Selected by Mitchell Kaplan Charting Rowlands’s transformation as “Mabel” from endearingly kooky to bleakly incoherent (and back again), John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence is perhaps the most important examination of mental health ever captured onscreen. Cassavetes observes the ricochets between Mabel’s health and her in-laws' “influence." But at the heart of this film is her relationship with her conservative husband (an equally amazing Peter Falk), who struggles in vain to pull Mabel out of her decline. Both tough-as-bricks and delicate, A Woman Under the Influence goes straight for the throat.

A lonely, narcissistic aristocrat dupes a struggling, opportunistic director into filming her every move. Her obsession with the spotlight takes a surreal turn when she starts becoming... invisible.

After attending a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie, filmmaker John Wilson tries to use the same formula to sell a documentary about concrete.