He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating though soft-focus documentary, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala reveals the inspirational teenager fighting for girls’ right to education.
2015
Drown (2015)
★★★☆☆
Flexing its tale of a man caught between masculinity and homosexuality, Dean Francis’s Drown is overturned by an overwrought history of self-hate and hopelessness.
Festival Review: Steve Jobs (2015)
★★★★☆
A binary biopic of the computer genius and flawed man, Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs is a dazzling, moving tale of the digital revolution.
Festival Review: My Golden Days (2015)
★★★☆☆
Childhood, studenthood and falling in love, Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days paints an intriguing and at times erratic portrait of a boy becoming a man.
Festival Review: Take Me To The River (2015)
★★★☆☆
A Californian family comes head to head with its Nebraskan relatives in Matt Sobel’s debut feature Take Me To The River is an indie tale of sexual dysfunction.
Festival Review: The Brand New Testament (2015)
★★★☆☆
God is alive and living in Brussels, Jaco Van Dormael’s The Brand New Testament takes on the Jealous One with quirk and fancy. And an enormous gorilla.
Festival Review: Office (2015)
★★★☆☆
An exuberant musical extravaganza about the financial crisis, Johnnie To’s Office offers an energetic, occasionally brash, satire on capitalism.
Festival Review: Dheepan (2015)
★★★★☆
Set on the battlefields of Sri Lanka and the banlieues, Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winning Dheepan is an inspirational tale on the power of family.
Festival Review: Chevalier (2015)
★★★★☆
Gently prodding men’s insecurities and weaknesses, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier offers a sardonic look at the games men play.
Festival Review: Sunset Song (2015)
★★★☆☆
Agyness Deyn is the Flower of Scotland in Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, a slowly ambitious and symphonic evocation of land and country.
Festival Review: Cowboys (2015)
★★★☆☆
Based on John Ford’s The Searchers, Thomas Bidegain’s Cowboys is a thoroughly modern, European western of cowboys and Islamists.
Festival Review: Youth (2015)
★★★☆☆
A deliberate break from the success of The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth finds a lower-key kind of beauty in a Swiss sanatorium.
Festival Review: They Will Have To Kill Us First (2015)
★★★☆☆
Malian music in exile, Johanna Schwartz’s documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First is a celebration of music and its invincible power.
Festival Review: Francofonia (2015)
★★★★☆
An impressionistic portrait of the Louvre Museum under Nazi occupation, Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia reveals the chequered history of art.