Journeyman (2017)
★★★★☆
Paddy Considine directs and stars in Journeyman, a melodrama about the hidden toll of boxing.
Alexa Dalby
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.
The Nile Hilton Incident (2017)
★★★☆☆
Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident unravels a noir thriller against the political background of Egypt’s revolution in 2011.
Dark River (2017)
★★★★☆
Her native rugged Yorkshire is the setting for Dark River, Clio Barnard’s follow-up to The Selfish Giant, a grim drama of a dysfunctional family and their failing farm.
Berlinale: Garbage (2018)
★★★☆☆
Q’s Garbage unfurls like a beautiful scream of pain and rage against Indian society gone dystopianly wrong.
The Shape of Water (2017)
★★★★★
Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a fairy tale, a story of love, loss and friendship, and a magical cinematic joy.
Loveless (2017)
★★★★★
Shown through a couple’s reactions to the disappearance of their son, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (Nelyubov) is a crushing comment on a loveless society and its people.
Downsizing (2017)
★★★☆☆
Alexander Payne’s Downsizing is a fantasy satire in microcosm on life, the universe and everything.
Last Flag Flying (2017)
★★★★☆
Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying is an elderly Last Detail-type road trip in search of the American military dream.