Featured

Mary Anning

Mary Anning

Paleontology comes to the screen from a child’s point of view in Marcel Barelli’s family-oriented feature debut ‘Mary Anning’.

Read more
Traces of What Remains

Traces of What Remains

A relationship is put to the test in Lisa Blatter’s tender sophomore feature directorial effort ‘Traces of What Remains’, screened at the Zurich Film Festival.

Read more
Wolves

Wolves

Music and far-right politics form the backbone of Jonas Ulrich’s uneven but propulsively sturdy feature debut ‘Wolves’.

Read more
TRON: Ares

TRON: Ares

Disney’s cyber-sequel plays like a series of chase scenes strung together by technobabble, but viewers of the large-format 3D version will feel like they’re in one of the studio’s theme-park dark rides.

Read more
walks darkness1 She Walks in Darkness

She Walks in Darkness

Spanish director Agustín Díaz Yanes delivers a gripping, action-packed but intellectually hollow thriller about an undercover woman police officer who infiltrates the Basque terrorist group ETA.

Read more
ss nighttime sounds Nighttime Sounds

Nighttime Sounds

In wheatfields dotted with 800-year-old stone statues, hidden female desires burn in Zhang Zhongchen’s engrossing magical realist tale from the Chinese hinterlands.

Read more
ss hidden Hidden Murder

Hidden Murder

Sleek, sophisticated and certifiably scary in parts, ‘Hidden Murder’ is a Spanish-Argentinian psychological thriller premiering in San Sebastian’s RTVE Galas sidebar.

Read more
scary movie A Scary Movie

A Scary Movie

Spanish-Brazilian director Sergio Oksman uses Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ to reflect on the ghosts of his own life in the slender but intriguing hybrid documentary, ‘A Scary Movie;’.

Read more
Maspalomas

Maspalomas

Love, lust and old age coalesce in the layered, emotionally charged queer comedy-drama ‘Maspalomas’, part of San Sebastián’s Official Selection.

Read more
ss tabi Two Seasons, Two Strangers

Two Seasons, Two Strangers

Gently engaging the viewer with whimsical tales of two couples and reflections on the artistic process, Shô Miyake’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner ‘Two Seasons, Two Strangers’ skillfully plays a wide range of chords from melancholy to amusing, tragic to poetic.

Read more
IMG 20250925 205912 Good Valley Stories

Good Valley Stories

The authenticity and good humor in José Luis Guerin’s documentary ‘Good Valley Stories’ make it a contender for San Sebastian’s Golden Shell.

Read more
ballad small player Ballad of a Small Player

Ballad of a Small Player

Colin Farrell gives a high-energy performance as a boozy con man gambling his life away in the casinos of Macau in director Edward Berger’s stylish but shallow thriller ‘Ballad of a Small Player’.

Read more
ss cuerpo Cuerpo Celeste

Cuerpo Celeste

Nayra Ilic Garcia’s minimalist, somewhat impenetrable coming-of-age tale about a 15-year-old Chilean girl, ‘Cuerpo Celeste’, is set during the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Read more
IMG 20250925 093527 Los domingos

Los domingos

La vida de una familia española de clase media se convulsiona cuando la hija de 17 años considera convertirse en monja de clausura en la astuta, divertida y frecuentemente conmovedora película ‘Los domingos’ de Alauda Ruiz de Azua.

Read more
ss sundays 2 Sundays

Sundays

The life of a middle-class Spanish family is turned upside down when the 17-year-old daughter considers becoming a cloistered nun in Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s sly, funny and frequently moving ‘Sundays’.

Read more
ungrateful1 Ungrateful Beings

Ungrateful Beings

A holiday homicide triggers a family crisis in Olmo Omerzu’s compelling psychological thriller ‘Ungrateful Beings’, which is clunky in places but saved by its intriguing premise and strong cast.

Read more
ss sai SAI Disaster

SAI Disaster

A new-old take on a not very believable serial killer haunting Japan, ‘SAI Disaster’ emphasizes the ordinary, dull, problematic lives of his victims in Yutaro Seki and Kentaro Hirase’s unremarkable second collaboration.

Read more
Angelina Jolie and Louie Garrel en Couture

Coutures

‘Coutures’ mixes sickness, war, high fashion and star power in its race for the Golden Shell at San Sebastian.

Read more
SS as we breathe 1 As We Breathe

As We Breathe

A wildfire out of control in rural Turkey threatens the house, livestock and resourcefulness of a little girl and her motherless family in Seyhmus Altun’s low-key, high-anxiety drama ‘As We Breathe’.

Read more
ssiff49621 Deux pianos Two Pianos Two Pianos Two Pianos

Two Pianos

Music and obsessive love are the center of the compelling new Arnaud Desplechin film premiering in competition at SSIFF.

Read more
hen1 Hen

Hen

György Pálfi works with a plucky cast of real animals on ‘Hen’, a scrappy but technically impressive comic thriller about a rebellious bird on the run from the chicken-industrial complex.

Read more
Urchin

Urchin

Harris Dickinson shows impressive directorial chops with the mental health drama ‘Urchin’, starring Frank Dillane.

Read more
Screenshot 2025 09 21 10 07 58 461 com.android.chrome scaled e1758444731507 La lucha

La lucha

Un padre y una hija de clase trabajadora pertenecen a un grupo muy unido de luchadores tradicionales en La lucha, una historia inesperadamente extravagante y emocionalmente perfecta ambientada en las Islas Canarias.

Read more
LOS TIGRES ENTRADA min The Tigers

The Tigers

Great performances and good direction save a predictable script in Alberto Rodriguez’s thriller ‘The Tigers’, bowing in competition at San Sebastian.

Read more
ss la lucha Dance of the Living

Dance of the Living

A working class father and daughter belong to a close-knit group of traditional wrestlers in an unexpectedly flamboyant, emotionally pitch-perfect story set on the Canary Islands, ‘Dance of the Living’.

Read more
redoubt1 Redoubt

Redoubt

Writer director John Skoog casts Denis Lavant as a real-life backwoods eccentric from Swedish history in his dramatically thin but compellingly bizarre Cold War drama ‘Redoubt’.

Read more
3508 El mensaje

El mensaje

La película de Iván Fund – minimalista y en tono bajo- sobre una joven argentina con un don especial se centra en atmósfera y matices.

Read more
l etranger The Stranger

The Stranger

François Ozon gives much-loved Albert Camus novel ‘L’Étranger’ a chic retro-modernist polish in this sumptuously shot adaptation of a French literary classic.

Read more
Six Days in Spring

Six Days in Spring

Joachim Lafosse tells the story of an unusual vacation in the autobiographical and subtly surprising ‘Six Days in Spring’.

Read more
The Long Walk

The Long Walk

An impressive ensemble of young actors and taut filmmaking makes this adaptation of Stephen King’s death-march saga gripping and grim.

Read more
babystar still 01 Babystar

Babystar

The screen-time satire ‘Babystar’ delivers sharp observations about social media coupled with a surprisingly bold visual style.

Read more
final Idan Weiss as Franz Franz

Franz

Newcomer Idan Weiss shines in Agnieszka Holland’s vivid portrait of the tortured writer, Franz Kafka.

Read more
JULIAN ©Grade Solomon16 9 Julian

Julian

‘Julian’ is the sentimental and stirring true story about a tragic romance and the battle for queer rights.

Read more
testament The Testament of Ann Lee

The Testament of Ann Lee

Amanda Seyfried is on a mission from God in writer-director Mona Fastvold’s audacious, ambitious and mostly excellent avant-garde feminist musical about a real-life 18th century messianic female religious leader ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’.

Read more
Broken English 1 Broken English

Broken English

Marianne Faithfull died while making the arty swansong documentary ‘Broken English’, which is hampered by too much stylistic trickery but still delivers a rich mixtape of music, memories and boho-rock royalty.

Read more
No Other Choice No Other Choice

No Other Choice

A farcical crimefest with a dark side, Park Chan-wook’s ‘No Other Choice’ amplifies the inhumanity of modern industry and the utter ruthlessness of salaried work in an engaging film full of unexpected twists.

Read more
bugonia Bugonia

Bugonia

Emma Stone reunites with ‘The Favourite’ and ‘Poor Things’ director Yorgos Lanthimos for ‘Bugonia’, a slight but enjoyably bizarre remake of a cult Korean sci-fi kidnap comedy.

Read more
la grazia La Grazia

La Grazia

Toni Servillo shines in a memorable, tragi-comic performance as the president of Italy in Paolo Sorrentino’s crowd-pleasing Venice opener ‘La Grazia’, an often funny, sometimes moving tale of the Numero Uno’s loneliness, inner doubts and obsessions and his inability to make up his mind on difficult legislation like euthanasia.

Read more
Caught Stealing

Caught Stealing

Darren Aronofsky’s violent screwball tragedy might be his most “mainstream” movie to date, but it displays the intensity and darkness that’s become his calling card.

Read more
The Deal

The Deal

Jean-Stéphane Bron tackles TV thriller territory with his series debut “The Deal”, screened out of competition in Locarno.

Read more
Nobody 2

Nobody 2

While this follow-up lacks the wicked surprises of the original — it’s a sequel, after all — Bob Odenkirk’s nebbishy super-assassin and Sharon Stone’s deranged super-villain make for an amusingly violent late-summer trifle.

Read more
Freakier Friday

Freakier Friday

Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reteam for an amiably laugh-filled comedy that brings the body-switch hi-jinks to a new generation of misunderstood teenagers.

Read more
The Naked Gun

The Naked Gun

The gags fly fast and furious as Liam Neeson and director and co-writer Akiva Schaffer revive the outrageous film and TV franchise from Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker.

Read more
Smurfs

Smurfs

The occasional bursts of visual style and clever humor come too few and far between in this dreary do-over of the big blue franchise.

Read more
aiff close nada Palestinian Cinema Lights Up the 6th Amman Festival

Palestinian Cinema Lights Up the 6th Amman Festival

Stories told “honestly and unapologetically” proved a winning strategy at the 6th Amman Intl Film Festival – Awal Film, an intimate, carefully programmed showcase for cinema from the Arab countries and beyond that is asserting itself as a major cultural event in the region.

Read more
Yalla Parkour car Yalla Parkour

Yalla Parkour

When documaker Areeb Zuaiter in the U.S. stumbles across the Internet videos of daredevil Ahmad, a teenage parkour athlete in Gaza, they begin a heartfelt long-distance friendship that becomes entwined with the filmmaker’s sense of belonging to her mother’s Palestinian homeland, in the fascinating and revealing meeting of worlds, Yalla Parkour.

Read more
Superman

Superman

The Man of Steel soars again in a superhero saga that plays to writer-director James Gunn’s considerable strengths at genre storytelling.

Read more
M3GAN 2.0

M3GAN 2.0

Sequel to the sleeper hit veers away from horror into comic-thriller territory, delivering jolts and satirical laughs, though not quite enough of either.

Read more
orwell Orwell: 2+2=5

Orwell: 2+2=5

Never has the world felt closer to the threats of rising fascism described by George Orwell than now, as filmmaker Raoul Peck (‘I Am Not your Negro’) lucidly shows in his new documentary ‘Orwell: 2+2=5’.

Read more
romeria CineVerdict: Romería

CineVerdict: Romería

En la competencia por la Palma de Oro, el 3er. largometraje de la cineasta española Carla Simón, Romería, ofrece un apasionante drama familiar que gira en torno a una joven en su búsqueda por la verdad sobre la muerte prematura de su padre.

Read more
It Was Just an Accident It Was Just an Accident

It Was Just an Accident

Jafar Panahi has never been more explicit in denouncing the torture political prisoners are subjected to in Iran, or the furious longing for revenge that haunts the state’s victims, than in ‘It Was Just an Accident’.

Read more
Llucia Garcia and Mitch in Romeria.

Romeria

In the running for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón’s third feature “Romeria” offers gripping family drama revolving around a young woman’s search for the truth about her father’s early demise.

Read more
mengele2 The Disappearance of Josef Mengele

The Disappearance of Josef Mengele

Kirill Serebrennikov’s muscular biopic ‘The Disappearance of Josef Mengele’ about the elusive Nazi fugitive is a real-life horror story, sprawling at times but powered by strong performances and great visual swagger.

Read more
mas alla del olvido1 Beyond Oblivion

Beyond Oblivion

The Argentinean thriller directed by Hugo del Carril ‘Beyond Oblivion’ gets a well-deserved brush-up at Cannes Classics, 70 years after its release.

Read more
TheBrutalist Image3 HERO The Brutalist

The Brutalist

Writer-director Brady Corbet’s monumental period drama about a tortured genius of modernist architecture, ‘The Brutalist’ is ponderous and bloated, but visually stunning and superbly acted.

Read more
anora Anora

Anora

A Brooklyn lapdancer falls for a super-rich Russian playboy in ‘Tangerine’ and ‘Red Rocket’ director Sean Baker’s latest walk on the wild side, ‘Anora’.

