The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
★★★★☆
In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos creates a disturbingly strange and brutal dilemma.
Alexa Dalby
Marjorie Prime (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime takes us into a future where human holograms help families cope with memories, death and grief.
Breathe (2017)
★★★☆☆
Opening the BFI London Film Festival, Andy Serkis’s debut as a director is the inspiring drama Breathe, a very moving true story.
French Film Festival UK: The Death of Louis XIV (La Mort de Louis XIV) (2016)
★★★★☆
Albert Serra’s compelling film about the slow death of the Sun King features an extraordinary performance by the legendary Jean-Pierre Léaud.
French Film Festival UK: Slack Bay (Ma Loute) (2016)
★★★★☆
Divided into stalwarts of French cinema and non-professional actors, Bruno Dumont’s crime caper Slack Bay exposes the grotesque in everyone.
French Film Festival UK: Wùlu (2016)
★★★★☆
Daouda Coulibaly’s Wùlu is a must-see, tense, contemporary West African thriller.
FILM AFRICA 2017
★★★★☆
Film Africa, London’s annual celebration of the best African cinema, returns for its 7th edition from Friday 27 October – Sunday 5 November.
London East Asia Film Festival: Before We Vanish (2017)
★★★★☆
Before We Vanish by Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a genre-bending Japanese bodysnatchers movie that provokes an alien apocalypse on Earth.
BFI LFF: Pickups (2017)
★★★☆☆
Jamie Thraves’ collaboration with Aidan Gillen in Pickups is an intriguing, self-mocking look at fame and an actor’s life.
BFI LFF: 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.
BFI LFF: Journeyman (2017)
★★★★☆
Paddy Considine directs and stars in melodrama about the hidden toll of boxing Journeyman.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
★★★☆☆
Brawl in Cell Block 99 is S. Craig Zahler’s grindhousefest and a new departure for Vince Vaughn.
BFI LFF: You Were Never Really Here (2017)
★★★★☆
You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay’s latest film is a dark, disturbing odyssey into the mind of a brutal yet tender hitman.
BFI LFF: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
★★★★★
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is Michael McDonagh’s five-star drama laced with humour featuring a gloriously Oscar-worthy performance by Frances McDormand.