Arabian Nights
Luxembourg, 2007, 110 min.
A Luxembourg man's obsession with an Algerian woman leads to tragedy in this tightly structured story treating Westerners' misconceptions about the Arab world. Handsome young train conductor Georges becomes fascinated with passenger Yamina, and when she disappears, he is determined to find her.... more

The Baader Meinhof Complex
Germany, 2008, 150 min.
This frantically paced epic traces the rise and fall of Germany's notorious Red Army Faction, a group of radicals who wrought mayhem on postwar Germany over the course of nearly three decades.... more

Blind Loves
Slovakia, 2008, 77 min.
The phrase "love is blind" takes on an entirely new significance in this ravishing documentary that mixes whimsical animation with the real experiences of four different blind men and women.... more

The Blind Sunflowers
Spain, 2008, 98 min.
The Spanish Civil War continues to haunt Spanish culture. Blind Sunflowers looks at the effect of the war on the children growing up under the Franco regime when a young boy can't quite figure out why his father lives secretly in his own house.... more

Cape No. 7
Taiwan, 2008, 129 min.
A big-hearted let's-put-on-a-show comedy centered on a despondent musician who gets his mojo back with a band of eccentric amateurs in his provincial hometown. This charmer won Best Film at the Hawaii Film Festival.... more

Captain Abu Raed
Jordan, 2007, 105 min.
An inspiring tale of friendship and heroism, a lonely janitor at Amman's International Airport in Jordan dreams of traveling the world. When a group of neighborhood children see him wearing a discarded captain's hat, they begin regular visits to listen to his enchanting stories.... more

The Class
France, 2008, 128 min.
Using digital video and a small crew, director Laurent Cantet creates an intimate, unflinching portrayal of a racially mixed classroom in a Parisian neighborhood over the course of a school year. The film's lead is played by the teacher who wrote the book on which the film is based.... more

Correction
Greece, 2007, 87 min.
One of the best Greek films of the past year features a homeless man, newly released from prison, who wanders the streets of multiethnic Athens on a journey that may or may not have sinister implications.... more

Crossing
South Korea, 2008, 106 min.
Focused on the politically sensitive issue of North Korean defectors, Crossing tells the heartrending story of a young family struggling with abject poverty. Their situation becomes so dire that the devoted father takes a chance and slips across the border.... more

Departures
Japan, 2008, 131 min.
A failed cellist connects with his inner undertaker, his rural hometown and his newly deceased father in this tonally eccentric, lushly scored, movingly funny drama. Crushed at the breakup of his Tokyo orchestra, Daigo retreats to his picturesque northern Japan hometown, with adoring wife in tow.... more

Dog Eat Dog
Colombia, 2008, 106 min.
A gritty Colombian gangster flick — with humor! Dog Eat Dog follows two small-time thugs, Eusebio and Victor, who share a room and a crime boss. When, for completely different reasons, they manage to get on the boss' bad side, they try to escape their fate, with the other's help.... more

Dunya & Desie
Netherlands, 2008, 97 min.
A heartwarming comedy/road movie centering on the 18-year-old best friends of the title, Dunya & Desie touches on issues of family and fitting in, negotiating parental expectations, and what it means to straddle two worlds with grace and élan.... more

Eldorado
Belgium, 2008, 80 min.
A heroin addict and the lonely car dealer whom he has just tried to burgle end up taking an eventful road trip together in actor-director Bouli Lanners' small but damn near perfectly formed seriocomedy.... more

Everlasting Moments
Sweden, 2008, 125 min.
Veteran Swedish director Jan Troell (best known for The Emigrants, his classic from 1971) returns with this elegant, perfectly realized period family drama starring the luminous Maria Heiskanen as Maria Larsson, a pioneer of Swedish photography at the turn of the 20th century.... more

Every Child Is Special
India, 2007, 165 min.
Dyslexic, eight-year-old Ishaan hates school and fails every subject. His teachers subject him to constant humiliation, until a new progressive teacher arrives on the scene. Winner of the 2008 Filmfare Best Movie Award, it is Aamir Khan's (Lagaan) directorial debut.... more

The Friend
Switzerland, 2007, 89 min.
When talented young singer Larissa asks gawky Zurich student Emil to pretend to be her "friend" in front of her family, he readily agrees. But before Emil has the opportunity to play make-believe, Larissa's sister, Nora, informs him that his "girlfriend" has died. Best Film, Swiss Film Days.... more