Read more
Im stil here I'm Still Here

I’m Still Here

Director Walter Salles and actress Fernanda Torres relive the terrors of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and one woman’s resistance to silence in ‘I’m Still Here’, a gripping, elevating drama about making truth known and rebuilding a life when all seems lost.

Read more
NO OTHER LAND photo No Other Land

No Other Land

Beginning in 2019, a quartet of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers in the Occupied Territories start documenting Israel’s appropriation of the land and its escalation until just after the start of the current juggernaut in Gaza.

Read more
drommer Berlin 2025: The Awards

Berlin 2025: The Awards

Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy closer ‘Dreams (Sex, Love)’ grabbed the Golden Bear for its portrait of a 15-year-old girl’s first crush and the intimacy of desire.

Read more
Nature What Does That Nature Say to You

What Does That Nature Say to You

Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo returns to Berlin competition for the seventh time with ‘What Does That Nature Say to You’, an amusing boyfriend-meets-girlfriend’s-family tale illustrating the artist’s need to reject materialism.

Read more
timestamp2 Timestamp

Timestamp

Filmed in schools all across war-torn Ukraine, Kateryna Gornostai’s panoramic documentary ‘Timestamp’ is a deeply moving ensemble portrait of youthful hope and courage.

Read more
Dreams (Sex Love)

Dreams (Sex, Love)

Norway won the Golden Bear this year in Berlin with the endearingly awkward ‘Dreams’ (‘Drømmer’), the final installment in Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy about contemporary relationships.

Read more
Monk in Pieces1 Monk in Pieces

Monk in Pieces

‘Monk in Pieces’ is a fragmentary but highly engaging documentary portrait of Meredith Monk, trailblazing icon of New York City’s experimental arts and music scene.

Read more
marielle1 What Marielle Knows

What Marielle Knows

A telepathic schoolgirl unwittingly discovers some disturbing family secrets in German writer-director Frédéric Hambalek’s sharp-witted satirical comedy ‘What Marielle Knows’.

Read more
islands1 Islands

Islands

Sam Riley and Stacy Martin share dark secrets and smouldering sexual tension in Jan-Ole Gerster’s slow-moving but stylish psychological thriller ‘Islands’.

Read more
mickey17 Mickey 17

Mickey 17

Multiple Robert Pattinsons share a risky deep-space mission in ‘Parasite’ director Bong Joon-ho’s visually dazzling but muddled dystopian sci-fi comedy thriller ‘Mickey 17’.

Read more
Marion Cotillar and Clara Pacini in The Ice Tower

The Ice Tower

Marion Cotillard channels her inner Bette Davis to maximum effect in “The Ice Tower”, French auteur Lucile Hadžihalilovic’s relentlessly dark, glacially paced and emotionally forbidding adaptation of the Snow Queen fairytale.

Read more
koln75 Köln 75

Köln 75

Director Ido Fluk’s playful period biopic ‘Köln 75’ celebrates the remarkable true story of the teenage German girl who made a landmark jazz concert happen against impossible odds.

Read more
No Beast No Beast. So Fierce.

No Beast. So Fierce.

Burhan Qurbani’s madly original revamping of ‘Richard III’ is a riotous sensory experience of uninterrupted energy that pushes Shakespearian evil to the limit, in the story of two Arab gangster families.

Read more
das licht2 The Light

The Light

German writer-director Tom Tykwer returns to the big screen with ‘The Light’, a stylish and ambitious but ultimately shallow family psychodrama set in contemporary Berlin.

Read more
iffr tiger Rotterdam 2025: The Verdict

Rotterdam 2025: The Verdict

The 54th edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam served up a cosmopolitan banquet of punky Balkan bio-drama and chilly Baltic brooding, arty African essay-films and mind-bending Mexican animation.

Read more
red stars2 Red Stars Upon the Field

Red Stars Upon the Field

In her sprawling but boldly original debut feature ‘Red Stars Upon the Field’, Laura Laabs turns the hidden skeletons of German history into a maximalist magical murder mystery tour.

Read more
Jorge Mota as Antonio Salazar in front of Palacete de São Bento in Our Father - The Last Days of a Dictator

Our Father – The Last Days of a Dictator

Portuguese documentary-maker José Filipe Costa swerves towards fictional-feature territory in ‘Our Father – The Last Days of a Dictator’, a stylistically measured yet quietly glorious character study of the ousted tyrant Salazar.

Read more
Lola Amaria and Alika Jantinia in "Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra".

Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra

Indonesian filmmaker Harung Bramatyo makes his first foray at a top-ranked international festival with “Gowok: Javanese Kamasutra’, a visually arresting cross-generational melodrama charting an appre’tice sex tutor’s entangled emotions about love and emancipation.

Read more
010ed6c2 80d6 450e 8dab bbddc8879ddb The Assistant

The Assistant

Wilhelm and Anka Sasnal channel the spirit of cult modernist Robert Walser in this strange, caustic “repainting” of his novel about a beleaguered assistant.

Read more
september says September Says

September Says

Two troubled teenage sisters share a spookily close bond in actor turned director Ariane Labed’s patchy but atmospheric feature debut ‘September Says’.

Read more
Still from I'm Not a Robot (2023)

I’m Not a Robot

A woman repeatedly fails a Captcha test and starts to wonder whether she is, in fact, a robot in the high concept identity crisis drama, I’m Not a Robot.

Read more
City of Small Blessings c Akanga Film Asia mm2 Entertainment Purple Tree Pictures Analog Robot City of Small Blessings

City of Small Blessings

Bowing at the Singapore International Film Festival, Chen-hsi Wong’s second feature ‘City of Small Blessings’ is a film of delicate visuals and nuanced performances, but uncertain messaging.

Read more
Antique The Antique

The Antique

A troubled, politically entangled premiere in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori has partly overshadowed Rusudan Glurjidze’s wistful Georgian comedy that cleverly targets Georgian-Russian relations.

Read more
cairo poster Cairo 2024: The Verdict

Cairo 2024: The Verdict

Returning after last year’s dramatic cancellation, the 45th edition of the long-running Cairo festival had a rich international program but a special focus on strong films from Africa, the Middle East, Palestine and Egypt itself.

Read more
cairo awards 45th Cairo International Film Festival: The Awards

45th Cairo International Film Festival: The Awards

The Cairo jury gave their main prize to Romanian director Bogdan Muresanu’s tragicomic Cold War period piece ‘The New Year That Never Came’, but local writer-director Noha Adel earned the most awards and warmest reviews with her bittersweet female-driven ensemble drama ‘Spring Came Laughing’.

Read more
Shadow Scholars - documentary film still

The Shadow Scholars

‘Shadow Scholars’ introduces a serious issue plaguing academia, but the Eloise King documentary isn’t quite ready to point a finger at the African component of the problem.

Read more
Still from Being John Smith (2024)

Being John Smith

Delivered in his typically playful style, John Smith’s latest film, Being John Smith, is a wry reflection on the conventionality of his name dotted with radical flourishes.

Read more
Home Game - film still

Home Game

Director Lidija Zelovic’s main assets in the often powerfully meditative documentary ‘Home Game’ are her novelistic voice and strong writing.

Read more
Passing Dreams 1 Passing Dreams

Passing Dreams

 A stubborn boy searches all over Palestine for a lost pigeon in ‘Passing Dreams’, Rashid Masharawi’s unexpectedly gentle, non-confrontational allegory about the state of the country.

Read more
TL Hebrides Fire Stack 3 Tracing Light

Tracing Light

Thomas Riedelsheimer brings land artists and physicists together in a considered, densely packed doc celebrating the elusive nature of light as a medium.

Read more
MA Cry for Silence MA - Cry of Silence

MA – Cry of Silence

The Maw Naing’s second fiction feature, ‘MA – Cry of Silence’, is a riveting cri du coeur about life under authoritarian rule in Myanmar, seen through the struggle of aggrieved factory workers against their abusive employers.

Read more
wailing2 The Wailing

The Wailing

Several generations of women are stalked by the same creepy family curse in Spanish director Pedro Martín-Calero’s stylish, prize-winning psycho-horror debut ‘The Wailing’.

Read more
Hard Truths Hard Truths

Hard Truths

Mike Leigh returns from a lengthy excursion shooting period films to the kind of chamber piece he excels in, in ‘Hard Truths’, a small story about family dysfunction magnified into high drama by Mariane Jean-Baptiste’s formidable lead performance as a wife and mother going over the edge.

Read more
Lederniersouffle Filmpicture 32466 Last Breath

Last Breath

Costa-Gavras, in top form at 91, starts another revolution, this time about death, with ‘Last Breath’.

Read more
jockey El Jockey

El Jockey

Un jockey campeón se embarca en un viaje surrealista de desafío de género en el disparejo pero elegante, colorido y divertido thriller cómico de Luis Ortega.

Read more
Sujo Sujo

Sujo

The killing of a Mexican cartel boss puts his 4-year-old son in danger in a powerful, often mythic evocation of life lived on the edge of death, Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s engrossing drama ‘Sujo’.

Read more
zafari CineVerdict: Zafari

CineVerdict: Zafari

Cuando la despensa está vacía, una familia de clase media en un país latinoamericano sin nombre, primero pasa hambre y luego se vuelve salvaje en ‘Zafari’. La espeluznante fábula distópica de Mariana Rondón hará que los espectadores no quieran cenar.

Read more
virgen La virgen roja

La virgen roja

Un ensayo imaginativo y fascinante sobre el feminismo y la maternidad, ‘La virgen roja’ de Paula Ortiz presenta a una inolvidable Najwa Nimri como una madre infernal y dominante que ve a su brillante hija de 16 años como una escultura que ha creado para cambiar el mundo en la España de los años 30.

Read more
tropic 4 Querido Trópico

Querido Trópico

Una historia conmovedora y divertida sobre dos mujeres solitarias que se conectan a través de la división de clases, con la actuación excepcional de Paulina Garcia como una matrona rica y mandona que se desliza hacia la demencia.

Read more
ssiff45654 Soy Nevenka I´m Nevenka Soy Nevenka

Soy Nevenka

Veinticuatro años después de la primera denuncia por acoso sexual a un político en España, Iciar Bollaín cuenta la historia en Soy Nevenka con sensibilidad y urgencia. Sir Isaac Newton dijo que su perspectiva era mejor que la de sus antecesores porque estaba parado en hombros de gigantes. Las mujeres del movimiento #metoo, las que...
Read more
The End1 The End

The End

Acclaimed documentary director Joshua Oppenheimer makes his fiction feature debut with ‘The End’, an ungainly but wildly ambitious post-apocalypse musical co-starring Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay and Moses Ingram.

Read more
serpent1 The Serpent's Path

The Serpent’s Path

Festival favorite Kiyoshi Kurosawa remakes his own 1998 revenge thriller ‘The Serpent’s Path’ as a tasteful psychological horror film set in France, whose top-notch, mixed Franco-Japanese cast makes it worth watching.

Read more
Memoir of a Snail

Memoir of a Snail

Australian stop-motion master Adam Elliot is back with his touching, humane second feature ‘Memoir of a Snail’, featuring the voice of Sarah Snook.

Read more
divafutura Diva Futura

Diva Futura

The birth of Italian porn films in the 1980’s is told as a sentimental, gently humorous biopic about porn entrepreneur Riccardo Schicchi in ‘Diva Futura’, a well-written romp made to cash in on its airbrushed sketches of adult film stars Moana Pozzi, Cicciolina and Eva Henger.

Read more
stranger2 scaled e1725626143802 Stranger Eyes

Stranger Eyes

A kidnap thriller rooted in surveillance, voyeurism and the unkindness of strangers, Yeo Siew Hua’s third feature ‘Stranger Eyes’ is the first ever Singaporean film to compete for the Golden Lion in Venice

Read more
april April

April

Choosing a narrative style as austere and unforgiving as her OB-GYN heroine, rising Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili (‘Beginning’) plumbs the depths of female suffering and self-sacrifice in ‘April’, a festival film which, like its protag, is destined to be admired more than loved.

Read more
The Room Next Door

The Room Next Door

Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature ‘The Room Next Door’ is a minor-key but quietly profound meditation on love and death, pain and glory.

Read more
Ronnie Lazaro in Phantosmia

Phantosmia

A retired military sniper tries to atone for his murderous past in ‘Phantosmia’, Philippine auteur Lav Diaz’s poetic, reflective, modest yet visually captivating study of guilt and redemption.

Read more
baby invasion film Baby Invasion

Baby Invasion

Ageing bad-boy auteur Harmony Korine’s latest experimental art-punk feature ‘Baby Invasion’ is a visually impressive but ultimately hollow exercise in jaded hipster nihilism.

Read more
campodibattaglia big Battleground

Battleground

Three doctors of different political views struggle to treat soldiers returning from the front during WWI and combat a new menace, the Spanish flu, in director Gianni Amelio’s grimly shocking film about war’s after-effects, ‘Battleground’.

