Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

This blending of the truth and invention is a key plank of Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke's work, which skates so close to documentary it is hard to spot the join.

To make a film that is touchingly beautiful at the same time as dealing with very bad things is a remarkable achievement.

The film is completely unabashed and utterly committed to delivering on its promise of adventure.

It is impossible not to be charmed.

While it's enjoyable, even affecting in places, it's heavy handed and clumsy in others.

The differing perspectives of the participants show that our relationship with oil is complex.

Like a succubus, Burstein simply attaches herself to the teens’ volatile emotions; it never seems to occur to her to pull back and examine a larger, more nuanced canvas.

Easily the best comedy I saw in 2008 and the first I can remember in years that I’ve wanted to immediately watch again.

Ballast is absorbing because it bravely avoids dramatic cliches to deliver a more positive experience than might be expected.

A film that is in step with its contemporary Hollywood background, for better and for worse.

Tom Hardy makes other movie hardmen look like they belong on the Muppet Show.

The will they/won't they nature of the romance - as different in essence to your average Hollywood hug-in as chalk from chihuahuas - is beguiling for those who can cope without the usual romcom signposts.

Though it looks dated in some ways now, The Children's Hour has strong characters whom modern audiences will have no difficulty relating to.

Teachers everywhere will give a smile of recognition as an experienced teacher takes a new colleague through his class list – “nice, nice, not nice, not nice at all…”

Rather than being just another culture clash story, this is a story about how the meeting of different ways of life can enrich both.

This could have been a hatchet job... but McCormack’s film digs a lot deeper than that.

An amusing confection, though it doesn't quite catch.

A sombre film that never shows more than it needs to, and never allows its more outrageous or shocking moments to descend into sadistic spectacle or farce.

Detached rather than indifferent.

There's such a spirit of good humour and bravura low-budget creativity about the whole thing that it's enormously likeable.

What he’s talking about and looking for is oddity masquerading as normality.

Lanners' script is witty and moves at a steady pace.

Everlasting Moments is one of those moments in cinema that comes along once in a blue moon.

It could be worse. It may yet be.

Once the walls start to move, there's barely a moment to catch your breath as sharp editing, clever camera angles and good use of sound, squeeze the tension of every moment.

Friday The 13th is a well made but fairly unremarkable film. What about it could so incense the white male American critic?

A delightful film.

Earnest, fun, but not quite right; a Tokyo cream tea.

It is refreshing to see a film which refuses to romanticise this subject matter.

See it for Kinnear’s career-best performance and a few effective scenes and pithy lines.

Shyness has rarely had such a threatening undercurrent.

Gerald McMorrow has conjured up a film that spans many genres, coupling inventive storytelling with a strong visual aesthetic.

Donen shows us how magic is made.

They do, it seems, still sometimes make them like they used to.

We feel rather as if we're watching Springtime For Hitler but with real gas chambers.

Grace marks the arrival of a thoughtful and reverent new talent to the genre.

The central drama has lots of interesting potential but never quite develops as effectively as it might.

Where the film centres on Aimee and her foster parents, it works well, with solid performances and real energy.

A taut thriller, rooted more in atmosphere, character and nail-gnawing suspense than the sort of sadistic gory excess that has otherwise typified this decade's horror.

Household Gods is unsettling. It attempts further tricks to that end... New walls are created

Line after line proves infinitely quotable... suggesting cult status as well as critical acclaim beckons.

Though the film is slow in places and Andreotti's ambiguity can sometimes leave the viewer feeling too disconnected, there are moments of real brilliance.

Giving an honest, open look at the realities of growing old and dying, Crowley manages to steer clear of unnecessary gravitas without losing the heart of the story.

Monaghan and Fessenden are cast perfectly and have a great onscreen rapport, reminding me of a re-vamped Abbott and Costello.

There's something in the presentation of him that grates, that discomfits. It is on par with the exploitation of children, an unkindness.

The film is a heartfelt cry for someone to stop these children being exploited so cruelly, but offers no easy answers.

If you're looking for something to while away a weekday evening or waste a carefree afternoon, you're in for a treat.

It is frequently not what you see but what you hear which holds the horror.

A moment perfectly captured.

Unusually unnerving.

An excellent documentary, putting you so close to the action you can almost feel the sweat and taste the chalk dust.

The strength of this story is its simplicity, yet, at a full two hours, that's also its weakness.

While there is nothing wrong with a fly-on-the-wall attitude to documentary making, more facts and a little number-crunching would go a long way to bolstering Gaja’s argument.

Jobson uses the inherent thrill of the hunt to pursue his concerns about the vast gulf between the haves and the have-nots, and the arrogant disconnect of those who view life as mere data on a screen.

The movie's two main strengths are Max Schreck's compelling performance, as the eerily inhuman vampire, and Murnau's unparallelled ability to blend naturalistic and expressionistic elements.

If you're a fan of B-movies - of nudity, gore, monsters, car chases, kung fu action and ultra-low-budget fun - then Not Quite Hollywood is a treat you can't afford to miss.

O'Horten's gentle, absurdist humour is perfectly complemented by a charmingly understated performance from Owe.

Funny enough (at least in a drunken crowd) to make your eyes water.

It's incoherent in the extreme, the acting is pretty bad and there are heavy helpings of cheese, but for all that, it has a certain charm.

It's a familiar fable but it's beautifully told and it can really lift your spirits.

Despite the central performances, Prince Of Broadway never quite grabs.

This is unpleasant, deliberately so.

It has no start, save its beginning, no end, save when it stops.

A scabrous, at times shocking assault on the more idiotic aspects of religion, and the dangers that they pose in a society capable for the first time of bringing about its own destructive Apocalypse.

This is a movie that is not as frivolous as it first appears.

This is brilliant work.

Races furiously along, capturing perfectly the sense of a life fast spinning out of control.

As usual, Majidi’s characters speak much more through the environments they inhabit than through dialogue, allowing his films to be easily understood worldwide.

Mainstream audiences may hate and critics may debate, but Synecdoche is a work of unmitigated, undisciplined genius.

The directors have an enviable lightness of touch and a serious eye for the cinematic.

It's a crisp film, well executed.

Intended as an examination of deja vu, this is, sadly, something we've seen before.

Dvortsevoy shows us the fragility of life, through the birth and death of lambs, while also touching on the innate stoicism of families who live in this toughest of environments.

Like the heavyweight prize-fighter in his prime, this is documentary stripped back to its leanest form.

The script is bland and unimaginative, giving the actors little room to give personality to their characters.

Huston wanted to make a film about racism, and succeeded.

Worlds Apart is an assured, confident little film which takes a nuanced approach to a complex subject.

This is clearly a labour of love.