Edinburgh International Film Festival — A–Z of films

Denis declines to make concessions, she’s willing to show, refuses to tell.

You don't see much but you are left to imagine and wonder.

Rose Byrne just gets better and better.

At its core, Adventureland is a surprisingly sweet and tender coming-of-age romance.

A rather crummy cop-out ending spoils the good-natured laughs

The black and white film perfectly evokes the sense of a place caught in aspic.

The main horror element is a deep psychological manipulation that stays with you for days afterwards.

This is an ambitious and brave project which, if it doesn't quite reach the heights it might, is still a worthwhile watch.

Guaranteed to fuel the debate of what differentiates a short film from a visual installation, Nyerges’ film freely pushes the boundaries of experimentalism.

Once they hit the road, the script goes away with the pixies.

This is a lovely wee film.

A pleasant hymn to old-fashioned simple memories

Where these genius guys who put All Tomorrow’s Parties together succeed beyond expectation is in capturing the fierce and beautiful commitment of everyone involved.

Insubstantial to say the least.

A bit like issues programming for young adults.

A crisp little picture of adolescence.

Although it is beautiful to look at, it goes on doing that for an hour and a half.

The key ingredients of good documentary are all present and correct – simplicity, depth and variety.

Overall there are some real finds.

A heartrending animated feature

This is Jackass for the saddest and most isolated.

Here is a story that evokes Brazil from the inside out.

The key to Black Dynamite’s success is that the film-makers know the difference between a good-bad movie and a bad-bad movie.

This is shocking, on a par with Silent Spring.

Less the free-form, jazzy ensemble satire on the art world it aspires to be than an over-elaborate and under-funny undertaking by high quality actors who should know better.

This is less a succession of scenes in a story than poems in an anthology.

Sentimentality is rough hewn and barely sophisticated, given the storyline, but the performances are first rate.

Although Yang's directorial debut is overlong and unecessarily laboured in the early section, he is genuinely bringing something fresh to the table in terms of the atmosphere he creates.

This is a tiresome movie, squeezing a 15-minute story into an intolerable 37 minutes.

This is a film likely to divide viewers.

Capturing Space simply doesn't do what its title suggests.

What is astounding, is the restraint shown by director Gary Winick - nothing takes us from the quiet rural life of America in the Forties.

It is a red-blooded, beautiful and brilliant fantasy film, as quintessentially English as Wallace & Gromit.

A sensory treat for the eyes.

This is a subtly scary film, menacing.

Nigh-on unmissable.

An amusing little oddity, with well-sketched characters

Inevitably, with its story purporting to follow one chick as she grows, there are Disney elements here but it could be argued that this sort of poetic anthropomorphism makes the film more accessible to a family audience.

Much of the plot reads as a barely tempered collection of cliches, but in the hands of writer/director Justin Molotnikov, and McCole's runaway success, becomes a highly effective character study and a well-constructed psychological thriller.

An evocative mood-piece, strikingly photographed.

Displays some of the finer stylistic points of modern German cinema.

The heavily compressed timescale does not compromise the feel of the talented cast locked into their grungy grooves

The film deserves praise for its maturity around sexuality.

Neither particularly original nor particularly satisfying.

Where it succeeds is in its blend of dark humour with tragic circumstances.

Exam drifts from being genuinely enigmatic and moody to derivative, disappointing, even ridiculous.

Its momentum is overpowering.

Director Victor Buhler works well with what, on the face of it, is a minor story.

A one-joke movie, but it's a good joke

This is one of those dystopian fables that affirms the human spirit.

As polished all-round entertainment, this film is fairly hard to beat.

It is the central love story - beautifully realised both in terms of camerawork and acting - that underpins all the rest of the directorial flourishes.

This is a lovely film. Almost no moment of it is without some kind of sincere affectionate pleasure of its own creation.

The Friday Night With Jonathan Ross chat show is Pulitzer Prize material by comparison.

A powerful and moving documentary, which appears to give a thorough and frank portrait of its subjects and the impact of poverty and malnutrition upon their lives.

Provides a solid framework for plenty of classic Argento images, suspense, shocks and splatter.

There’s nothing particularly radical about what Soderbergh is doing here.

