Wally’s surprise birthday party turns weird after an existential reaction. Jordan Michael Blake directs “Birthday Boy,” an unsettling portrait of emotional whiplash shot with a family camcorder, which contains years of unrelated home videos that occasionally bleed through. Everything seems rather...

Brandon Colvin’s excellent debut feature, "Frames," from 2012, takes off with two young late-high-schoolers, a boy (Holland Noël) and a girl (Maria Travis), who are friends but through the pretense of a camcorder-film project realize they’re probably in love. The girl is more sexual in body, pois...

A young Boston man and his kinda girlfriend spend a couple nights together then take separate trips to New York. They sleep together, share forties and sing karaoke duets, but she always seems distant, on the verge of cutting him loose, all the more so when she's offered a summer job in Brooklyn ...

A young man travels to Colorado with fourteen cases of beer in hopes of turning a profit at a Phish concert. Micah Van Hove and Jacob King direct “Super Heady,” a cinema verite portrait of jamband culture that flows from road movie into a surprisingly elaborate depiction of the Phish lot scene. I...

This extraordinary tale of a young Chicago stock-trader turned ocean-adventurer focuses primarily on a three year sailing trip around the world. It’s a life-affirming feature-length documentary, an emotional mix of joy and adventure, filled with incredible images of the people and places of the w...

Twentysomething J. and two of his close friends are in the process of realizing their utopian dream: turning an abandoned cathedral into a grant-powered, environmentally sustainable art space. A film that moves in small steps. Viewers are given little in terms of plot but are rewarded with though...

A new film edited from the same footage as last years, The Men of Dodge City. Andrea Sisson + Pete Ohs, responsible for the re-edit, The Other Men of Dodge City, reshape and add some flair (see: freeze frames) + insert several full songs from No Age, achieving some intermittent pep. But the point...

Nandan Rao's second film begins with a 3 minute phone call over a black screen. We gradually hear something about church and then we cut to a quote from an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: "brethren, encourage our young men to marry." Off the quote, we're at a peaceful ...

A bizarre ‘systems-comedy’ that channels Pynchon as much as Stillman and Ferrara, a chamber-piece in varying shades of beige and taupe that nevertheless expands beyond the confines of its anodyne Wall Street office-space where a conspiracy-non-conspiracy surrounding something called “the Benson f...

Raptor is coming! A musical odyssey starring Robert Malone, who wins NoBudge actor of the year for his 3 films, films which have taken the seriousness of our site down 1,000%. This one, our first musical, is miraculously even goofier than "Fresh Starts for Stale People" and "The Confabulators", s...

Dusty Jacobson, a boy band obsessed grown man, tries to get a date online with someone named HungBrad. Directed by Natalie Fält, "The Loneliest Boy Band" has a light touch — mostly we’re just following Dusty as he talks about his love for The Backstreet Boys and dances in front of McDonalds— but ...

A lonely virtual reality actor parties with a woman sent to kill her. “Talk About Your Dreams,” directed by Robbie Barnett, is psychedelic sci-fi set in the near (?) future where hallucinogenic drugs have replaced anxiety. Kate Lyn Sheil plays the woman, a popular VR actor specializing in comfort...

After being mugged on Halloween night, Dave takes to his hotel room to report the incident to his credit card company and experiences an unsettling exchange. Starring Maxwell McCabe-Lokos (a director we featured with his 2017 film "Ape Sodom,") “All Shook Up,” is a wildly WTF short directed by Ev...

A sleazy romp through a drug-fueled Halloween costume party led by a group of sex-hungry gal pals. Using exceedingly poor taste and a gross out finale for the ages, "Ghosting The Party" is a fast-paced WTF comedy by director Carlos A.F. Lopez who crosses the line of decency to take revenge agains...

A couple discovers they don't know as much about each other as they thought while they move into a new apartment. Chidi Amadiume directs “Are We Here Yet?”, an astutely observed and performed relationship drama that explores a host of issues related to sexual identity. Ezra and Jonah lug boxes up...

A sad, stoic man trapped in a nightmare existence finds a strange book which seems to offer some relief. Anthony Oberbeck directs “Book,” a dark comedy about feeling lost and without purpose, and not only feeling that, but everyone in your life telling you that you definitely are. Joe finds a boo...

An illustrator prepares for an assignment while his new plant demands his attention at home. “Plant Daddy,” directed by Peter Ferris Rosati, is a stylish, quietly surreal portrait. After bringing home a new houseplant, Rocca is surprised to feel a fatherly bond. The more he fixates on it, the mor...

A troubled young woman's date at a Tiki bar reveals itself in disturbing ways. A pitch black tone piece by Wesley Wingo, “Date Night Look” paints a dire picture of desperate youth with flashes of glitchy soundscapes and elements of body horror. The woman has pulled herself together for her date w...

After an evidently successful first date, Evan and Marceline head back to her place. “Welcome to Bushwick,” by director Henry Jinings, is about the nerves and perceptions of a man and a woman approaching intimacy for the first time. We pick up as the two young Brooklynites enter the apartment of ...

A hauntingly beautiful 16mm short about a young man seeking adventure or escape or both. A striking collection of images that seemingly materialize out of nowhere, there is no dialogue and no need for any — the evocative visuals and soundscape fill in everything you need to know, or rather everyt...

The new satirical video tutorial from filmmaker John Wilson explores the world of regrets, both big and small. A bad haircut or a broken phone may not seem like a huge deal but it may cause "cascading effects that lead to long-term regret." With his signature halting voice-over, Wilson weaves in ...

I'm currently in the middle of an obsessed phase with Kate Berlant & John Early, two of the funniest/smartest young performers around. This brilliant collaboration, "Santa Monica," written by the two & directed by another new NB favorite Andrew DeYoung, finds Early & Berlant playing characters wi...

A woman ascends out of a mud pit disrupting a young couple living in a country home. The young couple takes her in -- just like Pauly Shore & Sean Astin in Encino Man -- and they teach her how to be human, beginning of course with how to sharpen a pencil. At first the stranger has a rejuvenating ...