Berlin International Film Festival — A–Z of films

Otero, who is in almost every scene, carries the film with her fresh and naturalistic performance, which is perfectly complemented by Solaguren’s impressionistic style.

Petzold’s most literary film to date.

A semi-autobiographical film with a potent sense of place, Almamula alternates between realism and fantasy, its camerawork reflecting the conflicting ways of thinking at its core.

This is a film built in the edit, a story which can but understood in linear form only in retrospect.

What seems dry and dusty on the page is far from it on the screen

Eventually, Diallo will travel far beyond the villages, to another country, to continue his quest, going to lengths few documentarians would consider - but what he learns there will reveal that the real answer lies back home.

If there’s vacillation in general at work, the slippery nature of the film, greased with the sweat of physical and metaphorical dance, remains beguiling.

A remarkably efficient film.

Striking in its intimacy.

It showcases Spielberg's gifts for light comedy, spectacle, and fairy tale celuloid sorcery.

The trademark Spielberg visual flair is there from the outset and keeps this film interesting at times when the narrative is moving slowly, or when it lapses into melodrama.

It is highly satisfying that this feature film about the history and cultural impact of photography - and, by extension, film and television - should be such a lovely example of the Reithian principles to “inform, educate and entertain”.

The tension is masterfully handled in a revenge thriller narrative which also poses difficult ethical questions.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a laugh-out-loud fest that makes you wonder how can kids be so intelligent and so stupid at the same time.

The film looks great if you like sand

The Innocents may well be a historical film but it still has plenty of relevance today.

Liubyi’s film succeeds in bringing home not just the enormity of the crash itself but of the scale of what was lost aboard.

Jaws is a well-made, nuanced, gamble of a film that paid off handsomely and assured Spielberg's future.

It’s thrilling to watch a filmmaker like Smith throw a wrench in the gears and deliver an unapologetic ode to outcasts that’s every bit as punk rock as its subjects.

Bogdanovich allows the scenes to play out in near silence as the brilliance of the lighting, staging, and acting leave the viewer breathless and trembling.

Love To Love You, Donna Summer, has perhaps the best prism of all to observe the life of the Queen of Disco through - that of her family.

In the end, the film succeeds not so much because of its thriller elements as because it’s an interesting character piece.

Trengove seems determined to defy the standard solutions to this sort of mess.

By positioning itself carefully between the imperatives of retaliatory justice and their fearful consequences, the movie is ultimately less a political thriller than a mesmerizing study of psychological breakdown.

Confident enough in its characters to tell its story without sensationalism or stylistic overcompensation.

Jim Isaacs's creatures are remarkable, as is the film - unique, disturbing, wicked.

It’s a tremendously challenging role, in which Maadi excels.

Capturing the experience of living in a world where one’s gender doesn’t fit better than almost any other film to date, Preciado’s work is all about claiming space and present day narrative.

One of the most subtle films of the ongoing year.

To say too much about what happens in each episode would be to spoil the joy of encountering Song’s finely worked screenplay, which lets its characters' emotions glitter in the light.

Perpetrator heralds the joyous rising up of a regiment of monstrous women.

Unlike many examples of cinema from an earlier generation, Rebel Without A Cause is dynamic edge-of-the-seat viewing many years on.

Demonstrates what an action movie ought to be.

Schmid's unsensational approach pays off, as Michaela's 'possession' reaches its climax.

This is not so much a study in stereotypes, courtesy of Jimmy Dean’s legacy, but a love poem to the restless, doomed, anarchic integrity of orphaned hearts.

While attempting to describe the crux of Samsara is, essentially, as impossible as catching lightning in a jar, join me on a journey of imagination and we’ll give it a go.

It is not a happy ending, but an affirming one, in that it shows that it is possible to reject mass genocide and that good men can save the world entire.

The emotional arc Lena experiences is moving without being cloying.

This is a sombre and thorough film.

Sisi & I weaves a tapestry of finely observed moments with the sparkling duo of Wolff and Hüller at the top of their game.

Although an undoubted classic of the period - and featuring one of cinema's best child performances in Torrent - the allusive and elusive style of the film is difficult to engage with.

For lovers of anime, there are Easter eggs aplenty, including more than a few nods to the famed Ghibli studios.

The reason the film works so well is in its well-established teenage relationships - with the Philippous showing the attraction of being in with the cool kids and that the dangers this presents are particularly acute for those, like Mia, who are already emotionally vulnerable or, like Riley, desperate to be included in an older peer group.

Thrums from start to almost finish with the sweaty tension of a looming maths test.

The society it depicts is one in which ordinary people – and especially women – are crushed beneath the joint burdens of a medieval moral code, and an unfeeling bureaucratic enforcement process.

Phantom chimes at night produce an atmosphere that could tumble into horror movie territory, but the real damage is done during the day.

The idea of different things being in and out of focus for the various generations runs through a film that has sweetly comic moments and poignancy in equal measure.

Coppola demonstrates remarkable confidence.