Raymond Joshua, a young black performance poet, is arrested and imprisoned for a petty marijuana charge in a Washington, D.C. jail. Although the confining prison walls do little to shield him from danger, it is within those walls that Raymond establishes his identity, strength, and voice and meets a prison gang leader and a prison writing teacher, Lauren Bell. Bell inspires Raymond to use the power of creative expression to free himself from the struggles and demise of the Black male as another victim of the judicial system.
A bored insurance salesman quits his job to go into politics. He first starts preaching about how man is greater than he thinks and that man can live forever. He ends up forming his own political party, "The Eternal Man" party. He begins to be referred to as "God". Then he starts having doubts about the eternalness of man.
The heroine, Peggy Cameron, is a high-society debutante with a mind of her own. After making a public spectacle of herself once too often, Peggy is bundled off to Scotland, where she is to be looked after by her no-nonsense uncle Andrew Cameron (William H. Thompson). If Peggy's family had hoped that she would straighten up and behave herself in Scotland, they were sorely mistaken. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive with restoration funding provided by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.
Del is a song writer for the obnoxious Mr. Mega, and in love with Didi, Mega's secretary. His quest to write a hit tune brings him to the wacky world of Flooby Nooby, where he just might learn to write songs from the heart.
Joe Gideon is at the top of the heap, one of the most successful directors and choreographers in musical theater. But he can feel his world slowly collapsing around him - his obsession with work has almost destroyed his personal life, and only his bottles of pills keep him going.
In 1870s India, Charulata is an isolated, artistically inclined woman who sees little of her busy journalist husband, Bhupati. Realizing that his wife is alienated and unhappy, he convinces his cousin, Amal, to spend time with Charulata and nourish her creative impulses. Amal is a fledgling poet himself, and he and Charulata bond over their shared love of art.
Two detectives clash over the hunt for a burlesque dancer’s killer in Los Angeles’ Japanese district.
The Big Show, the only feature-length motion picture produced by the Miller Brothers, is a behind-the-scenes melodrama set within their show. The story: Bill, a war veteran who has been defrauded by his brother, rescues Ruth, the elephant girl, and joins the company. Secretly engaged to Bill’s “bad brother” Norman—allegedly an oil millionaire—Ruth rebuffs her rescuer’s affection. Her elephant, however, knows a villain when he smells one and eventually gives Norman his just deserts. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation New Zealand Project in 2012.
A renegade police captain sets out to catch a sadistic mob boss. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.
In a dilapidated rural mansion, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. The family chauffeur looks out for them and covers up their indiscretions. Trouble comes when greedy distant relatives and their lawyer arrive to dispossess the family of its home.
A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender person who prefers to be identified somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film – an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité – is the first of Spheeris’s films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.
Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.
A socialite marries a prominent novelist, which spurs a violent, obsessive, and dangerous jealousy in her.
Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.
In 1672 Cuban revolutionaries launch an uprising against the Spanish who are occupying the country. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.
Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."
Short film about nurse service in wartime. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.
Impoverished priest Harihar Ray leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. His wife, Sarbojaya, looks after their rebellious daughter, Durga, and young son, Apu. The children enjoy the small pleasures of their difficult life.
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.