Set in the Morocco smalltown Salé, this drama from writer-director Touzani is as affecting as it is considered. Mina (Azabal) runs a traditional shop selling Kaftans that are lovingly devised and sewn by her master tailor husband Halim (Bakri). Modernity …
This understated and disturbing dystopian sci-fi picture, set five minutes into the future, posits the Japanese government’s drastic response to the burgeoning elderly population. Calling on Japanese traditions of self-sacrifice, the authorities have devi…
This measured low-key drama explores the fallout after a life-changing incident in the life of a young Gaelic football enthusiast. Twentysomething Cian (McGivney) lives in rural Ireland with his morose father (Cranith). When not working at the farm, Cain’…
French-Cambodian director Chou’s picture is a haunting study of displacement and belonging. In her debut acting role, visual artist Jim-Min Park is Freddie, a twentysomething Korean woman who was adopted as a baby by a French couple and raised in the Fren…
This illuminating rockumentary about the architect of rock and roll Little Richard investigates his struggle with his faith and sexuality as well as the liberating effect he had on subsequent artists and the broader culture. It’s at its most fascinating i…
Based on the true events that led to Nike signing superstar basketball player Michael Jordan, Affleck’s picture is part knockabout comedy drama and part feel-good inspirational tale. It’s far more successful as the former. A blast of period sound and…
This troubling and mildly surreal study of the tumultuous 60s in the U.S. and the choices the Government made to address the social discontent feels depressingly timely. During a time of huge civil unrest, most notoriously the 1965 Watts Riots in LA, Pres…
Based on a selection from Haruki Murakami’s twenty-four story collection of the same name, the animated directorial debut feature of composer Pierre Földes explores the psychologic fallout after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, on a …
Shades of Dreyer, Bergman, even 'The Wicker Man', in this austere but beautifully-rendered and thematically-rich drama from Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Pálmason. It’s the late 19th Century and young Danish Lutheran priest Lucas (Hove) is despatched t…
Despite its thriller elements, this slow-burning drama from Spanish director-cowriter Serra plays like an oblique mood piece. Mangel is De Roller, the High Commissioner of an island in French Polynesia. His lofty title belies his true demeanour. De Roller…
A provincial young man becomes a political pawn in this effective thriller set in an Egyptian University. Adam (Barhom) is the fisherman’s son who earns a scholarship to study at the elite Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicentre of the power of Sunni …
A towering central performance from Kristine Kujath Thorp keeps this rickety satire on the road. She is Signe, a terminally narcissistic and socially anxious young woman. We first encounter her in a high-end restaurant with her struggling artist boyfriend…
Despite its role-playing game source material being nearly half a century old, this rollicking adaptation feels very much in thrall to more recent, small and large screen sword and sorcery fare. Pine is Edgin, a roguish bard and ex-underground spy turned …
This debut from French director-cowriter Quivoron is pitched curiously between Dardenne brothers’ social realism and high-octane heist movie. Impressive newcomer Ledru is Julia, a rebellious young woman from a rough French banlieue who finds a sense of co…
Writer-director Mia Hansen-Love and Léa Seydoux prove a perfect match in this affecting drama about a woman weighing up her place in the world. Seydoux is Sandra Kienzler, a single mother with an eight-year-old daughter just about managing to get by in Pa…
Directed by Joe Massot of Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Song Remains the Same’ fame, 1981 concert picture/documentary ‘Dance Craze’ catches the 2Tone movement at the its peak. Artists and performances include The Specials, featuring the late great Terry Hall, drop…
This striking feature debut from Chilean writer-director Alegria is part magical realist ecology fable and part touching family drama. Due to pollution, fish are dying in a river in a small Chilean town, their lifeless bodies washed up on land. A woman em…
The first Shazam! picture in which teenage orphan and fostered teenager Billy Batson, appealingly played by Asher Angel, was given the ability to transform himself into a hunky superhero by Djimon Hounsou’s wizard, was a fun superhero take on ‘Big’, as w…
