¿Qué quieres ver esta noche?
Cada título dice para quién es bueno y para quién no. Toca lo que quieres esta noche, o di que no a uno y por qué.
Lo más cercano a Sans Soleil primero
Tokyo-Ga 1985
Documentary
German director Wim Wenders tries to explore the Tokyo that was depicted in the films of Yasujiro Ozu and finds a very different city.
The sides of Tokyo-Ga
- Wim Wenders walking through 1980s Tokyo
- Pachinko halls and plastic food
- Interviews with Ozu's actor Chishu Ryu and cameraman Yuharu Atsuta
Good for you if
- you like long, quiet shots of a city going about its day.
- you love Ozu and want to look for his Tokyo.
- you like a filmmaker's diary of a real city and its habits.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles in German and Japanese.
- you want characters to follow. Here the only lead is the city.
About: memory · cinema · modern life
The Image Book 2018
Documentary
In Le Livre d’Image, Jean-Luc Godard recycles existing images (films, documentaries, paintings, television archives, etc.), quotes excerpts from books, uses fragments of music. The driving force is poetic rhyme, the association or opposition of ideas, the aesthetic spark through editing, the keystone. The author performs the work of a sculptor. The hand, for this, is essential. He praises it at the start. “There are the five fingers. The five senses. The five parts of the world (…). The true condition of man is to think with his hands. Jean-Luc Godard composes a dazzling syncopation of sequences, the surge of which evokes the violence of the flows of our contemporary screens, taken to a level of incandescence rarely achieved. Crowned at Cannes, the last Godard is a shock film, with twilight beauty.
The sides of The Image Book
- A collage of film clips, paintings and archives
- Godard's voice over fragments of music and books
- Five chapters about images and violence
Good for you if
- you like images cut, saturated and set against each other.
- you're happy to be left with ideas rather than answers.
- you enjoy working out why Godard puts two images side by side.
Bad for you if
- you need people and a story, and there are none here.
- you won't read subtitles over dense French narration.
- you can't stand archive footage of war and killing.
About: cinema · violence · memory · the Arab world
Powaqqatsi 1988
Documentary
An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
The sides of Powaqqatsi
- Workers of the developing world in slow motion
- A Philip Glass score
- No words at all
Good for you if
- you like faces and crowds filmed in slow motion.
- you like a Philip Glass score carrying a whole film.
- you like feeling the scale of human labour across continents.
Bad for you if
- you need a story that moves forward.
- you need the images explained, and no one says a word.
About: labour · modernity · tradition
Lost in Translation 2003
Película
Bob Harris y Charlotte son dos norteamericanos que se encuentran en Tokio. Bob es una estrella de cine de mediana edad que ha venido a rodar un anuncio. Charlotte es una mujer joven que acompaña a todas partes a su marido, un fanático del trabajo. Incapaces de dormir, los caminos de Bob y Charlotte se cruzan por casualidad y no tardará en nacer entre ellos una sorprendente amistad. Se aventuran juntos en la vida nocturna de Tokio, comparten inolvidables experiencias con los habitantes de la ciudad y terminan descubriendo una nueva manera de ver la vida.
Las caras de Lost in Translation
- Un actor y una joven sin dormir en Tokio
- Un bar de hotel
- Un susurro que nunca oyes
Buena para ti si
- te gusta una película tranquila que va a la deriva como una noche sin dormir.
- te gusta una conexión que no necesita etiqueta.
- te gusta el humor seco e impasible de Bill Murray cuando las largas indicaciones de un director se traducen en una sola frase corta.
Mala para ti si
- quieres que pasen cosas. Pasa muy poco.
- necesitas una historia que lo ate todo. La semana de Bob y Charlotte en Tokio deja preguntas abiertas.
Temas: la soledad · la conexión · estar perdido
The Seventh Seal 1957
Film
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
The sides of The Seventh Seal
- A knight playing chess with Death
- Sweden under the plague
- A troupe of travelling actors
Good for you if
- you like questions about God that nobody answers.
- you like black and white images that stay with you, like the dance of death on the hill.
- you like long conversations about faith and fear of dying.
Bad for you if
- you find black and white films from the fifties dated.
- you won't read subtitles in Swedish.
- you need momentum, not a slow walk through the plague.
About: death · faith · the meaning of life
Man with a Movie Camera 1929
Documentary
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
The sides of Man with a Movie Camera
- A cameraman filming Soviet cities in the 1920s
- A day of city life from waking to work to play
- Split screens, slow motion and fast cuts
Good for you if
- you like seeing camera tricks invented before your grandparents were born.
- you like silent black and white film.
- you like the thrill of trams, factories and crowds cut to a rhythm.
Bad for you if
- you need a story and people to follow. There is no plot and no actor.
