Gothic (Ken Russell, 1986)

Myriam Cyr, Julian Sands, Gabriel Byrne, and Natasha Richardson in Gothic

Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardon, Myriam Cyr, Timothy Spall. Screenplay: Stephen Volk. Cinematography: Mike Southon. Production design: Christopher Hobbs. Film editing: Michael Bradsell. Music: Thomas Dolby. 

Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-Wai, 1990)

Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung in Days of Being Wild

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Rebecca Pan, Jacky Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Screenplay: Jeffrey Lau, Wong Kar-Wai. Cinematography: Christopher Doyle. Production design: William Chang. Film editing: Kai Kit-Wai, Patrick Tam. Music: Terry Chan. 

The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)

Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant

Cast: Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Renner, Yelena Solovey, Dagmara Dominczyk, Magda Wampuszyc, Angela Sarafyan, Ilia Volok, Antoni Corone, Kevin Cannon. Screenplay: James Gray, Ric Menello. Cinematography: Darius Khondji. Production design: Happy Massee. Film editing: John Axelrad, Kayla Emter. Music: Christopher Spelman.  

The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023)

Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Paul Giamatti, and Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Brady Hepner, Ian Dolley, Jim Kaplan, Michael Provost, Andrew Garman, Naheem Garcia, Gillian Vigman, Tate Donovan. Screenplay: David Hemingson. Cinematography: Eigil Bryld. Production design: Ryan Warren Smith. Film editing: Kevin Tent. Music: Mark Orton. 

The Eagle Shooting Heroes (Jeffrey Lau, 1993)

 

Tony Leung Chiu-wai in The Eagle Shooting Heroes

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Jacky Cheung, Kenny Bee, Brigitte Lin, Joey Wang, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Veronica Lip. Screenplay: Jeffrey Lau, based on a novel by Louis Cha. Cinematography: Peter Pau. Production design: Peter Chang. Film editing: Kai Kit-wai. Music: James Wong, Mark Lui. 

Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946)

Robert Mitchum and Katharine Hepburn in Undercurrent

Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Edmund Gwenn, Marjorie Main, Jayne Meadows, Clinton Sundberg, Dan Tobin, Kathryn Card, Leigh Whipper, Charles Trowbridge, James Westerfield, Billy McClain. Screenplay: Edward Chodorov, based on a story by Thelma Strabel. Cinematography: Karl Freund. Art direction: Randall Duell, Cedric Gibbons. Film editing: Ferris Webster. Music: Herbert Stothart. 

Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004)

Danny Huston and Nicole Kidman in Birth

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Alison Elliott, Arliss Howard, Michael Desautels, Anne Heche, Peter Stormare, Ted Levine, Cara Seymour, Zoe Caldwell. Screenplay: Jean-Claude Carrière, Milo Addica, Jonathan Glazer. Cinematography: Harris Savides. Production design: Kevin Thompson. Film editing: Sam Sneade, Claus Wehlisch. Music: Alexandre Desplat. 

Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet, 2023)

Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud in Anatomy of a Fall

Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth, Saadia Benthaïb, Camille Rutherford, Anne Rotger, Sophie Fillières, Messi. Screenplay: Justine Triet, Arthur Harari. Cinematography: Simon Beaufils. Production design: Emmanuelle Duplay. Film editing: Laurent Sénéchal. 

Cute Girl (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1980)

Fong Fei-fei and Kenny Be in Cute Girl

Cast: Kenny Be, Fong Fei-fei, Anthony Chan, Chang Ping-yu, Chi Kai-ching, Chien Lu, Chou Wan-sheng, Chang Hui-fen. Screenplay: Hou Hsiao-hsien. Cinematography: Chen Kun-hou. Film editing: Liao Cheng-sung. Music: Huang Mou-shan. 

A Question of Silence (Marleen Gorris, 1982)

Nelly Frijda, Edda Barends, and Henriëtte Toll in A Question of Silence

Cast: Edda Barends, Nelly Frijda, Henriëtte Toll, Cox Habbema, Eddie Brugman, Hans Croiset, Erik Plooyer. Screenplay: Marleen Gorris. Cinematography: Frans Bromet. Art direction: Harry Ammerlaan. Film editing: Hans van Dongen. Music: Lodewijk de Boer, Martijn Hasebos.

