Edinburgh International Film Festival — A–Z of films

Shin Adachi’s script seeks to get past the gloss and into the reality of Japan’s “lost generation”.

There's no doubting the film looks good..But there's a feeling of both too much gloss and of glossing over details.

To call the film haunting is an understatement.

A brilliant piece of character driven desert noir.

If this weren’t a documentary, these five people would surely find themselves nestled in the pages of some postmodern epic.

If the male characters are on the flimsy side, at least it makes a change from the women being relegated.

The fact that At Land works so well reminds us that Meshes was no accident.

González Villaseñor has given these women a voice of their own and constructed a merited tribute to their determined generosity.

An intensely sad and affecting look at a hugely talented young woman, ill equipped for the all-consuming fame which her soulful voice would bring her.

As compelling as it is humourous.

One of the most deservedly popular movies in cinema history.

A bad film with a capable director.

While Brave may occasionally shy away from darker territory in order to retain its appeal for even the youngest of audiences, there are still plenty of 'big' ideas here for small minds to think about.

Richard Gere is exceptional.

It's not awful, it's just not good.

The script sparkles, delivering plenty of great moments.

Wells delivers a great performance.

Everything here is just a rehash of other films.

This is a tense and enjoyable genre picture, and one which gets terrific central performances from all involved.

Nandy lets drama unfold but it is emotion that drives this story, which achieves more resonance than you expect a 10-minute runtime to allow.

Joe Stephenson's directorial debut is a slightly uneven but ultimately moving drama that announces both himself and young actor Scott Chambers as up-and-coming talents to look out for.

The essence of documentary, well demonstrated, find an interesting subject and tell the story well. This is it, this is the stuff.

The mysteries left unresolved after the near two and a half hours are more puzzling than compelling.

Emotional weight grounds the film and gives it a resonance beyond the confines of this single family home.

The novel angle it takes is the best thing going for this film, and it is a smart twist to an rote story.

Ruvalcaba has crafted an appropriately memorable consideration of memory, its mutability and its importance to the present.

Raymond might sometimes hit his beats too hard but he does keep his eye on the bigger picture.

Pete Travis works hard to bring John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's apocalyptic vision to life.

The elements involved in creating this movie were well thought out and planned perfectly (just like the driver’s getaways).

A remarkably efficient film.

This film's attempt to contextualise a zombie threat as something more deeply political is clumsy at best.

Swayze toned down his abilities as a dancer to play Castle, but still looks riveting.

The film has charm, due in most parts to Shameik Moore's performance

If you're going to make a film about the man considered to the be the "father of modern cinema" then it had better look good and debut feature director Kyle Rideout and his cinematographer Tony Mirza take this task to heart.

A gentle ethnographic survey.

What makes this film so much more than a thriller is the very terrible human emotional territory it dares to venture in.

Johnny To's direction is as smooth as a well-cut suit and the violence has a balletic intensity.

Max Von Sydow's magnificent Emperor Ming is a template against which all future alien rulers have had to measure up.

We see events from Alice's perspective, meaning that, unusually, she is positioned more as the desiring subject than the desired object within the narrative.

A clear passion project that could nonetheless do with some judicious editing to tighten its focus.

This is not the most revealing documentary ever, and it deals with a subject that is ultimately pure pop-culture, but it is impossible to feel anything other than inspired by the pluckiness of the this British underdog.

Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy is good fun.

There’s plenty of the pre-requisite tension, and the monsters are designed well and deployed with restraint.

Photographer-turned-director Jake Gavin brings maturity and warmth to his debut feature.

There isn’t anything particularly wrong with the direction, which is solid horror fare, but it’s trying to animate a cadaver of a script.

The originality of Happy Feet is a genuine surprise. Whether the script will hold the attention of the under-nines is less easy to judge.

There is no tension, no expectation of trouble. Happiness infuses the land

There's a lot of great potential here. Roe and Andrews don't quite have what it takes to pull it together.

