Black Mountain Poets (2015)
★★★☆☆
Comically skewering creative pretensions, Jamie Adams’ Welsh romp Black Mountain Poets is sharply observed and very funny.
UK
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.
45 Years (2014)
★★★★☆
With powerful performances from Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years looks back in anger on love.
The Confessions of Thomas Quick (2015)
★★★★☆
A haunting portrait of Sweden’s one and only serial killer, Brian Hill’s The Confessions of Thomas Quick reimagines the collaborative nature of storytelling.
Second Coming (2014)
★★★☆☆
An intriguing film debut for playwright Debbie Tucker Green, Second Coming is a thought-provoking allegory of an unexplained pregnancy in contemporary London.