Find something to watch for every mood. Browse 4,480 of the best films ever made — voted on by the world's critics in the Sight & Sound poll — each with a trailer and up-to-date streaming options. Filter by genre, decade, country, language, runtime, or director, or explore our hand-curated film collections.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Chantal Akerman · 258 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, TCM, HBO Max Amazon Channel
A lonely young widow lives with her son following an immutable order: while the boy is in school, she cares for their apartment, does chores, and receives clients in the afternoon.
News from Home (1976)
Chantal Akerman · 55 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Impersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.
Je Tu Il Elle (1974)
Chantal Akerman · 18 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max
A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup.
Toute une nuit (1982)
Chantal Akerman · 11 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Following over two dozen different individuals in the almost wordless atmosphere of a dark night in a Brussels town, acceptance and rejection in the realm of romance is examined.
D'Est (1993)
Chantal Akerman · 11 critic votes
Streaming on Hoopla, OVID
In this incisive dispatch from the newly collapsed Soviet empire, bullet holes from WWII still pockmark the old stone buildings. Akerman journeys from East Germany to Moscow between the late summer and winter of 1993 ('while there’s still time'), chronicling in deliberate tracking shots, circular pans, and domestic tableaux yet another moment of radical upheaval in the 20th-century, the faces and bodies of Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and Russians weighed down with obedient resignation and uncertainty.
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.
No Home Movie (2015)
Chantal Akerman · 8 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, fuboTV
Akerman films her mother Natalia, an elderly woman of Polish origin, in her Brussels apartment. For two hours, we will see them eating, chatting and sharing memories, sometimes accompanied by Sylvaine, Chantal's sister. Also, and to show how small the world has become, Chantal remains in contact with her mother at other times of the year via Skype from lands as far away from Belgium as Oklahoma or New York.
Rain (1929)
Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken · 5 critic votes
A lyrical portrait of Amsterdam and its changing appearance during a rain-shower.
Blow Up My Town (1968)
Chantal Akerman · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A young girl shuts herself away in her apartment and goes about her business in a strange way, as she wastes the night in the kitchen – humming all along.
Daughters of Darkness (1971)
Harry Kümel · 3 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Fandango at Home Free, Plex · Streaming on Night Flight Plus, Midnight Pulp, Philo
Ostend, Belgium. In a decadent seaside hotel, Stefan and Valerie, a newlywed couple, meet the mysterious Countess Báthory and Ilona, her secretary.
De stilte rond Christine M. (1982)
Marleen Gorris · 3 critic votes
Free on FlixHouse, Darkroom, Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Philo
When three women with no previous acquaintance kill a male shopkeeper in the middle of the day, the female psychiatrist assigned to the case sets out to understand why.
Amsterdam Global Village (1996)
Johan van der Keuken · 3 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
"I am far away on a distant journey through my own city", filmmaker Johan van der Keuken says at the end of his four-hour portrait of Amsterdam. The city is presented as a place where people from all corners of the world live, who all exert their cultural influence on the life in the city. With a motor courier as his central figure, the filmmaker introduces the audience to birds of different feathers. We see diverse cultural expressions, like the house scene, the entry of St. Nicholas and a Ghanese mourning ritual. The binding factor in the film is the concept of 'travelling', in other words Amsterdam as a global village. The camera travels through the film in three ways: over land, over water (canals) and through the air.
War Be Damned (1914)
Alfred Machin · 2 critic votes
An army pilot is visiting the home of another army pilot in a neighboring country, and falling in love with his sister, when war breaks out.
One Night... A Train (1968)
André Delvaux · 2 critic votes
The Belgian linguistics professor Matthias is going through a difficult period in relations with his girlfriend Anne. She is French, he is Belgian, and, oddly enough for an enlightened Europe and a doubly enlightened university environment, this small difference is a shadow on the couple’s personal life. One day, during a train ride, Anne disappears and Mathias goes looking for her in an unknown city.
Turkish Delight (1973)
Paul Verhoeven · 2 critic votes
Gifted but hot-headed sculptor Eric has a stormy, erotic, and star-crossed romance with a beautiful young woman named Olga.
Anna's Meetings (1978)
Chantal Akerman · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Detached filmmaker Anna Silver arrives in Germany to show her latest film; over the course of some days, she encounters a variety of new and old faces, some of whom make personal revelations to her to little affect.
Night and Day (1991)
Chantal Akerman · 2 critic votes
Jack and Julie live in a bare Parisian flat. By day, they make love; by night, Jack is a taxi driver while Julie wanders the city. One day, Julie meets Joseph, the daytime cabbie, and soon Julie spends her nights with Joseph and her days with Jack.
Sud (1999)
Chantal Akerman · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, OVID
Chantal Akerman investigates the American Deep South through the story of a lynching and grisly murder of an African-American man that took place in Texas in 1998.
A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.
Down There (2006)
Chantal Akerman · 2 critic votes
Streaming on OVID
Akerman spends a month in Tel Aviv, in an apartment by the sea, contemplating childhood, family, and her Jewish identity.
