The Wild Pear Tree (2018)
★★★★★
The Wild Pear Tree (Ahlat Agaci) is a masterpiece by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
London Film Festival 2018
Assassination Nation (2018)
★★★★☆
Assassination Nation, written and directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Sam Levinson (Another Happy Day), is a bitingly funny, black satire on America today that’s enjoyably ultra-violent.
3 Days in Quiberon (2018)
★★★★☆
3 Days in Quiberon by Emily Atef is a compelling slice of a few days in the life of actress Romy Schneider as she gives her last interview.
Wildlife (2018)
★★★★☆
Wildlife, Paul Dano’s directorial debut, is a scorching coming-of-age drama starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, with a compelling debut from Ed Oxenbould.
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
★★★★☆
They Shall Not Grow Old, Peter Jackson’s homage to his grandfather is a technically brilliant remastering, colouring and voicing of First World War footage into 3D to show the horror and futility of war for its ordinary foot soldiers.
Widows (2018)
★★★★☆
Steve McQueen’s Widows is a hugely entertaining, violent, female-centred heist thriller that starts with a bang and never lets up thanks to co-screenwriter Gone Girl’s Gillian Lynn’s reimagination of Lynda LaPlante’s 1983 TV series.
Peterloo (2018)
★★★★☆
The irony of Mike Leigh’s latest film Peterloo about demanding political representation is that almost 200 years later, this week people are marching for practically the same reasons – to demand a people’s vote, this time on Brexit.
BFI LFF Review: The White Crow (2018)
★★★☆☆
Art and politics are uneasy bedfellows in The White Crow, David Hare’s story of ballet and defection, a directorial debut for Ralph Fiennes.
BFI LFF Review: Holiday (2018)
★★★★☆
Holiday is a beautifully brutal first feature from Isabella Eklöf about a petty drug lord’s girlfriend who is in for a holiday she’ll never forget in a vicious, powerful and fresh look at the gangster genre.
The Guilty (Den skyldige) (2018)
★★★★☆
Set in a down-beat, dark emergency call centre, The Guilty is a Danish thriller directed by Gustav Möller that takes place in claustrophobic real time, centred on a single character.
BFI LFF: The Winners 2018
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2018 Competition winners
Dogman (2018)
★★★★☆
Dogman is a powerful Italian neorealist fable by Matteo Garrone with an award-winning performance by Marcello Fonte.
BFI LFF Review: Burning (2018)
★★★★☆
Burning is an elliptical thriller directed by Lee Chang-dong that’s rooted in Korean class and income inequalities.
BFI LFF Review: Sew the Winter to My Skin (2018)
★★★★☆
Sew the Winter to my Skin is an excoriatingly angry film set in the Apartheid 1950s from South African director Jahmil X.T. Qubeka.