MUBI – quick links
MUBI: new in July
The Deer Hunter – 1 July
Film (1978). Michael Cimino’s monumental Vietnam epic follows three steelworkers from a Pennsylvania town whose lives are shattered by war. Anchored by extraordinary performances from Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep, and winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture.
The Third Man – 1 July
Film (1949). Carol Reed’s masterwork of postwar noir, written by Graham Greene, follows a pulp novelist who arrives in shadowy, occupied Vienna to find his friend has been killed under mysterious circumstances. Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles at their most magnetic.
Goodbye Berlin – 1 July
Film (2016). Fatih Akin’s tender coming-of-age road movie, adapted from the beloved German novel, follows two misfit teenagers on an unlikely adventure across the German countryside — funny, warm, and quietly moving.
Not A Pretty Picture – 1 July
Film (1976). Martha Coolidge’s courageous and formally ingenious debut feature, in which the director recreates the circumstances of her own high school sexual assault through dramatic reenactment — blending fiction and documentary in a pioneering examination of date rape and its aftermath. Restored in 4K by the Academy Archive and The Film Foundation. Céline Sciamma’s pick for Berlinale 2023.
Phantoms Of July – 3 July
Film (2025). Julian Radlmaier’s fourth film is a bittersweet and whimsical story that spans centuries in the German town of Sangerhausen. Ursula, a heartbroken waitress from East Germany, and Neda, a lonely Iranian YouTuber recovering from a broken arm, meet by chance and mistaken identity. Their encounter leads to an unexpected ghost hunt in the mountains, where the ghosts of history have a playful conversation with the dissatisfied people of modern Germany.
Radlmaier mixes absurd comedy with political commentary and a poetic, melancholic mood. He explores class struggle and ideological conflict using anachronism and irony, blending history and fantasy. The film weaves together four stories that move through time, with surreal moments like a herd of camels or a pair of naked hikers, all captured in the glowing Super 16mm cinematography of Feraz Fesharaki (What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?).
Marxism At Play: Three By Julian Radlmaier – 3 July
Collection. To mark the release of Phantoms of July, this collection highlights the German director’s two earlier films, showing off his unique style. He blends Marxist ideas and political allegory with humour and a light touch.
Includes Phantoms of July, Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog, Bloodsuckers.
Amores Perros – 10 July
Film (2000). Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first film is a powerful story that weaves together three lives connected by a violent car crash in Mexico City. One story follows a teenager who risks everything to run away with his brother’s wife. Another centres on a model who loses everything after moving in with her lover. The third follows a homeless man who confronts memories from his past. As these stories develop, we see chaos, cruelty, and tenderness, showing that the characters are more connected than they first appear.
The film uses a fractured timeline, fast-paced editing, and overlapping stories shaped by desire, betrayal, and survival. It also marks Gael García Bernal’s striking first appearance in a feature film. Rodrigo Prieto’s raw cinematography and Gustavo Santaolalla’s intense, rhythmic score give the movie a strong sense of chaos and emotion that stands out in Latin American cinema today.
Homour And Melancholy: The Cinema Of Martín Rejtman – 10 July
Collection. The films of Argentinian auteur Martín Rejtman have the beauty of feeling familiar while surprising us at every turn. Luminous and delightfully off-kilter, these are comedies of sheer originality, mordant, often tender, and always unpredictable.
Includes Rapado, Silvia Prieto, Shakti, The Magic Gloves.
The Non-Actor – 10 July
Film (2025). A curious, charming short from musician and novelist Eliza Barry Callahan (adapting her debut novel The Hearing Test), starring Victoria Pedretti and Maya Hawke. While attending a medical trial for sudden hearing loss, a woman stays with her ex’s new girlfriend — and an unexpected connection sparks.
It Was Just An Accident – 17 July
Film (2025). An auto mechanic, suspecting that a man he encounters may have been his former torturer in prison, kidnaps him in pursuit of vengeance. With the only clue to the suspect’s identity being the squeak of a prosthetic leg, Vahid seeks confirmation from other recently released victims. As the investigation unfolds, the situation becomes increasingly perilous.
This morally charged drama transforms an apparently routine roadside encounter into a tense exploration of guilt, suspicion, and state violence. It Was Just an Accident extends Panahi’s tradition of deceptively simple yet politically resonant storytelling. Utilising confined settings, real-time tension, and meticulously observed daily interactions, the film eschews melodrama in favour of subtle psychological intensity, offering a controlled study of power and fear in contemporary Iran.
Recipient of the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Cinema By Any Means: A Jafar Panahi Retrospective – 17 July
Collection. A retrospective celebrating the work of Jafar Panahi — whose defiant, inventive cinema has persisted through imprisonment, house arrest, and travel bans, always finding a way to document the humanity of contemporary Iran.
Includes It Was Just an Accident, No Bears, Closed Curtain, Crimson Gold, The White Balloon, Offside, The Circle, The Mirror.
Stephanie Rothman’s Feminist Exploitations – 17 July
Collection. Celebrating three standout films by 1970s exploitation director Stephanie Rothman, known for politically and socially astute films with badass female leads. Her counter-culture films fought back against the male gaze of 1970s New Hollywood.
Includes Group Marriage, Terminal Island, The Working Girls.
Lynch: Inland Empire Trio – 24 July
Collection. An intimate look into the creative process of David Lynch, pairing his masterful Inland Empire with two behind-the-scenes documentaries capturing the making of the film.
Includes Inland Empire, Lynch (One), Lynch 2.
A Useful Ghost – 24 July
Film (2025). Something unusual is happening at a family-run appliance factory: spirits have started to possess the products. March, the factory owner’s son, is grieving after his pregnant wife dies from dust poisoning. His world changes when he is reunited with her, now in the form of a vacuum cleaner.
A Useful Ghost is surreal, funny, and politically charged, using absurdist storytelling to explore love, grief, and collective memory.
MUBI: recent highlights
Sirāt – 12 June
Film (2025). Oliver Laxe’s Sirât presents a hypnotic and immersive narrative set in the deserts of North Africa, chronicling a father and son’s search for their missing daughter following her disappearance at an underground rave in Morocco. As the protagonists move from one remote gathering to the next, their quest evolves into an exploration of spiritual, existential, and ultimately unknowable dimensions.
From ScreenHub’s five-star review:
Sirât, the immaculately staged near-apocalypse from Oscar-nominated French-Galician filmmaker Óliver Laxe, has no interest in easing you in. Or out.
Instead, as the film opens, we’re thrust headlong into a juddering blast of bone-crunching bass that annihilates our senses. A fortress-like barricade of towering speakers is arrayed at the foot of a cliff, somewhere in the southern Morrocco end of the Sahara. A light show dances on this foreboding canvas as a drugged-up throng surrender themselves to the beat. Read more …
Hot to the Touch: Female Desire on Screen – 12 June
Spotlight collection. This collection foregrounds women reclaiming desire, intimacy, and agency on screen—challenging decades of objectifying cinematic conventions. From tender romances to boundary-pushing dramas, these films explore sexuality through female subjectivity, emotional complexity, and unapologetic passion.
Includes The Handmaiden, Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
