Tisch School of the Arts (NYU)

A young man walks into a meticulously clean and sterile bathroom and proceeds to shave away hair, then skin, in an increasingly bloody and graphic bathroom scene.

A writer named Algernon (but called Harry by his friends) buys a picture of a boat on a lake, and his obsession with it renders normal life impossible.

Now middle-aged, mobster Murray looks back at his humble beginnings as a bootlegger and his rise to becoming wealthy and highly influential. Through it he talks about how much of his success and happiness is due to the support of his "friend" Joe. Unfortunately the only one who blindly believes Joe is anything close to a friend is Murray, because it's obvious to everyone that Joe back-stabs him at every chance and is sleeping with his wife.

It’s just another ordinary day in 1930s Los Angeles for private investigator Clyde Umney, until a new client walks into his office. Umney soon learns that his client is the crime-fiction writer who not only created him, but now needs to switch places with him.

In Belleau Wood, France, during the Great War, a soldier named John writes a letter home to his wife Sara in Milwaukee. He writes that her picture "helps me remember what it was like to be me." He tells her about sorties into No Man's Land, and that they have orders tonight to charge. Then, his letter becomes a report of that charge: toward an armed German soldier who doesn't fire, even when John reaches him and jumps into the trench beside him. What happens next brings silence and an end to the letter.

At a shiva with her parents, a college student runs into her sugar daddy.

This animated twist on Halloween memories involves the traumatic theft of a candy bag on Halloween night.

A down-on-his-luck photographer determined to capture visual magic and fame. He concocts an intricate plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty and sets his camera to record the exact moment of its destruction.

Zack Homer takes over managing the barbershop after Joe is killed for trying to rip off his "investor", Mr. Lovejoy. All Zack wants to do is run a traditional barbershop giving traditional haircuts, but modern styles have passed him by and business is slow. One evening, Mr. Lovejoy shows up to offer Zack the same deal he gave to Joe. It could turn his business around, but what will he have to give in return?

On a laid-back summer day, a young woman spends some time with her casual partner. Irmak Akgur directs "Limerence," a slice-of-life portrait that flows in uninhibited vignettes. Minimally plotted but tonally sharp, Akgur's film captures a couple of free spirits in their element - spending the day preening, dancing in the sun, making love. Built with convincing intimacy and naturalism, it culminates in a moment of carnal revelation.

This visually ravishing and thought-provoking work portrays one of the USA’s great shames—the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till by two white men in Mississippi—and movingly reminds us of this dark episode’s enduring relevance.

A desperate mother stages the death of the family cat to lure her adult children home for Easter.

Based her grandfather’s boyhood in St. Louis, Yasmin Gorenberg tells a story of the pain passed from refugee parents to their children and the hope that can overcome it. “40 Nickels” captures the image of a generation of immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s and through that spotlights the effects of the 1919 pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is a film about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?

A talkative man finds Mr. Right in the men's room.

One of the early short films of director Brett Ratner.

Holly, an anxiety-ridden high school sophomore, is faced with the challenge of giving a class presentation.

An Olympic platform diver struggles to return to the pool after a horrific training accident.

Home from college, Alex reconnects with his sibling Sam to work through an anxiety attack on New Year’s Eve.

A young woman comes home to Taiwan, to say goodbye to her father before he goes to prison.

The first animated short by Michael Dougherty, about a young kid trying to survive in a Catholic school.