Gomorrah
Italy, 2008, 137 min.
Based on the incendiary novel by Roberto Saviano and winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Grand Prize, Gomorrah is a stark and unromanticized portrait of the influential Neapolitan crime clans who secretly rule a world where the line between criminals and upstanding citizens is blurred.... more

Goodbye Mothers
Morocco, 2007, 110 min.
Set in 1960s Morocco as the Jewish population surreptitiously immigrates to Israel in search of a better life. The sawmill owned by Brahim, a Muslim, and Henry, his Jewish business partner, is failing. Henry decides to try his luck in Israel.... more

The Home of Dark Butterflies
Finland, 2008, 105 min.
Based on a famous novel, the story is set in an isolated reformatory for troubled youth and focuses on 14-year-old Juhani, who is haunted and oppressed by a traumatic childhood experience.... more

Hope Eternal
United Kingdom, 2008, 120 min.
Scarred by years of abuse, Hope is a young Madagascan nurse who has dedicated her life to helping other abused street kids get well. Through her humanitarian efforts Hope meets Evan, a Welsh doctor who wins over both her and her daughter Bantu's heart.... more

I Am from Titov Veles
Macedonia, 2007, 102 min.
This neo-Chekhovian drama about three sisters stuck in a dying Macedonian town boasts surreal fantasy sequences and equally ravishing exterior scenes in which the characters are framed in disturbing industrial landscapes.... more

Jerusalema
South Africa, 2008, 118 min.
A poor boy in rural South Africa grows up to become the country's self-proclaimed Robin Hood, hijacking groups of buildings from white slumlords and offering to sell them back in exchange for improved living conditions.... more

The Karamazovs
Czech Republic, 2008, 100 min.
The play's the thing — but not everything — in this meta movie, which features a Czech theater company presenting a stage adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, and offers sophisticated interplay between novel, play, film and "real" life.... more

Last Stop 174
Brazil, 2008, 110 min.
Last Stop 174 follows the intertwined paths of two boys, Sandro and Alessandro, who meet in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, bond in prison, and begin a life of crime together that eventually leads to the famous hijacking of a bus in 2000.... more

Lion's Den
Argentina, 2008, 113 min.
Julia, a young pregnant university student, wakes up with blood on her hands and a dead man on the floor. She is arrested and convicted of murdering her lover. Sentenced to prison, she is placed in a special ward for pregnant women.... more

Loss
Lithuania, 2008, 96 min.
Set in Vilnius and Dublin, Maris Martinsons' multilayered mystery is reputedly inspired by both Dostoevsky and John Guare. A sad-sack drunk in Vilnius, Ben has it in for two of his exes, one of whom has an adopted son whose birth mother may be living in Dublin.... more

Mermaid
Russia, 2007, 114 min.
Five-year-old Alisa has taken a rebellious vow of silence. When she's shipped off to a special-needs school, she channels her emotional turmoil into magical telekinetic powers. Years later, she'll meet a man who inspires her to speak again.... more

The Necessities of Life
Canada, 2008, 103 min.
In the 1950s, Tivii, an Inuit hunter and family man from Baffin Island, is yanked from his isolated home terrain and installed in a Quebec City tuberculosis sanitarium. There he takes a fatherly interest in an afflicted native orphan.... more

No One's Son
Croatia, 2008, 100 min.
Ivan (Alen Liveric), a Croatian war veteran, doesn't have much to live for. He's lost both legs in a minefield, his ex-wife is leaving the country, and he is dependent on his parents. When a devastating family secret is revealed, Ivan goes over the edge.... more

O'Horten
Norway, 2007, 91 min.
Locomotive engineer Odd Horten's entire life has been governed by a strict train schedule. But after 40 years of driving one route, he's more than a little lost upon his retirement.... more

Opium War
Afghanistan, 2008, 90 min.
Winner of best film at the Rome festival and Afghanistan's entry for the Best Foreign Language Feature Academy Award, Siddiq Barmak's combo of ultra-realism and absurdism relates the interactions between two US soldiers caught behind enemy lines and an opium-producing Afghani family.... more

Painted Skin
Hong Kong, 2008, 118 min.
A lushly produced supernatural/martial arts action/historical romance that delves into intricate emotions and relationships between man and demon, love and passion, loyalty and temptation, treachery and integrity, ending in a finale with surprising twist.... more

Ploning
Philippines, 2008, 115 min.
Because of her renowned beauty, everyone is puzzled at Ploning's refusal to marry. No one is prepared for the secret that Ploning has kept for many years — a secret that demonstrates her selfless love and sacrifice.... more

