The Flavour Of Green Tea Over Rice is one of Yasujirō Ozu’s most beautiful domestic sagas, a subtly piercing portrait of a marriage coming quietly undone. Secrets and deceptions strain the already tenuous relationship of a childless middle-aged couple, as the wife’s city bred sophistication clashes with the husband’s small town simplicity, and a generational sea change in the form of their headstrong, modern niece sweeps over their household. Ozu’s expert grasp of family dynamics receives one of its most spirited treatments, with a wry, tender humour and an expansiveness that moves the action from the home to a baseball stadium and the shops of post-war Tokyo.

Jorge and Roberta have been separated for several years. They simply come from opposite worlds: he likes an uncomplicated life in the jungle, while she prefers a more urban existence. He is Mexican and she is Italian, and she has decided to return to Rome with their five-year-old son, Natan. Before they leave, Jorge wishes to take young Natan on a trip, hoping to teach him about his Mayan origins in Mexico. At first the boy is physically and emotionally uncomfortable with the whole affair, and gets seasick on the boat taking them to their destination. But as father and son spend more time together, Natan begins a learning experience that will remain with him forever.

Argentina, 1980. Private banker Yvan arrives from Geneva to replace a colleague who has mysteriously disappeared in military-ruled Buenos Aires. Moving through a society under surveillance, he finds himself untangling a sinister web of colonialism, high finance and a nation’s “Dirty War”. A restrained but nerve-wracking political thriller that is also a damning critique of the role that Swiss banks played in supporting a murderous dictatorship and caring for its plunder.

City businessman Luo Yusheng returns to his home village in North China for the funeral of his father, the village teacher. He finds his elderly mother insisting that all the traditional burial customs be observed, despite the fact that times have changed so much, and that it involves many people carrying his father’s body back to the village – “the road home“. As Yusheng debates the complications involved in organising such a big feat, he remembers the magical story of how his father and mother met and got together in the first place.

In 2001, a temporary ceasefire gives a much-needed break to a small war-torn village in Northern Nepal, bringing much joy among the residents. Prakash and Kiran, two young close friends, are also starting to feel the change in the air. Though they are divided by caste and social creed, they remain inseparable, and start raising a hen given to Prakash by his sister, with hopes to save money by selling her eggs. However, the hen goes missing. To find it, they embark on a journey, innocently unaware of the tyranny brought by the fragile ceasefire.

In Hollywood, struggling writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) cannot sell his work to the studios, is beset by debts and is thinking of escaping back to his hometown. While trying to avoid his creditors, he gets a flat tyre and hides his car at a seemingly derelict mansion on Sunset Boulevard. There he meets the owner, former silent-movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), who lives alone with her butler Max (Erich von Stroheim). Norma proposes that Joe moves to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her triumphant comeback to the cinema. The small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love with young writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealously insane and her madness leads to a tragic end. Cameo appearances by Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper and Buster Keaton as themselves. Nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actress and Actor at 1951 Academy Awards.