A charming, if a dark hearted, coming of age story.

For an ambitious SciFi film made for a conservative budget, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

It’s the quiet unease and invasive nature of Lily’s probing into the house that are the real highlights here.

There is no doubting Moderndorfer's intentions to present an anti-captialistic polemic but he pushes things so far here that they become unbelievable and, by the end, almost funny by default.

It doesn't so much feel old-fashioned as it does out of time.

As usual with Pixar the film operates on twin levels - with one part going straight over the heads and minds of its junior target audience and the other heading directly to their parents.

Director Graham is fantastic at allowing the underlying relational strain to simmer for most of the film, in quiet, unspoken Scots Calvinist passive-aggression.

The Iron Ministry moves beyond the observational to the experiential, which is to say that sound and image come together to put us among the passengers rather than simply watching them from a distance.

The film is likely to be branded 'controversial', the biggest pity is that there is very little to say about it beyond that.

The buildup of clutter over the course of the film is its most appealing visual metaphor.

Its refusal to treat fights as spectacle, together with its austere editing and static camera, provides a melancholic grounding.

Unfortunately, it’s all rather muddled.

While younger kids will probably have a tolerance for the low-fi manoeuvering, kids the same age as Frikke are likely to find it all a bit old hat.

García's cautiousness clogs up the human drama.

Subaru gives a brilliant performance - including some excellent vocal takes - as an amnesiac whose only link to the world is his singing.

Robert Carlyle's directorial debut adapts Douglas Lindsay's novel detailing the life and crimes of Barney Thomson with real panache and wit.

Ethical acts are met with punishment and moments of kindness are just fleeting enough to make the next torque of tension feel all the more severe.

The script is sharp and witty, but, like the big waves, comes and goes.

Sarah Kernochan's screenplay is precise and doesn't shy away from the real-life absurdities we all encounter.

The introductory credits are among the most marvellous images seen on screen.

Denied colour, Roger Corman plays with light and shadow like a master of film noir.

"We played a rough game, and we lost"

As a project, Love Film Festival is impressive - four directors, four countries, polylingual, starting in 2009 and finishing (by my arithmetic) in 2016. As a film, maybe less so.

Pohland - working with an impressive script by Oren Moverman and Michael A Lerner - manages to orchestrate a musical path between the double storyline that finds unity through the creative process.

The film feels surprisingly modern but never anachronistically so.

The pleasantly surprising performance of Schwarzenegger grounds the film with an emotional heft.

Even if the film is maybe slightly over-long you also feel that this is deliberate, thought out and worked through.

Logan's writing fails to match Pacino's restraint, while Green's direction seems - like his central character - to be filled with a longing for more, yet being held back from going there.

The inevitable schmaltz may be a little too saccharine for some, but the premise is unique and the situations dynamic enough to elevate this a little higher than it seems at first glance.

There are several standout compositions among Figueroa's cinematography.

In short, there's a lot going on but very little of it feels fresh.

Javidi's conclusion is as smartly worked and surprising as his set up, marking a debut full of promise for better things to come.

Doesn’t so much leave threads untied as set the ropes on fire.

A tighter focus on the misery that drives people may have made this a more indispensable glance at the industry, but for anyone with a love of comedy, it’s sure to harbour a few gems.

Mamma Mia! is a roller coaster of emotion, careering colourfully from the blue waters of the Adriatic.

There are great debates about what the best children’s film of all time is, but Mary Poppins surely has to be a strong contender.

There are some funny moments along the way and Lohan is good.

Frustratingly, the film isn’t really concerned with its setting, and the large bulk of the plot is a time travel caper that’s solvable within a few minutes of it being revealed.

Norfolk is as much a statement about land as it is about the people who live there.

It’s no good having a twisting tale of gangland betrayal if every plot point is reiterated.

Less traditional but perhaps stronger for it.

