Dumped by her boyfriend just three weeks before their wedding, Lola enlists her close friends for a series of adventures she hopes will help her come to terms with approaching 30 as a single woman.

Seemingly in constant trouble at school, 14-year-old Antoine Doinel returns at the end of every day to a drab, unhappy home life. His parents have little money and he sleeps on a couch that's been pushed into the kitchen. His parents bicker constantly and he knows his mother is having an affair. He decides to skip school and begins a downward spiral of lies and theft. His parents are at their wits' end, and after he's stopped by the police, they decide the best thing would be to let Antoine face the consequences. He's sent to a juvenile detention facility where he doesn't do much better. He does manage to escape however.

One year in a small northern Italian coastal town in the late 1930s is presented. The slightly off-kilter cast of characters are affected by time and location, the social mores dictated largely by Catholicism, and the national fervor surrounding Il Duce aka

Antonio Ricci, an unemployed man in the depressed post-WWII economy of Italy, finally gets a job hanging up posters, but he needs a bicycle. But when his bicycle is stolen,, he and son walk the streets of Rome looking for it. Antonio finally manages to locate the thief, but with no proof he must abandon his cause. But he and his son know perfectly well that without a bike, Antonio won't be able to keep his job.

At the height of World War I, the German ace aviator, Captain von Rauffenstein, shoots down the plane of the aristocratic French pilot, Captain de Boeldieu, and his co-pilot, the working-class civilian mechanic, Lieutenant Maréchal, during an air-reconnaissance mission. As the captured officers find themselves in the Hallbach POW camp for officers, they befriend the wealthy former Jewish banker, Lieutenant Rosenthal, and along with a handful of determined compatriots, they organise an escape. However, fate has other plans in store for them, and shortly before the implementation of the plan, they are transferred by train to the impregnable Wintersborn fortress-prison in Alsace, France, overseen by Rauffenstein himself. More and more, respect and appreciation bond von Rauffenstein and de Boeldieu. But, will this delicate relationship, and the grand illusion, stand in the way of breaking out?

1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir

A gawky Englishman comes to Los Angeles to find the woman of his dreams.

We like Florence: she's considerate, sweet, pretty, and terrific with kids and dogs. She's twenty-five, personal assistant to an L.A. family that's off on vacation. Her boss's brother comes in from New York City, fresh from a stay at an asylum, to take care of the house. He's Roger, a forty-year-old carpenter, gone from L.A. for fifteen years. He arrives, doesn't drive, and needs Florence's help, especially with the family's dog. He's also connecting with former band-mates - two men and one woman with whom he has a history. He over-analyzes, has a short fuse, and doesn't laugh at himself easily. As he navigates past and present, he's his own saboteur. And what of Florence? is Roger one more responsibility for her or something else?

Max Fischer is a precocious 15-year-old whose reason for living is his attendance at Rushmore, a private school where he's not doing well in any of his classes, but where he's the king of extracurricular activities - from being in the beekeeping society to writing and producing plays, there's very little after school he doesn't do. His life begins to change, however, when he finds out he's on academic probation, and when he stumbles into love with Miss Cross, a pretty teacher of the elementary school at Rushmore. Added to the mix is his friendship with Herman Blume, wealthy industrialist and father to boys who attend the school, and who also finds himself attracted to Miss Cross. Max's fate becomes inextricably tied to this odd love triangle, and how he sets about resolving it is the story in the film.

Ali is the son of a Muslim cleric who despite the best of intentions, just can't seem to make the right life choices. Ali dreams big - he wants to be with the girl he loves, but he's been promised to another girl at his father's mosque. He wants to be the great doctor that the community expects him to be, but he doesn't get the marks. And above all, he wants to make his father proud - really proud. So what will Ali do to live up to the impossible expectations? He must fake it, because as the son of the cleric, he doesn't have a choice.

Celeste and Jesse have been best friends forever. They dated in high school, got married, and now they're getting divorced. Their best friends don't think they can maintain their friendship throughout the dissolution of their marriage, but Celeste and Jesse don't think there will be a problem. But that's before Jesse gets into a relationship that Celeste doesn't think he can handle, and Celeste finds it harder to move on than she originally thought.

Middle-aged American movie star Bob Harris is in Tokyo to film a personal endorsement Suntory whiskey ad solely for the Japanese market. He is past his movie star prime, but his name and image still have enough cachet for him to have gotten this lucrative $2 million job. He has an unsatisfying home life where his wife Lydia follows him wherever he goes - in the form of messages and faxes - for him to deal with the minutiae of their everyday lives, while she stays at home to look after their kids. Staying at the same upscale hotel is fellow American, twenty-something recent Yale Philosophy graduate Charlotte, her husband John, an entertainment still photographer, who is on assignment in Japan. As such, she is largely left to her own devices in the city, especially when his job takes him out of Tokyo. Both Bob and Charlotte are feeling lost by their current situations, which are not helped by the cultural barriers they feel in Tokyo, those cultural barriers extending far beyond just not knowing the language. After a few chance encounters in the hotel, they end up spending much of their time hanging out together, each helping the other deal with their feelings of loss in their current lives. The friendship that develops between the two, which is not always a bumpy-free one, may be just for this specific place and time, but it may also have long lasting implications.

2003 American-Japanese comedy-drama film by Sofia Coppola

Los Angeles, nowadays. Henry is a stand-up comedian with a fierce humor. Ann, an internationally renowned opera singer. Together, under the spotlight, they form a happy and glamorous couple. The birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious girl with an exceptional destiny, will turn their lives upside down.

Vincent is an old Vietnam vet whose stubbornly hedonistic ways have left him without money or a future. Things change when his new next-door neighbor's son, Oliver, needs a babysitter and Vince is willing enough for a fee. From that self-serving act, an unexpected friendship forms as Vincent and Oliver fulfill much of each other's needs. As Vincent mentors Oliver in street survival and other worldly ways, Oliver begins to see more in the old man than just his foibles. When life takes a turn for the worse for Vincent, both find the best in each other, while no one around them suspects.

Leonard Kraditor is a burned-out case, living with his immigrant parents after his fiancée left him, helping out at their Brooklyn dry cleaners, taking photographs, at loose ends, suicidal. In quick succession, he meets two women: Sandra, the daughter of his parents' business associates, frank, direct, sensual, Jewish like Leonard; and, his neighbor Michelle, mercurial, rootless, fun, blond, unattainable. Michelle is in love with a married man and cries on Leonard's shoulder; Sandra wants to save him. Is Leonard willing to risk losing Sandra's fidelity for the moments Michelle's moods swing toward him? Can this end well?

In 1986, In Brooklyn, New York, the dysfunctional family of pseudo intellectuals composed by the university professor Bernard and the prominent writer Joan split. Bernard is a selfish, cheap and jealous decadent writer that rationalizes every attitude in his family and life and does not accept "philistines" - people that do not read books or watch movies, while the unfaithful Joan is growing as a writer and has no problems with "philistines". Their sons, the teenager Walt and the boy Frank, feel the separation and take side: Walt stays with Bernard, and Frank with Joan, and both are affected with abnormal behaviors. Frank drinks booze and smears with sperm the books in the library and a locker in the dress room of his school. The messed-up and insecure Walt uses Roger Water's song "Hey You" in a festival as if it was of his own, and breaks up with his girlfriend Sophie. Meanwhile Joan has an affair with Frank's tennis teacher Ivan and Bernard with his student Lili.

to watch

More lists by liz

favourites