Throughout his career, which spans nearly six decades, Frederick Wiseman has ventured into major social institutions—psychiatric hospitals, high schools, the military, and social services—as well as cultural ones: the Comédie-Française, the Paris Opera, and the National Gallery in London. In IN JACKSON HEIGHTS, he turns his attention to an entire neighborhood: one of New York’s most diverse, where over 160 languages are spoken.

Beneath the elevated train, shops selling whole goats line up next to sari fabrics and Bollywood DVDs; HIV tests sit alongside Tibetan food; and classes for aspiring taxi drivers are held next to prayer rooms. Jackson Heights is home to an active LGBT community, a refuge for people who have made life-threatening border crossings, and the setting for small shop owners who are organizing against the looming displacement of their neighborhood. Wiseman, who—as always—works without narration, music, or interviews, weaves all of this into a mosaic—and makes the neighborhood itself the true protagonist of his film.