BFI LFF: The Shape of Water (2017)
★★★★☆
strong>Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a fairy tale, a story of love, loss and friendship, and a magical cinematic joy.
USA
Bitch (2017)
★★★★☆
Bitch is a satirical feminist parable about domestic nightmare directed by Marianna Palka, in which she plays the central character.
BFI LFF: GEMINI (2017)
★★★☆☆
Gemini is Aaron Katz’s pacy nouveau noir murder mystery set in the filmmaking community around Los Angeles.
BFI LFF: Battle of the Sexes (2017)
★★★★☆
Serving well-rounded feminist statements while expertly juggling three intertwining stories, Battle of the Sexes is an outwardly reaching argument encapsulated in a tennis match.
BFI LFF: The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
★★★★☆
Noah Baumbach’s verbose comedy-drama The Meyerowitz Stories for Netflix is solid mainstream entertainment with a wry taste.
BFI LFF: Stronger (2017)
★★★★☆
Stronger, directed by David Gordon Green, stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a gruelling but inspirational portrait of a man rebuilding his life after the Boston Marathon bombing.
BFI LFF: Filmworker (2017)
★★★★☆
Tony Zierra’s Filmworker approaches Stanley Kubrick from the perspective of his assistant and close friend, Leon Vitali, in a well-informed and satisfyingly impartial talking-heads doc.
BFI LFF: Lean on Pete (2017)
★★★☆☆
Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete is an appealing coming-of-age road movie grounded in the all-American setting of quarter-horse racing.
BFI LFF: Wonderstruck (2017)
★★★★☆
In Wonderstruck Todd Haynes opens a cabinet of cinematic wonders as two deaf children’s stories interlink 50 years apart in the magic of New York.
Brimstone (2016)
★★★★☆
Brimstone is an almost unbearably violent take on the Western with a strong female character at its centre.
The Vault (2017)
★★★☆☆
The Vault is director Dan Bush’s surprisingly successful and suspenseful supernatural thriller/horror heist mash-up.
Wind River (2017)
★★★★☆
Taylor Sheridan’s heart is on his sleeve in his directorial debut in gripping, atmospheric Native American thriller Wind River.
Bushwick (2017)
★★★★☆
Bushwick by Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott is an action-filled dark imagining of civil war in the streets of Brooklyn.
The Big Sick (2017)
★★★★☆
The Big Sick by director and comedian Michael Showalter is a culture-clash rom-com set in Chicago that’s genuinely moving and funny – what’s more, it’s based on a real-life love story.