Yuzo Kawashima (Japan, 1956). A down-on-their-luck young couple settle on the edge of the red-light district in this major rediscovery of the Nikkatsu series, a “radiant masterwork of Japanese cinematic melodramas” (Tokyo Filmex) compared to Naruse and Mizoguchi. (81 mins)

Takashi Nomura (Japan, 1967) New 35mm print! One man, one plan, and a thousand bullets: a swaggering Jo Shishido takes on the mob with effortless cool in this tough-as-nails noir, fueled by American crime thrillers, French existentialism, and Italian spaghetti westerns. “An existentially poetic actioner worthy of Howard Hawks or Sergio Leone” (Sydney Film Festival). (84 mins)

Janie Geiser (U.S., 2002–12). Janie Geiser in person. Geiser's origins in puppet theater are evident in her affinity for cutout figures and antique toys. She collages these and other elements, along with fragments of sounds or music, to construct mysterious worlds that are as beautiful as they are haunting. Films include the Nervous Film series and a premiere of a new film. (60 mins)

Julie Dash (U.S., 1991) New Print! In 1902, among the Gullah community (descendants of African captives who escaped the slave trade to live on islands off of South Carolina and Georgia), a family debates whether to move to the mainland. The first American feature directed by an African American woman to receive a general theatrical release. Preceded by Dash's Diary of an African Nun. (127 mins)

Mansaku Itami (Japan, 1936). A not-so-heroic samurai, more everyman than Superman, is tasked with defeating a clueless lord's scheming retainers in this jovial, warmly humanist work from Itami, a key figure in prewar Japanese cinema (and the father of Juzo Itami). (77 mins)

Takumi Furukawa (Japan, 1956) New 35mm Print! Two bored, aimless teens find “love” (or at least sex) amidst the night clubs and yacht-filled beaches of an emotionless Japan unlike any their parents had seen. The film that launched the infamous youth-focused “sun tribe” genre, and defined a new generation. (89 mins)

Mike Nichols (U.S., 1967) New 35mm Print! Student Pick! Dustin Hoffman is a college grad bouncing between his much-older seducer (Anne Bancroft) and her daughter (Katharine Ross) in this time capsule of an era, with scenes representing Berkeley campus life. (105 mins)

Lamia Joreige in person. Introduced by Apsara DiQuinzio. All of the films in tonight's program are concerned with the act of recalling the past-a heavy burden given Lebanon's history. Films include Lamia Joreige's Replay (Bis) and Nights and Days, Jalal Toufic's Saving Face, and Akram Zaatari's Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright and In This House. (71 mins)

Haile Gerima (U.S., 1975) New Print! Introduced by Cornelius Moore. Haile Gerima's first feature "takes chances and projects an urgent sense of personal necessity . . . a raw, fragmented study of a Watts welfare mother's political awakening" (Village Voice). Preceded by Bernard Nicolas' Daydream Therapy. (105 mins)

Marcel Carné (France, 1939). Gabin gives one of his greatest performances in this Marcel Carné/Jacques Prévert collaboration, “perhaps the finest of the French poetic melodramas” (Pauline Kael). (87 mins)

Jacques Becker (France, 1952). With a fluidity that almost defies narrative plotting, Jacques Becker unfolds a tale of love doomed by its setting, the Paris demimonde at the turn of the century. A young Simone Signoret is sensual and sassy as a gigolette who abandons her gangster mec for an honest carpenter. (94 mins)

Kenji Mizoguchi (Japan, 1930). Hometown is not only the great Kenji Mizoguchi's first sound film, it's also one of the first sound films ever made in Japan, produced by Nikkatsu as a test in 1929. The popular classical-music tenor Yoshie Fujiwara plays a singer who returns from a trip abroad. (86 mins)

Marcel Carné (France, 1938). Two doomed lovers swear upon a suicide pact, but one loses the plot in Carné's atmospheric, fatalistic melodrama. “A stimulating reminder of the great days of French cinema” (William K. Everson). (100 mins)

Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey/Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2011). Police look for something amidst the darkness of a long Turkish night in this Cannes Grand Prix-winning meditative work from Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of the most acclaimed films of 2011. “Both beautiful and beautifully observed, with a delicate touch and flashes of humor and horror” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times). (157 mins)

Larry Clark (U.S., 1973) New Print! Introduced by Leigh Raiford. A rediscovered masterpiece, director Larry Clark's portrayal of black insurgency imagines a post-Watts rebellion state of siege and an organized black underground plotting revolution. Preceded by three visionary films, Ben Caldwell's Medea and I & I: An African Allegory, and Don Amis' Ujamii Uhuru Schule Community Freedom School. (100 mins)

Larry Clark (U.S., 1973) New Print! Introduced by Leigh Raiford. A rediscovered masterpiece, director Larry Clark's portrayal of black insurgency imagines a post-Watts rebellion state of siege and an organized black underground plotting revolution. Preceded by three visionary films, Ben Caldwell's Medea and I & I: An African Allegory, and Don Amis' Ujamii Uhuru Schule Community Freedom School. Presented as part of our series L.A. Rebellion. (100 mins)

