1995

Like the fantastical fables Sara tells her fellow students in A Little Princess, her life in a 1910s New York boarding school takes the form of a whimsical fairy tale painted in evocative green palettes and drawn along a light thread of magical realism, each expressing Alfonso Cuarón’s deep love of stories that liberate prisoners of a cynical world.

Even after the explosions of violence in La Haine’s riots and beatings, resentment continues to simmer between the police and immigrants of Paris’ outer suburbs, fizzling with an indignant anger infused right into Mathieu Kassovitz’s aggressive cinematic style and forming a monochrome portrait of aching social realism around three disillusioned youths.