Verdi: Simon Boccanegra

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

When an office full of Chicago real estate salesmen is given the news that all but the top two will be fired at the end of the week, the atmosphere begins to heat up. Shelley Levene, who has a sick daughter, does everything in his power to get better leads from his boss, John Williamson, but to no avail. When his coworker Dave Moss comes up with a plan to steal the leads, things get complicated for the tough-talking salesmen.

Aging King George III of England is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger attempt to prevent the king's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales, from usurping the throne.

"Loro", in two parts, is a period movie that chronicles, as a fiction story, events likely happened in Italy (or even made up) between 2006 and 2010. "Loro" wants to suggest in portraits and glimps, through a composite constellation of characters, a moment in history, now definitively ended, which can be described in a very summary picture of the events as amoral, decadent but extraordinarily alive. Additionally, "Loro" wishes to tell the story of some Italians, fresh and ancient people at the same time: souls from a modern imaginary Purgatory who, moved by heterogeneous intents like ambition, admiration, affection, curiosity, personal interests, establish to try and orbit around the walking Paradise that is the man named Silvio Berlusconi.

Venn

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

The true story of boxer Jim Braddock who, following his retirement in the 1930s, makes a surprise comeback in order to lift his family out of poverty.

Obsessive master thief Neil McCauley leads a top-notch crew on various daring heists throughout Los Angeles while determined detective Vincent Hanna pursues him without rest. Each man recognizes and respects the ability and the dedication of the other even though they are aware their cat-and-mouse game may end in violence.

An English teacher and struggling single mother has her life disrupted when the father who abandoned her as a child comes back into her life.

Larry Flynt is the hedonistically obnoxious, but indomitable, publisher of Hustler magazine. The film recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his girlie magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for all people.

In post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles, tensions erupt when the lives of a Brentwood housewife, her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple converge during a 36-hour period.

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

A con artist seduces the widow of a millionaire, only to learn she'd plotted with her lover to murder the late husband. A tense game of cat-and-mouse ensues—but who's the cat?

The manager of a halfway house for female ex-cons takes action when a blackmailer threatens to expose her secret.

Hella is around 30 and works in a pharmacy. She is waiting for the right man to step into her life, but as she has a certain affinity for losers, she is kind of disillusionized. When she gets to know Levin, a dentist student who likes cars most, her dreams seem to come true. Levin has a very rich grandfather who likes her at first glance. The old man thinks of changing his last will to the condition that Levin has to marry Hella in order to inherit his fortunes. Like in a fairy-tale the door to a new life opens for Hella, but can she take it?

After her widowed father dies, deaf teenager Dot moves in with her godparents, Olivia and Paul Deer. The Deers' daughter, Nina, is openly hostile to Dot, but that does not prevent her from telling her secrets to her silent stepsister, including the fact that she wants to kill her lecherous father.

During a weekend, two shady businessmen flee to the Cayman Islands to avoid federal prosecution. But their escape ignites a chain reaction that leads a British native to commit a crime that changes the nation.

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

A young social outcast in Australia steals money from her parents to finance a vacation where she hopes to find happiness, and perhaps love.