Gillo Pontecorvo (Italy/Algeria, 1966). Pontecorvo's agit-prop classic concerns Algeria's struggle for independence against its French overlords, and remains today as one of the best films on revolution ever made. “A MASTERPIECE! Surely the most harrowing political epic ever!” (New Yorker). (123 mins)

Elia Kazan (U.S., 1950). Richard Widmark is a doctor scouring the streets of New Orleans for the carrier of a deadly disease in this gripping but alarmist tale of a “plague” traveling from abroad to our complacent shores. With Jack Palance, Barbara Bel Geddes, and Zero Mostel. (96 mins)

Zeinabu irene Davis (U.S., 1999). Zeinabu irene Davis in person. Compensation depicts two Chicago love stories, one set at the dawn of the twentieth century and the other in contemporary times, featuring a deaf woman and a hearing man. Incorporates sign language and title cards, making it accessible to both deaf and hearing audiences. Preceded by Iverson White's Dark Exodus. (118 mins)

Ute Aurand (Germany/Japan, 2011). Ute Aurand in person. Introduced by Susan Oxtoby. This program of German filmmaker Aurand's beautiful observed films features her most recent work, a meditation on Japan and portraits of her friends and godchildren. Films include Young Pines and Paulina, Franz, Maria, Susan, Lisbeth. (63 mins)

Seijun Suzuki (Japan, 1963). A young tough with a florid heart and swinging fists enters adulthood-and encounters both love and fascism-in Suzuki's wild film, a Taisho-set equivalent to Rebel Without a Cause. (95 mins)

Jean Grémillon (France, 1941). Cowritten by Jacques Prévert, Remorques stars Jean Gabin as a tugboat captain working the storm-battered coast of Brittany, where the moody Michèle Morgan soon washes into his life and he begins to become unmoored from his marriage to fragile Madeleine Renaud. (85 mins)

Jean Grémillon (France, 1943). Although it was never released in this country, for many British and French critics Lumière d'été stands alongside Children of Paradise as a masterpiece of French cinema made during the German Occupation. A remote mountain inn is the setting for a class-crossed love affair. (112 mins)

Don Siegel (U.S., 1956). Anytown U.S.A. gets clobbered again. This time alien pods replicate full-fledged citizens, turning them into unfeeling collectivized conformists. And the threat is not a bug-eyed alien or insidious Commie, but Mom, Dad, and Little Timmy. “They're already here. You're next! You're next!” (80 mins)

Seijun Suzuki (Japan, 1966). A high-school student and militant ideologue is torn between violence and his love for a Catholic girl in Suzuki's scathing portrait of militarism, filmed with typical high style and humor. (86 mins)