The Rest Is Silence
Romania, 2007, 140 min.
A fictionalized account of the making of Romania's first feature film, the 1912 epic The War of Independence, itself a lavish recreation of Romania's struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877.... more

Revanche
Austria, 2008, 121 min.
Two couples — one from the city, the other from the countryside — are bound together by fate in this taut thriller. Elegantly spinning primal elements of guilt, revenge, faith, and redemption, Revanche asks the question, "Whose fault is it if life doesn't go your way?"... more

Salt of This Sea
Palestine, 2008, 109 min.
Brooklyn-born Soraya decides to move to Palestine and reclaim her heritage on both spiritual and financial levels. She meets Emad, a young Palestinian whose ambition, contrary to hers, is to leave forever.... more

Snow
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2008, 100 min.
In a remote Bosnian village, wartime survivors attempt to keep the memories of their loved ones alive. But when the first snow threatens further isolation, the stage is set for a final confrontation with the outside world. Grand Prize, International Critics' Week, Cannes Film Festival.... more

The Song of Sparrows
Iran, 2008, 96 min.
When family man Karim loses his job at an ostrich farm, he takes the first work he can get. But can his wife and kids convince him to return to a simpler life before the complexities of the city forever change him? From Iran's only Oscar-nominated director.... more

The Sorrow of Mrs. Schneider
Albania, 2008, 108 min.
The life and loves of an Albanian student in 1960s Czechoslovakia, and how the struggle between socialism "with a human face" and that of "an iron fist" leaves him with a personal dilemma.... more

Tear This Heart Out
Mexico, 2008, 110 min.
Mexico, 1932. Andrés — a dashing, ruthlessly domineering general with designs on Mexico's presidency — takes beautiful, naive 15-year-old Catalina, as his bride. This sensual, sweeping epic traces Catalina's growth as a woman through 15 tumultuous years.... more

Tengri: Blue Heavens
Kyrgyzstan, 2008, 110 min.
Starting in a traditional Kyrgyz mountain jailoo, a yurt village where men rule and women work, Tengri offers classic lovers-on-the-run melodrama set amid spectacular widescreen backdrops.... more

Three Monkeys
Turkey, 2008, 109 min.
Bad faith, simmering resentment, adultery and murder all figure into Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan's darkly burnished fifth feature, in which his distinct visual style melds with a thriller plot. Best Director, Cannes Film Festival.... more

Tony Manero
Chile, 2008, 98 min.
Set in 1978 Santiago, Chile during Pinochet's reign of terror, this disturbing film follows a psychotic petty criminal into the depths of his crazed obsession with John Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever.... more

The Tour
Serbia, 2008, 105 min.
In 1993, a naive Belgrade-based theater company embarks on an increasingly dangerous tour of the war-torn Krajina in this jet-black road movie. Tapping the sweet spot between comedy and tragedy, this treatise on war's chaos and humanity's foibles is accessible.... more

Tricks
Poland, 2007, 96 min.
A fatherless boy tries to tempt fate in this pitch-perfect portrait of working-class life in a provincial town — and of growing up as the much younger brother of an adored older sister. Winner, Best Film, Miami Film Festival; Best Cinematography and Critics' Award, Gdynia.... more

Tulpan
Kazakhstan, 2008, 100 min.
The traditional lifestyle of nomadic sheepherders on the harsh Kazak steppe provides quietly sensational drama in Tulpan. An engrossing tale of a twentysomething youth who can't achieve his long-cherished dream of tending his own flock without first acquiring a wife... more

Under the Bombs
Lebanon, 2007, 98 min.
Shot during the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which devastated Lebanon's infrastructure and civilian population, this docu-fiction road movie combines real footage of the massive destruction with a fictional narrative about a Shiite woman searching for her missing son.... more

Waltz with Bashir
Israel, 2008, 87 min.
A film about memory and responsibility that uses powerful animation to recreate the hallucinogenic qualities of recollection, this unique documentary shows how Lebanon is part of the Israeli psyche, its shadow, its other place.... more

White Night Wedding
Iceland, 2008, 96 min.
An irreverent uprooting and updating of Anton Chekhov's play, Ivanov. A middle-aged professor about to get married for the second time to a woman half his age — despite the opposition of his future parents-in-law — starts to get cold feet.... more

Worlds Apart
Denmark, 2008, 108 min.
A teen raised as a Jehovah's Witness falls in love with a nonbeliever and faces expulsion from her church. This nuanced, sophisticated drama asks provocative questions about faith and fundamentalism in an increasingly secular world.... more