Read more
leursenfantsapres And Their Children After Them

And Their Children After Them

French writer-director duo Zoran and Ludovic Boukherma go back to the 1990s with their operatic but flawed coming-of-age saga ‘And Their Children After Them’, adapted from a prize-winning novel.

Read more
killthejockey Kill The Jockey

Kill The Jockey

A horse racing champion embarks on a surreal gender-blurring ride in Luis Ortega’s bumpy but stylish, colourful, enjoyably goofy comedy thriller ‘Kill The Jockey’.

Read more
John Yoko One to One: John & Yoko

One to One: John & Yoko

The life, politics, music and relationship of cultural idols and revolutionary artists John Lennon and Yoko Ono are brilliantly blasted onscreen amid exploding shards of 1970’s Americana in Kevin Macdonald’s and Sam Rice-Edwards’ irresistibly original and high-energy documentary, ‘One to One: John & Yoko’.

Read more
apocalypseinthetropics Apocalypse in the Tropics

Apocalypse in the Tropics

Brazilian director Petra Costa explores how religious faith can become a dangerous political weapon in ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics’, the gripping sequel to her Oscar-nominated ‘The Edge of Democracy’.

Read more
planet b Planet B

Planet B

French writer-director Aude Léa Rapin’s dystopian cyber-thriller ‘Planet B’ is an ambitious but muddled mix of virtual reality and timely political issues.

Read more
santa communist 1 When Santa Was a Communist

When Santa Was a Communist

Santa Claus is not coming to town in Emir Kapetanovic’s bittersweet comic road movie ‘When Santa Was a Communist’, which is based on an absurd true story in the Balkan region’s ongoing culture wars.

Read more
avant drag Avant-Drag!

Avant-Drag!

A lively documentary from Greek director Fil Ieropoulos, ‘Avant-Drag!’ salutes the radical roots and ongoing bravery of queer performers who defy gender norms, especially in more conservative societies.

Read more
The Life Apart

The Life Apart

Marco Tullio Giordana deals solidly with family drama and music in Locarno premiere ‘The Life Apart’.

Read more
therapy1 Family Therapy

Family Therapy

Slovenian writer-director Sonja Prosenc explores the tragicomic extremes of wealth and privilege in her sprawling but impressive social satire ‘Family Therapy’.

Read more
late summer My Late Summer

My Late Summer

A young woman learns some bittersweet life lessons about love and family in Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic’s latest sunny but slight glum-com ‘My Late Summer’.

Read more
When the Phone Rang When the Phone Rang

When the Phone Rang

One last memory of a Yugoslavia that no longer exists becomes a site of obsessive return in Iva Radivojevic’s elegantly narrated reconstruction.

Read more
Mexico 86

Mexico 86

‘Mexico 86’, the sober, sincere second feature from 2019 Camera D’Or winner César Díaz, lacks the passion to be a compelling political narrative.

Read more
Sew Torn

Sew Torn

Freddy Macdonald delivers Alpine thrills with his feature debut ‘Sew Torn’, part of Locarno’s Piazza Grande selection.

Read more
Der Spatz im Kamin 1© Zurcher Film The Sparrow in the Chimney

The Sparrow in the Chimney

Ramon Zürcher’s utterly distinctive talent for twisting the domestic into the uncanny gains intensity in a cutting psychological horror as thrilling as it is elliptical and dark.

Read more
Frewaka 01 Fréwaka

Fréwaka

Taboo histories of violence against women in Ireland are excavated in Aislinn Clarke’s chilling, over-the-top Irish-language folk horror.

Read more
Salve María

Mothers don’t

Mar Coll returns to the Locarno Festival to explore the limits of modern motherhood in Mothers Don’t (Salve María), an intimate and empathetic film.

Read more
hunting daze Hunting Daze

Hunting Daze

A backwoods bachelor party becomes a fight to the death in Canadian writer-director Annick Blanc’s uneven but gripping feminist thriller ‘Hunting Daze’.

Read more
a sudden glimpse to deeper things A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things

Prolific documentarian Mark Cousins has dedicated himself to foregrounding underseen films from around the globe, especially those directed by women sidelined from cinematic history. in some of his best-known work, including the fifteen-hour The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011), and fourteen-hour Women Make Film (2018). The Northern Irish filmmaker’s latest feature documentary A Sudden...
Read more
Med FF closing Mediterrane 2024: The Awards

Mediterrane 2024: The Awards

Turkish auteur Zeki Demirkubuz’s ‘Life’ (‘Hayat’) with its caustic social critique and a quietly angry feminist message won the top prize at the second edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival.

Read more
The Hungarian Dressmaker (2024)

The Hungarian Dressmaker

A Hungarian dressmaker does what she can to survive and resist the power abuses of the ‘40s Slovak State fascist militia in Iveta Grofova’s dark, evocative drama.

Read more
santosh Santosh

Santosh

A brutal rape and murder case in rural India shines a light on deeper problems of corruption, misogyny and inequality in Sandhya Suri’s ponderous but impressive police drama ‘Santosh’.

Read more
TV glow I Saw the TV Glow

I Saw the TV Glow

Produced by Emma Stone, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s uneven but impressively bold passion project ‘I Saw the Tv Glow’ celebrates gender-queer liberation using cult TV homages and hallucinatory horror elements.

Read more
Dear Jassi Dear Jassi

Dear Jassi

An engaging Romeo and Juliet romance between rich and poor Punjabis slowly reveals its darker side in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s laid-back but ultimately devastating social critique. ‘Dear Jassi’.

Read more
hunters3 Hunters on a White Field

Hunters on a White Field

The hunters get captured by the game in ‘Hunters on a White Field’, Swedish writer-director Sarah Gyllenstierna’s classy horror-tinged thriller about the dark side of macho bloodsports.

Read more
Opening Day AVP AVP Summit Challenges the Status Quo

AVP Summit Challenges the Status Quo

The third edition of Italy’s international Audiovisual Producers Summit (June 10-12, 2024) wrapped at the Altafiumara Resort & Spa last week. The AVP Summit is a three-day conference dedicated to the Italian and international entertainment industry with attendees coming from production and distribution companies, television networks and digital platforms as well as independent studios and...
Read more
Ernest Cole

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck (‘I Am Not Your Negro’) once again makes masterful use of the documentary form as a vehicle for social and political commentary in ‘Ernest Cole: Lost and Found’, an intense viewing experience that leaves its mark long after the last photo fades.

Read more
Merchandise The Most Precious of Cargoes

The Most Precious of Cargoes

Michel Hazanavicius’s (‘The Artist’) long-cherished animation project ‘The Most Precious of Cargoes’, bowing in Cannes competition, nimbly combines a classic, grim fairy tale with the horrors of the Holocaust in a well-made but sentimental tale whose audience is unclear.

Read more
Sacred Fig The Seed of the Sacred Fig

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof denounces the bloody repression of protests by Iranian authorities and the Revolutionary Guard in ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’, his most angrily outspoken film yet.

Read more
A still from All We Imagine As Light, starring Kani Kusruti (centre)

All We Imagine As Light

Featuring nuanced performances from its leads, Payal Kapadia’s tender relationship drama ‘All We Imagine As Light’, about three women working in a Mumbai hospital, is the first Indian film to compete for the Palme d’Or in more than three decades.

Read more
170144 1 Grand Tour

Grand Tour

 Another genre-bending fantasy from Portuguese director Miguel Gomes, ‘Grand Tour’ takes the viewer on a dreamy ride through colonial Asia in 1918, though the present day often pushes through the whimsical story of two characters chasing each other across Asia.  

Read more
affiche film j0bnXNMrTUXJzx5paphoUI35VYk9XShsBfAd1ngr To a Land Unknown

To a Land Unknown

Mahdi Fleifel’s masterful feature debut ‘To a Land Unknown’ marks a new chapter in Palestinian cinema with its harsh yet empathetic walk in the brutal world of being an Arab refugee in Greece.

Read more
171271 Viet and Nam

Viet and Nam

Bowing in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Truong Minh Quy’s third feature ‘Viet and Nam’ leans more on innovative imagery and historical allegory than its underwritten story and characters.

Read more
Parthen best Parthenope

Parthenope

In the lush ‘Parthenope’, which he has called his first “feminine epic”, Paolo Sorrentino captures the passion and decadence, the misery, tragedy and baroque riches of his native Naples.

Read more
shrouds 1 The Shrouds

The Shrouds

Veteran cult Canadian director David Cronenberg channels personal feelings of grief, loss and enduring love into his latest underpowered but absorbingly weird techno-gothic thriller, ‘The Shrouds’.

Read more
The Story of Souleymane - film still

The Story of Souleymane

Boris Lojkine’s tale of a Guinean immigrant in France, ‘The Story of Souleymane’, is a vigorously edited piece of cinema with an outstanding performance by first-time actor Abou Sangare.

Read more
apprentice1 The Apprentice

The Apprentice

Ali Abbasi’s portrait of a young monster, ‘The Apprentice’, wisely chooses a humorous key in which to chronicle Donald Trump’s formative years as a businessman and how lawyer Roy Cohn helped his empire get its crooked start, though well-informed viewers will find nothing much new.

Read more
substance The Substance

The Substance

Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley co-star in French director Coralie Fargeat’s wild Cannes contender ‘The Substance’, a gloriously tasteless but finely crafted feminist body-horror fairy tale.

Read more
The Falling Sky

The Falling Sky

The shamanic and environmentalist struggle of the Yanomami tribe is treated with knowledge and respect in this visually attractive documentary.

Read more
balconettes The Balconettes

The Balconettes

Despite a few bumpy moments, actor-director Noémie Merlant’s gory feminist horror comedy ‘The Balconettes’ paints a rowdy, richly imagined portrait of three ladies on fire.

Read more
emilia2 Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez

Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña show off their song-and-dance skills in French director Jacques Audiard’s audacious Mexican musical thriller ‘Emilia Pérez’.

Read more
kinds of kindness3 Kinds of Kindness

Kinds of Kindness

Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe reunite with ‘Poor Things’ director Yorgos Lanthimos for ‘Kinds of Kindness’, a slight but fun triple-decker sandwich of macabre absurdism.

Read more
Desert of Namibia Desert of Namibia

Desert of Namibia

Yuumi Kawai delivers a storm of a performance as a young bipolar woman struggling with Japan’s unspoken social norms in “Desert of Namibia”, Japanese filmmaker Yoko Yamanaka’s stunning sophomore effort.

Read more
If

IF

John Krasinski’s sledgehammer whimsy kills whatever charm this celebration of childhood imagination might have possessed.

Read more
megaflop2 Megalopolis

Megalopolis

Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating neo-Roman epic ‘Megalopolis’ is a muddled misfire of overcooked kitsch and undercooked ideas.

Read more
Bird 2 Bird

Bird

In ‘Bird’ Andrea Arnold once again shows she has the magic keys – in this case Franz Rogowski’s piercingly tender bird-man, and Barry Keoghan’s manically affectionate drug-dealer dad — to extract drama, fantasy and authentic emotion from characters living on the lowest rungs of English society.

Read more
wild diamond1 Wild Diamond

Wild Diamond

French writer-director Agathe Riedinger’s coming-of-age Cannes contender ‘Wild Diamond’ is an unpolished gem, but it sparkles with lusty energy and strong performances.

Read more
bambini faces I Bambini di Gaza

I Bambini di Gaza

A Palestinian and an Israeli boy bond over surfing in a vivid if familiar story from the Second Intifada that today feels more than slightly unread.

Read more
1484888 Kamay

Kamay

Haunting and multi-layered, this is a stunning debut doc on death, female resistance and knowledge in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Read more
Fragments of Ice Maria Stoianova Fragments Of Ice

Fragments Of Ice

Maria Stoianova draws on her figure-skater father’s ‘80s and ‘90s VHS archive in a poignant debut doc on a Ukraine caught between the illusions of two systems.

Read more
Thinley Llamo in Shambhala, in competition at the Berlinale.

Shambhala

Nepal’s first-ever competition title at the Berlinale, Min Bahadur Bham’s Shambhala is a visually breathtaking, emotionally engaging relationship drama about a young Tibetan’s physical and mental journey across the Himalayas in search of her vanished husband.

Read more
sasquatch1 Sasquatch Sunset

Sasquatch Sunset

Featuring wordless performances by a heavily disguised Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough, ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ is a boldly surreal Bigfoot comedy with surprising emotional depth.

Read more
black tea Black Tea

Black Tea

The gap between African and Chinese culture proves easier to breach than the perspectives that separate a woman and a man in acclaimed director Abderrahmane Sissako’s ‘Black Tea’, a fascinating love story set in China but one that sadly gets lost in the telling.

Read more
devils bath film The Devil's Bath

The Devil’s Bath

Real historical murder cases inspired ‘The Devil’s Bath’, a relentlessly grim but atmospheric psychological horror thriller from Austrian writer-director duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.

Read more
Rain 2 Some Rain Must Fall

Some Rain Must Fall

A depressed Chinese woman tired of her unaffectionate family and middle class life heads towards a breakdown in ‘Some Rain Must Fall,’ the first feature by Qiu Yang, whose minimalist storytelling is full of atmosphere and foreboding.