Resembles the first 15 minutes of a porn flick

Every cliche that sang out of tune at the concert of dreams is here

Despite the lush colour this is bleak, even heart-breaking.

What could have been turned into a gritty, gloomy film with a penchant for gore, instead retains the lighthearted feel of the manga.

The lower light inside the pavilion contributes to the sense that what goes on here is a kind of dreaming.

The film is a bit of a hotchpotch... but it paints a warm portrait.

These particular pirates may not be the greatest at, well, pirating, but if you're ready to set sail for adventure, they're the crew to join.

The Princess Bride is marvellous entertainment for all ages, and endlessly rewatchable.

There is a great story here and Russell tells it in detail from multiple perspectives and with numerous forms of documentation.

A fascinating but deeply disturbing film.

Be told. See this film.

Overall, fans of the genre will probably enjoy the fight sequences but the story and characterisation do not stand up to closer inspection.

The discussions of the material realities of film-making in Turkey even into the 1970s are fascinating.

It's so scattershot that one finds oneself inventing titles for the 'stories' within the anthology.

The clashes between characters give this film plenty of catalysts for interesting discussions, and it is refreshing that these discussions are not framed as anything other than three young adults connecting.

Demonstrates what an action movie ought to be.

The first half an hour of this rattles along with plenty of good humour, injected with further energy by the Big Country soundtrack, which is as dyed in the wool Scottish as a fine Highland kilt.

This is a film filled with longing that, appropriately, leaves us yearning for more.

For a debut this shows impressive grasp of a variety of locations, even that whole 'children and animals' thing.

This is a film that might be best served not by a cinema but by a loop.

Newcomers Cobos and Buzzurro both acquit themselves admirably given that they effectively have to carry the film with no prior experience.

The cast are terrific, and the comic set pieces are handled with precision and impeccable timing, even if not all of the jokes hit home.

If this is romance, it's dead.

The oppressive atmosphere of the swamp and the tension between the frustrated alpha males are so thick right up to the final frame you could cut the air with one of their knives, while the trauma of the experience lingers long after the credits roll.

Santa Sangre is suffused with rare heart and a sense of aching melancholy, and not a minute of its two hour run time is wasted.

The sunshine of southern Spain, the often deep colours of sherry and the dusty environs of cool cellars with light shafting through them all lend atmosphere to José Luis López-Linares' documentary

Boy meets nun, boy loses nun, boy marries nun, boy and nun go on the run.

It's beautifully constructed, pun intended.

There is hardly a moment that does not resort to cliché, formula or stock characters.

What is most astonishing about Sunshine Superman is how genuinely happy everybody looks.

Anya's performance as Alice does enough to keep the film interesting throughout.

The inventiveness sweetens up his message so that it is likely to hold the interest of teenagers as well as adults, giving it the potential to be a great educational tool.

Tobias Moretti and Jeanette Hain play the Count & Countess Közsnöm with arch reverence to vampire movies of old.

Theresa Moerman's film is a deeply personal, deeply moving portrait of grief.

This is something special.

Lime is one of the cinema’s greatest baddies.

A preposterously gory exercise in nostalgia.

The surface detail may be uncanny, but there’s a truly different film under the skin here.

Kevin Allen succeeds, brilliantly, in creating something new, fresh and thoroughly engaging.

A respectfully written and admirably performed drama.

Now is the time to rediscover The Warriors and be reintroduced to a cult classic.

Almost everywhere in this documentary less would be more.

Who Am I succeeds because it grounds its braggadocio in action that never feels beyond the realms of possibility.

While having so little money may, paradoxically, have liberated Bakshi from studio interference, this freedom allows him to indulge in ideas that are, metaphorically and otherwise, away with the fairies.

There is a sense of the freshness of freedom but this a film that mainly deals in big emotions as though worried about getting down to specifics.

It still does things that surprise.

A few scenes are likely to genuinely terrify younger viewers, but Wonka would be the first to point out that children ought to be terrified now and then.