BFI LFF: The Hungry (2017)
★★☆☆☆
The Hungry updates Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus to India’s modern-day elite.
Alexa Dalby
BFI LFF: 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.
BFI LFF: How to talk to girls at parties (2017)
★★★★☆
John Cameron Mitchell’s How To Talk To Girls At Parties is a weird mixture of punk and aliens in the British suburbs – and it works.
BFI LFF: The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
★★★★☆
Noah Baumbach’s verbose comedy-drama The Meyerowitz Stories for Netflix is solid mainstream entertainment with a wry taste.
BFI LFF: Spoor (2017)
★★☆☆☆
A clarion call against the mistreatment of animals and the hunting confederacy of men, against Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor loses its way in the snowy mountains.
BFI LFF: Stronger (2017)
★★★★☆
Stronger, directed by David Gordon Green, stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a gruelling but inspirational portrait of a man rebuilding his life after the Boston Marathon bombing.
BFI LFF: Birds Are Singing in Kigali (2017)
★★★☆☆
In Birds Are Singing in Kigali two women return to Rwanda to find out if healing is possible after the genocide.
BFI LFF: The Guardians (Les Guardiennes) (2017)
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians Les Guardiennes is a beautiful period recreation of a time of change for women and society in rural France during the First World War.
BFI LFF: Ava (2017)
★★★★☆
In Ava, the increasing darkness of Léa Mysius’ direction echoes the encroaching blindness of its young heroine in a strikingly original coming-of-age story.
BFI LFF: Lean on Pete (2017)
★★★☆☆
Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete is an appealing coming-of-age road movie grounded in the all-American setting of quarter-horse racing.
BFI LFF: 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.
BFI LFF: The Summit (La Cordillera) (2017)
★★★★☆
Santiago Mitre’s political thriller The Summit is a prescient tale of high-level corruption.
ZOOLOGY (2016)
★★★★☆
Russian director Ivan Tverdovsky’s black comedy Zoology is a dark satire on the invisibility of older women with a stunning central performance by Natalia Pavlenkova.
Brimstone (2016)
★★★★☆
Brimstone is an almost unbearably violent take on the Western with a strong female character at its centre.