Janus Films

Portrays 45 years in the life of a woman, from her country childhood through the years as a ruthless Tokyo madam and back to her native village.

"When young Domenico ventures from the small village of Meda to Milan in search of employment, he finds himself on the bottom rung of the bureaucratic ladder in a huge, faceless company. The prospects are daunting, but Domenico finds reason for hope in the fetching Antonietta. A tender coming-of-age story and a sharp observation of dehumanizing corporate enterprise, Ermanno Olmi's Il Posto is a touching and hilarious tale of one young man's stumbling...

In 1983, director Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall set out to tell the stories of homeless and runaway teenagers in Seattle. These two films together create a frank, empathetic portrait of lost youth.

Few directors have portrayed the agonies and epiphanies of growing up as poetically---and controversially---as Louis Malle in his films Murmur of the heart; Lacombe, Lucien; and Au revoir les enfants. These interviews and documentaries provide new insights into the man who made, and mirrored, these films.

Tormented by twisted desires, a young man takes drastic measures to rid his grotesquely dysfunctional family of its various afflictions, in this debut film from Marco Bellocchio. Characterized by a coolly assured style, shocking perversity, and savage gallows humor, it was a gleaming ice pick in the eye of bourgeois family values and Catholic morality, a truly unique work that continues to rank as one of the great achievements of Italian cinema.

Follow Umberto D., an elderly pensioner, as he struggles to make ends meet during Italy's postwar economic boom. Alone, except for his dog, Flike, Umberto strives to maintain his dignity while trying to survive in a city where traditional human kindness seems to have lost out to the forces of modernization.

Séverine, a Paris housewife, begins secretly spending her afternoon hours working in a bordello in an examination of contemporary social mores and class divisions.

"Having refined his craft in the silent era, Kenji Mizoguchi was an elder statesman of Japanese cinema fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other younger directors by the time he made Ugetsu. And with this exquisite ghost story, a fatalistic wartime tragedy derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, he created a touchstone of his art, his long takes and sweeping camera guiding the viewer through a delirious narrative about two villagers...

A low-level swordsman decides to live in the wild after being betrayed by his former comrades.

Set in the 15th century, two strangers dressed as minstrels arrive at a castle in advance of court festivities, and it is revealed that they are actually emissaries of the devil himself, dispatched to spread heartbreak and suffering. Their plans, however, are thwarted by an unexpected intrusion: human love. Often interpreted as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France, during which it was made.