
Berlinale: The Message (El Mensaje) (2025)
★★★☆☆
The Message is a beguiling, opaque film in Competition at the Berlinale.
★★★★☆
Paternal Leave is charming and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s the debut feature written and directed by Alissa Jung.
★★★★☆
A Complete Unknown is an excellently written and acted, star-studded (Timothée Chalamet) biopic directed by James Mangold of four crucial early years in the life of iconoclastic genius, musician and poet, Nobel Prize-winning Bob Dylan.
★★★★☆
Maria, an emotional biopic, directed by Pablo Larrain, starring an incredible performance by Angelina Jolie as the iconic Maria Callas.
★★★☆☆
Oscars 2025: From Ground Zero compiled by Rashid Masharawi is a compilation of short films showing everyday life in a destroyed Gaza.
★★★☆☆
The Universal Theory directed by Timm Kröger is a stunning homage to all those black-and-white film-noir mysteries of the 1940s with a dreamlike sci-fi twist.
★★★☆☆
Read More★★★★☆
The Taste of Mango is an impressionistic collage of female abuse through three generations bound by enduring love.
★★★★★
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
★★★★☆
After the death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with leading the conclave to recruit a successor with rumour and conflict threatening to overtake the Vatican’s battle for power in Edward Berger’s thriller Conclave.
★★★★☆
The Opera! Arias for an Eclipse is the extraordinary, unique artistic vision of Davide Livermore and Paolo Gep Cucco.
★★★★☆
Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tremendous as a woman constantly beset by anger, fear and depression in Mike Leigh’s searing character study Hard Truths.
★★★☆☆
The Convert by Maori director Lee Tamahori, angry as his country is colonised by the British, set in 1834.
★★★☆☆
In Eternal Visionary director Michele Placido’s biopic takes us through the life of one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, Luigi Pirandello.