Chicken (2016)
★★★★☆
A teen maelstrom of romance, secrets and family in the Essex countryside, Joe Stephenson’s Chicken is a moving portrait of a breaking idyll.
UK
I, Daniel Blake (2016)
★★★★★
Moving, tragic and brutally direct, Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is a scathing portrait of Britain’s benefits system.
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
★★★☆☆
A Hollywood companion piece to Marguerite, Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins finds a heart of gold beneath the tarnished voice.
Black Mountain Poets (2015)
★★★☆☆
Comically skewering creative pretensions, Jamie Adams’ Welsh romp Black Mountain Poets is sharply observed and very funny.
The Survivalist (2015)
★★★★☆
A stunning feature debut for director Stephen Fingleton, The Survivalist is a tense post-apocalyptic thriller with a strangely rural setting.
Chemsex (2015)
★★★★☆
Exposing a drug fuelled, self-destructive seam within London’s gay community, William Fairman and Max Gogarty’s Chemsex makes for intoxicating viewing.
He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating though soft-focus documentary, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala reveals the inspirational teenager fighting for girls’ right to education.
Festival Review: Sunset Song (2015)
★★★☆☆
Agyness Deyn is the Flower of Scotland in Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, a slowly ambitious and symphonic evocation of land and country.
Festival Review: The Lady In The Van (2015)
★★★★☆
The funny and poignant tale of Bennett’s live-in codger, Nicholas Hytner’s The Lady In The Van is entertainment at its most prestigious.
Festival Review: My Nazi Legacy (2015)
★★★☆☆
Revisiting history through the descendants of two high-serving Nazis and a Holocaust survivor, David Evans’My Nazi Legacy bites off more than it can chew.
Festival Review: High-Rise (2015)
★★★☆☆
Adapting JG Ballard’s dystopian novel for the silver screen, Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise is a glamorous reproduction of the Seventies high life.
Festival Review: Suffragette (2015)
★★★☆☆
Celebrating nearly a century of women’s right to vote, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette is an important and inspirational film on democracy in action.
Macbeth (2015)
★★★★☆
Bringing a fearsome pace and inescapable style to Shakespeare’s tragedy of murderous ambition, Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is a luscious, bloody triumph.
Just Jim (2015)
★★★☆☆
Just Jim by Welsh actor, writer and director Craig Roberts, is a dark, offbeat coming-of-age story set in South Wales.