Berlin International Film Festival — A–Z of films

As stark as its empty landscapes, as measured as the tread of the strangers along the poplar avenue, as compelling as the panic that grows in the village ahead of them.

Scott wrings out every last drop of suspense from the film.

Allen's genius is in bringing out the humour in little incidents and in using them to provide sharp insights into character.

As a kind of call to arms against nostalgia on the one hand but forgetfulness on the other, Uruguayan-born Michael Wahrmann charts ambitious terrain.

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, presenting as well as producing, paints a bleak portrait of the impact of pressures on the seal trade.

The puzzles here are of the sort intended to be enjoyed for their twists and turns rather than their resolution.

Kubrick badly misses the mark with this film, not in quality, but by a whole decade. It simply does not fit into the 1970s.

Beg, borrow or steal a ticket to see it on the biggest screen you can find.

The sex element, while erotically shot, is almost exclusively reserved for the moment in which Clare was enjoying the experience, thus stripping away the usual voyeuristic downside that often accompanies this genre.

It is fundamentally a film about the workings of infatuation with a charmed fever that contaminates its characters.

Kubrick's canvas is best enjoyed large, right at the front.

No other director could have pulled this off, such a humane fusion of communication and technology.

What [director Proyas] does here is juggle genres and lop the dead cells from the brains of old cliches.

We don't just see this teenager grow up, we are buffeted and tossed by the experience.

Lelio makes no bones about how he wants us to feel, to the point where it sometimes feels as though he is stating the obvious is six-foot neon letters.

The film is ludicrous and wonderful. It has genuine eccentric conviction.

Just because you signal to an audience that you're purposefully making them watch paint dry does not make the experience of it any less tedious.

The film’s most gripping aspect is the delicacy with which it handles its extraordinary emotional depth

Debut feature director Francis Lee grew up on a Yorkshire farm and it shows in every inch of this film.

An emotionally engaging tale that sucks you in with its gentle humour and melancholy.

The noir-style bleakness gives it a taut atmosphere that most contemporary movies still cannot match.

The idea that a family would face the war crime equivalent of lions, tigers and bears in the space of a few hours barges through the boundaries of belief.

The full use of what film can do is eye-opening - the juxtapositions jolt awareness of what is important and remains necessary.

The film overdoses on violence. There is no escape from it.

Hunnam gives a compelling performance as a man railing against the bigotry of his time, and yet simultaneously embodying it as a white explorer in a place already well-known to its inhabitants.

The performances under Walsh's direction capture the fine splinters of motivation and the mystery that we all are to each other.

Rather than pick apart rituals... Weinstein simply lets us see them in action as part of the natural fabric of his life

The acting here is of high quality, with Frot shading just enough warmth and melancholy into Claire to stop her becoming a total wet blanket... Deneuve, throwing caution to the wind

With its genuine Versailles locations and sumptuous costuming, Marie Antoinette is a feast for the eyes.

What's really revolutionary about this film is the way Ivory photographs male bodies.

Something like a cross between Carry On Solanas! and The Beguiled

Even though Newton is a stickler, there's an appealing purity to his views and he remains likeable almost despite himself.

Though shot on cheap black-and-white film stock, NOTLD was the film that would turn the whole horror genre blood red, with its innovative use of graphically realistic gore effects.

There is a fragility and brittleness to this but also an underlying warm sweetness that might just melt your heart.

Sikumi is certainly stark, and yet there is room even in this cold, austere backdrop for the warmth of the human spirit.

Complex, sometimes conflicting emotions are beautifully played by Gedeck.

The director has a flare for encapsulating a world of emotion in a single moment.

Comedy doesn't come in many darker shades than that employed by Serbian director Bojan Vuletic in Requiem For Mrs J, this is truly the vantablack of humour.

This is a powerful film that not only resonates with the recent cycle of films concerning rebellious girls, but with films made by indigerous peoples.

A masterpiece of horror cinema, it features a bleak atmosphere, striking visuals, frenzied performances, and an utterly unshakable, creeping sense of dread.

With such a powerful story and a charismatic lead like Heston, it's hard to go wrong.

It has the ungainly but attractive ambience of an old fairy tale being passed down through the generations, becoming more and more embellished on each retelling.

Bigelow delivers a neo noir that hides its hope and redemption under a throbbing veil of paranoia, tension and adrenalin.

Goes against the grain of modern crime documentaries.

A unique piece of cinema, superbly performed and dangerously directed

Terminator 2 is a wonderful sequel, dramatically satisfying and a fine entertainment.

Michael Radford's film version of Orwell's masterpiece offers a faithful interpretation, but it is THX 1138 that captures the very essence of its stark warning against totalitarianism.

Such an important story cannot be squeezed into 106 minutes. The politics are complex and the religious conflict on a Syrian scale of horror

Inti Briones's muddy, saturated black and white imagery complements director Daniela Thomas' tight close-ups and lingering landscape shots in conveying both the paradox of the location and the pressure its inhabitants feel.

An arresting debut.

Trengove strikes a good balance between showing the cultural importance, even though on the wane, of old-fashioned masculinity and personal drama between Xolani and Kwanda, slowly ratcheting up the tension to breaking point.