Western (2017)
★★★★☆
The captivating German/Bulgarian culture clash in Valeska Grisebach’s Western could only happen in the EU and it’s subversive.
Alexa Dalby
A Gentle Creature (2017)
★★★★☆
Savage satire by Sergei Loznitsa in A Gentle Creature eviscerates contemporary Russia.
Custody (2017)
★★★★☆
Custody is a superbly acted, terrifying domestic abuse drama by Xavier Legrand.
Wonderstruck (2017)
★★★★☆
In Wonderstruck Todd Haynes opens a cabinet of cinematic wonders as two deaf children’s stories interlink 50 years apart in the magic of New York.
120 BPM
★★★★★☆
In BPM director Robin Campillo turns his naturalistic documentary-style technique from The Class on a group of AIDS activists in the epidemic of the 1990s in a moving, tender and compassionate film.
The Islands and the Whales (2016)
★★★★☆
The Islands and the Whales is a stunningly beautiful, unobtrusively shot documentary by Mike Day with a narrative that takes us into the lives of real people caught between tradition and global environmental change in the remote Faroe Islands.
Sweet Country (2017)
★★★★★
Warwick Thornton’s bold and original period Aussie Western Sweet Country contrasts brutal men against land of spectacular beauty.
Journeyman (2017)
★★★★☆
Paddy Considine directs and stars in Journeyman, a melodrama about the hidden toll of boxing.
Gholam (2017)
★★★☆☆
Mitra Tabrizian’s Gholam stars Shabab Hosseini in an intense story of a lonely exiles alienation from two cultures.
I Got Life! (2017)
★★★★☆
I Got Life! by Blandine Lenoir is a heart-warming story of female solidarity and ‘you’re never too old’ starring wonderful Agnès Jaoui.
The Third Murder (2017)
★★★★☆
The Third Murder by Hirokazu Koreeda is a totally absorbing philosophical exploration of the nature of truth and freedom and whether they can exist, the difference between the law and justice, and whether anything differentiates murder and the death penalty.
The Magic Flute (1975)
★★★☆☆
Ingmar Bergman’s version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute is a magical fairy tale of a production.
The Square (2017)
★★★★☆
Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning The Square is a chilling satire on the pretensions of art and Sweden’s comfortable society.
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
★★★★☆
You Were Never Really Here by Lynne Ramsay is a dark, disturbing odyssey into the mind of a brutal yet tender hitman.