- you need words. It is silent, with no intertitles.
About: the city · modernity · cinema itself
Nostalgia for the Light 2010
Documentary
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.
The sides of Nostalgia for the Light
- Astronomers in Chile's Atacama Desert
- Women searching the sand for their dead
- Pinochet's political prisoners
Good for you if
- you like looking at the stars and thinking about where we come from.
- you like a quiet, patient film that leaves room to think.
- you want to understand how Chile lives with the Pinochet years.
Bad for you if
- you can't face mothers still searching for the remains of their children.
About: memory · grief · the cosmos · justice
Lessons of Darkness 1992
Documentary
Shortly after the Gulf War, oil fires were raging all through Kuwait. In the week before this sea of fire would be extinguished, Werner Herzog filmed this apocalyptic landscape with its murky skies, scorched earth and capricious flames.
The sides of Lessons of Darkness
- Kuwait's oil fields burning after the Gulf War
- Firefighters capping the wells
- Werner Herzog filming Earth like another planet
Good for you if
- you like burning oil fields filmed like an alien world.
- you like images carried by Wagner and Verdi.
- you like Werner Herzog's strange, poetic way of seeing.
Bad for you if
- you need momentum. Long shots of burning wells glide by with barely a word.
- you want things explained. Herzog never lays out the war and narrates it like science fiction.
About: war · apocalypse · landscape
Life in a Day 2011
Documentary
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
The sides of Life in a Day
- One day, the 24th of July 2010
- Home videos sent from all over the world
- Births, breakfasts, work and goodbyes
Good for you if
- you like feeling how big and varied the world is in one day.
- you want ordinary people filming their own lives.
- you get moved by small moments from strangers.
Bad for you if
- you lose track when a film jumps between hundreds of strangers.
- you need momentum more than a gentle flow of moments.
About: daily life · humanity · time

A 1998
Documentary
Roughly chronological, from 3/96 to 11/96, with a coda in spring of 1997: inside compounds of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara. (Members confessed to a murderous sarin attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.) We see what they eat, where they sleep, and how they respond to media scrutiny, on-going trials, the shrinking of their fortunes, and the criticism of society. Central focus is placed on Hiroshi Araki, a young man who finds himself elevated to chief spokesman for Aum after its leaders are arrested. Araki faces extreme hostility from the Japanese public, who find it hard to believe that most followers of the cult had no idea of the attacks and even harder to understand why these followers remain devoted to the religion, if not the violence.
The sides of A
- Inside the Aum Shinrikyo compounds after the sarin attack
- A young spokesman facing a hostile press
- Followers who stayed with the faith
Good for you if
- you want to see the Aum sect from inside, a year after the Tokyo subway attack.
- you like a film that refuses to tell you what to think of the people it films.
- you can sit with long, quiet scenes of daily life in a compound.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles for over two hours.
- you find 136 minutes of quiet observation too long.
About: faith · the media · guilt
Tim's Vermeer 2013
Documentary
Tim Jenison, a Texas based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in all art: How did Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so photo-realistically 150 years before the invention of photography? Spanning a decade, Jenison's adventure takes him to Holland, on a pilgrimage to the North coast of Yorkshire to meet artista David Hockney, and eventually even to Buckingham Palace. The epic research project Jenison embarques on is as extraordinary as what he discovers.
The sides of Tim's Vermeer
- An inventor who has never painted
- A room in Texas rebuilt like Vermeer's
- Mirrors, lenses and years of patience
Good for you if
- you like a theory tested with real lenses and mirrors.
- you like a centuries old question about how Vermeer painted.
- you like Dutch painting from the 1600s.
Bad for you if
- you need momentum, and months of painting wear you out.
- you want Penn and Teller's stage comedy. Here they mostly watch a friend paint.
About: art · obsession · patience

À propos de Nice 1930
Documentary
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.
The sides of À propos de Nice
- A silent portrait of Nice in 1930
- Wealthy tourists on the Promenade
- The poor streets behind the postcards
Good for you if
- you love silent films from 1930.
- you like Jean Vigo's quick, mocking montage.
- you want something under half an hour.
Bad for you if
- you're put off by avant-garde cutting. Vigo jumps from carnival floats to cemetery statues.
- you want a person to follow, not a portrait of a town.
About: wealth · class · the city
The Unknown Known 2013
Documentary
Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The sides of The Unknown Known
- Donald Rumsfeld facing the camera
- His thousands of office memos
- The road to the Iraq war
Good for you if
- you want to hear a man who ran the Pentagon explain himself.
- you like Errol Morris questioning someone who plays with words.
- you're fine ending a film without a clear answer about the man.
Bad for you if
- you need more than one man talking for an hour and a half.
- you'd rather not revisit the Iraq war through the man who planned it.