Love Letter (Kinuyo Tanaka, 1953)

Masayuki Mori in Love Letter

Cast: Masayuki Mori, Juzo Dosan, Yoshiko Kuga, Jukichi Uno, Kyoko Kagawa, Shizue Natsukawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Chieko Seki, Ranko Hanai, Chieko Nakakita, Keisuke Kinoshita. Screenplay: Keisuke Kinoshita, based on a novel by Fumio Niwa. Cinematography: Hiroshi Suzuki. Art direction: Seigo Shindo. Film editing: Toshio Goto. Music: Ichiro Saito. 

I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007)

Marcus Carl Franklin, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere in I'm Not There

Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Kris Kristofferson (voice), Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams. Screenplay: Todd Haynes, Oren Moverman. Cinematography: Edward Lachman. Production design: Judy Becker. Film editing: Jay Rabinowitz. Music: Bob Dylan. 

Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023)

Emma Stone in Poor Things

Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Suzy Bemba, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla. Screenplay: Tony McNamara, based on a novel by Alasdair Gray. Cinematography: Robbie Ryan. Production design: Shona Heath, James Price. Film editing: Yorgos Mavropsaridis. Music: Jerskin Fendrix. 

The Revolt of Mamie Stover (Raoul Walsh, 1956)

Jane Russell in The Revolt of Mamie Stover 

Cast: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, Jorja Curtright, Michael Pate, Richard Coogan, Alan Reed. Screenplay: Sydney Boehm, based on a novel by William Bradford Huie. Cinematography: Leo Tover. Art direction: Mark-Lee Kirk, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Louis R. Loeffler. Music: Hugo Friedhofer. 

A Sunday in the Country (Bertrand Tavernier, 1984)

Sabine Azéma and Louis Ducreux in A Sunday in the Country

Cast: Louis Ducreux, Michel Aumont, Sabine Azéma, Geneviève Mnich, Monique Chaumette, Thomas Duval, Quentin Ogier, Katia Wostrikoff, Claude Winter. Screenplay: Bertrand Tavernier, Colo Tavernier, based on a novel by Pierre Bost. Cinematography: Bruno de Keyzer. Production design: Patrice Mercier. Film editing: Armand Psenny. 

Bertrand Tavernier's autumnal A Sunday in the Country appropriately evokes several famous paintings, including Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party and Seurat's La Grande Jatte. The film's central character is a painter, M. Ladmiral (Louis Ducreux), an elderly survivor of the era in which those masterpieces were created, and some of the film's wistful tone is set by his acknowledgement that he never rose to their heights. It is a Sunday in the late summer of 1912 at his country home near Paris, and he welcomes the arrival by train of his son, Gonzague (Michel Aumont), and daughter-in-law (Geneviève Mnich) and their three children, the boisterous Emile (Thomas Duval) and Lucien (Quentin Ogier) and the somewhat petted Mireille (Katia Wostrikoff). But his daughter, Irène (Sabine Azéma), also shows up, driving her own car, and her free-spirited manner contrasts with the stuffiness of Gonzague and his wife. There are a couple of crises: Mireille somehow gets stuck up a tree, and Irène receives an upsetting phone call from her lover, whom she has been trying to reach throughout the afternoon. But mostly the film is a study of family dynamics in an era that's about to be blown away by World War I. Tavernier and his cast give the otherwise uneventful narrative a lovely, delicate tension.  

The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)

Christopher Plummer and Elliott Gould in The Silent Partner

Cast: Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Céline Lomez, Michael Kirby, Sean Sullivan, Ken Pogue, John Candy. Screenplay: Curtis Hanson, based on a novel by Anders Bodelsen. Cinematography: Billy Williams. Production design: Trevor Williams. Film editing: George Appleby. Music: Oscar Peterson. 

Solid, entertaining thriller with a good turn by Christopher Plummer as the heavy. Your enjoyment of it may depend on how much you can accept Elliott Gould's transformation from nerdy bank teller to romantic lead. I'm still struggling with it. Director Daryl Duke's conflicts with the producers led to screenwriter Curtis Hanson being called in to finish the film, which he had wanted to direct all along.