Read more
ARCHITECTON Architecton

Architecton

Another stunning documentary from Victor Kossakovsky full of gob-smacking immersive images of the natural world, pitched this time as a call for a harmonious alliance between nature and architecture.

Read more
marias silence Maria's Silence

Maria’s Silence

The true story of Latvian-born German silent film diva Maria Leiko and her fateful journey to Stalin’s USSR in 1937 is retold in Davis Simanis’s ‘Maria’s Silence’ with a tragic depth that is engrossing and emotional.

Read more
dying film2 Dying

Dying

German director Matthias Glasner’s autobiographical, darkly funny, emotionally raw ensemble drama ‘Dying’ plays like a three-hour family therapy session.

Read more
Still Berlin DAHOMEY 02 © LES FILMS DU BAL FANTA SY Dahomey

Dahomey

Mati Diop’s thought-provokingly cerebral-poetic documentary follows the return of 26 looted cultural artefacts and their welcome home to Benin, encompassing the celebrations as well as larger debates around colonialization and how to reintegrate such potently spiritual objects into a society 130 years after they were plundered.

Read more
from hilde From Hilde, With Love

From Hilde, With Love

German director Andreas Dresen’s biopic of anti-Nazi activist Hilde Coppi, ‘From Hilde, With Love’ is diligent and thoughtful but too tastefully restrained.

Read more
eternal mem The Eternal Memory

The Eternal Memory

The devastating impact of Alzheimer’s disease on a couple becomes an engaging, moving chronicle in the skillful hands of documentarian Maite Alberdi.

Read more
planet janet Janet Planet

Janet Planet

Celebrated stage dramatist Annie Baker paints childhood as a midsummer daydream full of tragicomic adult behaviour in her droll, charming film debut ‘Janet Planet’.

Read more
different man A Different Man

A Different Man

Aaron Schimberg’s darkly funny body-horror fairy tale ‘A Different Man’ takes a satirical scalpel to the beastliness of beauty.

Read more
20 days mariupol  20 Days in Mariupol

 20 Days in Mariupol

The start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is captured with total professionality by AP correspondent Mstyslav Chernov and his team in ’20 Days in Mariupol’, in iconic images that strike the heart forcefully in a classic, masterful documentary on war.

Read more
kiss wagon2 Kiss Wagon

Kiss Wagon

Indian director Midhun Murali’s prize-winning animated shadow-puppet epic ‘Kiss Wagon’ is loopy and confusing but still a dazzling, highly original visual feast.

Read more
iffr awards IFFR 2024: The Awards

IFFR 2024: The Awards

Three very different films from Japan, India and Australia won Rotterdam’s Tiger Awards, underlining the festival’s range of new talent.

Read more
steppenwolf Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf

Kazakh writer-director Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s stylish but brutal neo-western thriller ‘Steppenwolf’ takes place once upon a time in the Wild East.

Read more
flathead2 Flathead

Flathead

Australian director Jaydon Martin’s debut documentary ‘Flathead’ is a feast of gorgeous monochrome cinematography and a compassionate, humane, quietly spiritual work.

Read more
Under a Blue Sun Under a Blue Sun

Under a Blue Sun

Set in the Negev Desert where action blockbuster ‘Rambo III’ was shot, ‘Under a Blue Sun’ is an intricately layered doc scrutinising the intersection of war simulation, oppression and entertainment.

Read more
eternal2 Eternal

Eternal

Danish director Ulaa Salim’s romantic sci-fi weepie ‘Eternal’ is a glossy but underpowered inner-space odyssey that falls short of its Christopher Nolan-sized ambitions.

Read more
mariofilm2 Mário

Mário

Director Billy Woodberry’s documentary portrait of Angolan poet, revolutionary and Pan-African icon Mário Pinto de Andrade offers an austere but absorbing history lesson.

Read more
milkteeth3 Milk Teeth

Milk Teeth

A young woman challenges the superstitious fears of her cult-like patriarchal community in Swiss director Sophia Bösch’s ambitious but uneven dystopian fairy-tale debut ‘Milk Teeth’.

Read more
Actas de Marusia

Chile in our Heart and Eyes

Showing films by Chilean directors in exile, IFFR’s Focus on ‘Chile in the Heart’ helps us better understand the country and the 1973 coup d’état that changed it.

Read more
Head South Film Still 1 Head South Cohort Ltd. Photo Dougal Holmes Head South

Head South

An absurdist, Gothic twist takes Jonathan Ogilvie’s coming-of-age comedy and New Zealand post-punk subculture origin story into delightfully uncharted territory.

Read more
so unreal1 So Unreal

So Unreal

Amanda Kramer’s debut documentary ‘So Unreal’ revisits classic sci-fi movies and vintage cyberpunk thrillers looking for cautionary clues about our current age of digital dystopia.

Read more
Reinas dirigida por Klaudia Reynicke

CineVerdict: Reinas

Reinas, dirigida por Klaudia Reynecke es una buena película coming of age que confirma la presencia de una voz con sello propio en el cine latinoamericano

Read more
Reinas directed by Klaudia Reynicke

Reinas

Reinas, directed by Klaudia Reynicke, is a coming of age film that confirms her unique voice in the Latin American Cinema.

Read more
ETERNAL YOU 1 Eternal You

Eternal You

Facts come with chills in this cautionary doc overview of an ethically thorny new reality: the sale of immortality via AI simulations of the dead.

Read more
Intishal El Gouna: The Verdict

El Gouna: The Verdict

Taking place just two months after the onset of the horrendous war in Gaza, the El Gouna Film Festival’s ‘Special Edition’ was a sober but not gloomy affair that paid its respects to the Palestinian people and their cinema.

Read more
GOODBYE JULIA GFF El Gouna 2023: The Awards

El Gouna 2023: The Awards

The El Gouna Film Festival awards this year included ’Goodbye, Julia’, a Sudanese film by Mohamed Kordofani about two women divided by their cultures, which won the Cinema for Humanity Audience Award, while Egyptian director Ibrahim Nash’at’s ‘Hollywoodgate’ won as best documentary and Hong Sang-soo’s latest ‘In Our Day’ got the best narrative nod.

Read more
wall film1 The Wall

The Wall

Vicky Krieps gives a striking performance as a racist Arizona border patrol guard in Belgian director Phillippe Van Leeuw’s otherwise underwhelming contemporary frontier western ‘The Wall’.

Read more
teacher film1 The Teacher

The Teacher

Gaining extra urgency in the light of current events, British-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi’s debut feature ‘The Teacher’ is a well-intentioned but flawed drama set in the occupied West Bank

Read more
The Duke and The Poet The Duke and the Poet

The Duke and the Poet

Who wanted to assassinate Mihailo Obrenovic, the ruling Prince of Serbia, in 1868? As the true story plays out in The Duke and The Poet, director Milorad Milinkovic’s glossy tale of royal intrigue, almost everybody inside and outside the country had an ax to grind. While the Radovanovic brothers are marked in history as the...
Read more
1406017 thepeasants 104217 The Peasants

The Peasants

Luminous hand-painting animates a famed Polish tale of female defiance in a rural world of predatory opportunism and survival.

Read more
the last ashes horse The Last Ashes

The Last Ashes

A lone woman rides into famine-ridden 19th century Luxembourg hell-bent on revenge in Loïc Tanson’s enjoyably erudite first feature ‘The Last Ashes’, intriguingly poised between European fairy tale and the American Western.

Read more
Iran The Night Guardian Film Stills 4 The Night Guardian

The Night Guardian

 For the fourth time, award-winning director Reza Mirkarimi is repping Iran at the Oscars with ‘The Night Guardian’, handling a predictably downbeat social drama set amid Iran’s swelling underclass with a delicate, sensitive touch, illuminated by young actor Touraj Alvand.

Read more
greenaway1 Peter Greenaway at IDFA 2023

Peter Greenaway at IDFA 2023

A star guest at the Dutch documentary festival, 81-year-old art-house provocateur Peter Greenaway discusses his two new feature projects, his fears for the future of cinema, and his own feelings of mortality.

Read more
kyiv files1 The Kyiv Files

The Kyiv Files

Dutch director Walter Stokman digs into recently declassified KGB archives in ‘The Kyiv Files’, an uneven but timely documentary about Ukraine, Russia and Cold War paranoia.

Read more
Tide Comes In2 As the Tide Comes In

As the Tide Comes In

Directors Juan Palacios and Sofie Husum Johannesen find beauty and sadness in ‘As the Tide Comes In’, a visually exquisite documentary about a tiny Danish island community menaced by climate change.

Read more
tehachapi1 Tehachapi

Tehachapi

French visual artist and film-maker JR chronicles his grand-scale collaboration with the inmates of a maximum-security prison in his didactic but uplifting documentary ‘Tehachapi’.

Read more
alreadymade1 Alreadymade

Alreadymade

Director Barbara Visser explores the controversial links between pioneering Dadaist artists Marcel Duchamp and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven in her lively, adventurous, unconventional documentary ‘Alreadymade’.

Read more
blessed plot This Blessed Plot

This Blessed Plot

Director Marc Isaacs takes a bumpy but engaging journey into post-Brexit England in his eccentric docu-fiction pageant ‘This Blessed Plot’.

Read more
A still from The Night Rain South Township

The Night Rain South Township

Chinese filmmaker Li Binbin’s directorial debut, ‘The Night Rain South Township’, won a special mention at Pingyao with an enigmatic story of a young man’s rediscovery of his cultural roots in a foggy town in China’s southwest hinterlands.

Read more
A still from Dance Still.

Dance Still

Awarded by both the main and youth juries at Pingyao, ‘Dance Still’ is directing duo Qin Muqiu and Zhan Hanqi’s triumph of a slacker comedy, trading in jet-black absurdist humour aimed at China’s bewildered millennials.

Read more
A still from City of Wind

City of Wind

In ‘City of Wind’, Mongolia’s Academy Award hopeful which has already collected prizes at Venice and Pingyao, director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir offers a charmingly intimate look at a gifted young city-dwelling shaman.

Read more
play dead1 Play Dead!

Play Dead!

Documentary director Matthew Lancit addresses his existential health fears through horror movie tropes in ‘Play Dead!’. a compelling hybrid blend of non-fiction and playful fakery.

Read more
Film still from La Vourdlak

La Vourdalak

Adrien Beau’s ‘La Vourdalak’ is a lo-fi take on the 1839 Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy novella and a super-quirky, semi-scary, and supremely absurd film..

Read more
johnnyme Johnny & Me

Johnny & Me

Director Katrin Rothe’s animated bio-documentary hybrid ‘Johnny & Me’ brings to life the visually striking photomontage work of pioneering political artist John Heartfield.

Read more
Through The Night film still

Through The Night

Delphine Girard examines the possibly violent encounter between a man and a woman in her solidly unadorned debut feature, ‘Through the Night’, winner of the Audience Award at the Giornate degli Autori.

Read more
togoland4 Togoland Projections

Togoland Projections

German director Jürgen Ellinghaus retraces the West African travels of a silent-era film director in ‘Togoland Projections’, a dry but engaging documentary about European colonialism’s screen legacy.

Read more
standywandy 1 The Standstill

The Standstill

Austrian documentary maker Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s symphonic Covid chronicle ‘The Standstill’ plays like a slow-motion disaster movie with immersive widescreen visuals.

Read more
vika1 Vika!

Vika!

Polish director Agnieszka Zwiefka’s lively documentary ‘Vika!’ paints a celebratory but poignant portrait of Warsaw’s oldest club DJ.

Read more
My lost country ishtar yasin

My Lost Country

‘My Lost Country’ is a personal documentary in which the director Ishtar Yasin uses multiple tools in a moving portrait of her Iraqi father.

Read more
dance first2 Dance First

Dance First

Gabriel Byrne plays dual versions of Irish literary legend Samuel Beckett in Oscar-winning director James Marsh’s unrevealing but elegant and engagingly offbeat bio-drama ‘Dance First’.

Read more
gamma rays1 Gamma Rays

Gamma Rays

Canadian director Henry Bernadet paints a sunny patchwork portrait of multicultural Montreal in his collaborative teen-driven docu-drama ‘Gamma Rays’.

Read more
Ex-Husbands

Ex-Husbands

Griffin Dunne, James Norton and Miles Heizer co-star in Noah Pritzker’s underpowered but charming ensemble drama ‘Ex-Husbands’. which pays fond homage to a lost analogue era of bittersweet New York comedies.

Read more
royalhotel2 The Royal Hotel

The Royal Hotel

Australian writer-director Kitty Green takes a hellish holiday in the badlands of toxic masculinity with her punchy feminist Outback thriller ‘The Royal Hotel’.

Read more
Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans in Mother, couch!

Mother, Couch!

Ewan McGregor goes from IKEA to maternity in Swedish director Niclas Larsson’s muddled but ambitious debut ‘Mother, Couch!’, a surreal family farce set inside a giant furniture store.

