New releases this season include the latest bold and moving works from masters of contemporary cinema, as well as new digital restorations of classic films: the highly anticipated martial-arts epic from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien, The Assassin (2015); the ultimate epic phantasmagoria, The Forbidden Room (2015) from Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson; the intricate and beautifully shot 3D drama Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015) from master director Wim Wenders; Naji Abu Nowar’s understated gem, Theeb (2014), a coming-of-age tale of a young Bedouin boy; Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015), based on the classic study of mock prisoners and guards; Stevan Riley’s compelling documentary Listen to Me Marlon (2015), compiled from private audio tapes Marlon Brando recorded; Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (2015), a rare look into Guggenheim’s private world; and This Changes Everything (2015), inspired by Naomi Klein’s international bestseller and directed by her partner Avi Lewis. Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the Golden Bear and FIPRESCI Prizes at the 65th Berlinale for Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015), his documentary-like portrait of the lives of modern Iranians; while French provocateur Gaspar Noé’s hyper-sexual 3D tale Love (2015) caused controversy in Cannes; Tim Grabham and Jasper Shard’s mesmerizingly creative documentary The Creeping Garden (2014), follows the secret life of a biological anomaly: plasmodial slime mould; three women combat merciless marauders during the last days of the American Civil War in The Keeping Room (2013); Goodnight Mommy (2014) is a haunting, elegiac portrait of a family in crisis; and Ryan Reynolds, Ben Mendelsohn and Sienna Miller star in Mississippi Grind (2014), a footloose tale about two itinerant gamblers.

The Mask from The Mask