I, Daniel Blake (2016)
★★★★★
Moving, tragic and brutally direct, Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is a scathing portrait of Britain’s benefits system.
UK
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.
Festival Review: Genius (2016)
★★★★☆
Documenting the relationship between Thomas Wolfe and his editor, Michael Grandage’s Genius reveals the irreconcilable nature of creation and analysis.
The Survivalist (2015)
★★★★☆
A stunning feature debut for director Stephen Fingleton, The Survivalist is a tense post-apocalyptic thriller with a strangely rural setting.
Innocence Of Memories (2015)
★★★★☆
Grant Gee’s Innocence of Memories is a multilayered exploration of the innovative novel Museum of Innocence by the Turkish Nobel prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk.
Lost In Karastan (2015)
★★★☆☆
Set in a fictitious former Soviet-bloc republic, Ben Hopkins’ Lost in Karastan is a very British satire about a very British film director adrift in a totalitarian dictatorship
The Danish Girl (2015)
★★★☆☆
With a powerful pair of performances from Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl is dressed to the nines, but can’t quite get under the skin.
Sunset Song (2015)
★★★☆☆
A symphony for a forgotten Scotland, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song gets caught between majestic imagery and a meandering narrative in a minor key.
Chemsex (2015)
★★★★☆
Exposing a drug fuelled, self-destructive seam within London’s gay community, William Fairman and Max Gogarty’s Chemsex makes for intoxicating viewing.