Read more
kalak1 Kalak

Kalak

A deeply damaged Danish man relocates to Greenland in a bid to escape childhood sexual trauma in Swedish director Isabella Eklöf’s bleakly compelling drama ‘Kalak’, which is based on real events.

Read more
piano player3 They Shot the Piano Player

They Shot the Piano Player

Spanish directing duo Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal recreate a dark chapter in Brazilian musical history in their visually ravishing animated docu-fiction hybrid ‘Shoot the Piano Player’.

Read more
fingernails2 Fingernails

Fingernails

The road to love is paved with darkly surreal humour for Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed in Greek director Christos Nikou’s uneven but generally engaging low-fi sci-fi rom-com satire ‘Fingernails’.

Read more
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt Still 1 H 2022 All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

Achingly poetic and daringly original, Raven Jackson’s first feature ‘All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt’ chooses to tell the story of a Black girl growing up in Mississippi through atmosphere instead of conventional narration.

Read more
beaut friend Beautiful Friend

Beautiful Friend

A sociopathic amateur film-maker kidnaps the woman he wants to play his fantasy girlfriend role in Truman Kewley’s quietly chilling psycho-thriller debut ‘Beautiful Friend’.

Read more
belgian wave3 The Belgian Wave

The Belgian Wave

Cult director Jérôme Vandewattyne uses a spate of real UFO sightings as the launchpad for ‘The Belgian Wave’, an incoherent but highly entertaining acid-punk sci-fi road movie about close encounters of the surreal kind.

Read more
pik Venice 2023: The Verdict

Venice 2023: The Verdict

The best thing about the 80th Mostra del Cinema was a stand-out film that almost all the critics were able to get behind and support wholeheartedly – and it won the Golden Lion for Best Film.

Read more
Yorgos Lanthimos Golden Lion winner

Venice 2023: The Awards

The Awards: Yorgos Lanthimos took home the Golden Lion with his wildly inventive feminist portrait ‘Poor Things’, the most popular film in the festival.

Read more
Society of the Snow J.A. Bayona

Society of the Snow

‘Society of the Snow’, the edge-of-seat disaster movie that closes the 80th Venice Film Festival, directed by J.A. Bayona of ‘The Impossible’ fame, recreates the 1972 air crash of a Uruguayan flight in the Andes in great but respectful detail.

Read more
COUP 1 Coup!

Coup!

Writer-director duo Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman blend historical pandemic echoes with timeless political tensions in their old-fashioned but engaging class-war drama ‘Coup!’

Read more
79966 HORS SAISON OUT OF SEASON Credits Michael Crotto.2 1 Out of Season

Out of Season

An unexpected story of loneliness and yearning from Stéphane Brizé in which two former lovers come face-to-face with the disappointments of life, beautiful in its understatement and cinematic restraint yet still generating tremendous poignancy.

Read more
infested vermines

Vermines

VERDICT: Creepy but derivative killer spider thriller is angrier at the world than at arachnids.

Read more
Holly Director Fien Troch

Holly

A high school girl demonstrates a special gift for empathy and healing others in Belgian director Fien Troch’s mysterious, multi-layered parable about the price of doing good.

Read more
Jon Bernthal, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor

Origin

Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” is a highly ambitious attempt to fictionalize Isabel Wilkerson’s theory on the centrality of caste rather than race in determining discriminatory hierarchies, playing to the director’s strengths in terms of depicting personal relationships but also her weaknesses in several overly didactic sequences that treat characters and audiences like ignoramuses.

Read more
A still from Snow Leopard.

Snow Leopard

Rural herders, urbanite journalists and a young monk consider the fate of a captured, livestock-ravaging wild animal in “Snow Leopard”, an affective, nuanced and multilayered film bowing out of competition at Venice four months after the death of its Tibetan director Pema Tseden.

Read more
sky peals Sky Peals

Sky Peals

An alienated young man becomes fixated on his late father’s extra-terrestrial origins in debutant director Moin Hussein’s underpowered but appealingly strange inner-space odyssey ‘Sky Peals’.

Read more
coup de chance Coup de Chance

Coup de Chance

Infidelity is followed by murder in glamorous Paris in Woody Allen’s smooth-as-silk 50th film ‘Coup de Chance,’ shot entirely in French.

Read more
Evil Does Not Evil Does Not Exist

Evil Does Not Exist

Starkly opposing views of nature collide in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ which, despite its portentous title, is simplicity itself and in a minor key after ‘Drive My Car’.

Read more
The Palace Roman Polanski

The Palace

The Palace, Roman Polanski’s appallingly bland black comedy about the filthy rich, is set in a fancy Swiss hotel on New Year’s Eve 1999, and not the least bit funny.

Read more
hoard1 Hoard

Hoard

Director Luna Carmoon’s richly imaginative debut ‘Hoard’ finds filth and poetry in a young woman’s traumatic journey from childhood to womanhood.

Read more
In Besson Dogman, Caleb Landry Jones Dogman

Dogman

In a multi-faceted role, Caleb Landry Jones dazzles as the survivor of an inhuman childhood who believes only dogs can love him, in Luc Besson’s calculated, over-the-top yet poignant shaggy-dog story.

Read more
Comandante Pierfrancesco Favino

Comandante

The true story of an Italian submarine commander in World War II who sank enemy ships yet saved defenseless men is told with old-fashioned gusto and retro sentimentality in ‘Comandante’, with star Pierfrancesco Favino injecting life into the film.

Read more
Equalizar 3, Denzel Washington

Equalizer 3

The third film in Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua’s ultraviolent thriller series is the best one yet. (If only that meant more than it does.)

Read more
Jaime Vadell en El conde de Pablo Larraín Augusto Pinochet

CineVerdict: El conde

‘El conde’, la oscura sátira de horror cómico revela que convertir a un monstruo de la vida real en el protagonista de su propia película de monstruos es una efectiva manera de lidiar con la tragedia histórica.

Read more
Still from What's to Be Done (2023)

What’s to be Done?

Croatian documentary maker Goran Devic charts a decade-long battle for workers’ rights in ‘What’s to be Done?’, an engaging blend of reportage and artfully meta touches.

Read more
Still from Bottlemen (2023)

Bottlemen

Director Nemanja Vojinovic’s visually striking documentary ‘Bottlemen’ finds poetry and beauty among the workers scrabbling to make a living from a giant Serbian trash mountain.

Read more
Still from Valerija (2023), Sarajevo International Film Festival

Valerija

Sara Jurincic’s experimental documentary Valerija charts an act of communion with long-deceased relatives, probing playfully at perceptions of remembrance and lineage. It screens in Sarajevo International Film Festival

Read more
De facto, Sarajevo International Film Festival

De Facto

Selma Doborac’s formally audacious, challenging and chilling ‘De Facto’, a doc-fiction hybrid, decontextualises war crimes testimony to plumb the power of language. In Sarajevo International Film Festival

Read more
Lost Country Lost Country

Lost Country

A teen comes of age as a troubled Serbia reckons with its direction in ‘Lost Country’, Vladimir Perisic’s sombre yet astute, politically-charged drama.

Read more
kiss future1 Kiss The Future

Kiss The Future

Director Nenad Cicin-Sain’s engaging but slightly fawning documentary ‘Kiss The Future’ chronicles Irish rock supergroup U2’s love affair with war-torn Sarajevo during the Balkan wars.

Read more
szabo2 Kudos to István Szabó

Kudos to István Szabó

Feted Hungarian Oscar-winner István Szabó has spent his epic career probing Central Europe’s painful, morally complex history of post-imperial trauma and totalitarian tragedy.

Read more
Still from Dammi (2023) featuring Riz Ahmed and Yousfi Henine

Dammi

Riz Ahmed takes centre stage with Isabelle Adjani in ‘Dammi’, Yann Mounir Demange’s fragmentary, experimental and highly sensorial reckoning with his own bifurcated past.

Read more
Still from iNTELLIGENCE (2023)

iNTELLIGENCE

A man learns of his own imminent death in iNTELLIGENCE, a strikingly graphic meditation on a curtailed life and the allure of immortality.

Read more
Essential Truths of the Lake Essential Truths of the Lake

Essential Truths of the Lake

Lav Diaz returns to Locarno with A-list collaborators John Lloyd Cruz and Shaina Magdayao in ‘Essential Truths of the Lake’, a fiery noir-inflected takedown of the culture of criminal impunity shaping contemporary Philippine society.

Read more
The Beautiful Summer still

The Beautiful Summer

Laura Luchetti’s freely inspired adaptation of Cesare Pavese’s novel ‘The Beautiful Summer’ features an impeccable cast in a perennially relevant tale about the consequences of sexual awakening.

Read more
manga2 Manga D'Terra

Manga D’Terra

Set on the multicultural fringes of Lisbon, Swiss director Basil Da Cunha’s third feature ‘Manga D’Terra’ is a slender but big-hearted blend of social realist drama and Afro-diaspora musical.

Read more
Barbie Margot Robbie

Barbie

With ‘Barbie’, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach bring an overflowing toybox of ideas to a funny, provocative, meaningful movie that defies its product-placement roots.

Read more
crystal globe 2023 57th Karlovy Vary Awards

57th Karlovy Vary Awards

Juries at the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival showered awards on the caustic Bulgarian tragifarce ‘Blaga’s Lessons’ and Sweden’s off-beat relationship satire ‘The Hypnosis’.

Read more
facing darkness Facing Darkness

Facing Darkness

In his latest forensic documentary ‘Facing Darkness’, French director Jean-Gabriel Périot digs into the rich archive of amateur film footage shot in war-torn Sarajevo.

Read more
keeping mum Keeping Mum

Keeping Mum

Director Émilie Brisavoine goes from fear to maternity in ‘Keeping Mum’, an emotionally raw but generally engaging documentary about the mother who abandoned her in childhood.

Read more
imago Imago

Imago

Actor and screenwriter Lena Góra portrays her own bohemian rock singer mother in ‘Imago’, a baggy but compelling post-punk period piece from Polish director Olga Chajdas.

Read more
Citizen Saint1 Citizen Saint

Citizen Saint

A flesh-and-blood saint causes chaos for a superstitious mountain community in Georgian director Tinatin Kajrishvili’s darkly satirical, bleakly beautiful fable, ‘Citizen Saint’.

Read more
Still from Empty Nets (2023)

Empty Nets

Behrooz Karamizade’s handsomely mounted drama Empty Nets is a compelling allegorical tale about the tragic loss of innocence at the hands of the powerful.

Read more
mother of all lies The Mother of All Lies

The Mother of All Lies

Moroccan documentary maker Asmae El Moudir blends the personal with the political in her formally impressive, puppet-driven, prize-winning family memoir ‘The Mother of All Lies’.

Read more
Elemental

Elemental

Visual delights, a sweet love story, and that potent Pixar sentimentality carry this animated feature past a periodic table’s worth of script flaws.

Read more
Perfect Days Perfect Days

Perfect Days

In his minor-key but charming Cannes contender ‘Perfect Days’, German art-house veteran Wim Wenders delivers a poetic paean to Zen and the art of toilet maintenance.

Read more
Pot v small The Pot au Feu

The Pot au Feu

The pièce de résistance of unabashed culinary cinema, Tran Anh Hung’s ‘The Pot au Feu’ serves up a French country idyll in romantic 19th century sauce for audiences whose tastes run to the fine wines and 12-course meals.

Read more
levante Power Alley

Power Alley

Brazilian newcomer Lillah Halla makes a film full of zest and empathy about a talented volleyball player that resonates in today´s pro-choice panorama.

Read more
asteroid1 Asteroid City

Asteroid City

Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jason Schwartzmann and a cast of thousands reach for the stars in director Wes Anderson’s visually ravishing retro rom-com ‘Asteroid City’.

Read more
club zero3 Club Zero

Club Zero

Austrian director Jessica Hausner’s offbeat school thriller about a classroom cult of teenage diet extremists, ‘Club Zero’ is visually delicious but lacks dramatic bite.

Read more
Firebrand Firebrand

Firebrand

Alicia Vikander steps into the robes of Henry VIII’s last queen in a drama more concerned with turning Katherine Parr into feminist icon than is historically believable, yet bold visuals and a fine cast raise the appeal of Brazilian auteur Karim Aïnouz’s first time in Cannes competition.

Read more
may december 1 May December

May December

The combined talents of Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and veteran indie auteur Todd Haynes are largely wasted on humdrum Cannes competition contender ‘May December’.

Read more
zone1 1 The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest

‘Sexy Beast’ and ‘Under The Skin’ director Jonathan Glazer makes his Cannes debut with his coldly compelling, boldly experimental Holocaust drama ‘The Zone of Interest’.

Read more
BLACK FLIES photo Black Flies

Black Flies

A punishing, loud plunge into the brutality of EMT work in Brooklyn’s grittiest hoods that banks on Sean Penn’s stardom but is tone-deaf to its problematic treatment of immigrant communities and women.

