It’s only Hoffman who is really able to interject some energy into proceedings – ironic given that he spends a lot of his scenes in a haze of cannabis smoke.
A novelist struggling for inspiration tries to weave real people into her narrative, but the complications of reality threaten to overwhelm her.
Probably Ritchie's boldest and most interesting film to date, even if it is also pretentious enough to give his detractors yet another rope to hang him by.
An ex-con is out for vegeance on the man he believes caused his downfall.
What Sentsov does really well here is to show us the humanity which lies within even the most monstrous of these men.
Starting out as a petty thief, a young man nicknamed “Rhino” quickly works his way up the criminal hierarchy in 1990s Ukraine. Rhino has only known power and cruelty, but with nothing left to lose, could he finally find a chance at redemption?
The film plays out like a thriller, albeit one which is slow to build.
Rangers must relocate 21 black rhinos to a new sanctuary after their successful protection efforts led to overcrowding in their current space, which is surrounded by poachers.
That list of clichés includes not just crosses and double crosses, tradecraft and techniques, the whole business of business becoming personal. Among them though, some moments of invention.
A woman seeks revenge against those who orchestrated a plane crash which killed her family.
A Korean single mother raises her young son in the suburbs of Nineties Canada, determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind.
There’s lot of music along the way, thrown in to the mix in a none too subtle manner, although Streep manages to carry off most of it with verve and true grit.
A rock star tries to make things right with the family she sacrificed for the sake of her career.
Told from a child’s point of view, immediate and haphazard, magical and unlikely.
Three mischievous children on dirt bikes, armed with paint guns and cocky attitudes, launch an attack at a local warehouse, outwitting a security guard and 'liberating' the very latest video game console for themselves - but to make use of it, they need to figure out the password with which their mother has locked the TV.
Mikkelsen anchors this movie with a performance that allows emotional turmoil to glint through Markus' regimented facade, playing off the impressive combination of anger and grief that Gaderberg brings to Mathilde.
Markus has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident - or so it seems until a mathematics geek, who was also a fellow passenger on the train, and his two colleagues show up.
Leif is left with a conditional inheritance when his estranged mother dies. Before he can move into her picturesque Yosemite cabin, he has to complete her elaborate, and sometimes dubious, to-do list.
Selective memory was something Riefenstahl excelled at and, as a director, she was also adept at staying on message in the face of counter evidence, something which Veiel scrutinises throughout.
An exploration of Leni Riefenstahl’s life and her attempts to rehabilitate her image.
Scott McClellan’s gorgeous black and white photography picks out every detail of the actors’ faces yet masks them in shadow at crucial moments, allowing truths to emerge only slowly.
A burdened man feels the wrath of a vengeful God after he and his wife are visited by a mysterious stranger.
The director offers perhaps the best visual representation of the word ‘kitsch’ cinema has recently seen
Rimini in winter. A group of older hotel guests is blissfully enjoying Richie Bravo singing about tears that hurt. But when his daughter holds up a mirror to his pathos, the past catches up with this star of schmaltz.
Of the two halves, the first is by far the most successful.
Denmark has reached the finals of the European Championships and everyone is glued to their TVs. Petrol station employees Agnes and Belinda were hoping for a quiet night but they have been chosen as players in a gruesome game and no customers means no witnesses.
While Pettengill is fascinated by the archival content, she’s also not afraid to experiment with form, including digital distortions that identify the movie as a product of the present.
Welcome to Riotsville, a fictional town built by the US military. Using footage shot by the media and government, the film explores the militarisation of the police and the reaction of a nation to the uprisings of the late Sixties, creating a counter-narrative to a critical moment in American history.
Despite a noteworthy effort from Lauren Sweetser as the daughter, it simply lacks passion.
This period film from Director Devon Parks weaves an intersecting web of characters, all having witnessed a murder from three different vantage points. An elaborate plot for revenge is constructed around the origins of a real life ghost story.
Schwarz...plays fast and loose with the facts, except where it comes to the combat scenes, which are brilliantly staged and also attentive to detail.
As the Mongol Empire crumbles, a battle-scarred Timur Barlas must confront a haunting destiny, and renounce his loyalties, to protect the fate of the Silk Road.
When the happiness of children is under threat, an unlikely new hero emerges to help Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy save the day.
The Mongol Empire has grown to the largest the world had ever known. Its armies now lay siege to much of Eastern Europe. A small village fights for freedom in the frontier landscape of the Carpathian Mountains.
Whilst there is some important work here and its reflections on the past are often interesting, its treatment of disabled people in the present day is naïve, patronising and resoundingly twee.
A documentary about the history and current standing of the Paralympic Games, which has grown to become the world's third largest sporting event.
There is blistering anger in its melange of baubles and feathers and tulle.
Rita, a 13 year old girl, runs away from her abusive father to the big city. She finds solace until she's placed in a safe house run by the State. Rita and her cellmates plots an escape that ends in a shocking act of violence.
It drags and is held together only by the fact that there is a super-irritating electronic score playing incessantly in the background.
Following her mother’s death, River Allen finds herself spiralling out of control, when her friend steps in to help, River discovers she has secrets of her own.
Yamaguchi and his regular writer, Makoto Ueda, have such a deep understanding of their characters that it’s the emotional timeline, rather than the physical one, that becomes the subject of real concern.
One winter in Kibune, Kyoto, people find themselves stuck in a two minute time loop. As others try to work together to find out what's going on, one woman finds herself increasingly isolated.
Although, like the river, it's uneven in depth and sometimes meanders a bit too far, this is an extensively researched and intriguing documentary.
Five friends travel 1,200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes and canoes, along the line of where the US-Mexico border wall is scheduled to be built.
Although it begins with talk of the impact of Hurricane Ian, we’ll come to learn that it’s humans who are the architects of the area’s greatest problems.
An ode to the Florida Everglades that explores its historical and ongoing challenges through the writings and testimonies of environmentalists, educators and current residents.
The River Train lets language do what plot will not always do, it gives a child’s abstract longings a body.
Nine-year-old Milo lives in a remote Argentinian village where he studies the Malambo, a folk dance full of bravura. He is an excellent dancer, but Milo’s only desire is to escape the countryside on a train for the Buenos Aires of his dreams.
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
