A politician claiming to be the people, against everyone else.
Jean Renoir’s 1956 film follows a Polish princess in fin de siècle Paris whose romantic entanglements intersect with a general’s wavering ambition and a shoe magnate’s calculations. Shot in Paris studios and locations, with design by Jean André and music by Joseph Kosma, it treats politics as theatre and desire as strategy — light in tone, precise in execution, and deliberately unmoored from psychological realism.
Robert Altman’s 1975 ensemble film follows twenty-four characters in the Nashville music industry over five days, culminating in a political rally and an unexplained assassination. Built from Joan Tewkesbury’s ethnographically grounded script and shot on location with overlapping dialogue and diegetic music, it treats fame, race, and populism as systems rather than subjects — observing more than judging, accumulating more than resolving.
Set in 1979 Santa Barbara, Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women follows 15-year-old Jamie as his single mother Dorothea enlists two younger women — photographer Abbie and teenage friend Julie — to help raise him. Anchored by Annette Bening’s restrained performance, the film observes their overlapping lives with warmth and precision, treating feminism, illness, ageing and adolescence as lived conditions rather than themes. Shot by Sean Porter and edited by Leslie Jones, it moves at the pace of real conversation, building meaning through accumulation rather than climax.
Abbas Kiarostami’s final film, 24 Frames, comprises twenty-four uncut, static shots — each ninety seconds long — observing nature, animals, and thresholds between interior and exterior. Beginning with animated movement superimposed on Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow, it proceeds into real-world stillness, testing how much meaning resides in time, attention, and unmediated presence. Released posthumously at Cannes 2017, it is a rigorous, unsentimental essay on perception and impermanence.
Delmer Daves’ 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma adapts Elmore Leonard’s taut short story into a study of obligation under pressure. Rancher Dan Evans agrees to escort outlaw Ben Wade to the 3:10 train for Yuma, facing ambush, betrayal, and his own wavering resolve. Shot by Charles Lawton Jr. with sun-bleached realism and scored sparingly by George Duning, the film builds suspense through pacing, performance, and moral granularity — not spectacle. It was preserved by the Library of Congress in 2012 for its cultural and aesthetic significance.
Robert Altman’s 1977 film 3 Women follows the uncanny merging of identities among a timid young woman, her garrulous roommate and a silent, pregnant artist in a sun-scorched California town. Built from a dream and shot with deliberate, unhurried precision, it uses repetition, reflection and improvisation to explore how selves are borrowed, performed and abandoned.