Read more
A scene of The delinquents

The Delinquents

A delicious reverie on escaping capitalism’s numbing daily drudge and finding the true meaning of freedom, “The Delinquents” is a rare three-hour charmer sure to be scooped up in multiple territories.

Read more
Youth Youth (Spring)

Youth (Spring)

Wang Bing’s intimate portrait of the Chinese youth who sew the world’s clothing for a pittance, ‘Youth (Spring)’ speaks truth to the global economy.

Read more
TIGER STRIPES Tiger Stripes

Tiger Stripes

Malaysian writer-director Amanda Nell Eu’s groundbreaking Cannes premiere ‘Tiger Stripes’ is an offbeat body-horror monster movie with sharp feminist claws.

Read more
Love Again

Love Again

The lazy takedown on Love Again is that it’s like a Hallmark Channel movie, but that’s not a fair comparison; I’ve seen Hallmark movies where the romantic leads have better chemistry, where the screenwriters have crafted better banter (and more skillfully summoned the ghost of The Shop Around the Corner), and where the fake snow...
Read more
NIGHT FALLS Stills 09 Night Falls

Night Falls

Young miner-turned-filmmaker Jian Haodong delivers an authentic glimpse of life in China’s rural hinterlands in a semi-autobiographical road movie about a man’s lonely return to his village during the pandemic.

Read more
Kissing the Ground You Walked On still 7 Kissing the Ground You Walked On

Kissing the Ground You Walked On

Inspired by the sentiments of Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ and mirroring the aesthetics of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Drive My Car’, Macau filmmaker Hong Heng-fai’s first feature offers sensual and sultry drama about love, art and human existence.

Read more
end night Till the End of the Night

Till the End of the Night

Love is only slightly warmer than death in German director Christoph Hochhäusler’s genre-blending, gender-bending, hit-and-miss crime thriller ‘Till the End of the Night’.

Read more
Navalny2 1 Navalny

Navalny

Director Daniel Roher’s gripping documentary about the poison plot against Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny gains extra urgency in the light of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Read more
allquietonthewesternfront hero All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

Edward Berger’s deeply disturbing anti-war film is an unforgettable adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s literary classic, affording a visceral sense of life and death in the trenches of WWI. It won 4 Oscars, including Best International Feature.

Read more
pinocchio2 Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Mexican visionary Guillermo Del Toro’s first animated feature is a visually ravishing but dramatically wooden update of much-filmed Italian fairy tale ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’.

Read more
easternfront1 Eastern Front

Eastern Front

Mostly filmed in the Ukraine war zone by brave battlefield paramedics, ‘Eastern Front’ is a raw and immersive reportage documentary that feels like an urgent first draft of history.

Read more
c courtesy of the artist and neugerriemschneider Berlin ALLENSWORTH

ALLENSWORTH

James Benning’s latest, bowing in the Berlin Forum, offers a powerful comment on racial politics in the U.S. in a static-shot portrait of the first settlement to be founded and governed by African-Americans.

Read more
202308490 1 RWD 1380 Opponent

Opponent

Payman Maadi gives another outstanding performance in a deeply layered refugee drama that isn’t always the sum of its parts.

Read more
infinity2 Infinity Pool

Infinity Pool

Canadian writer-director Brandon Cronenberg’s darkly satirical sci-fi horror thriller about sun-seeking tourists on a clone-killing crime spree, ‘Infinity Pool’ is a deliriously debauched joyride into Hell.

Read more
Totem, Lila Aviles, sick father, children

Totem

In Totem Mexican director Lila Avilés shows sensibility and a strong hand. In Berlin Festival competition

Read more
discoboy1 Disco Boy

Disco Boy

Debutant director Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Berlin competition contender ‘Disco Boy’ is a stylish but silly yarn about disco-dancing soldiers and shamanic eco-warriors.

Read more
PAST LIVES photo copyright Jon Pack Past Lives

Past Lives

A remarkably delicate, moving romance destined to be a major indie hit, boasting superb dialogue, terrific performances and an insightful understanding of how the what-ifs of life so often dangle around the perimeters of our lives.

Read more
Matria 1 1 Matria

Matria

Álvaro Gago´s first feature Matria is the moving and humorous portrait of a hardworking  yet almost powerless woman,  in which the myth of matriarchy in Galicia is debunked.

Read more
manodrome1 Manodrome

Manodrome

Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody co-star in ‘Manodrome’, director Andrew Trengove’s timely thriller about toxic masculinity and incel culture.

Read more
ber super Superpower

Superpower

Actor and activist Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman codirect a diary-like travelogue through war-torn Ukraine, highlighted by three brief interviews with Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky.

Read more
The Echo, Tatiana Huezo, documentary, Mexican cinema

The Echo

Mexican-Salvadoran director Tatiana Huezo returns with The Echo to her first cinematographic love in this moving and beautifully photographed documentary about teenagers in a Puebla community.

Read more
white plastic3 White Plastic Sky

White Plastic Sky

Prize-winning Hungarian director duo Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó foresee a bleak future for humankind in their visually striking debut feature ‘White Plastic Sky’, an animated eco-disaster movie with a lyrical fairy-tale edge.

Read more
THE SURVIVAL OF KINDNESS photo The Survival of Kindness

The Survival of Kindness

Rolf de Heer’s stripped-down story of a black woman who escapes from a cage and walks through a landscape heavy with racism and pandemic fear aligns with much of his intensely humane films, yet it feels weighed down by the uncertainty of its ultimate message.

Read more
BER Iron Butterflies Iron Butterflies

Iron Butterflies

The downing of Malaysian Airlines’ passenger flight MH17 in 2014 over Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine becomes a prophetic and highly symbolic event portending the current war and its methods in Roman Liubyi’s doc, whose poetry can seem forced but is still capable of shocking.

Read more
Simone Baumann c Slawomir Grenda 2 Simone Baumann Reconfirmed as Managing Director of German Films

Simone Baumann Reconfirmed as Managing Director of German Films

The German Films supervisory board, chaired by Philipp Kreuzer announced that the contract of Managing Director Simone Baumann has been extended by another five years. "Simone Baumann has successfully managed the fortunes of German Films since 2019, including during the pandemic, with wisdom, foresight and great commitment. Under her leadership, the German Films team has...
Read more
before collapse2 Before the Collapse

Before the Collapse

Prize-winning French novelist Alice Zeniter makes a confident directing debut with ‘Before the Collapse’, a lively mystery drama about bed-hopping bohemians in emotional crisis.

Read more
hanging tree1 Under The Hanging Tree

Under The Hanging Tree

A murder investigation in Namibia is haunted by echoes of colonial genocide in Perivi John Katjavivi’s flawed but intriguing supernatural crime thriller ‘Under The Hanging Tree’

Read more
Gagaland Film Still 1 Gagaland

Gagaland

A street dance craze becomes a way of life for kids live-streaming from the social margins, in this psychedelic celebration of self-expression.

Read more
LUKA1 Luka

Luka

Director Jessica Woodworth’s monochrome anti-war drama ‘Luka’ is visually stunning but weighed down by its ponderous, pretentious tone.

Read more
new strains2 New Strains

New Strains

Actor-director duo Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan make inventive use of vintage lo-fi video technology for ‘New Strains’, a slight but hugely charming pandemic rom-com.

Read more
Drawing Lots Film Still 1 Drawing Lots

Drawing Lots

The black-humoured snapshot of a disorderly Georgian seaside community where love and crime bring scant reward.

Read more
superposition3 Superposition

Superposition

An isolated Danish family encounter spooky doubles of themselves in ‘Superposition’, a twist-heavy psycho-thriller from first-time feature director Karoline Lyngbye.

Read more
tigru1 Day of the Tiger

Day of the Tiger

A runaway tiger means extra trouble for a strife-torn married couple in Romanian director Andrei Tanase’s engaging but slight feline chase drama ‘Day of the Tiger’.

Read more
store1 1 The Store

The Store

Director Ami-Ro Sköld blends live action with stop-motion animation in ‘The Store’, an impressive social drama which takes place in a Swedish supermarket.

Read more
Munch Film Still 1 1 Munch

Munch

Unexpected formal flourishes can only spice up conventional ideas on tormented genius in this take on the life of Norway’s Expressionist painter Edvard Munch.

Read more
Still from Pianoforte

Pianoforte

Jakub Piatek’s classical music documentary covers the prestigious Chopin Competition, presenting a group of talented kids in a story that starts slow but becomes truly buoyant in its final third.

Read more
Twice Colonized c Anorak Film Twice Colonized

Twice Colonized

Danish documentary filmmaker Lin Alluna’s feature-length debut veers away from the political to reveal the internal conflicts tearing at the Greenland-born, Denmark-educated and Canada-based Inuit civil rights activist Aaju Peter.

Read more
stroll2 The Stroll

The Stroll

A timely and compassionate Sundance documentary premiere, ‘The Stroll’ puts a highly personal spin on New York City’s hidden history of black transgender sex workers

Read more
mamacruz2 Mamacruz

Mamacruz

Kiti Manver plays a religious grandmother who accidentally discovers online porn, igniting a comedy that empowers older women while poking fun at Spain’s dwindling Catholic faithful.

Read more
darkling 01 Darkling

Darkling

Dusan Milic’s psychological thriller-cum-horror set in post-war Kosovo excels in creating an unsettling atmosphere, but its conclusion doesn’t quite deliver on its promise.

Read more
MEDFEVER PHOTOGRAMME 00285193 Mediterranean Fever

Mediterranean Fever

Palestine’s Oscar submission is an uneven story of a depressed man hoping to get his neighbor to bump him off, told in a vaguely black comedy manner.

Read more
shot in arm2 Shot in the Arm

Shot in the Arm

Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s conventional but compelling documentary ‘Shot in the Arm’ examines the anti-vaccine movement before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Read more
babylon1 Babylon

Babylon

Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie lead a starry cast in ‘Babylon’, Damien Chazelle’s huge, ambitious but flawed love letter to Hollywood in the Roaring Twenties.

Read more
Contenders compilation The International Contenders: Our Verdict

The International Contenders: Our Verdict

As a quick perusal of The Film Verdict’s Oscar coverage shows, the Academy Awards are no longer an exclusively or even a mostly American thing. With our reviews, interviews and profiles, we have tried to capture the world-wide excitement of filmmakers and producers competing for Best International Feature Film, with entries coming from the 92...
Read more
eami flat CINE VERDICT: Eami

CINE VERDICT: Eami

La difícil situación de los indígenas ayoreo, la última tribu en evitar el contacto y reclamar sus territorios en la selva del Chaco paraguayo, se plasma de forma minuciosa y poética en este drama que se estrenó en Rotterdam y es candidata al Oscar Internacional 2023 por Paraguay.

Read more
el empleado y el patron los dos CINE VERDICT: El empleado y el patrón

CINE VERDICT: El empleado y el patrón

Un sutil estudio de personajes que explora con éxito el sentimiento de culpa, el deber filial, y las relaciones laborales entre un joven peón y su patrón, ambientado en las vastas plantaciones de soja a lo largo de la frontera entre Uruguay y Brasil.

Read more
The Last Film Show Last Film Show

Last Film Show

Oscars voters have always had a soft spot for movies about movies – and Last Film Show should very much fit their bill as they survey the candidates for the Best International Film Academy Award. India’s submission for the category is a lushly-lensed feature aimed squarely at showcasing the magical allure of film and the...
Read more
La caja, Lorenzo Vigas, violento robo, figura paterna, maquilas

CINE VERDICT: La caja

Lorenzo Vigas continúa con su visión crítica de las figuras paternas y las implicaciones más amplias de la ausencia paterna en esta sutil historia de madurez anclada en la excepcional presencia de su joven protagonista.

Read more
Blanquita 768x432 1 CINE VERDICT: Blanquita

CINE VERDICT: Blanquita

Un complejo thriller basado en un escándalo verdadero de abusos sexuales que involucra a políticos chilenos, sacerdotes, empresarios y niños desamparados, donde nadie es totalmente inocente o culpable.

Read more
UTAMA CINE VERDICT: Utama

CINE VERDICT: Utama

Sundance estrena un fascinante retrato de la vida en los Andes bolivianos, donde una sequía amenaza el sustento de una pareja de ancianos quechuas y su rebaño de llamas.

Read more
bastards Bastards

Bastards

A youthful gathering in a sunny Greek villa becomes an orgy of sex, drugs and violence in ‘Bastards’, a flawed but lively debut feature from director Nikos Pastras.

Read more
Behind the haystack

Behind The Haystacks

Writer-director Asimina Proedrou’s grimly compelling debut feature ‘Behind The Haystacks’ is a contemporary Greek tragedy about family conflicts and border tensions.

Read more
narcosis1 Narcosis

Narcosis

A grieving family struggle to move beyond tragedy in Martijn de Jong’s poetically filmed debut feature ‘ Narcosis’, the official Dutch submission to the Oscars.