Oh Willy… (2012)
Emma De Swaef, Marc James Roels · 2 critic votes
Forced to return to his naturist roots, Willy bungles his way into noble savagery.
BLIND KIND (1964)
Johan van der Keuken · 1 critic vote
With the use of montage sequences, voiced over with the observations of the children, van der Keuken was able to use artistic expression to portray the sightless children’s unique perspective of the world.
The Departure (1967)
Jerzy Skolimowski · 1 critic vote
A young Belgian car nut and hairdresser's apprentice attempts to get a Porsche by all means for his nearing debut race and meets a girl in the same time.
Chess (1972)
Edmond Bernhard · 1 critic vote
Filmic essai on different chess methods combined with an adapted sound setting made in collaboration with chess grandmaster Alberic O'Kelly de Galway. Voted for in the Sight & Sound 2022 Greatest Films of All Time poll.
La chambre (1972)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Akerman herself staring back. This breakthrough formal experiment is Akerman's first film made in New York.
Brussels - Transit (1980)
Samy Szlingerbaum · 1 critic vote
Samy Szlingerbaum made his film Dakh-Brisel (Brussels-Transit) in 1980, thirty years after any Yiddish feature film had been produced. Szlingerbaum felt that the only way he could relate the story of his family’s search for refuge after World War II was in Yiddish. This Belgian-based filmmaker, deeply impacted by New York experimental cinema, gives us a masterful blend of powerful drama and stark documentary to tell the story of postwar European Jewry. Home, as it had been, no longer exists, and all that Samy’s family wants is a place in which to sink new roots.
Dis-moi (1980)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Chantal Akerman meets with elderly Jewish women in Paris, all of them survivors of the Shoah, and listens to their family stories. Between interviews, Akerman's mother Natalia speaks of her own family. Made for a French miniseries on grandmothers.
United Kingdom (1981)
Roland Joffé · 1 critic vote
Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises.
Het DAK VAN DE WALVIS (1982)
Henri Alekan, Raúl Ruiz · 1 critic vote
A parody of anthropology, linguistics, and cultural imperialism. The film follows an unlikely team of linguists into the wilds of an ersatz Patagonia to study the last speakers of a dying language. That language apparently consists of a single word, which therefore means everything.
One Day Pina Asked (1983)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Streaming on OVID
Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater Wuppertal, for five weeks while they were on tour in Germany, Italy and France. Her objective was to capture Pina Bausch's unparalleled art not only on stage by behind the scenes.
I'm Hungry, I'm Cold (1984)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Two girls come to Paris for the first time and try to live.
Golden Eighties (1986)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In a lively shopping center, proprietors and customers are bustling, including three women vying for a man's heart with song and dance.
The Vanishing (1988)
George Sluizer · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation when they stop at a busy service station. Saskia is abducted in broad daylight and three years pass with no answers or closure surrounding her disappearance. Rex has nearly given up all hope when he suddenly begins receiving letters from her abductor.
American Stories, Food, Family and Philosophy (1989)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
An exploration of Jewish American identity in a multilayered portrait of the immigrant experience. A series of first-person addresses delivered by a cross-section of Jewish New Yorkers, whose by turns tragic and humourous tales speak to a collective history of trauma, displacement, and resilience.
Lumumba, la mort d'un prophète (1990)
Raoul Peck · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Documentary about African political leader Patrice Lumumba, who was Prime Minister of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) when he was assassinated in 1961.
Lyrical Nitrate (1991)
Peter Delpeut · 1 critic vote
Compilation of film clips from 1905-1915, found footage of silent movies and documentaries from the Jean Desmet Archive of the Netherlands Film Museum. Jean Desmet was one of the first Dutch film distributors. Lyrisch nitraat is a tribute to the craftsmanship of early filmmakers, but also shows the brittleness of old nitrate films. Composed as an opera about love and death, set to music by Bizet, Masek and Puccini.
Metal and Melancholy (1994)
Heddy Honigmann · 1 critic vote
Streaming on OVID
This documentary is an offbeat "road movie" in which acclaimed documentarian Heddy Honigmann travels with, and thereby discovers the stories of, taxi drivers in Lima. In the early 1990s, in response to Peru's inflationary economy and a government destabilized by corruption and Shining Path terrorism, many middle-class professionals used their own cars to moonlight as taxi drivers in order to weather the financial crisis.
O Amor Natural (1996)
Heddy Honigmann · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Hoopla, OVID
O AMOR NATURAL is a documentary film about the erotic poetry of one of the greatest Latin American poets of the 20th century, the Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987). The erotic poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a household name in Brazil, remained unpublished during his lifetime, as he feared they would be deemed pornographic. In this celebration of his poetry and sensual vision, elderly residents of Rio read his poems and comment on their graphic, voluptuous imagery with tremendous candor and enthusiasm.
