12 Years A Slave (2013)
★★★★★
A searing story of slavery in 19th century America, based on the 1853 memoir of a free black man from New York, who is abducted and sold into slavery in the South.
London Film Festival
All Is Lost (2013)
★★★★☆
All is Lost is a one-man tour de force that will either crown Robert Redford’s acting career so far or signal his return to it after concentrating on his Sundance Festival.
Kill Your Darlings (2013)
★★★★☆
Will the circle be unbroken? John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings uncovers Allen Ginsberg’s dance with death as the Beat generation stage a writers’ revolution.
Nebraska (2013)
★★★★★
Determined to pick up a nonexistent million-dollar mailshot prize, an elderly father on the edge of dementia is driven across America by his long-suffering son.
Floating Skyscrapers / Plynace Wiezowce (2013)
★★★☆☆
Down and out in Warsaw, Tomasz Wasilewski’s haunting Floating Skyscrapers explores identity in flux and gay love in a hopeless place in contemporary Poland.
Saving Mr Banks (2013)
★★★★☆
A clash of cultures with a war zone in the writers room, John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr Banks puts adaptation and that special relationship on trial
Young And Beautiful / Jeune Et Jolie (2013)
★★★★☆
Fathoming the sordid depths of taboo and transgression, François Ozon’s Jeune Et Jolie finds the unfathomable in a teenager trading innocence for money.
Blue Is The Warmest Colour / La Vie d’Adèle (2012)
★★★★☆
Courting controversy all the way from Cannes, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is The Warmest Colour puts the graphic back into graphic novel.
Don Jon (2013)
★★★☆☆
A sexy battle of the sexes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s debut feature Don Jon looks at the modern craving for perfection through the prism of pornography.
Child’s Pose / Pozitia Copilului (2013)
★★★★☆
Seeing a way to reassert control over her adult son’s life when he runs over and kills a child, an affluent Romanian woman sets out on a campaign of emotional and social manipulation to keep him out of prison, navigating the waters of power, corruption and influence.
Gravity (2013)
★★★★☆
A heart-stopping tumble through space, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is a juggernaut of a survival movie, crashing down to Earth with a glorious bang.
Milius (2013)
★★★☆☆
The making of a legend, Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson’s bio-documentary Milius uncovers the gun-toting storyteller and filmmaker that took Hollywood on and lost.
Gloria (2013)
★★★★☆
Taking on the world one man at a time, Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria is a glorious look at a woman giving up on love.
Short Term 12 (2013)
★★★☆☆
Repairing the human heart in an institute for troubled teenagers, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12 provides compelling food for the soul.