP | 102 min | Crime, Drama
Wanda, a lonely housewife, drifts through mining country until she meets a petty thief who takes her in.
Director: Barbara Loden | Stars: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins, Dorothy Shupenes, Peter Shupenes
Votes: 5,709 | Gross: $0.05M
33. Killer of Sheep (1978)
80 min | Drama
Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.
Director: Charles Burnett | Stars: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett
Votes: 7,538 | Gross: $0.40M
34. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Not Rated | 202 min | Drama
A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet. However, something happens that changes her safe routine.
Director: Chantal Akerman | Stars: Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte, Henri Storck, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
Votes: 13,924 | Gross: $0.02M
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