Movies Like Autodestruction

Omniac

2023

Play Dead!

2023

If there is one person Matthew Lancit can’t get out of his mind, it is his uncle Harvey. Dark rings around his eyes, pale, blind, his legs amputated. Like Harvey, the filmmaker also suffers from diabetes. He has the disease under control, but one question is always nagging at him: How much longer? His long-term (self-)observation reliably revolves around fears of infirmity and mutilation. He translates the feared body horror into film, stages himself as a zombie, vampire, a desolate figure. Lancit playfully anticipates his potential decline, serving up a whole arsenal of effects which – as video recordings prove – go back to his youth. It is not for nothing that the “dead” in the title is also reminiscent of “dad.” Because “Play Dead!” also negotiates his own role as a father.

Self-portrait

2015

Commissioned by Harald Inhülsen for MasterclassFilm. A companion piece to Leandro Varela's Self Portrait, also part of the same commission.

Je vais tuer Hitler

2023

One day, in Savigny, an 18-year-old boy left his house in the middle of the war, saying: "I'm leaving, I'm going to kill Hitler." His name was Joseph, he was Jewish, he was my great-uncle. He disappeared during the night of the Occupation, and his existence became a family secret. He disappeared from history, the small as well as the big: he is not on any deportation list, and the only archive where he appears is a family photo of him as a child. It disappeared like a stone at the bottom of the water, instead of going up in smoke in the sky of Poland. What did he become? And why didn't anyone mention his name anymore?

Tuesdays with Morrie

1999

A journalist finds himself questioning his own life when his best friend, a dying man, offers him some very powerful wisdom and advice for coping in relationships, careers and society.

A Question of Faith

2017

When Tragedy Strikes three Families, their Destiny forces them on a coverging path and mercy as the challenges of their fate could also resurrect their beliefs

Babylon

1980

Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.

Eleanor the Great

2025

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

The Search

2014

A woman who works for a non-governmental organization (NGO) forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya.

Sardou, autoportrait

2024

Tigertail

2020

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

The Pumpkin Eater

1964

Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.

Tom Cruise: An Eternal Youth

2020

After 40 years, Tom Cruise continues to push the envelope in film. Exposing one's heart to the world through their work is not only risky business, as far as Cruise is concerned, it is the only way to achieve an end that feels complete.

Brother

2019

Because he wanted to protect his little brother, Teddy, a young man without a history, is accused of the murder of his father and sent to a closed educational center, waiting for his trial for parricide. He then plunges into a brutal universe of which he does not know the rules.

Adam

2020

A hard-living salesman becomes a quadriplegic after an accident.

Chaos

2001

A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.

Resurrecting the Champ

2007

Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.

TalhotBlond

2012

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.