The Bench

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.

17-year-old Jem Starling struggles with her place within her Christian fundamentalist community. But everything changes when her magnetic youth pastor Owen returns to their church.

When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.

Three suburban English families' lives intertwine with tragic consequences.

Laney is an attractive, intelligent suburban wife and devoted mother of two adorable children. She has the perfect husband who plays basketball with the kids in the driveway, a pristine house, and a shiny SUV for carting the children to their next activity. However, just beneath the façade lie depression and disillusionment that send her careening into a secret world of reckless compulsion. Only very real danger will force her to face the painful root of her destructiveness and its crumbling effect on those she loves.

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.

Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.

12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.

Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.

A mother helps her daughter work through four crucial days of recovery from substance abuse.

The story of a child star attempting to mend his relationship with his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father over the course of a decade, loosely based on Shia LaBeouf’s life.

Three childhood friends, Martha, Walter and Sam, share a terrible secret. Over time, the ambitious Martha and the pusillanimous Walter have married. She is a cold businesswoman; he is the district attorney: a perfect combination to dominate the corrupt city of Iverstown at will. But the unexpected return of Sam, after years of absence, deeply disturbs the life of the odd couple.

As children, Nick and his little brother take care of their baby brother while their mother drinks herself senseless. But the baby dies, and both brothers blame themselves. Many years later, Nick is out of prison after serving time for an assault. He drinks, lives in a shelter and tries to help an old friend. When their mother dies, Nick meets his brother at the funeral. The brother, who remains nameless, is a single father to a young boy, but also supports a drug habit that is spiraling out of control. When an opportunity presents itself, he becomes a drug dealer to secure his son's future. Eventually, the two brothers meet again.

Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family and the world around her. When she meets her party-girl mother’s charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find he returns her attention, and believes he might help her start to make sense of her life.

When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.

Allison's life falls apart following her involvement in a fatal accident. The unlikely relationship she forms with her would-be father-in-law helps her live a life worth living.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.

While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."

Luca and his best friend Alberto experience an unforgettable summer on the Italian Riviera. But all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: they are sea monsters from another world just below the water’s surface.

Working-class couple Shirley and Cyril are in conflict over whether they should have children, their problems with 'yuppies' moving into the neighbourhood and outpricing them, and the advent of Cyril's ageing mother's seventieth birthday.

All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, an elderly woman strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer.

Ariane lives with Simon in his large Paris flat. Simon is obsessed with her: he wants to know everything about her, secretly follows her when she goes out, asks questions all the time, even in the most intimate moments. Ariane seems to take it all in stride, but Simon realises that she's hiding something.

A young Anatolian Greek, entrusted with his family's fortune, loses it en route to Istanbul and dreams of going to America.

The life of an ambitious small town TV reporter is upended when the death of her husband tasks her with having to help raise her 15-year-old stepdaughter.

Cocky, overconfident motocross champion Jim Dancer and his more mature and levelheaded bike racing buddy Steve Mitchell decide to trek from Mexico to Canada via an unmarked off-road route. During their eventful pilgrimage the carefree fun-loving (and seeking) protagonists encounter a mixed bag of folks who include a perky middle-aged lady who wrecks cars for a living, two sexy swinging babes, a friendly farmer, and a hotshot aspiring motocross rider teen who challenges Dancer to a race. This latter episode ends in tragedy, with the kid taking a fatal spill off his bike. So the kid's gung-ho militant gun fanatic father decides to hunt Dancer and Mitchell down in his sinister souped-up truck.

Ray Patterson, a 47 year old unemployed dad, spends his days hitting baseballs at the community park in a desperate attempt to make it back onto the Atlanta Apaches, a major league baseball team he was signed to when he was younger. His struggles with drinking, which got him booted from the team in his early 20s, are still a daily problem. Ray is plagued with dreams of what he believes are Native American ghosts and supernatural forces that are attempting to bury him and his dreams in the dirt. When a metaphysical event threatens Ray's existence, his family watches hopelessly, while his wife, Holly, finds comfort in suburban witchery and the cosmic answers that the Tarot provides.

Beautiful aspiring rock star Jude is stuck in a rut - relegated to recording commercial jingles and lost in a series of one night stands. When she is evicted from her Brooklyn apartment, she is forced to move into the Hamptons home of her wealthy - and selfish - father Paul Lombard, an over-the-hill, Sinatra-esque crooner angling for a musical comeback.

Happy End is a story about Lukas, a self-absorbed young man adrift who meets Marja, an experienced, older woman. Lukas dreams of becoming a rock star. He escapes the city to his father's holiday flat in Visby, a town on the Baltic island of Gotland. But the flat has been rented out to Marja, an eccentric 69-year-old writer determined to complete her memoirs. Nothing can hold her back, least of all a confused dreamer. Much against their will, a friendship slowly develops. But Marja harbors a secret, and when the truth emerges their friendship is put to the test. Their stay on Gotland takes an unexpected turn...

While fixing up their summer cottage, Michel and his family run into a man who claims to have gone to high school with Michel.

A family mediator tries to resolve a crisis situation in Joseph's household. Since Roxanne left him, he forbids her to see their son Mathieu, and slyly sequesters him in their country property. Numb in the silence and emptiness created by Roxanne's absence, Joseph and Mathieu rush over.

Vera's mother sends her to her grandparents' house, but she doesn't want to go and makes excuses, but why?

NZ Animated version of the Stephen King Story - Stella Flanders has never left Koati Island in her 95 years. Afflicted by illness and a brutal winter, she starts to see the ghosts of her dead loved ones, including her late husband Bill. When the reach between the island and the mainland freezes over, she finds herself lured on to make the crossing once before she passes away.

A man, who is repaying a 30 million yen debt left by his brother, wins the 300 million yen lottery. He grapples with the question of whether money can buy him happiness.

Two brothers want to grow a plant, the older brother wants to make it grow quickly while the younger wants to protect it.

Nick Allman is a disillusioned young man who has lost touch with the true spirit of the holidays. On Christmas Eve, Nick encounters a variety of characters who help renew his belief in a season where everyone's expectations run high.

Diane is a devoted friend and caretaker, particularly to her drug-addicted son. But as those around her begin to drift away in the last quarter of her life, she is left to reckon with past choices and long-dormant memories.

Having fallen into a coma following a car accident at 14, Yutaka wakes ten years later and realizes that his family is no longer intact: father, mother and sister live at different places, so he decides to reopen the farm that his family once ran.