Character (1997)
Mike van Diem · 1 critic vote
In pre-WWII Holland, the penniless, illegitimate son of a powerful bailiff sets out to become a lawyer as he spends a lifetime struggling to prove his worth to his relentlessly spiteful father.
Crazy (1999)
Heddy Honigmann · 1 critic vote
The haunting experiences of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers are woven together by the powerful influence music has had on their endurance, survival, and memories of war. This documentary is filled with close-up interviews, scrapbook photographs, video clips, news footage, letters read aloud, and other recollections, as different generations of Dutch peacekeeping soldiers recount the trauma of bloodshed from Korea to more recent events in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Their trusting, and often disturbing, personal revelations resound most poignantly when they talk about the single pieces of music that each found powerful enough to keep insanity at bay.
To the Sea (1999)
Annik Leroy · 1 critic vote
Starting in Germany before crossing into Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, Vers la mer (To the Sea) is a documentary-voyage filmed in black-and-white by Annik Leroy, as she traces the River Danube from its source to the estuary of the Black Sea.
De l'autre côté (2002)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Streaming on OVID
A documentary look at the fate of Mexicans who cross the border into the United States.
Aaltra (2004)
Gustave de Kervern, Benoît Delépine · 1 critic vote
In this pitch black comedy the rivalry between two neighbors escalates into an all out war. Through a maintenance error on a tractor they both end up, paralyzed, in a wheelchair. It seems they are doomed to stay together. They no longer focus their rage on each other but on the manufacturer of the tractor, in Helsinki. So get ready for a hilarious wheelchair road movie.
A poor young Belgian mother wants her petty thief of a boyfriend to be gainfully employed to raise their newborn child, but he has other ideas.
FOREVER (2006)
Heddy Honigmann · 1 critic vote
Streaming on OVID
Père-Lachaise - one of the world's most famous and beautiful cemeteries - is the final resting-place of a gifted group of artists from all eras and corners of the world. Some - such as Piaf, Proust, Jim Morrison and Chopin - are worshiped to this day. Others have fallen into oblivion, or are visited occasionally by a single admirer. In Forever we see the mysterious, calming and consoling beauty of this unique cemetery through the eyes of people of flesh and blood. Many come for their 'own' beloved: husbands, wives, family and friends. Others Honor 'their' artist by leaving behind a personal message or a flower. While admirers share with us the importance of art and beauty in their lives, the graveyard gradually reveals itself as a source of inspiration for the living. Death offers little consolation except for the passing of time, the melancholia of a moss-covered tomb, and the beauty and power of a piece of music, a poem or a painting Written by Cobos
Almayer's Folly (2011)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Streaming on OVID
In 1940s Malaysia, European merchant Kaspar Almayer is obsessed with finding a treasure to secure his daughter's future. His dreams fall victim to the pressure of his own greed, which becomes a torment. Compounding this is the oppressive English domination dominating the country – and that which brings ruin to the remote village where he lives.
Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.
The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013)
Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Strand Releasing Amazon Channel
Returning home from a business trip to discover his wife missing, a man delves deeper and deeper into a surreal kaleidoscope of half-baked leads, seduction, deceit, and murder.
Black (2015)
Anouk De Clercq · 1 critic vote
Simultaneously boundless and intimate, collective and personal, an ode to and an example of a cinematic experience that is becoming increasingly rare, the darkness of a movie theatre in the course of the projection of a 35mm film print.
Raymond Tallis On Tickling (2017)
Johan Grimonprez · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
Dozens of couples dance in a circle, a house topples down a slope, a cat manically revolves around itself. A few seconds beforehand, an admonishing voice points out that a centuries-old philosophical assumption is under close scrutiny. It is René Descartes’ first tenet, »I think, therefore I am,« that the British neurologist Raymond Tallis calls into question in the video by the artist Johan Grimonprez. Tallis takes the view that human consciousness is not an individual construction but exists above all in relation to a vis-à-vis.
Chez Jolie Coiffure (2018)
Rosine Mbakam · 1 critic vote
Streaming on MUBI, Kanopy, MUBI Amazon Channel
Rosine Mbakam is invited to step in Sabine’s small hairdresser’s because it is dangerous in the street. She accepts and pushes in with her camera. Sabine’s stories and the customers’ joys, worries, problems and fears bring depth and life into the premises. At times, it feels like the entire African quarter of Brussels had squeezed in. Laughter abounds, anecdotes and life stories elicit emotions, and a male visitor brings a touch of flirt into the salon.
Playground (2021)
Laura Wandel · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Hoopla, Film Movement Plus, Film Movement Plus Amazon Channel
When Nora witnesses Abel being bullied by other kids, she rushes to protect him by warning their father. But Abel forces her to remain silent. Caught in a conflict of loyalty, Nora will ultimately try to find her place, torn between children's and adult's worlds.
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024)
Johan Grimonprez · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection
Jazz and decolonization are intertwined in a powerful narrative that recounts one of the tensest episodes of the Cold War.