Kasaravalli's complex layering of shifting friendships and allegiances is admirable and yet by trying to cram in so much comment on society, the narrative becomes confusing.

Suffers from a lack of narrative tension.

Everything works in this film.

Events, as they unfold, are both shocking and satisfying.

Intriguing and enjoyable.

A powerful and emotive meditation on the skill and art involved in skating.

Olyphant has a great seductive charm and impeccable comic timing.

With its claustrophobic themes of madness, suffocation and despair, The House Of Usher is a classic of Gothic horror.

Exquisitely photographed.

An unrelenting, absolutely riveting and often unflattering portrait of frontline action through the eyes of brave people doing their best to survive.

A delight from beginning to end.

A mumblecore masterpiece.

The characters of the animals are underdeveloped and the film is ultimately bland.

Ford is charismatic as ever as the whip-wielding hero, looking eternally hard-done-by but always up for more.

Doesn't quite pull it off.

One of the best films of the period, as well as one of the best ever made on race relations.

A clever and interesting fusion of sound and image.

The issue of sex is carefully handled and the trajectory the pair take has a fumbling, teenage quality that makes it easy to believe.

Truly a documentary of and for our times, which everyone should make an effort to see.

That which is seen is beautiful, that which is unseen intriguing.

There is no question that Petzold is his own film-maker.

When it comes to the acting, the fact that the children are all non-professionals, fuels the sense of reality that underpins the action.

Technically superb, the film suffers from poor pacing.

A vertiginous crane, the shadowy physicians, the Leviathan-punctuated roiling seascape all invite ever further attention.

Strickland reveals an eye for landscape and place that for me recalled early Werner Herzog.

As a study of the mirage of celebrity and the emptiness of fanaticism, Kicks is frank, insightful and hard-hitting.

This is a film about children who are comforted by strangers.

We get a very personable mixture of who Kirran is, and what his dreams are.

Boxing, it seems, has lost its mojo, growing old in the shadow of greatness.

Although not breaking any new ground, anything which challenges people's preconceptions has got to be a good thing.

We need to see more diversity from the Iranian filmmakers here in the West.

Little Soldier makes us face some of the hardest questions we may never want to answer.

A broadly comedic, sometimes raucous affair.

A poignant and thoughtful five and a half minutes.

A fairly straightforward piece, imbued with many quirky touches.

Without question an eerie and ambiguous piece.

I can't understand why anyone put this film into production.

Catalina Saavedra gives a wonderful performance as the frustrated Raquel.

A light-hearted caper that makes for undemanding viewing.

There are many rich images on offer here.

There may not be much beyond the surface, but it's a fine surface

Exquisite attention to detail that creates not only a complex portrait of each of the main characters but also a vivid sense of place.

A film which is there not just to be watched, but to be experienced.

The raw energy that Cassel brought to his role in La Haine has been harnessed again.

Moon represents a return to a more sedate and thoughtful science fiction of the Seventies and Eighties.

Modern Love Is Automatic has so much fun stuff going for it I was really willing it to be a better movie.

Kemp makes a virtue of his ‘going for a ride’ framework, so that the viewer has a short-hand indication of where each of the five segments into which the film is split will take them.

Testing a family for breaking points within a comic framework is not exactly new territory, but Watt's scripting is sharp and she plays fast and loose with audience expectation in the cliche department.

The charm of this film lies in its unpretentious mode of letting the filmmakers, artists and historians speak for themselves.

The fascination is visual, intellectual and emotional.

In terms of the look, there are plenty of striking images, enhanced by the monochrome look, but the story could use more meat.

As well-constructed documentary, this contains emotion but avoids cheesiness.

This is a story of personal sadness, part of a tragic whole.

The cameras are always at a respectful distance, which results in a verite feel, with the children and adults alike seemingly unaware they are being captured on film.

Neisi’s film gives you a sense of the fact that these mini weapons of destruction are absolutely everywhere - even hanging from the trees.

Dick makes it clear that he only feels it necessary to out those who are essentially leading double lives - repressing gays on the one hand, while living as one in secret on the other.

Visually startling and constantly surprising, Paper Soldier is a major work of modern cinema.

This is a charming first feature-length offering from writer/director Fillières.

This is a touching little film.

A sensistively made documentary, with top-notch production values.

