L'Adage

True Beauty: Before

March 2025 •Japanese

Reina is bullied for her appearance and drops out. She encounters makeup and transforms into a "goddess," which changes her life. However, a classmate discovers her secret bare face, which leads to unexpected challenges.

True Beauty: After

May 2025 •Japanese

Reina is bullied for her appearance and drops out. She encounters makeup and transforms into a "goddess," which changes her life. However, a classmate discovers her secret bare face, which leads to unexpected challenges.

Straight/Curve: Redefining Body Image

June 2017 •English

A documentary about body image and the industry leaders challenging society's unrealistic and dangerous standards of beauty.

COMPLEXion

March 2023 •English

"COMPLEXion is a documentary that aims to unpack the hegemony of skin color globally and challenge the archaic notions that exist surrounding it. Our mission is to defy toxic beauty standards through raw human stories."

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People

January 1984 •English

An animated satire on the question of self-image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of relaxers, gels, and curlers. This short film has become essential for discussions of racism, African American cinema, and empowerment.

Miss India America

March 2016 •English

Lily is a winner, but when her boyfriend leaves her for a vapid beauty pageant queen, she gets the notion that winning the Miss India America title would bring him back. Since Lily is perfect in everything else she does, it should be a cinch...or so she thinks. The pageant world isn't just pretty smiles and high heels, and her main competition, Sonia, gives her a run for her money.

Crowned Species

April 2013 •Russian

A journalistic investigation, built not on rumors and assumptions, but on direct evidence, revealing the true mechanisms of podium coronations. Hidden camera footage of negotiations with the owners of the largest national beauty contests and an attempt to answer the question of why these people are not yet in prison. Famous people on the jury are not a guarantee of fair judging. Irrefutable evidence of the corruption of the so-called “stars” who elect the next Miss and Mrs. The collection and subsequent theft of funds for charity is a side business of the owners of fraudulent shows. What actually awaits the titled Misses after purchasing the prize? And what do children's beauty pageants turn out to be like for young participants?

The Ugly Stepsister

March 2025 •Norwegian

In a fairy-tale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira battles to compete with her incredibly beautiful stepsister, and she will go to any length to catch the prince’s eye.

The Substance

September 2024 •English

A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

Ways to Strength and Beauty

March 1925 •German

The perfect body as an object of cult worship. Based on the mass sports and body worship movement of the 1920s, the film propagates physical training and shows in stylized documentary scenes aspects of physical hygiene, gymnastics, sports and dancing as well as scenes in which supposed sportsmen of antiquity pose naked.

Aphrodite Stereotype

May 2020 •Javanese

Lalin

August 2015 •Thai

She tells Lalin's journey from Thailand to Japan. With the opportunity to study abroad, she flees to Sapporo, where no one knows her and can live under a new identity. Posing as a modern beauty, she becomes an idol on the internet and on social media platforms. The reality is that Lalin hides his face every day with a mask, hiding from the world and striving for self-acceptance.

Beauty

November 2021 •English

A look into how beauty standards affect self-image.

I Beg You to Like Me

October 2022 •Turkish

“I Beg You To Like Me”, serves as a testimony of individuals who felt oppressed about their body image for not meeting the standard beauty criteria, and demonstrates how a reckless language based on others’ physical appearance could turn violent. It aims to achieve much more than simply stating the obvious, which is that we are not obligated to submit to the ideal beauty standards dictated by the media, consumerism and the beauty industry. The intimate stories about one’s own body image as told by women, men, disabled people and LGBT individuals make it apparent that any one of us could end up being a victim and a perpetrator at the same time. What if, this iconic body image is nothing but an unobtainable fallacy? “Is it not yet the time to openly discuss the conventional perception of beauty, and step up onto the catwalk in our actual likeness?

No Lye: An American Beauty Story

November 2019 •English

A documentary that chronicles the rise and decline of the black-owned ethnic beauty industry in America.

Antinous

Invalid date •English

A present-day young actor becomes convinced he is the reincarnation of Antinous, sparking a psychosexual drama that bridges the grandeur of ancient Rome with Hollywood’s obsession with youth, beauty and immortality.

To Be Beautiful

November 2019 •Latvian

The documentary explores issues of beauty and acceptance in a culture increasingly saturated with idealised and unattainable ideals of femininity. It is a story about the world of young girls in today's Latvia, based on conversations about girls' attitudes towards the world and their place in it.

Madrepérola

August 2015 •Portuguese

Shallow Hal

November 2001 •English

After taking his dying father's advice, Hal dates only the embodiments of female physical perfection. But that all changes after Hal has an unexpected run-in with self-help guru Tony Robbins. Intrigued by Hal's shallowness, Robbins hypnotizes him into seeing the beauty that exists even in the least physically appealing women. Hal soon falls for Rosemary, but he doesn't realize that his gorgeous girlfriend is actually a 300-pound-not-so-hottie.

The Women

September 2008 •English

The story centers on a group of gossipy, high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shop girl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary's man.