I found a little indie theater in my city and saw Ida (the movie that won Best Foreign Language) a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting to watch, mostly because the film had visual and audio effects that both made it look and sound like it was made 40 years ago and followed the mood and story with just enough symbolism not to be obnoxious. (Well, there is a part where it gets really heavy-handed, but it only does it once.)
For anyone who doesn't know, it's set in Poland in 1962 and centers around a girl named Anna who was raised in a convent. Two weeks before she takes her vows to become a nun, her last living relative, an aunt who works for the Polish government. Her aunt tells her that she's really a Jewish girl named Ida, and the two set out to find out what really happened to her parents. At this point, everyone's thinking "holocaust movie", which isn't entirely wrong, but it's also didn't take the most obvious route. Without spoiling too much, it does do the annoying non-ending I've seen a lot in European cinema, but it's deeply emotional in a way that feels a little too real. It's definitely a movie that'll make you think.
The next week, I saw the Duke of Burgundy. It focuses on the dominant/submissive relationship between two women named Cynthia and Evelyn, specifically what happens when Evelyn's fantasies start getting more and more intense faster than Cynthia can keep up. Since Evelyn takes the submissive role in the relationship, it's fascinating to watch Cynthia try to put on a self-assured, domineering role, even when she's clearly distressed and afraid of losing her.
It does get annoyingly pretentious at a couple of points (there's one extended dream sequence that you could cut out of the movie without losing anything), and it has a weird sort of Makeup Company Retro aesthetic. (Think of those perfumes that are packaged in atomizer bottles with labels made to look like they've been handwritten. Now pour one of those onto a film strip.) It also lists the seven actresses in the credits, immediately followed by the common and scientific names of the twenty-something species of butterfly that appear in the film. Thing is, it's also refreshingly sincere, sexual without being gratuitous, and it showcases a relationship that's actually loving, healthy, and (at the end, anyway) supported by clear communication.
(I'm not gonna compare it to 50 Shades, mostly because I haven't seen 50 Shades and don't plan to.)