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There’s a certain kind of person who shows up in the margins of history books but never quite earns a chapter. THE SECRET LIVES OF BILL BARTELL argues that Bill Bartell wasn’t just in the margins of punk history; he was the one rearranging the page. Directed by David Markey, whose own fingerprints are all over Los Angeles punk documentation dating back to 1991: THE YEAR PUNK BROKE, this documentary isn’t built like a traditional rise-and-fall music biography. Bartell wasn’t a frontman who burned out in a blaze of glory. He was something stranger, more elusive; he was a connection, a provocateur, a label head, a police officer, a rodeo bull rider, a closeted man living life so uncompromising that even his closest collaborators only saw fractions of him.

SUNNY NIGHTS never holds back; it lets you know what it’s going to be from the start, and then leans into that throughout all eight episodes. There’s a tension between the absurd and the violent that becomes the series’s calling card. What follows is a crime comedy that flirts with chaos and darkness while still feeling unmistakably Australian, even with two American leads at its center.

There’s something undeniably fascinating about watching a performer before they become a legend. Before Inspector Clouseau took over the conversation, before global superstardom calcified him into an icon, Peter Sellers operated within politically charged British comedies that relied less on slapstick and more on character-driven satire. PETER SELLERS EARLY CLASSICS is a time capsule of an actor refining the instincts that would later make him symbolic.

THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW sits at a crossroads, not just within British horror, but within Pete Walker’s own career. By 1972, Walker was attempting to pivot away from softcore comedies toward something darker and more enduring. What he delivered here is less a fully formed slasher and more a transitional experiment, offering up part sexploitation relic, part proto-giallo, part whodunit, part generational allegory.

THE CLOSER didn’t reinvent the police procedural. It perfected a very specific version of it. Premiering in 2005 on TNT, the series debuted amid a crime TV genre that was already saturated. CSI had spectacle. LAW & ORDER had formula. 24 had adrenaline. What THE CLOSER offered instead was personality. Not just cases. Not just twists but a genuine personality.

SHE SHOOTS STRAIGHT wastes no time reminding you that Hong Kong action in the early ’90s didn’t do subtle. Directed by Corey Yuen at the height of the Girls-with-Guns cycle, the film mixes melodrama with explosive police shootouts, a blend that feels both disheveled and exhilarating. It’s a revenge-driven cop thriller built around a newly married police inspector, Mina Kao, who marries into a law enforcement dynasty only to find herself fighting both gangsters and in-laws at the same time.

D.E.B.S. never pretends to be anything more than it is, and that’s exactly why it works. Angela Robinson’s 2004 feature debut was created during an era when spy spoofs were everywhere, yet it carved out its own lane by flipping the fantasy inside out. On paper, this is a high-concept experience built for straight male marketing departments, featuring plaid-skirted female super spies trained by a secret government agency. In execution, though, it’s a pastel-colored subversion that places queer romance front and center without apology.

DOUBLE IMPACT doesn’t waste time pretending it’s anything other than an ego trip wrapped in slow-mo roundhouse kicks, and that confidence is exactly why it works. By 1991, Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn’t just a rising martial arts star; he was a brand. BLOODSPORT and LIONHEART had cemented him as “The Muscles from Brussels,” and DOUBLE IMPACT doubles down on that identity in the most literal way possible. Two Van Dammes. Two accents that don’t really make sense. Twice the splits. Twice the smolder. It’s absurd. It’s excessive. It’s peak early ’90s action.

DATE WITH A VAMPIRE doesn’t pretend to be high art, and honestly, that’s part of its appeal. This is a late-era shot-on-video rarity that exists in the overlap between softcore cable erotica and backyard vampire horror, a time capsule from when independent filmmakers could press record on digital video and carve out shelf space at the local video store. Watching it now, especially in Visual Vengeance’s collector’s edition, feels less like revisiting a forgotten masterpiece and more like opening a sealed relic from the Skinemax era and letting it breathe again.

Some artists fade quietly into the ether. Others self-destruct in the public eye. BLUE MOON traps you inside one night when both happen at the same time. Richard Linklater builds the film almost entirely inside Sardi’s (the iconic New York restaurant) on March 31, 1943, as Lorenz Hart waits for the opening night curtain call of OKLAHOMA! His former collaborator, Richard Rodgers, is upstairs making history with Oscar Hammerstein II. Hart is downstairs nursing a glass of bourbon and wrestling with the knowledge that he’s been replaced. That’s the whole movie. And that’s exactly why it works.

Sometimes the most impactful films take the least amount of time to dig at you. SOUVENIR builds toward a realization. Set during a summer at a coastal Australian resort, the film follows Keira, a teen on vacation with her family, as she secretly navigates her relationship with her girlfriend, Zoe. At first, the tension feels typical of young love, with insecurity, longing, and emotional dependence. Then Zoe begins taking photos of Keira during sex without clear consent. The shift is subtle but powerful.

ZUMECA approaches one of the most consequential moments in human history from an angle that feels unexpectedly intimate. Instead of presenting the arrival of Europeans in the Americas as some sweeping epic about conquest and exploration, David Maler narrows the focus to the relationship between two individuals trying to understand one another. At the same time, the world around them begins to change forever. The film centers on Miguel, a Spaniard fleeing the ghosts of his past, and Zumeca, a Taíno woman whose connection to her land, community, and spirituality offers him a vision of something he has never known.

There’s nothing decorative about IPHIGENIA. No gold-plated mythmaking. No hero worship. Just sunburnt earth, restless soldiers, and a father being asked to murder his daughter in the name of national pride. From its opening, the film places you in a world where history, politics, and family collapse into a single unbearable decision.

THEM THAT’S NOT starts inside a family gathering that feels familiar and immediately alienating. A moment like this should be communal and connective, a time when shared loss pulls people closer. Instead, writer/director Mekhai Lee frames it as a space thick with unspoken distance, emotional misalignment, and the calm violence of being unseen. The film’s power doesn’t come from dramatic confrontation but from the ache of coexistence, the way grief can feel isolating even when you’re surrounded by people who share your blood.