A young woman exhumes her uncomfortable family history in Spanish writer-director Carla Simon’s engaging semi-autobiographical drama. The year is 2004 and eighteen-year-old Marina Piñeiro (Garcia) travels from Barcelona to Vigo, a city on the Spanish coas…

Released in Germany to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the release of Keith Jarrett’s ‘The Koln Concert’, the best-selling solo album in jazz history, Ido Fluk’s film has a fascinating and rousing true story to tell, but the execution is puzzling. E…

This adaptation of Shuichi Yoshida’s 2018 novel is the highest-grossing live action Japanese film to date. It begins in 1964 with the killing of a kabuki performer during a yakuza shootout. His son Kikou Tachibana is taken on as an apprentice by kabuki ac…

The final instalment of writer-director Tarik Saleh’s ‘Cario Trilogy’, following ‘The Nile Hilton Incident’ and ‘Boy From Heaven’, is a handsomely mounted but flawed drama. George Fahmy (Fares) is one of Egypt’s most popular actors, playing heart-throb he…

Following his enjoyably breezy spy yarn ‘Black Bag’, Steven Soderbergh turns in another enjoyable England-set picture, this time around a black comedy set in the art world. McKellen is disreputable, unreconstructed artist Julian Sklar, whose celebrity/not…

László ‘Son of Saul’ Nemes’ third picture is a beautifully mounted but structurally unsure bildungsroman. A 1949 prologue sees four-year-old Jewish boy Andor reunited with his mother Klára (Waskovics). During the War, Klára had gone into hiding when her h…

The ever-versatile François Ozon's fairly faithful adaptation of Albert Camus 'The Stranger' starts on a deceptively cheerful note with gaudy travelogue footage of 1930s French Algiers; but he also signals something is off via accusing glances from the na…

A sense of renewed possibility runs through director-co-writer Macaro’s otherwise dystopian sci-fi drama. The setting is near future Brazil where the elderly are sent away to living facilities to avoid hindering their offsprings’ productivity. Graffiti hi…

Jarmusch’s latest is an elegantly structured family triptych. The first segment, ‘Father’, has Driver and Bialik’s siblings Jeff and Emily driving to a wintry U.S. rural town to see their father. Emily is spiky and suspicious, the divorced Jeff (Driver) i…

For his feature debut, Italian director Michieletto delivers a solid period drama. The setting is the Ospedale della Pietà in 18th century Venice, a huge orphanage where the young inmates are taught music. In fact, the orphanage has one of the world’s mos…

This Italian comedy period melodrama sparkles occasionally but ultimately feels ersatz. Drawn from his memories of working as an assistant director and dealing with costume ateliers, Özpetek’s film is a celebration of Italian women, their strength and sol…

Taking its title from Frédéric Chopin's Prelude in E Minor, German writer-director Petzold’s film is a compelling low-key drama which once again sees him working with collaborator Laura Beer. We first encounter Beer’s Laura, a depressed music student from…

This documentary meets cine-essay from British filmmaker Chris ‘Radio On’ Petit and his partner Emma Matthews is an attempt to convey the experiences of their son Louis who suffers from a debilitating epilepsy. Louis was twelve when he had his first fit w…

Spanish director Laxe’s extraordinary picture is pitched somewhere between audacious hallucinatory odyssey and dark punishing cinematic DJ set. The title refers to the Islamic notion that there is a fragile bridge over Hell that the dead must cross to mak…

An appealing air of autumnal melancholy hangs over writer-director Paolo Sorrentino’s latest collaboration with actor Toni Servillo. Servillo is Mariano De Santis, the widowed President of Italy entering his ‘white semester’, the last six months of the It…

German director and co-writer Mascha Schilinski's second feature is an elegantly constructed but demanding profile of young German women over four generations. In 1910, seven-year-old Alma (Heckt) lives on a farm in the Altmark region, where she observes …

Remembrance and identity are explored in this disappointing adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1982 book, co-scripted by the author. The story begins in 1980s England where young English aspiring writer Niki (Aiko) questions her Japanese mother Etsuko (Yoh Yo…

‘Godland’ director Hlynur Pálmason narrows his canvas for this bittersweet, occasionally surreal, drama charting the twelve-…

