The autumn setting fits it perfectly, because although this is the change of the year as things die back for winter, it is also blazing with colour and hopefulness.
Something magical happens to a young girl after the death of her grandma.
It’s small, sweet and not exactly filling, but it will definitely leave you with a craving for more.
Steve Glew spent the 1990s smuggling rare pez dispensers into the USA from Eastern Europe, making millions of dollars. It was all magical until his arch-nemesis, The Pezident decided to destroy him.
Though not particularly original or inspired, this is a serviceable thriller. It’s unfortunate that it has come out at a time when its central tenets are difficult to take seriously.
A politician faces blackmail on the verge of an important vote.
Again and again there are elements that will be echoed in later works, mirrors and masks and little friends, split screens and thrills and untimely ends.
A disfigured composer sells his soul for the woman he loves so that she will perform his music - but an evil record tycoon betrays him and steals his music to open his rock palace, The Paradise.
A film which keeps upping the ante as the story progresses, never letting its obvious budgetary limitations get in the way.
Somewhere on the Brazilian coast, teenagers Lucas and Martin fall in love while investigating the disappearance of a local kid, but their blossoming romance is threatened by sinister forces lurking beneath that idyllic summery landscape.
Firstly, it documents neglected aspects of the Shkreli story for the record. Secondly, it explores something of the psychology of his remaining adherents.
This is a hospital seen from an insider’s perspective, the focus on back corridors and break rooms where staff members cluster round small tables, smoking heavily.
Phases of Matter follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.
Although the directors are obviously rooting for Krasner to succeed, they try to present the situation 'in the round', giving plenty of room for those who worked under the previous administration to air their views as well.
A groundbreaking inside look at the long shot election and tumultuous first term of Larry Krasner, Philadelphia's unapologetic District Attorney, and his experiment to upend the criminal justice system from the inside out.
This will have even the bitterest viewer sobbing into their popcorn.
The true story of an Irish Catholic woman who decides to find her son more than 50 years after she was forced, as an unmarried mother, to give him up for adoption.
Thedin is excellent in the central role, perfectly balancing Jill's wisdom and insight with her vulnerability and sometime naivety.
From a young age, Jill has acted as the responsible adult in her small family. She cares for her loving but mentally unstable mother and her younger brother. The news that their estranged father will be visiting on Jill's birthday gives the children much needed hope.
Everything about Batra's film is constructed around longing.
Two lives intersect in Mumbai and go along together. A struggling street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother, convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. The pair develops a connection that transforms them in ways that they could not expect.
Full of beautifully observed details, it’s as sensual as it is provocative, and makes room for its characters to unfurl naturally.
An introverted foley artist, Eva struggles to create sounds for a commercial featuring a horse. Empowered by a horsetail growing out of her body, she lures a botanist into an affair, through a game of submission.
Haneke documents the humiliation and the desire, as a newsman might report a suicide. He is careful not to intrude and yet insistent on seeing everything.
A beautifully composed documentary full of information and insight.
Pick of the Litter follows a litter of puppies from the moment they're born and begin their quest to become Guide Dogs for the Blind, the ultimate canine career.
These are the nooks and crannies where the ghosts still hang out, whistling in the dark, eager to haunt anew a crowd.
A portrait of the city of Recife, re-envisioned in its 20th Century glory through the remains of the cinema palaces which were central to its busy social milieu.
As a heartfelt tribute to his mother, writer/director Peter Hedges's film is one of those well-intentioned pieces you feel awkward about criticising. But, like a sign that pleads 'please don't kick me', the temptation proves impossible to resist.
Black sheep of the litter has a not so happy thanksgiving after organising a family get together.
Part of the problem is that the characters are either opaque or unpleasant – and all lack rounded definition.
Martha and Sean Carson are a Boston couple on the verge of parenthood whose lives change irrevocably during a home birth at the hands of a flustered midwife.
Without a doubt, Pesce is one of the most exciting young directors to emerge in recent years.
A man seeks out an unsuspecting stranger to help him purge the dark torments of his past. His plan goes awry when he encounters a woman with plans of her own. A playful psycho-thriller game of cat-and-mouse.
A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness is forced to return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped
Galán is extraordinary as the traumatised girl in a performance which requires a considerable amount of courage.
Sara deals with constant teasing from girls in her small town. But it comes to an end when a stranger kidnaps her tormentors. Sara knows more than she's saying and must decide between speaking up and saving the girls or saying nothing to protect the strange man who spared her.
It was the last of Pasolini’s movies to be released in the USA, is certainly his worst film and it is probably one of his most disgusting.
The story of a cannibal juxtaposed with the tale of two former Nazis turned businessmen. Out to own as part of the Pier Paolo Pasolini Volume 2 box set.
If you’re in it for the gore and grotesquerie...you’ll find a good deal to satisfy you, but it does give the impression of wanting to deliver in more sophisticated ways as well.
A writer is fascinated by the local legend of the pig people of Pig Hill, revolting creatures who breed and cause havoc in the area of Radio Tower Hill, where women keep going missing.
Bareisa successfully contrasts the slow long takes and great blocking, making it a well-balanced watch that will engage you on multiple fronts despite its withholding of many common cinematic devices to facilitates its ambivalence.
A pair of old friends revisit the scene of a crime with unexpected consequences.
All art is, by it's very nature, indulgent but this 70-minute suffocatingly dull tone poem is SO indulgent it's akin to masturbating furiously in public.
Story of a reclusive woman who, on rare trips outside her home, searches for her twin sister.
Filmmaker John McCrite does a good job of pulling the different strands of the film together and giving it a sense of momentum. The women themselves always come across as shaping the narrative.
Aparna Rajawat, India's 16-time women's national champion in martial arts, attempts to break the Guinness World Record for most women trained in a self-defence lesson, drawing attention to violence against women in India.
One aspect that really lands as a parallel with the current pandemic is the uncertainty of it all.
A mysterious and deadly pink cloud appears across the globe, forcing everyone to stay home. Strangers at the outset, Giovana and Yago try to invent themselves as a couple as years of shared lockdown pass. While Yago is living in his own utopia, Giovana feels trapped deep inside.
Garrone establishes very early on that Pinocchio's woodness means he doesn't feel pain - during an unfortunate fire incident - so even when our hero is in deep trouble, there's always the sense he is protected.
A faithful adaptation of the well-known story of Pinocchio, about a wooden boy who longs to be real.
Jenkins is good, doing a lot with what she’s given. The weak link in the film is Hurley.
After her mother takes up the position of history teacher at the Hamelin International School in Germany, a teenager finds herself haunted by increasingly disturbing visions of the legendary piper, and a dark secret is revealed.
News and features
News & Features
Going ape
Antonin Niclass on character creation, empathy and animated short Into The Forest
Freeform
Will Niava on grief, new immigrant experiences and Jazz Infernal
In silence
Emir Kumova on child marriage in Türkiye, moral challenges and making The Witness
