40 Essential IFC Films
IFC Films, the company behind some of the most fiercely independent and unique movies out there, is celebrating 25 years!
To get in on the party we’re all partnering with our friends at Fandango at Home and putting up a sale featuring nearly 40 of IFC’s most celebrated films, including new horror classic The Babadook, Speak No Evil (recently remade with James McAvoy), Werewolves Within (the sole Certified Fresh video game movie), and Armando Iannucci black comedy In the Loop.
Also in the mix: Fan favorite David Dastmalchian-starring Late Night with the Devil, Kristen Stewart drama Personal Shopper, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, and some of the latest works from esteemed and legendary directors like Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void), Paul Verhoeven (Benedetta), and Lars von Trier (The House That Jack Built).
#1
Adjusted Score: 102672%
Critics Consensus: As ambitious and provocative as its subject, The Disappearance of Shere Hite is a fascinating glimpse of a remarkable life.
Synopsis: Shere Hite's 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of...
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#2
Adjusted Score: 105707%
Critics Consensus: A union to cherish between a writer-director and star working at peak power, Things to Come offers quietly profound observations on life, love, and the irrevocable passage of time.
Synopsis: A passionate middle-aged philosophy professor (Isabelle Huppert) rethinks her already much-examined life after an unforeseen divorce....
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#3
Adjusted Score: 105136%
Critics Consensus: A small film that elicits a huge emotional response, Ghostlight is a deeply moving and superbly acted meditation on grief.
Synopsis: When melancholic construction worker Dan (Keith Kupferer) finds himself drifting from his wife and daughter, he discovers community and purpose...
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#4
Adjusted Score: 109844%
Critics Consensus: The Babadook relies on real horror rather than cheap jump scares -- and boasts a heartfelt, genuinely moving story to boot.
Synopsis: Six years after the violent death of her husband, Amelia (Essie Davis) is at a loss. She struggles to discipline...
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#5
Adjusted Score: 109847%
Critics Consensus: Delightfully dark, Late Night with the Devil proves possession horror isn't played out -- and serves as an outstanding showcase for David Dastmalchian.
Synopsis: Johnny Carson rival Jack Delroy hosts a syndicated talk show 'Night Owls' that has long been a trusted companion to...
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#6
Adjusted Score: 108703%
Critics Consensus: With intelligence as sharp as its humor, BlackBerry takes a terrifically entertaining look at the rise and fall of a generation-defining gadget.
Synopsis: 'BlackBerry' tells the story of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the two men that charted the course of the spectacular...
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#7
Adjusted Score: 104531%
Critics Consensus: Another profoundly affecting work from the Dardenne brothers, Two Days, One Night delivers its timely message with honesty and clear-eyed compassion.
Synopsis: A factory worker (Marion Cotillard) has just one weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses so that...
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#8
Adjusted Score: 102104%
Critics Consensus: A hard-hitting horror film whose surface-level frights are just as engaging as its thematic concerns, When Evil Lurks marks a viscerally unsettling addition to the possession horror canon.
Synopsis: When brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimmy (Demián Salomón) discover that a demonic infection has been festering in a nearby...
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#9
Adjusted Score: 97930%
Critics Consensus: Smart, dynamic, and fast-paced, Saloum mixes tones and genres into a tart, smoothly blended treat.
Synopsis: Shot down after fleeing a coup and extracting a drug lord from Guinea-Bissau, the legendary mercenaries known as the Bangui...
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#10
Adjusted Score: 102984%
Critics Consensus: An elegant and spooky ghost story punctuated with clever jolts, Oddity hews to the fundamentals of fright and achieves shout-inducing results.
Synopsis: When Dani is brutally murdered at the remote country house that she and her husband Ted are renovating, everyone suspects...
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#11
Adjusted Score: 105952%
Critics Consensus: Wildlife's portrait of a family in crisis is beautifully composed by director Paul Dano -- and brought brilliantly to life by a career-best performance from Carey Mulligan.
Synopsis: Fourteen-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry -- a housewife and a golf pro -- in a...
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#12
Adjusted Score: 100958%
Critics Consensus: In the Loop is an uncommonly funny political satire that blends Dr. Strangelove with Spinal Tap for the Iraq war era.
Synopsis: During an interview, British Cabinet Minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) delivers an off-the-cuff remark that war in the Middle East...