Read more
Endangered Movie Journalist Tribeca Film Festival 1 CINE VERDICT: Endangered

CINE VERDICT: Endangered

En Endangered las documentalistas Heidi Ewing y Rachel Grady hablan con urgencia pero sin sensacionalismo al reportar los peligros que enfrenta la prensa en lugares sin conflicto armado declarado.

Read more
venus 2022 film ester CINE VERDICT: Venus

CINE VERDICT: Venus

La más reciente película del director catalán y especialista en horror Jaume Balagueró es una desordenada y casi incoherente historia de surgimiento diabólico.

Read more
Mi casa está en otra parte, indocumentados, documental, inmigración

CINE VERDICT: Mi casa está en otra parte

Mi casa está en otra parte es un documental bilingüe que utiliza las voces de los inmigrantes mexicanos, legales e indocumentados, para revelar sus miedos y sus sueños a través de imaginativos dibujos de animacion que permiten una mayor intimidad y comprensión.

Read more

The Film Verdict launches CINE VERDICT

The Film Verdict (TFV) is proud to announce the debut of CINE VERDICT, a section featuring Spanish language content written by Spanish language critics for the international marketplace. CINE VERDICT is conceived as a tool for Spanish language professionals who buy, sell, and make films; our intention is to bring awareness of these films to...
Read more
El visitante3 The Visitor

The Visitor

Martin Boulocq’s timely drama exposes a complex web of family, class, and economic codependency in modern Bolivia, where evangelical churches recruit and exploit indigenous communities.

Read more
pretty red dress1 Pretty Red Dress

Pretty Red Dress

In ‘Pretty Red Dress’, the vibrant debut feature from British writer-director Dionne Edwards, a troubled family of black Londoners learn to express their true selves with a little help from Tina Turner and a fabulous frock.

Read more
AynaAyna3 Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror

Three women struggle for independence in an increasingly conservative society in Belmin Söylemez’s award-winning drama set in an Istanbul acting workshop.

Read more
Origin LFF Out of Darkness

Out of Darkness

A nomadic tribe clashes with mysterious monsters in director Andrew Cumming’s gripping, stylistically bold Stone Age survivalist horror thriller ‘The Origin’.

Read more
Stonewalling Huangji RyujiOtsuka Film Stills 02 Stonewalling

Stonewalling

Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka’s latest is slow but thoughtful and strangely engaging on the subject of a young Chinese woman on the verge of making a potentially life-changing decision.

Read more
Pornomelancolia2 Pornomelancolía

Pornomelancolía

Director Manuel Abramovich’s controversial docu-fiction portrait of Mexican porn star Lalo Santos, ‘Pornomelancolía’ is empathetic and absorbing, despite being disowned by its leading man.

Read more
runner1 Runner

Runner

Writer-director Marian Mathias celebrates small acts of kindness and empathy in her opaque but haunting debut feature ‘Runner’.

Read more
thunder1 Thunder

Thunder

Carmen Jaquier’s powerful debut feature ‘Thunder’ chronicles a stormy collision between religious faith and sexual rapture in early 20th century Switzerland.

Read more
Black Guelph The Black Guelph

The Black Guelph

Actor turned director John Connors makes a powerful statement with his debut dramatic feature ‘The Black Guelph’, a gritty Irish crime thriller about secrets, lies and trauma passed down the generations.

Read more
Aberrance1 Aberrance

Aberrance

Director Baatar Batsukh raises the bar for Mongolian genre cinema with his twist-heavy, visually impressive psycho-horror debut ‘Aberrance’.

Read more
Blanquita KeyStill01 Blanquita

Blanquita

A complex thriller based on a true sexual abuse scandal involving Chilean politicians, priests, businessmen and homeless children, where nobody is wholly innocent or guilty.

Read more
A Man of Reason

A Man Of Reason

Jung Woo-sung’s accomplished directorial debut is a South Korean actioner brimming with inventive flash that marks him as a filmmaker to watch.

Read more
THE LISTENER1 The Listener

The Listener

Steve Buscemi makes a rare return to directing for ‘The Listener’, starring Tessa Thompson, a well-meaning but slender single-person drama about hurting and healing in a post-Covid world.

Read more
71289 BLONDE Actress Ana De Armas Credits Netflix Blonde

Blonde

Pre-release hype will be the biggest friend to this mess of a pseudo-biopic that reduces Marilyn Monroe to a disturbed child-woman with Daddy issues, never offering a glimpse of the screen magic notwithstanding Ana de Armas’ impressive recreation.

Read more
Beyond the Wall Beyond the Wall

Beyond the Wall

A shattering drama that courageously portrays Iran as a violent Big Brother police state, Vahid Jalilvand’s third film is a shrill, breath-taking mind-trip driven by between two exceptional actors, Navid Mohammadzadeh and Diana Habibi.

Read more
lord ants Lord of the Ants

Lord of the Ants

Director Gianni Amelio recreates a dismaying but true story from 1960’s Italy, when a brilliant writer who does little to hide his love for young men is persecuted and put on trial by a laughably outmoded justice system.

Read more
71317 THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER Actress Tilda Swinton The Eternal Daughter

The Eternal Daughter

Joanna Hogg’s latest exploration of mother-daughter relations sees Tilda Swinton playing both roles in an etiolated ghost story whose artificiality kills its characters despite Swinton’s admirable performances.

Read more
amanda Amanda

Amanda

Writer-director Carolina Cavalli paints a charming picture of a charmless heroine in her confidently quirky debut feature ‘Amanda’.

Read more
74092 L IMMENSITA IMMENSITY Actress Pene lope Cruz Credits Angelo Turetta 3 Immensity

Immensity

Penélope Cruz is a joy as a 1970s mother whose free spirit is frozen by her husband’s stereotyped insensitivity, yet other elements of Emanuele Crialese’s film, which is equally focused on the daughter’s certainty she was born the wrong gender, are less transcendent.

Read more
71319 ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED Nan Golding Credits Nan Goldin All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Artist Nan Goldin’s activism in holding the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis is seen as a natural extension of her rebellious, freely lived and proudly messy life in Laura Poitras’ well-structured, powerful documentary.

Read more
LA MARCIA SU ROMA photo The March on Rome

The March on Rome

Mark Cousins’ thought-provoking examination of the rise of Fascism through a detailed analysis of a 1922 propaganda film that signaled the start of a far-right ideology whose insidious roots continue to find fertile ground.

Read more
You Will Not Have My Hate You Will Not Have My Hate

You Will Not Have My Hate

Director Kilian Riedhof’s deluxe weepie ‘You Will Not Have My Hate’ is based on a best-selling memoir about a Parisian family dealing with the aftermath of terrorist violence.

Read more
eclipse The Eclipse

The Eclipse

The past is a foreign country full of shadowy horrors in ‘The Eclipse’, Serbian director Nataša Urban’s prize-winning documentary about unreliable memory and collective amnesia.

Read more
riders1 Riders

Riders

Two unlikely Balkan bikers and a Slavic Pixie Dream Girl share an eventful road trip in ‘Riders’, director Dominik Mencej’s slight but sweet semi-homage to ‘Easy Rider’.

Read more
another spring1 Another Spring

Another Spring

Serbian director Mladen Kovacevic finds echoes of the current Covid pandemic in Europe’s last smallpox outbreak in his artful, atmospheric found-footage documentary ‘Another Spring’.

Read more
highsmith Loving Highsmith

Loving Highsmith

Swiss director Eva Vitija gets up close and personal with much-filmed thriller author and queer icon Patricia Highsmith in her well-crafted documentary ‘Loving Highsmith’.

Read more
matadero1 Matadero

Matadero

Director Santiago Fillol revisits the brutal political climate of 1970s Argentina through the lens of cinema in his dry but elegant period thriller ‘Matadero’.

Read more
stella love Stella in Love

Stella in Love

A troubled teenage girl finds love and liberation in the nightclubs of 1980s Paris in director Sylvie Verheyde’s slight but charming autobiographical retro-drama ‘Stella in Love’.

Read more
Skazka Fairytale 2 Fairytale

Fairytale

Alexander Sokurov indulges his fascination with the corrosiveness of power in this mesmeric, bewildering and often tedious phantasmagoria combining deep fake technology with the graphic arts.

Read more
june1 June Zero

June Zero

Director Jake Paltrow’s multi-character drama about the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, ‘June Zero’ is a bold but muddled patchwork.

Read more
you have to come andseeit You Have to Come and See It

You Have to Come and See It

Spanish director Jonas Trueba reunites his favorite actors for a 64-minute chamber piece, in a relaxed, engaging, free-wheeling exchange of moods and ideas between two 30-something couples.

Read more
see you friday robinson2 See You Friday, Robinson

See You Friday, Robinson

Two cultural titans, Jean-Luc Godard and Ebrahim Golestan, exchange online messages in director Mitra Farahani’s scrappy but sporadically charming documentary ‘See You Friday, Robinson’.

Read more
brainwashed2 Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Director Nina Menkes attacks cinema’s long history of sexism, including some canonical male directors, in her timely and enjoyably polemical filmed lecture ‘Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power’.

Read more
rubikon Rubikon

Rubikon

Austrian director Magdalena Lauritsch’s sci-fi eco-disaster movie ‘Rubikon’ is an admirably ambitious but dramatically flawed debut.

Read more
banger1 Banger

Banger

Drugs, rap music and reckless hunger for fame prove to be a potent cocktail in Czech writer-director Adam Sedlák’s enjoyably cartoonish comedy thriller ‘Banger’.

Read more
silence1 Silence 6-9

Silence 6-9

Actor-director Christos Passalis draws on his Greek Weird Wave roots for ‘Silence 6-9’. a cryptic but mostly impressive debut feature.

Read more
America still America

America

Ofir Raul Graizer’s sophomore feature is a novelistic exploration of duty and companionship that is as vibrant and colourful as it is humane.

Read more
room of my own1 A Room of My Own

A Room of My Own

A young Georgian woman struggles to overcome stifling sexism and emotional trauma in director Ioseb “Soso” Bliadze’s worthy but muted chamber drama ‘A Room of My Own’.

Read more
you wont be alone You Won't Be Alone

You Won’t Be Alone

 Noomi Rapace is among the moving female cast of Goran Stolevski’s Macedonian folk tale about blood-sucking, shape-shifting witches who offer body horror at its scariest, yet it’s also full of poetry, with a lot to say about women and life on Earth.

Read more
Mutter1 Mother

Mother

German writer-director Carolin Schmitz takes a journey from here to maternity in her fresh but slight docu-drama hybrid ‘Mother’.

Read more
cosmo2 It's In Us All

It’s In Us All

A random tragedy exposes the dark heart of a rural Irish community in ‘It’s In Us All’, the absorbing debut feature from actor-director Antonia Campbell-Hughes.

Read more
Servus Papa2 So Long Daddy, See You In Hell

So Long Daddy, See You In Hell

Teenage rebels confront the sexually abusive leader of a cult-like commune in German director Christopher Roth’s timely, engrossing, based-on-reality drama ‘So Long Daddy, See You in Hell’.

Read more
One Day in Ukraine One Day in Ukraine

One Day in Ukraine

Ordinary Ukrainians — soldiers, civilians and volunteers — make gripping subjects in Volodymyr Tykhyy’s utterly realistic doc, depicting life in post-apocalyptic Kyiv as the populace braces for a very long war.

Read more
Son of Man Son of Man

Son of Man

A transgender man whose teenage daughter is about to learn his well-kept secret is at the heart of a serviceably shot but deeply felt Iranian drama directed by Sepideh Mir Hosseini.

Read more
CLOSE. Credit Kris Dewitte Menuet Close

Close

CANNES GRAND PRIX, JOINTLY AWARDED – REVIEWED MAY 27 Lukas Dhont’s gut-wrenching second feature is a stunning ode to adolescent same-sex friendship and a powerful critique of the ways society normalizes aggression while demonizing physical tenderness.

Read more
Joyland Joyland

Joyland

Winner of the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard, Sadiq’s delicate first feature explores the destructive force of patriarchy in a Pakistani family and the fallout from a long-unemployed man’s work at an erotic dance theatre.

Read more
Blue Caftan The Blue Caftan

The Blue Caftan

After her award-winning ‘Adam’, writer-director Maryam Touzani affirms her strong storytelling skills in a hugely touching love story set in an old Moroccan medina, where Lubna Azabal battles illness to be with her homosexual husband Saleh Bakri.

Read more
silent twins The Silent Twins

The Silent Twins

Laetitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence play twisted sisters in director Agnieszka Smoczy?ska’s uneven but beguiling true story ‘The Silent Twins’.

Read more
elvis3 Elvis

Elvis

Baz Luhrmann restores The King to his throne in his subjective but generous, imaginative and visually opulent rock’n’roll biopic ‘Elvis’.

Read more
BURNING DAYS photo Burning Days

Burning Days

Emin Alper’s best film to date is a searing drama of corruption in a small Turkish town that deftly tackles populism, environmental destruction and, surprisingly, homophobia.