About: power · language · responsibility
2001. Una odisea del espacio 1968
Película
Mientras investigan la aparición de misteriosos monolitos en el universo, dos astronautas luchan contra la inteligencia artificial de su nave.
Las caras de 2001. Una odisea del espacio
- Simios que descubren las herramientas
- Una computadora que no abre las puertas
- Un viaje más allá del infinito
Buena para ti si
- te gustan las naves que bailan un vals al ritmo de El Danubio azul, en planos perfectamente compuestos.
- te gusta una película que avanza como una sinfonía.
- quieres sentirte pequeño ante el universo.
Mala para ti si
- necesitas personajes con los que conectar. Dave y Frank siguen fríos y tranquilos, y la computadora HAL es la que muestra más sentimiento.
- quieres que pase algo. Hay tramos largos en silencio.
- quieres una explicación clara del final.
Temas: la evolución · la tecnología · lo desconocido
Voyage of Time: Life's Journey 2017
Documentary
A celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.
The sides of Voyage of Time: Life's Journey
- The birth of the universe
- Life appearing and evolving on Earth
- A narrator asking questions to a mother figure
Good for you if
- you like feeling small in front of billions of years.
- you want galaxies, volcanoes and cells as pure images.
- you like the cosmos from its first moment to its end.
Bad for you if
- you need a story that moves, not a long meditation.
- you roll your eyes at whispered questions to the universe.
About: creation · the meaning of life · time
Waltz with Bashir 2008
Documentary
A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
The sides of Waltz with Bashir
- An Israeli director who can't remember his war
- Interviews with fellow veterans of Lebanon, 1982
- Animated memories that end on real footage
Good for you if
- you want to know what a war does to the memory of those who fought it.
- you like a director investigating his own past.
- you like dreamlike animated images, like soldiers rising from the sea at night.
Bad for you if
- you'd rather not see a war documentary in animation.
- you won't read subtitles. It's in Hebrew.
- you can't take a film about guilt and the dead of a war, seen through a soldier's nightmares.
About: memory · guilt · war
Finding Vivian Maier 2014
Documentary
Vivian Maier's photos were seemingly destined for obscurity, lost among the clutter of the countless objects she'd collected throughout her life. Instead these images have shaken the world of street photography and irrevocably changed the life of the man who brought them to the public eye. This film brings to life the interesting turns and travails of the improbable saga of John Maloof's discovery of Vivian Maier, unravelling this mysterious tale through her documentary films, photographs, odd collections and personal accounts from the people that knew her. What started as a blog to show her work quickly became a viral sensation in the photography world. Photos destined for the trash heap now line gallery exhibitions, a forthcoming book and this documentary film.
The sides of Finding Vivian Maier
- A nanny who secretly took thousands of photos
- Boxes of negatives bought at an auction
- The families she worked for remembering her
Good for you if
- you like piecing together who a secretive woman really was.
- you love street photography of the American city in the fifties and sixties.
- you like a real discovery told by the man who made it.
Bad for you if
- you want every question about her life answered.
- you need more happening on screen than people talking about photos.
About: art · privacy · recognition
20,000 Days on Earth 2014
Documentary
A semi-fictionalized documentary about a day in the life of Australian musician Nick Cave's persona.
The sides of 20,000 Days on Earth
- Nick Cave's staged day in Brighton
- Talks with old friends in his car
- The Bad Seeds recording an album
Good for you if
- you love Nick Cave and want to watch his songs being made.
- you like a music film shot with the care of a feature.
- you like long talks about memory, fear and writing.
Bad for you if
- you need a film that moves forward, not a quiet day of thinking aloud.
- you want to know what is real and what is staged.
About: memory · creation · identity
Another Day of Life 2018
Documentary
In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…
The sides of Another Day of Life
- A Polish reporter in Angola in 1975
- A road trip to the front line of a civil war
- Animation mixed with real interviews
Good for you if
- you want to see a war through the eyes of the journalist covering it.
- you like a true story told by the people who were there.
- you like animation that looks like a feverish dream of the front.
Bad for you if
- you don't watch animated films, even about real events.
- you can't stand scenes of killing at checkpoints and in the bush.
About: war · bearing witness · helplessness
The Salt of the Earth 2014
Documentary
During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.
The sides of The Salt of the Earth
- Forty years of photographs by one man
- A gold mine crowded with thousands of workers
- A dead family farm replanted into a forest
Good for you if
- you can look at black and white photographs for nearly two hours.
- you want the man who took the pictures to tell you where he was standing.
- you like whales, glaciers and a forest growing back.
Bad for you if
- you can't look at photographs of famine and massacre.
- you won't read subtitles while the photographer speaks his own language.
About: humanity · despair · renewal