Max Ophuls (France, 1950). A prostitute (Simone Signoret) loves a soldier (Serge Reggiani), who leaves her for a chambermaid (Simone Simon), who . . . etc., etc., until the story returns to the prostitute. “Ophuls displays dazzling technical virtuosity and cinematic elegance” (Chicago Reader). (97 mins)

Max Ophuls (France, 1952). In adapting three de Maupassant stories, Ophuls sardonically explores the distinctions between pleasure and happiness. "Illustrates not merely Ophuls's unparalleled sense of flow and texture, but also his proto-feminism” (Slant). Starring Gaby Morlay, Simone Simon, Jean Gabin, and Danielle Darrieux. (95 mins)

Masahiro Makino (Japan, 1939). One of the real discoveries of the Nikkatsu retrospective, this jazz-influenced, light-hearted romantic musical offers up many pleasures, including longtime Kurosawa veteran Takashi Shimura crooning out several numbers. Sweet and pretty Oharu helps her father make umbrellas, but her heart truly swoons for a kindly ronin. (69 mins)

Toshio Masuda (Japan, 1958). New 35mm Print! Nikkatsu's two biggest stars, Yujiro Ishihara and Akira Kobayashi, teamed up for the first time in this noir about two former hoods trying to go straight. Director Masuda strips the narrative-and the sets-down to bare necessities, and turns Rusty Knife into a lean, hardboiled vision of postwar Japan. (90 mins)

Max Ophuls (France/Italy, 1953). Following a pair of earrings, Ophuls's fluid camerawork tracks the course of love and the character of a class. "Perfection” (Pauline Kael). With Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, and Vittorio De Sica. (105 mins)

Alile Sharon Larkin (U.S., 1979) New Print! Larkin's film, about a single mother eking out a living from welfare check to welfare check, masterfully presents a child's perspective on wealth and social inequality. With other shorts that explore family relationships: Rich (S. Torriano Berry), Shipley Street (Jacqueline Frazier), and Fragrance (Gay Abel-Bey). (115 mins)

Paz Encina (Paraguay, 2006). Paz Encina in person. Introduced by Natalia Brizuela. In rural Paraguay circa 1935, an elderly husband and wife wait for their son to return home. “Present blurs with past, life shades to death, and things unseen haunt the melancholy shadows, delicately cast, in this entrancing Paraguayan clearing” (New York Times). Preceded by Encina's newest film, A Wind from the South. (101 mins)

Charles Burnett (U.S., 1983/2007) Director's Cut! A tragicomic portrait of a young man's complex relationship with his family and his Watts community. “A treasure that demands to be unearthed in all its funny-sad tenderness” (Village Voice). Preceded by Robert Wheaton's A Little off Mark. (91 mins)

Alex Cox (U.K./U.S., 1987/2010). Rude boys gone Western: several bandits, tricksters, and desperadoes-including Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello, The Pogues, Courtney Love, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, and Jim Jarmusch-are adrift in a deserted desert town, in Cox's delirious remix of spaghetti westerns and Sam Peckinpah. (91 mins)

Alex Cox (U.S., 1984). A very youthful Emilio Estevez is a young repo man taken under the wing of grizzled Harry Dean Stanton in Cox's first feature and cult favorite, one of the defining films of the 1980s American indie scene. (92 mins)

Marcel L'Herbier (France, 1934). Anarchist attempts to assassinate queen, queen protects anarchist, queen loves anarchist, anarchist loves queen. Or does she . . . and does he? Here the palace is a film studio, the royalty are movie stars, and the fairy tale survives even L'Herbier's ironic analysis. With Charles Boyer and Gaby Morlay. (105 mins)

Max Ophuls (France/Germany, 1955). Restored 35mm print of the French version! In Max Ophuls's audacious final film, a life of passion becomes the stuff of carnival. “The ultimate cinephilic object: a color-and-CinemaScope dream” (Boston Phoenix ).(110 mins) NOTE: This replaces the originally scheduled screening of Panique.

Yuzo Kawashima (Japan, 1957). Named the fifth best Japanese film of all time in a 2009 Kinema Jumpo poll, Kawashima's Edo-set comedy follows a fast-talking deadbeat (Frankie Sakai) as he works his way into-but not out of-an intrigue-filled brothel. Cowritten by Shohei Imamura, Kawashima's longtime assistant director. (110 mins)

Béla Tarr (Hungary/France/Switzerland/Germany, 2011). Winner of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, the latest masterpiece from Béla Tarr is reportedly the director's final film, and was inspired by a true-life tale involving Friedrich Nietzsche. A father-and-daughter depend on the health of their ill-fated horse. “An auteurist triumph” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times). (146 mins)