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Wim Wenders' take on Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game is the real deal, an authentic mittel-European neo-noir, with Dennis Hopper as the original American psycho, Tom Ripley. This Film Studies screening is introduced by Patricia Gruben.

To tell the story of two friends serving time at a brutal racist Florida reform school, director RaMell Ross puts us inside their heads. It's a radical masterstroke in a powerful film, nominated for Best Picture.

In the final installment of this year's Film Studies on Adaptation, we look at the 2006 film Adaptation — by Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage in the movie.) Introduced by Patricia Gruben.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and Special Jury Prize Winner, Sundance, 2025, this exposé shot by a Russian primary teacher shows how the Putin propaganda machine works to militarize children.

Having offered some late-night assistance to a stranger in the wake of an auto accident, a mechanic grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger’s voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell.

This year's contenders in the Live Action category include comedies, drama, an experimental musical, and a dystopian fantasy; films from the UK and the US, France and Israel.

The nominees for Best Animated Short Film include The Girl Who Cried Pearls, a fable from Canadian filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, narrated by Colm Feore.

Mixing documentary and reenactment, this film powerfully evokes the desperate attempts of the Red Crescent to rescue a six year old child trapped in a car under Israeli military fire. Oscar nominee: Best International Film

A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.

2025's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.

Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.

PT Anderson's breathless satire is the best political action movie of 2025, a defiantly anti-MAGA rallying cry featuring a six pack of crackerjack performances. They'll still be talking about this one 50 years from now.

Experience the Academy Awards in style at the VIFF Centre! Watch the ceremony live on the big screen with a red carpet, a fully licensed bar and live hosts.