Blaze

Preston Sturges' first film as writer-director is an omnivorous satire on endemic political corruption, the tale of a tramp who gets his entry into politics by casting 37 votes for mayor at $2 a pop. Eventually he'll be on the ticket himself...

A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.

Strange but true: one of the greatest comedies of Hollywood's golden era was inspired by Hitler's annexation of Poland in 1938. Jack Benny is the renowned theatre actor whose performance of Hamlet is interrupted by the Germans.

After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.

The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.

In this explicitly anti-Nazi melodrama directed by Frank Borzage (Three Comrades) a year before the US entered the war, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart fall in love as their friends and family fall prey to the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany.