Brady Corbet Movies

An escaped cult member experiences paranoia and isolation while attempting to start a new life with her sister's family. Try as Martha might to blend into her new upper-middle-class surroundings, she can't help but be haunted by nightmares of the time she spent under the control of a malevolent cult leader, or the fear that the group is watching her every move and awaiting the perfect moment to take their revenge. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Notoriously nihilistic filmmaker Michael Haneke revisits one of his most controversial works in this remake of 1997's Funny Games starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. When a family of three arrives at their remote summer cabin for a quiet getaway, the sudden arrival of two psychotic men sets the stage for a harrowing life-or-death struggle that offers savage commentary on the use of violence in entertainment. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Two young men are haunted by similar events from their past, though the effects manifest themselves in very different ways, in this powerful drama from independent filmmaker Gregg Araki. In the summer of 1981, Brian (George Webster) and Neil (Chase Ellison) are both eight years old and playing on the same little league baseball team in a small Kansas town. One day, after a game, Brian blacks out after getting caught in a rainstorm, and five hours later he finds himself sitting in his basement with his nose bleeding and no memory of what happened to him. Over the years, the event -- particularly the missing five hours -- weigh heavily on his mind, and he becomes convinced that he was kidnapped by space aliens. Teenaged Brian (now played by Brady Corbet) becomes friends with Avalyn Friesen (Mary Lynn Rajskub), a woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens on several occasions, and she urges him to look to his dreams for patterns that might suggest what happened to him. Meanwhile, during the same summer, Neil developed a powerful crush on their little league coach (Bill Sage), who appeared to have also taken a shine to Neil. Neil's mother (Elisabeth Shue), seeing nothing wrong with their friendship, lets the coach look after Neil while she's off on one of her many dates, and before long Neil begins sexually experimenting with the older man. Neil's introduction to sex inspires him to become a hustler when he grows into his teens, and after burning his bridges in his hometown, Neil (now played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his close friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) move to New York, where he continues to cruise for a living but under significantly more risky circumstances. One day, Neil is contacted by Brian, who after seeing one of their team photos from their days in little league suspects he might have some clues as to what happened to him in 1981. Mysterious Skin was based on the novel by Scott Heim, and marked the first time Gregg Araki made a film that did not originate with one of his own screenplays. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Prolific production designer and art director Catherine Hardwicke makes her directorial debut with the coming-of-age drama Thirteen. Los Angeles teenager and overachiever Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is an excellent student in her seventh grade class and gets along well with her mother, Melanie (Holly Hunter). She fears that she's not cool enough to be friends with Evie (Nikki Reed), the most popular girl in school. Fueled with genuine adolescent energy, Tracy follows Evie's lead into the harsh realities of sex, drugs, and hard-edged adventure. Consumed with temptations and conflicting desires, Tracy loses her good-girl identity, greatly affecting her relationship with her mom. Partly autobiographical, Thirteen was co-written by Hardwicke and actual 13-year-old Reed, who are close family friends. Originally intending to write a teen comedy, they ended up creating a hard-hitting drama exposing the contemporary teenage experience. Thirteen was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, with Catherine Hardwicke taking home the Director's Award. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi