Centered on an Iranian community in a fictional Winnipeg-Tehran hybrid, the absurdist comedy is a joyous depiction of emphatically unalienated people.

From Cauleen Smith’s trilogy on volcanos to Philippe Parreno’s intimate exploration of Goya, here’s what to watch.

Catherine Gund’s Paint Me a Road Out of Here uses the artwork to tell truths about the US carceral system.

Whether it’s catfishing clueless rich guys, catching sex predators on YouTube, or assisting a woman in conceiving a child, questions of legality often have little to do with morality.

The film was made to agitate for the release of the wrongly imprisoned Indigenous activist. Despite last-minute edits after his clemency, it still shows some cracks.

The documentary is an incisive critique of how cliché-bound the genre has become, encouraging viewers to ask more from it.

“The best film I could make was one that only I could tell as his son,” Tadashi Nakamura told Hyperallergic about legendary director Robert Nakamura.

Several nonfiction works playing at the festival are timely, whether in their current subject matter or relevant reflections on the past.

The film's hippo protagonist demonstrates that stories about animal subjectivity can unveil many otherwise hidden absurdities of our society.

Rashid Masharawi’s From Ground Zero weaves together the work of 22 Gazan filmmakers surviving through Israel’s continued attacks.

Homer’s Odysseus is complicated and playful — a man who has suffered, and is changed. Pasolini’s Odysseus squints, and occasionally flexes.

Historically, cinema has invoked the architectural movement as an easy shorthand for villainy. In The Brutalist, though, it embodies a proletarian dream.

The filmmaker seems out of his depth in Theater of Thought, too willing to let his subjects make questionable claims without pushing back or delving deeper.

Killer bananas, Grand Theft Auto telephone poles, online gambling, and other ways to fill a little downtime.

The artist has illustrated more than one contentious New Yorker cover in his career, chronicled in a new film, and his next project will be no less gutsy.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most brain-quiveringly beautiful films ever to flood a screen.

A new documentary-game includes an interactive timeline, interviews, and of course, playable versions of the game.

An eclectic round-up spanning feature-length investigative documentaries, avant-garde short films, YouTube essays, and even talk shows. 

When dancer Loïe Fuller’s spinning garment reflected the stage lights, it took on a life of its own, beguiling those in New York, Berlin, and Paris.

The film’s casting of Africa and Africans as largely rebellious, uncivil, and above all outside of the bounds of the Roman empire is incorrect and dangerous.

“I wanted to make something aggressively non-linear, using sound and music to express things that hard language couldn’t,” the artist said of his latest work.

Join or Die is part of a cresting wave of cultural production circling around the intertwined issues of loneliness, divisiveness, and our political right turn.

The artist tells Hyperallergic about how the isolation of COVID-19 led to a streaming series set wholly within the bounds of his studio.

A documentary screening in NYC this week combines animation, interviews, and archival material to tell the self-taught artist’s fascinating story.

Over seven years, director Nanfu Wang documented Cuban activist Rosa María Payá’s fight for a democratic Cuba — and her journey to endorsing the MAGA movement.

My Sweet Land by Jordanian-Armenian director Sareen Hairabedian follows an 11-year-old boy during the Second Artsakh War.

The trials of late-in-life romance and a photographer's chronicle of Black life under South African apartheid anchor the 15th edition of DOC NYC.

Each of the director’s films adapts a folktale, short story, or novel, or pays tribute to a historical figure — but never in a straightforward way.

She was one of the first filmmakers to make the leap from cinema to museum spaces, which allowed her greater freedom and the pleasure of demanding more viewer participation.

Mati Diop's Dahomey centers on the repatriation of 26 stolen Beninese objects and how it could shape the African country’s future.

“I wanted to question power,” Shiori Ito told Hyperallergic regarding her new documentary. “The system was always the focus.

Merging the filmmaking process with snippets of the protagonist's life and words,The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire blurs distinctions between past and present.

Lyd (2023), produced by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, explores a future without Israeli occupation through archival footage and sci-fi elements.

The Netflix show relies on a heavy dose of high fashion and Western art to bring the chaotic world of Ancient Greek mythology to life.

Suburban Fury sits with Sara Jane Moore to learn how the politics and culture of the 1970s drove her toward Gerald Ford with a gun in her hand.

Director Stanley Nelson traces a linear narrative from San Juan Hill’s origins to its demolition to make way for Lincoln Center, displacing thousands.

Direct Action demonstrates that fiery protests and violent police encounters are just one facet of the real work of activism

Intercepted pairs intercepted phone calls by Russian soldiers to friends and family back home with images of post-battle scenes around Ukraine.

Made by a team of Palestinian and Israeli activists, this film implores us to feel the effects of the war.

Running concurrently with the New York Film Festival this week, the alternative event was organized in protest of Lincoln Center’s ties to pro-Israel funders.

Wang Bing’s trilogy about young workers skillfully compresses five years of footage, replicating the rhythm of long hours at work and brief respites at home.

This month: sneaky video games, fast fashion, a suspicious new trend in homeschooling, and more.

Directors Andres Veiel, Petra Costa, and Errol Morris to engage with the contemporary politics of Germany, the United States, and Brazil. 

Director Lou Ye follows a film crew in Wuhan who decides to revive a project abandoned 10 years prior, only to be placed under lockdown during shooting.

In the late 1980s and '90s, a wave of independent directors turned cameras on themselves, utilizing documentary as a mode of confession and self-reflection.

Implicit throughout Sorry/Not Sorry is the question of what it means for a White cis-het man to be “canceled,” and how claiming cancellation is often a route to reclaiming power.

Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution drives home who is worth paying attention to if you want comedy to lighten your load, and your fellow humans'.

Anti-Zionist protesters called out the film Bliss (Hemda), one of the centerpieces of TIFF this year, for its ties to the Israeli government.

Emergent City returns to the old-school “fly-on-the-wall” method of filmmaking to capture democracy in practice in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

The dancers we grow to know (and love) in Swan Song are sweating, swearing, soaring women, at odds with conceptions of purity and frailness.