Read more
Decision to Leave Still 3 Decision to Leave

Decision to Leave

Korean cult director Park Chan-wook takes us on the rollicking ride of a deconstructed murder investigation, complicated by obsessive love and betrayal.

Read more
RMN still1 R.M.N.

R.M.N.

Cristian Mungiu’s excoriation of xenophobia in multiethnic Transylvania is a classic example of the director’s dedication to naturalism and boasts several superb sequences, but it tries a bit too hard to encompass more topics than it can comfortably handle.

Read more
gods creatures God's Creatures

God’s Creatures

Emily Watson plays a troubled Irish matriarch in ‘God’s Children’ a handsome but heavy-handed family psychodrama from directing duo Seala Davis and Anna Rose Holmer.

Read more
LENVOL. Credit CG Cinema Scarlet

Scarlet

Pietro Marcello’s disappointing follow-up to “Martin Eden” combines uncharacteristically saccharine visuals with a weak narrative and treacly score.

Read more
Still Working1 Still Working 9 to 5

Still Working 9 to 5

Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton look back on their ground-breaking feminist comedy hit ‘9 to 5’ in this timely documentary from directors Camille Hardman and Gary Lane.

Read more
Zero Position 1 Zero Position

Zero Position

Toronto photographer Louie Palu’s unstructured yet immersive trip into the Donbas war zones in 2016 makes a skin-crawling intro to the current invasion of Ukraine.

Read more
A Taste of Whale A Taste of Whale

A Taste of Whale

The age-old Faroe Islands tradition of slaughtering pilot whales for their tasty meat gets pushback from animal rights activists in a documentary that raises more complex questions.

Read more
fire or love still Fire of Love

Fire of Love

A phenomenal archive of cataclysmic imagery is the main attraction in Sara Dosa’s doc about star-crossed volcanologists, but it’s also imbued with their zeal.

Read more
Belfast2 Belfast

Belfast

ORIGINALLY REVIEWED OCT. 13, 2021 Kenneth Branagh won the Academy Award for best original screenplay for this warm, funny, visually sumptuous autobiographical drama.

Read more
LOCUS 2 colorful The Locust

The Locust

Iranian filmmaker Faeze Azizkhani portrays the hazards of making a movie about yourself in a self-referential drama packed with anxiety and irony.

Read more
Still from Sonita Gale's documentary Hostile

Hostile

Sonita Gale’s documentary is an important examination of Britain’s devastating immigration practices over several decades.

Read more
not my mother2 You Are Not My Mother

You Are Not My Mother

Irish writer-director Kate Dolan’s prize-winning debut feature ‘You Are Not My Mother’ is a rich witches’ brew of psychological horror, social realism and creepy Celtic folklore.

Read more
AHA movie A-ha: The Movie

A-ha: The Movie

A career-spanning documentary on Norway’s most successful pop band, ‘A-ha: The Movie’ is an earnest but mostly absorbing study of fame, friendship and midlife angst.

Read more
quiet girl The Quiet Girl

The Quiet Girl

A emotionally fragile schoolgirl spends a revelatory summer with foster parents in director Colm Bairéad’s haunting, prize-winning, Irish-language debut feature.

Read more
FOGAREUFilmes Fogaréu

Fogaréu

Debuting director Flávia Neves throws far too many elements into her overstuffed Gothic-tinged plot, intriguing enough to hold attention but too convoluted to withstand criticism.

Read more
unrest1 Unrest

Unrest

Cyril Schäublin’s Berlin prize-winner ‘Unrest’ is a playful, gently subversive, precision-tooled drama about anarchist watch-makers in 19th century Switzerland.

Read more
Screen Shot 2022 02 18 at 19.16.09 Working Class Heroes

Working Class Heroes

The band of rowdy construction workers at the heart of Serbian director Milos Pusic’s dark new dramedy are not your typical Working Class Heroes, and the film’s title is meant to be taken somewhat ironically, or at least with a sizeable grain of salt. They are, however, the victims of a corrupt system that starts...
Read more
BER Ta farda Until Tomorrow

Until Tomorrow

The rapidly changing social mores in Iran are highlighted in the dilemma of a single mother and her baby, directed by Ali Asgari with thriller-like tension.

Read more
Still from No U-Turn

No U-Turn

Another documentary subtly but clearly discouraging African migration, with the good sense to find camera-friendly subjects who imbue the film’s trite theme with humour and energy.

Read more
DerPassfalscher Stills DREIFILM 220112 5 The Forger

The Forger

Maggie Peren’s evocation of young, reckless Jewish forger Cioma Schönhaus during the dark days of Hitler’s Berlin is strong on physical atmosphere but can’t balance his devil-may-care spunk with a sense of what awaits should he be caught

Read more
Screen Shot 2022 02 13 at 9.53.44 A E I O U -- A Quick Alphabet of Love

A E I O U — A Quick Alphabet of Love

A joyful, transgressively liberating ode to cinema and the way an unexpected passion can make societal barriers disappear, Nicolette Krebitz’s intelligently written and expertly crafted love story about an older woman and a much younger man is a delight.

Read more
flux gourmet2 Flux Gourmet

Flux Gourmet

Cult director Peter Strickland’s culinary art-world satire ‘Flux Gourmet’ is enjoyably weird but ultimately undercooked.

Read more
A still from The Dream and the Radio.

The Dream and the Radio

Canadian filmmakers Renaud Després-Larose and Ana Tapia Rousiouk pay tribute to Stan Brakhage, Guy Debord, Jean-Luc Godard and Pedro Costa in an intriguing experimental exercise looking at the history of cinema and old-school political activism.

Read more
CE2 Third Grade

Third Grade

French auteur Jacques Doillon returns to form in this endearing, small-scale chronicle of abuse and friendship between two kids from different social classes.

Read more
Knocked Down I Get Knocked Down

I Get Knocked Down

Retired pop star and former anarchist Dunstan Bruce tries to rekindle his youthful punk rage in the charmingly offbeat music documentary I Get Knocked Down.

Read more
Midwives Still 2 Midwives

Midwives

Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing’s first feature-length documentary offers a mellow and intimate portrait of two midwives – one a Buddhist, the other Muslim – who defy the deadly inter-communal conflict around them to become friends and health care providers for their poverty-stricken communities.

Read more
THE MISSION 1 The Mission

The Mission

Young American missionaries from the Church of the Latter-Day Saints set off to convert the dubious inhabitants of Finland in Tania Anderson’s paradoxical but respectful documentary.

Read more
LIVING1 Living

Living

A masterful Bill Nighy, director Oliver Hermanus and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro relocate Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru to post-war London in the quietly powerful remake Living.

Read more
LEONOR WILL NEVER DIE Sheila Francisco Leonor Credit Carlos Mauricio Leonor Will Never Die

Leonor Will Never Die

Martika Ramirez Escobar’s audacious first feature is a maniacally meta love letter to Philippine cinema, but its films-within-a-film structure and nods to wildly different genres suffer from the lack of a substantial story.

Read more
LOST FLOWERS still Lost Flowers

Lost Flowers

In his diaristic portrait of grief during the isolation of lockdown, Fabrizio Maltese has crafted a personal documentary full of universal poignancy.

Read more
Still from Playground

Playground

Belgium’s shortlisted entry for the 2022 Oscars is a remarkable examination of childhood, social belonging, and family ties—with implications outside of the school playground.

Read more
ASCENSION1 Ascension

Ascension

Jessica Kingdon’s prize-winning, Oscar-shortlisted documentary Ascension is a disjointed but fascinating portrait of contemporary China as consumer capitalist superpower.

Read more
nejib belkadhi communion 1 2000px Communion

Communion

In his exploration of a man’s descent into madness during the present pandemic, director-actor Nejib Belkadhi makes a rare of-the-moment drama, inflected with humor and surrealism, that captures our unease in ways likely to outlast COVID’s grip on our psyches.

Read more
the exam The Exam

The Exam

Cheating on a high school exam for a good cause gives top Iraqi Kurdish writer and director Shawkat Amin Korki (‘Memories on Stone’) a fertile moral field to examine the traps surrounding female empowerment.

Read more
lamb1 Lamb

Lamb

Noomi Rapace stars in Iceland’s boldly original Oscar submission Lamb, a twisted folk-horror thriller about fantastic beasts and family trauma.

Read more
ROUTE 10 2 Route Ten

Route Ten

What on the surface appears to be a formulaic road movie thriller about a couple of siblings tormented by a white Jeep on a desert road turns into a surprising critique of the Saudi old guard in which the younger generation declares its liberation from toxic patriarchy.

Read more
1783746.jpg r 1920 1080 f jpg q x xxyxx Where Is Anne Frank

Where Is Anne Frank

‘Waltz with Bashir’ director Ari Folman’s animated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary makes some valid points but takes a few too many creative liberties.

Read more
THE STRANGER photo The Stranger

The Stranger

Palestine’s 2022 Oscar submission is a brooding story of lives in limbo in the Golan Heights, stunningly shot and wrenching in its moving evocation of a man mired in self-loathing and paralyzed by the physical and existential no-man’s land resulting in the Israeli occupation and the disaster in Syria.

Read more
A SECOND LIFE photo 3 A Second Life

A Second Life

A well-calibrated debut with a fine central performance, weaving together notions of class and familial betrayal when an impoverished mother sells her son’s kidney to a well-off family in exchange for a better life.

Read more
lKQYhLfQ 660x330 1 Isaac

Isaac

In his skillfully helmed first feature, Isaac (Izaokas), Lithuanian writer-director Jurgis Matulevicius delves into his country’s turbulent past under both Communism and Nazism, following a trio of friends in the 1960s whose lives are overshadowed by a massacre that took place during WWII. Mixing historical fact with an existential crime story, the film is bathed...
Read more
iostobene Io sto bene

Io sto bene

In Io sto bene, Luxembourg’s submission to the Oscars, Donato Rotunno movingly chronicles how present-day Europe has become more diverse and tolerant, but still presents obstacles for new arrivals and leaves the elderly isolated and lonely. In one eloquent scene, an aging Italian immigrant visits his wife’s grave while a more recent arrival from Africa...
Read more
AS IN HEAVE SiiiTILL As in Heaven

As in Heaven

In the 19th century, a 14-year-old Danish girl struggles between her will and God’s in Tea Lindeburg’s impressionistic period drama, winner of the best director nod in San Sebastian.

Read more
Swallow Ijeoma Grace Agu as Rose still Swallow

Swallow

Nollywood’s most famous director has made a period piece for Netflix that, while good to look and with all the right politics for today, doesn’t quite come alive and yet stays on too long.

Read more
Juju Stories still Juju Stories

Juju Stories

While still clearly finding their voice, three young Nigerian directors serve up entertaining vignettes of African life derived from popular made-in-Africa superstitions.

Read more

Anatolian Leopard

The conservative new social order sidelines an old-school zookeeper in Emre Kayis’s closely observed, metaphoric first feature about Turkish society, winner of the Fipresci award in Toronto.

Read more
MIguel Coyula caso1 Copy Blue Heart

Blue Heart

A complex, cryptic, compelling film in which Miguel Coyula’s surreal images portray a sci fi Cuba that attempts to mold young minds through genetic engineering.

Read more
Auschwitz Report2 The Auschwitz Report

The Auschwitz Report

Slovakia’s former Oscars submission recreates the courageous real-life exploits of two Jewish prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz and alerted the world to the horrors of the Holocaust.

Read more
5974043.jpg r 1920 1080 f jpg q x xxyxx Black Box

Black Box

A good pitch, such as the one behind the French aviation thriller Black Box (Boîte noire), can only travel so far when the characters provide little fuel for the story. At some point, usually toward the middle of the second act, the movie stutters, stalls and then takes a nosedive, crashing well before the closing...
Read more

Otar’s Death

Partly inspired by real events, Otar’s Death is a fractious Georgian family drama with breathless thriller elements and a deep streak of black comedy.

Read more

Captain Volkonogov Escaped

In a vividly dystopic 1938 Leningrad under Stalin’s Great Purge, a young NKVD torturer tries to save his soul, in co-directors Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov’s high-energy parable ‘Captain Volkonogov Escaped’.

Read more

Sundown

The controversy stirred up by Michel Franco’s previous film ‘New Order’ will be partly placated and partly reignited in ‘Sundown’, the story of English tourists (Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg) in Mexico.

Read more

Last Night in Soho

A girl’s exhilarating mind-trip through swinging London of the Sixties turns wild and woolly and full of zombies in ‘Last Night in Soho’, Edgar Wright’s multi-genre treat, co-starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie.

Read more
runner 1 Runner

Runner

This cat-and-mouse chase thriller offers an opaque commentary on love as a form of psychosis and the paranoid political mood in post-Soviet Lithuania,

Read more

Feathers

The distinctive vision that Omar El Zohairy brought to his two prize-wining shorts is much in evidence in his meticulously crafted absurdist feature debut Feathers. It’s amusing to imagine how he pitched the project at the start, given the narrative’s unlikely elements: a working-class man is turned into a chicken during a private magic show...
Read more