Furuyashiki: A Japanese Village

A poetic visit to the city of Athens, based on paintings, poems and philosophical texts.

Popularity: 7.9

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Popularity: 7.9

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Popularity: 7.5

Saxophonist Art Pepper (1925-1982) lived the kind of jazz life only found in Hollywood movies. His prodigious talent led him to top gigs as a teenager, but drugs and attendant criminal activity knocked him out of commission for virtually all of the 1960s and early 1970s. This documentary, shot shortly after his searing memoir, {-Straight Life}, was published in 1979, shows Pepper in the full flower of a remarkable comeback. His third wife, Laurie, is featured prominently; they met in the drug treatment facility Synanon in 1969 and were married in 1974. She took over his business affairs and helped him write {-Straight Life}. Pepper tells his own story here, but the emphasis is on an evening's performance at a club in Malibu, with the musician in fine form, backed by a terrific trio. (Tom Wiener, Rovi)

Popularity: 6.0

Based on the letters of a fictitious poetess to her lover. Duras reads extracts from the letters, about the poetess’s Jewish past, while the film shows stark waves beating against the seashore. – BFI

Popularity: 9.0

This documentary by Michael Blackwood looks at the development and production of Glass' opera Akhnaten. The film follows two productions by the Württemberg State Theater, Stuttgart, and the Houston Grand Opera.

Popularity: 10.0

A poetic visit to the city of Athens, based on paintings, poems and philosophical texts.

Popularity: 7.9

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Popularity: 7.9

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Popularity: 7.5

Saxophonist Art Pepper (1925-1982) lived the kind of jazz life only found in Hollywood movies. His prodigious talent led him to top gigs as a teenager, but drugs and attendant criminal activity knocked him out of commission for virtually all of the 1960s and early 1970s. This documentary, shot shortly after his searing memoir, {-Straight Life}, was published in 1979, shows Pepper in the full flower of a remarkable comeback. His third wife, Laurie, is featured prominently; they met in the drug treatment facility Synanon in 1969 and were married in 1974. She took over his business affairs and helped him write {-Straight Life}. Pepper tells his own story here, but the emphasis is on an evening's performance at a club in Malibu, with the musician in fine form, backed by a terrific trio. (Tom Wiener, Rovi)

Popularity: 6.0

Based on the letters of a fictitious poetess to her lover. Duras reads extracts from the letters, about the poetess’s Jewish past, while the film shows stark waves beating against the seashore. – BFI

Popularity: 9.0

This documentary by Michael Blackwood looks at the development and production of Glass' opera Akhnaten. The film follows two productions by the Württemberg State Theater, Stuttgart, and the Houston Grand Opera.

Popularity: 10.0

A portrait of two Palestinian women whose individual struggles both define and transcend the politics that have torn apart their homes and their lives. Farah Hatoum, a widow living with her children and grandchildren, and Sahar Khalifeh, a novelist from the West Bank.

Popularity: 6.7

Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.

Popularity: 7.5

Peter Hutton’s essay on the naturalization of the urban landscape. Voluptuously gray, worn and lived in, the city is like a stage set for an invisible drama.

Popularity: 7.5