British essayist and author George Orwell’s writings have been woefully misunderstood and misrepresented in the recent political discourse. Taking its title from a passage in the writer’s last and most referenced and influential novel, ‘1984’, Raoul Peck,…

Set in 1977 Brazil, ‘a time of mischief’, writer-director Fihlo’s picture is a complex, sprawling and playful but deadly serious study of a country in moral and political disarray. It opens with Marcelo (‘Narco’s’ Moura) pulling into a remote petrol stati…

Hasan Hadi’s supremely assured feature debut is an appealing and quietly riveting child’s eye view comedy odyssey set against a dangerous and precarious backdrop. The story takes place in Iraq in the 1990s after the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. Nine-year-old…

Taking its stylistic cues from the movement itself, Richard Linklater’s affectionate tribute to Nouvelle Vague focuses on the making of Godard’s mould-breaking ‘Breathless’. We are introduced to Godard and his fellow Cahiers du Cinema critics, Francois Tr…

Adapted from Isabel Greenberg’s feminist fairy tale graphic novel, British director Julia Jackman’s picture brings the whimsy if not much substance. In a kingdom where the populace worship a God called Birdman (played by Grant in framing intro), Cherry (M…

This gorgeously rendered animation, based on the Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb’s autobiography, charts an unusual cross-cultural upbringing in 1960s Japan. Amélie is born in a vegetative state to a Belgian family. Her father is a diplomat. In voiceover t…

Kristen Stewart' directorial debut, an adaptation of writer and educator Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoirs, is accomplished if at times over-reaching. A bright student and accomplished swimmer, Lidia grows up with a sexually and emotionally abusive father (Epp),…

Mona Fastvold’s audacious and visionary historical drama charts the life of Ann Lee, a Mancunian woman, who in the 18th century became the figurehead of a radical religious movement. Born to a working-class family and illiterate, Ann (Seyfried) works in a…

Like Lynne Ramsay’s recent, harrowing ‘Die My Love’, writer-director-actor Bronstein’s picture is a harrowing look at fraught motherhood. Byrne is Linda, a therapist at the end of her tether. Her husband, a U.S. naval officer is away, and Linda is struggl…

Set in the 50s, but audaciously soundtracked to choice 80s pop, Josh Safdie’s picture is a deliriously freewheeling, anarchic and kinetic sports picture meets screwball comedy. Chalamet is Marty Mauser, a young Jewish New Yorker who we meet in 1952, charm…

Based on real events which occurred in January 2024, this almost unbearably poignant drama charts the efforts of workers in the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Ramallah to respond to an emergency call made from a petrol station in Gaza, fifty-two miles …

Park Chan-wook’s dark comic state-of-the-nation satire adapted from Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel, “The Ax” features great set-pieces but does not quite congeal into a satisfying whole. Byung-hun is Mansu, a conscientious manager at a paper factory. An …

Writer-director Ira Sachs’ follow-up to the knotty romance ‘Passages’ is an intimate and elegant drama, beautifully played by its two leads, and based on recorded conversations thought lost until 2019. It’s December 1974 in Manhattan and photographer Pete…

Renate Reinsve reunites with her ‘Worst Person in the World’ writer-director Joachin Trier for this nuanced if mannered comedy drama. Reinsve is Nora, a successful actress in Oslo who, as we discover in a striking opening sequence, has begun to experience…

Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s book (with O’Farrell credited as co-writer), Chloe Zhao’s speculative period drama foregrounds the female partner in The Bard’s marriage. Indeed, Paul Mescal’s Shakespeare isn’t even mentioned by name until the third act. W…

Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s latest is his most pointedly and emphatically political as well as funniest film to date. It begins with a man (Azizi), his pregnant wife (Najmabadi) and his little girl (Najafi) going home in their car at night. …

French Moroccan writer-director Sofia Alaoui’s singular and bewitching first feature clocks in at a mere 90 mins but it contains multitudes. Itto (Barid) is a beautiful young woman from a humble background who has married into an elite family and lives in…

This engaging documentary charts the life-changing effect of a ‘gap year’ for three troubled nineteen-year-olds attending the Pavski Folk High School in Northern Norway. There the pupils learn to fend for themselves in the Arctic wilderness. Hege is a ‘ty…

Adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ novel this romantic comedy casts a sympathetic eye on an unorthodox relationship. Harry Melling is Colin, a shy single gay traffic warden who lives at home with his parents Peggy (Sharp) and Pete (Hodge) who he sings with in …

Faded glamour and thwarted hope in Hopkins’ documentary portrait of Dene Michael, last standing member of much-maligned novelty band Black Lace. The title of course is taken from the band’s biggest hit ‘Agadoo’. Dene was a session musician who appeared on…

A traumatised young refugee woman glimpses the possibility of a normal life in a picture that combines social realism and lush visuals. Aishe (Behtiyar) is a Muslim Uyghur immigrant who has made her way to the US from China, and who is now eking out a liv…

Mexican director Michael Franco’s compelling and bold film begins as a realist immigrant tale before switching to something far knottier and challenging. It opens with Mexican man Fernando (Hernandez) making the dangerous crossing over to the U.S.A. Starv…

Shot on an iPhone in ten days, Romanian director Radu Jude's feature follow-up to the bonkers and brilliant satire ‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World’ is not as anarchic and sprawling, but it’s fizzing with curiosity and cheeky wit. The exc…

This timely picture from Palestine writer-director Annemarie Jacir charts the events leading up to the 1936 Arab revolt, sixteen years after the British had formally taken control, and three years after the Balfour Declaration which pledged to establish a…

This broad but appealing World War I-set drama marks the fourth collaboration between writer Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hynter. It is 1916 and the local choral society in Ramsden, Yorkshire, led by mill owner Alderman Duxley (Allam) are desperate …

Writer-director Dylan Southen’s adaptation of Max Porter’s novel is a well-meaning misfire. Benedict Cumberbatch is ‘Dad’, a writer working on a graphic novel inspired by Ted Hughes who, after the unexpected death of his wife, is left to bring up his two …

Julia Ducournau's follow up to the brutal and intense Titane is an overreaching jumble of allegories, albeit stylishly presented. Boros is Alpha, a thirteen-year-old girl who when we first encounter her, is getting a homemade tattoo. Her mother (Farahani)…

Based on the novel by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, Lynne Ramsay’s latest film is a relentlessly intense depiction of postpartum psychosis. Jennifer Lawrence is Grace, a young woman about to have her first child. She and her partner Jackson (Pattinson)…

Lojkine’s update on the neorealism genre a la Bicycle Thieves is an affecting and highly involving tale of a food delivery cycle rider in Paris. Hitherto non-professional actor Abou Sangare is the titular character, a Guinean working on a friend’s borrowe…

Set in the 90s but feeling like the distant past, this is an involving drama from writer-director Emmi. Opening music OMC’s ‘How Bizarre’ beams us right into the time period. Tom Blyth is Lucas, an undercover cop in Syracuse, New York. His job is to hang …

Inspired by the Shamima Begum affair, British director Nadia Fall's picture is an empathetic, surprisingly upbeat and well-played plea for understanding and nuance. Doe (newcomer Hassan) and Muna (Ingar) are fifteen-year-old school friends. Doe had emigra…

This timely and impassioned U.S. documentary charts the experiences of a beleaguered group of librarians and their efforts to maintain independence under an increasingly authoritarian and reactionary government who are attempting to ban books that promote…

Inspired by true events, French director Millet’s film works both as a gripping slow-burning thriller, and as a study of alienation, loneliness and trauma. We first encounter Syrian man Hamid (Bessa) in the back of a dark, frighteningly cramped truck with…

Sam Riley gets his best role since his star-making turn as Ian Curtis in 2007’s ‘Control’ in this compelling if slightly overlong noir drama. He is Tom, a rangy good-looking middle-aged tennis coach at a luxury hotel in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands…

As the title suggests, British-French writer-director Jethro Massey’s debut feature aims for Nouvelle Vague discursive whimsy a la Jacques Rivette, but there is something affected and ill-judged about its execution. Galiana is Paul, an American ex-pat pho…

Australian director Justin ‘Snowtown’ Kurzel’s ‘Ellis Park’ is an unorthodox documentary: part profile of Dirty Three violinist and Nick Cave collaborator Warren Ellis, part depiction of the musician’s attempts to open a wildlife sanctuary. The early sequ…