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#13
Adjusted Score: 98769%
Critics Consensus: A message movie in a hard horror shell, Hatching perches between beauty and revulsion -- and establishes director Hanna Bergholm as a bright new talent.
Synopsis: In HATCHING, 12-year-old gymnast, Tinja (Siiri Solalinna), is desperate to please her image-obsessed mother, whose popular blog 'Lovely Everyday Life'...
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#14
Adjusted Score: 101070%
Critics Consensus: Certain Women further demonstrates writer-director Kelly Reichardt's gift for telling the stories of ordinary people with uncommon empathy and skill.
Synopsis: Three strong-willed women (Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Michelle Williams) strive to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of...
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#15
Adjusted Score: 101005%
Critics Consensus: Audiences will need to tolerate a certain amount of narrative drift, but thanks to sensitive direction from Noah Baumbach and an endearing performance from Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha makes it easy to forgive.
Synopsis: Frances (Greta Gerwig) goes from apartment to apartment in Brooklyn as she looks for a job and a stable partner....
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#16
Adjusted Score: 100454%
Critics Consensus: I, Daniel Blake marks yet another well-told chapter in director Ken Loach's powerfully populist filmography.
Synopsis: Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a 59-year-old widowed carpenter who must rely on welfare after a recent heart attack leaves...
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#17
Adjusted Score: 94094%
Critics Consensus: Stopmotion takes the conflict between art and artist to chilling, visually thrilling extremes, distinguished by director Robert Morgan's excellent effects work.
Synopsis: A talented stop-motion animator becomes consumed by the grotesque world of her horrifying creations -- with deadly results....
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#18
Adjusted Score: 93824%
Critics Consensus: More visually impressive than narratively engaging, Vesper rewards patient viewers with immersive world-building and intelligent ideas.
Synopsis: After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her Father, must use her wits,...
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#19
Adjusted Score: 93948%
Critics Consensus: Beautifully filmed and powerfully acted, Walking Out effectively balances tense father-son drama against an affecting wilderness survival story.
Synopsis: When a city teen travels to Montana to go hunting with his estranged father, the trip becomes a battle for...
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#20
Adjusted Score: 96794%
Critics Consensus: Undine draws on folklore for a dark fantasy whose murky storytelling is often offset by the enchanting romance at its core.
Synopsis: Christian Petzold (PHOENIX, TRANSIT) boldly reimagines the ancient myth of Undine in this suspenseful tale of romance and betrayal in...
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#21
Adjusted Score: 97368%
Critics Consensus: Raw, honest, powerfully acted, and deliciously intense, Blue Is the Warmest Color offers some of modern cinema's most elegantly composed, emotionally absorbing drama.
Synopsis: A French teen (Adèle Exarchopoulos) forms a deep emotional and sexual connection with an older art student (Léa Seydoux) she...
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#22
Adjusted Score: 95828%
Critics Consensus: Although its story may lack surprises, Watcher benefits from director Chloe Okuno's chilling grip on the material -- and Maika Monroe's terrific work in the leading role.
Synopsis: As a serial killer stalks the city, Julia -- a young actress who just moved to town with her boyfriend...
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#23
Adjusted Score: 93370%
Critics Consensus: Effective space alien horror with a Soviet-era twist, Sputnik proves there are still some scary good sci-fi thrillers left in the galaxy.
Synopsis: Summoned to a secluded research facility, a controversial young doctor examines a cosmonaut who returned to Earth with an alien...
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#24
Adjusted Score: 95351%
Critics Consensus: The Truth may not stand with Hirokazu Kore-eda's best work, but it finds the writer-director revisiting familiar themes with a typically sensitive touch.
Synopsis: A stormy reunion occurs between an actress and her daughter after the actress publishes her memoirs....
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#25
Adjusted Score: 94489%
Critics Consensus: Let the Sunshine In pairs a powerful performance from Juliette Binoche with a layered drama that presents director Claire Denis at her most assured.
Synopsis: Isabelle, a Parisian artist and divorced mother, is looking for love....
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#26
Adjusted Score: 92983%
Critics Consensus: Werewolves Within is the rare horror comedy that offers equal helpings of either genre -- and adds up to a whole lot of fun in the bargain.