This sequel to last year’s dull ‘requel’ (a reboot/sequel apparently) ‘Scream’, relocates the action to New York and manages to drum up a little more energy in the process. A clever prologue has nervous film lecturer (the excellent Weaving, allowed to use…
The lows far outnumber the highs in this disappointingly rote and dull rockumenary, adapted from Lizzie Goodman’s (reportedly excellent) book, ‘Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001–2011’. At the turn of the millennium, …
This fascinating picture from documentarians Jennifer ‘Burn This Letter Please’ Tiexiera and Camilla Hall is part where-are-they-now catch up, and part ethical examination of the experiences of people who have agreed, with various degrees of willingness, …
Multi-hyphenate star-director-co-writer Kelley Kali’s pandemic era-set picture is a social realist fable a la ‘Bicycle Thieves’ with some droll laughs. Danny (Kali) is a widowed young mother living with her eight-year-old daughter Wes (Moss) in a tent by …
The third instalment for the boxer Adonis ‘Donnie’ Creed, and the ninth in the overarching ‘Rocky’ saga, draws cannily on horror and thriller elements to subvert the series’ outsider underdog formula. A prologue set in 2002 charts how the teenage Donnie w…
In Anonymous Club, first-time documentary filmmaker Danny Cohen provides an insight into the life of Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett shortly after the release of her second album, Tell Me How You Really Feel. For fans of the musician, the fi…
Writer-director Koreeda’s second picture outside of Japan, following the disappointing showbiz-adjacent French drama ‘The Truth’, is a typically humane ensemble piece meets road movie set in South Korea. It begins with a young woman So-young (Lee Ji-eun) …
Actor turned director Manuela Martelli’s debut is a stylish and engrossing drama. Carmen (Küppenheim) is an elegant middle-class housewife married to a doctor, Miguel (Goic) in 1976 Chile. Her husband teases Carmen in front of dinner party guests saying s…
Richard Eyre’s adaptation of Alan Bennett’s play, scripted for screen by Heidi ‘Call the Midwife’ Thomas, is a warts and all love letter to the NHS and the doughty staff who keep it running. Bally Gill is resident physician Dr Valentine, a conscientious h…
Inspired by real events, Spanish director’s Sorogoyen’s film, co-scripted with Isabel Peña, is pitched somewhere between sociological study of gentrification and brooding thriller a la ‘Straw Dogs’. Olga (Foïs) and Antoine (Ménochet) are a middle-aged mid…
Belgian writer-director Dhont’s follow-up to his impressive but flawed feature debut, ‘Girl’ the portrait of a Trans ballet dancer, is a heart-rending and empathetic coming of age drama set in rural picturesque Belgium. Thirteen-year-olds Léo (Dambrine) a…
Shades of 'Doc Hollywood' & 'Local Hero' in this charming Bhutanese drama from writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji, as a city slicker learns life lessons in a remote mountainous Himalayan village. Ugyen (Dorji) is a teacher who lives with his grandma in t…
Brandon Cronenberg’s follow-up to his unnerving feature debut ‘Possessor’ is a lurid sci-fi horror with a pitch black comic streak and splashes of twisted hallucinatory eroticism. The setting is a luxury resort in Li Tolqa – a fictional, impoverished coun…
British actor Mia Goth cements her reputation as Scream Queen de nos jours in this stylish and mischievous sort-of prequel to ‘X’. In ‘X’ a film crew shooting a porn film fell afoul of disproving locals. Here West winds back the action from 1979 to 1918 t…
This feature-length animation, adapted by co-writer-director Camp from his trio of YouTube short films that were a huge viral hit in 2010, is inventive and emotionally engaging enough, if a little overextended. Documentary filmmaker Dean (co-writer-dire…
The modest irreverent charm of the earlier adventures of the divorced petty thief turned diminutive superhero is absent from this simultaneously slight but bloated sequel. After a brief quantum realm-set prologue, we catch up with hero Scott Lang (Rud…
Sarah Polley's richly allegorical and audacious adaptation of Miriam Toews 2019 novel, itself based on a true incident, is a bracingly original and vital piece of feminist cinema. It’s set in the present day in a remote Mennonite community where a grou…
Art, activism and Situationist protest collide in this thematically rich and compelling documentary profile of photographer and activist, Nan Goldin from filmmaker Laura ‘Citizen Four’ Poitras. The picture is broken into two distinct but interlocking thre…
