Adult Life Skills (2016)
★★★★☆
Rachel Tunnard’s debut feature Adult Life Skills is a quirky, witty and moving film about grief and identity.
UK
Remainder (2015)
★★★★☆
What if you couldn’t remember your past and you tried to recreate it? Omar Fast’s visually stunning debut Remainder is a compulsively mind-bending puzzle.
The Violators (2015)
★★★☆☆
An uncompromising directorial debut by author Helen Walsh, The Violators is a powerful story of teenage girls in broken Britain.
Tale of Tales (2015)
★★★★★
Beautiful and grotesque – director Matteo Garone’s visually stunning collection of dark fairy tales for adults Tale of Tales defies description.
Bang Gang (2015)
★★★☆☆
In a long hot summer, a collective sexual madness grips a group of French school students in Eva Husson’s uninspired Bang Gang.
Departure (2015)
★★★☆☆
A delicate debut of sexual exploration and lifelong frustration, Andrew Steggall’s poetic Departure comes undone with its exquisite manners.
Chicken (2016)
★★★★☆
A teen maelstrom of romance, secrets and family in the Essex countryside, Joe Stephenson’s Chicken is a moving portrait of a breaking idyll.
I, Daniel Blake (2016)
★★★★★
Moving, tragic and brutally direct, Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is a scathing portrait of Britain’s benefits system.
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
★★★☆☆
A Hollywood companion piece to Marguerite, Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins finds a heart of gold beneath the tarnished voice.
Black Mountain Poets (2015)
★★★☆☆
Comically skewering creative pretensions, Jamie Adams’ Welsh romp Black Mountain Poets is sharply observed and very funny.
Eddie The Eagle (2016)
★★★★☆
A gentle portrait of the British ski jumper determined to win, Dexter Fletcher’s Eddie The Eagle is a funny, feel-good and well-made British film.
Iona (2015)
★★★☆☆
Charting the undercurrents of a remote island, Scott Graham’s tale of return Iona is a dazzling portrait of the wilds of the Scottish isle.
High-Rise (2015)
★★★☆☆
A visually brilliant adaptation of JG Ballard’s satire, Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s High-Rise seems strangely dated with its Seventies’ dystopian future.
The Ones Below (2015)
★★★☆☆
A chilling psychodrama in primary colours of maternal and social anxiety, David Farr’s The Ones Below leaves a generic horror plot holding the baby.