Synopsis: After a proposed pipeline creates divisions within the small town of Beaverfield, and a snowstorm traps its residents together inside...
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#27
Adjusted Score: 91664%
Critics Consensus: Ghost Stories offers a well-crafted, skillfully told horror anthology that cleverly toys with genre tropes while adding a few devilishly frightful twists.
Synopsis: Professor Phillip Goodman devotes his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans. His skepticism soon gets put to...
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#28
Adjusted Score: 93749%
Critics Consensus: Precariously walking a tightrope of varying genres and tones, Benedetta provokes salient questions about sexual freedom and its relationship to faith.
Synopsis: Based on a true story, a 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it...
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#29
Adjusted Score: 88949%
Critics Consensus: A social satire with razor-sharp teeth, Speak No Evil offers a darkly delicious treat for fans of misanthropic thrillers.
Synopsis: On a vacation in Tuscany, two families -- one Danish, one Dutch -- meet and become fast friends. Months later,...
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#30
Adjusted Score: 88249%
Critics Consensus: The Trip to Spain offers more of the same scenery, food, and conversation that filled Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's first two Trips -- which is to say, more of a good thing.
Synopsis: Steve and Rob sample the restaurants and hotels of the Spanish coastline, trading jokes and impressions over their lunches....
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#31
Adjusted Score: 86032%
Critics Consensus: Greener Grass is far from the first comedy to skewer suburbia -- but it might be among the most bizarre and surreally distinctive.
Synopsis: Soccer moms Jill and Lisa compete for approval and acceptance in a bizarre suburbia while their kids battle it out...
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#32
Adjusted Score: 94129%
Critics Consensus: Personal Shopper attempts a tricky series of potentially jarring tonal shifts with varying results, bolstered by a performance from Kristen Stewart that's impossible to ignore.
Synopsis: A young American in Paris works as a personal shopper for a celebrity. She seems to have the ability to...
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#33
Adjusted Score: 81368%
Critics Consensus: Baskin complements its gory thrills with heavy atmosphere and deliberate pacing, adding up to a horror outing that plays with the mind as enthusiastically as it ruins the appetite.
Synopsis: Policemen (Gorkem Kasal, Ergun Kuyucu) face a night of horror in a subterranean labyrinth after answering a distress call....
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#34
Adjusted Score: 83420%
Critics Consensus: The movie's curiously bland compared to the remarkable real-life story it dramatizes, but Sally Hawkins' performance saves The Lost King from feeling like a royal disappointment.
Synopsis: In this inspiring true story, amateur historian Philippa Langley believes she has made the archeological find of the century: the...
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#35
Adjusted Score: 76391%
Critics Consensus: Thanks to a committed, powerhouse performance by Bryan Cranston, Wakefield is a fascinating character study of a decidedly unpleasant character.
Synopsis: Howard Wakefield, a New York City lawyer, hides out in the attic of his home for weeks, coming out in...
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#36
Adjusted Score: 58891%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The Urashima Tunnel can grant any wish... for a price. High school boy Kaoru, plagued by a troubled past, teams...
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#37
Adjusted Score: 80238%
Critics Consensus: The Clovehitch Killer patiently dials up the tension with a story that makes up for a lack of surprises with strong performances and a chilling wit.
Synopsis: After Tyler finds a cache of disturbing images in his father's possession, he begins to suspect that the man he...
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#38
Adjusted Score: 76316%
Critics Consensus: Grimy and psychedelic, Enter the Void ushers audiences through an out-of-body experience with the eye for extremity and technical wizardry that Gaspar Noé fans have come to expect.
Synopsis: A psychedelic acid trip in which a young man takes a wild journey into the afterlife. A visceral journey set...
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#39
Adjusted Score: 75774%
Critics Consensus: Viceroy's House brings a balanced perspective to its worthy, historically grounded story while taking care to enliven the details with absorbing drama.
Synopsis: In 1947, British statesman Lord Mountbatten serves as India's last Viceroy and is charged with handing India back to its...
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#40
Adjusted Score: 66066%
Critics Consensus: The House That Jack Built presents writer-director Lars von Trier at his most proudly uncompromising: hard to ignore, and for many viewers, just as difficult to digest.
Synopsis: In five episodes, failed architect and vicious sociopath Jack recounts his elaborately orchestrated murders -- each, as he views them,...
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