Documentarian Alice Diop ventures into fiction for this controlled, and provocative spin on the courtroom drama. Kayije Kagame is Rama, a pregnant writer travelling to Saint-Omer in Northern France to observe the trial of Laurence (Malanga), a student and…
A businessman finds himself enmeshed in the past in this beautifully shot and lyrical drama from Mario Martone, an adaptation of the novel by Neapolitan writer Ermanno Rea. Pierfrancesco Favino is Felice, a fifty-something who now lives in Cairo, returnin…
French playwright turned director Florian Zeller’s follow-up to the revelatory and audacious ‘The Father’, which sees him teaming up once more with English writer and translator Christopher Hampton, is a maudlin misfire. Jackman is Peter, a very successfu…
A fine central performance from Brendan Fraser elevates this flawed drama adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his own play. Fraser is Charlie, a reclusive and severely obese teacher living in a dank apartment who makes ends meet conducting writing lessons vi…
Octogenarian director Jerzy Skolimowski's reimagining of Robert Bresson’s ‘Au Hasard Balthazar’ is an inventive, audacious and stirring depiction of a donkey being shifted from pillar to post. We first encounter EO in a circus being petted lovingly by Pol…
The personal becomes political in this understated North East-set drama that also serves as a worryingly timely and necessary reminder of how institutional bigotry is hawked under the pretence of concern for ‘family values’. Rosy McEwan is Jean, a private…
This rich family drama, the supremely confident debut from writer-director Sadiq, has already caused a stir in its native Pakistan due to its examination of taboo subject matter. Haider (Junejo) is a handsome but meek unemployed married man living in a to…
As punchy and to the point as its title, this airborne Gerard Butler vehicle never quite soars but is undemanding and entertaining enough. Butler is commercial pilot Brodie Torrance. Ex-forces (tick), widowed (tick) and looking forward to seeing his daugh…
Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s sprawling, exhausting look at pre-talkies Hollywood is simultaneously a love letter and poison pen to the industry told via five (or maybe six) disparate protagonists. The director sets out his subtlety-averse stall in th…
Spanish director Pereda’s debut feature, based on her short of the same name, is a bold, wildly entertaining and constantly surprising melding of coming-of-age-picture, black comedy and bloody horror. Sara (Galán) is an overweight teen living in a small S…
Vicky Krieps follows up her dazzling turn in royal period drama ‘Corsage’ in this low-key and affecting drama, rendered even more poignant by the recent death of her co-star Gaspard Ulliel at the age of thirty-seven in a skiing accident. She is Hélène, a …
Mendes’s latest is a contrived and cloyingly self-conscious love letter to film (shudder), focusing on the lives and loves of the staff of a shabby but ornate picture house. Olivia Colman is Hilary, the troubled manager of the seafront cinema. The staff a…
Mark Jenkin’s follow-up to the singular but over-praised ‘Bait’ is an oblique and elusive folk horror tale. Mary Woodvine is an unnamed volunteer environmentalist working on the Cornish Coast sometime in the 70s, recording the progress of a rare flower gr…
Co-written with playwright and regular collaborator Tony Kushner, Spielberg's latest is part semi-autobiographical coming of age drama and part, inevitably, ode to the power and potency of cinema. Newcomer Gabriel Labelle is Sammy Fabelman, a boy growing …
Over its hefty 240 minute running time, writer-director Todd Field’s picture, his first since 2006’s ‘Little Children’, is a frequently inspired, occasionally frustrating character study. Blanchett is Lydia Tár, the accomplished and feted conductor of a m…
Iranian Swedish-based filmmaker Abbasi’s follow-up to the underappreciated ‘Borders’ is a riveting and timely thriller, based on a true story, set in the early 2000s in the Iranian city of Mashhad. The titular Spider is a serial killer who targets sex wor…
Ten years after the release of James Cameron’s original ‘Avatar’, a picture which despite being absolutely huge left no significant pop culture footprint, comes this soggy sequel. It’s a decade after the events of the first film and human turned 9ft blue-…
Forty-three year and twenty minutes of recorded music* later, four fifths of the enigmatic and short-lived post-punk band Rema-Rema reunite for this fascinating rockumentary meets cultural excavation from Italian-Canadian director Marco Porsia. The ban…
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