“Laura Smiles” is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman’s mental breakdown. We are introduced to “Laura” at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate. These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her “suburban drudgery” triggers the past — in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play– she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.

A young man has an affair with an older woman. He is very jealous of her husband and decides that they should kill him. One night, after the husband had plenty of sake to drink and was in bed, they strangle him and dump his body down a well. To avert any suspicions, she pretends her husband has gone off to Tokyo to work. For three years the wife and her lover secretly see each other. Finally, suspicions become very strong and people begin to gossip. To make matters worse, her husband’s ghost begins to haunt her and the law arrives to investigate her husband’s disappearance.

Set in what could be the same universe of Fargo and The Big Lebowski, THE TOY GUN is a fun-yet-gritty dark comedy about a meek young man who impulsively robs a bank to prove to his ex-wife that he is courageous and masculine. A police investigation engulfs everyone except our unassuming hero, who is, ironically, completely ignored.

Ex Con Armstrong Cane (Ving Rhames) returns to home a changed man looking to take over his father’s old church and congregation. The neighborhood though is full of drugs and gangs. Those who are able are leaving for more prosperous areas and falling in with a slick preacher (Ricardo Chivara). Even with a dangerous gang leader (Dean McDermott) threatening his flock, Armstrong won’t give up.

A woman leaves for a quiet weekend in the country after losing her job and imploding her latest dysfunctional relationship. She rents a country house from an old-fashioned widower who’s struggling to hide his psychopathic tendencies. Soon, two generations collide with terrifying results.

In the present, artist Tom Warshaw recalls his traumatic coming of age. As a 13-year-old growing up in New York City in 1973, Tom hangs out with Pappass, a mentally disabled man. With Tom’s mother battling depression after the death of her husband, the young boy is left to his own devices. When Tom develops a crush on schoolmate Melissa, Pappass feels abandoned and begins behaving erratically.

An affluent neighborhood family is visited by a zombie.

Pop superstar Adelaide Kay is so fed up with her controlling manager that she sneaks off the tour bus after their latest squabble. Though exhilarated to be free, she finds herself stranded in the freezing cold of a Pennsylvania winter, with no money and no plan. A local family, the Lapps, take her in. They know the true meaning of the season, even if they’re close to losing their dairy farm. No one in the family recognizes Adelaide except Dillon, the oldest son. He figures she’s the ticket to fast cash and plots to snap photos of Adelaide around the farm and sell them to the tabs. What he doesn’t plan, however, is their mutual attraction.

The story of the East St. Louis High Flyers’ surprising run to the 2016 state football title isn’t just a local narrative. It’s a national story about a community in crisis and a football team reaching unpredictable heights. High School All American Jeff Thomas nearly gets tossed off the team and Rey Estes, the quarterback, seeks redemption after his junior season is cancelled by a teacher strike Others seek a college offer as a way out of their situation.

After her fiance is falsely imprisoned, a pregnant African-American woman sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence.

After the tragic death of her son, Arlene loses everything, her husband, her home and she starts to lose her mind. When the mysterious Endeavour Institute offers her a chance to travel back and change things, she eagerly accepts and begins her journey to the past. Plagued by the memories of her alternate reality, Arlene must separate the real from the false without upsetting the delicate balance. She is unprepared for the terrible price she must pay for saving her son.

From director John Frankenheimer (‘The Manchurian Candidate’) comes this powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider’s look at the way our country goes to war–as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during Vietnam.