La Haine

Mathieu Kassovitz (The Crimson Rivers) took the film world by storm with LA HAINE (Hate), a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income banlieues on Paris's outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Irreversible's Vincent Cassel), Hubert (The Constant Gardener's Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Three Kings' Saïd Taghmaoui)-white, black, and Arab-give human faces to France's immigrant and otherwise marginalized populations, their resentment at their situation simmering until it reaches a boiling point. A work of tough beauty, LA HAINE is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country's ongoing identity crisis.