Pomegranates And Myrrh is concerned with living within the Palestinian diaspora, and living within a situation you have no power to change.

Paraphernalia is a product of a significant team effort, and it shows in its quality.

It’s all entertaining enough – but, perhaps inevitably given the context, it does have the feel of a promo film.

The Pit And The Pendulum is an epic slice of grand guignol.

McDonald has once more created a unique and entertaining film that will be appreciated by fans of the zombie film and the quirky comedy alike.

In her directorial debut, Jo McInnes shows a confident touch and a keen eye.

Wry, funny and emotionally-charged.

Fans of classic horror will thrill to see these two great masters, Price and Karloff, go up against each other.

In truth, it's all rather more miss than hit, but it's very hard not to have respect for Ryan Denmark's imagination - and when his flights of fancy score, they are complete slam dunks.

It may well be depressingly accurate, but it's also depressingly familiar.

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of job Ingmar Bergman would make of directing a Pixar short, now’s your chance to find out.

Overflows with an abundance of lively and eclectic imagery.

The dance sequences are brilliantly performed and well worth watching the film for in their own right.

A wonderfully poetic film.

I’d defy anybody not to be amused (and impressed) by Serpico’s dexterity.

Bernal and Luna bring the same casual and endearing spontaneity they showed in Y Tu Mama Tambien to the fore again here.

Even amongst the dead there must be logic, or, at least, a plan, in order to manipulate the audience’s disbelief.

Gets lost not profound.

Salvage does a lot with limited means.

Since much of the marital battle is a 'war of silence', the film hinges on Jankowska-Cieslak's performance and she rises masterfully to the challenge.

There's a powerful idea at the heart of Shirin, and it's unfortunate that it found expression in the form of a feature film.

This is a vivid portrait of the landscape of the Americas, picking apart every step of the migrant’s journey.

There is a concrete sense of just how true and harrowing this testimony is.

Adds up to an almost magical experience.

Captivatingly creative but over-fussy in terms of story, this is still an entertaining and accomplished debut.

A disarmingly and deliciously unexpected celebration of matriarchs with attitude.

Danny Boyle directs with the right balance of tension and wit, never forgetting that violence begets violence as one thing leads to another.

Divorced of context, this is a touching little film, a moment of creation, recollection. As an homage, a piece of Kubrickania it becomes something else, something arch.

It is difficult to surmise at times whether the gritty realism here is deliberate, or merely the landscape of an angry teenager's violent fantasies.

The overall effect is touching without being sentimental.

Although it’s unique and the animation style interesting and effective in conveying its subject matter, there doesn’t seem to be quite enough substance to sustain the running time.

An excellent example of Corman’s prodigious oeuvre and phenomenal versatility.

Great performances and assured direction

Deceptively simple in set up, this short isn't just asking questions of those browsing the store, but of the viewer.

This is about the life-changing little things that happen to us all, which makes it all the more affecting.

A brief trip into shortbread-tin Scotland.

There are sensitive and alluring performances from both Etinger and Wolf.

An effective and well-made entertainment which slowly gets its hooks into you.

The film could be criticised for its fairytale aspects but, in some ways, Municipality's constant lucky escape from peril only serves to make you more aware of the very real threats that exist on the streets.

As a patchwork collage of second hand shopping, Tiny Joys is tiny and relatively joyful.

Peter Ferdinando is excellent as the titular character.

An excellent combination of charming pop-culture parodies and subtle mockery of the stiff upper lip of the central characters.

A well balanced piece, strongly supported by Rhett Brewer's score.

It's a bit repressive, with omnious music and no dialogue.

This is a film for everyone to enjoy – not just fans and other b-boys.

Strives for profundity but instead grates irritatingly.

This is a cold and sombre environment from which is borne a cold and sombre film.

This is not the despotic kingdom of Rambo but something worse, increasingly alien, a murky desperate Myanmar.

An intellectually challenging, visually arresting work.

This is a sad little film that makes two thick planks look interesting.

Screenwriters Eddy Moretti and Shane Smith play rather too fast and loose with the facts at times.

It has no plot, dialogue or characters, yet is completely entrancing for its entire duration.

Kate Cook as Margot is stunning.

The film that saw the super-spy become larger-than-life.