Juniper (2021)
★★★☆☆
Screen legend Charlotte Rampling is magnificently ferocious as a reluctant invalid, estranged bad grandma Ruth in Matthew J Saville’s debut Juniper.
Reviews
It Is In Us All (2022)
★★★★☆
It Is In Us All is a strange and mystical film debut by Antonia Campbell-Hughes. held together by Cosmo Jarvis’s extraordinarily visceral central performance, set against awe-inspiring, massive Irish landscapes.
The Forgiven (2021)
★★★☆☆
The unexpected consequences and repercussions of a terrible accident in the Moroccan desert are explored in The Forgiven, John Michael McDonagh’s adaptation of Lawrence Osbourne’s 2012 novel, starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain.
Black Mail
★★☆☆☆
Black Mail, written and directed by Obi Emelonye, is a slick, London-set plot-driven thriller with an appealing central character played by Nigerian star OC Ukeje.
Drive My Car (2021)
★★★★★
strong>Drive My Car, directed with a delicate, luminous touch by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, deservedly won the Oscar this week for Best Film International Feature, the first Japanese film ever to do so.
Flee (2021)
★★★★★
Flee, by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, a documentary made with a blend of animation and archive footage tells an immensely powerful true story of a gay Afghan refugee in Denmark.
Decision to Leave (2022)
★★★★★
Cannes-award-winning unforgettable Decision to Leave directed with pyrotechnical flair by Park Chan-wook is a haunting Korean neo-noir and yet so much more.
Memory Box (2021)
★★★★☆
A Memory Box triggers delayed reconciliation between past and present in Joana Hadjithomas’s deeply personal, emotional intergenerational drama.
Cicada (2020)
★★★★☆
In Cicada by Matt Fifer and Kieran Mulcare, a twenty-something in New York finds love but his life is clouded by the memories of childhood abuse and the pain of not knowing how to deal with it.
A Cop Movie (2021) (Una Película de Policías)
★★★★☆
Award-winning Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacio with A Cop Movie has made a brilliant, intriguing and innovative – and startlingly genre-unclassifiable – film, starring Mónica Del Carmen and Raúl Briones.
BFI LFF 2021: Drive My Car
★★★★☆
Drive My Car is directed with a delicate, luminous touch by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
BFI LFF 2021: Boiling Point
★★★★☆
Boiling Point, directed in an amazing single take by Philip Barantini, stars a wonderful performance by Stephen Graham as a chef in a pressure-cooker kitchen.
BFI LFF 2021: Azor (2021)
★★★★☆
Azor, Andra Fontana’s subtle, sophisticated feature debut, unsettles with an increasing sense of dread as a Swiss banker is enveloped in the Argentinian junta’s heart of darkness.
BFI LFF 2021: Memory Box
★★★★☆
A Memory Box triggers delayed reconciliation between past and present in Joana Hadjithomas’s deeply personal, emotional intergenerational drama.