Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

It could be the set-up for a disturbing thriller. Instead, 15 Summers Later plays out as a delicately balanced observational comedy.

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

A film that is both intellectually stimulating and visually satisfying.

Both young actors are impressive here, fully invested in their roles.

Lotte Reiniger brings a unique perspective to the look of traditional characters, as she uses intricate Eastern details to show off astoundingly delicate filigree cutting work.

Harish Patel delivers an unforgettable performance that combines blundering insensitivity with heartbreaking vulnerability and will still have you laughing out loud.

Undeniably well put together at all levels.

Scattershot, lurching, and with some moments that verge on racial caricature, this is perhaps best avoided.

Like Rear Window if James Stewart's character had doubted himself, the film becomes a tangle of paranoid possibilities.

A good introduction to the versatile Icelandic scene.

Complex ideas are brought out in part through a brilliant script, in part through brilliant direction.

The film effectively outlines a very worrying situation.

What makes this documentary so powerful and so enjoyable is its intimacy with its subject.

The Blue Angel has all the ingredients of a classic moral tragedy.

Bob And The Monster takes an affectionate look at rock and a fresh look at drug addiction.

Cristián Jiménez likes quirkiness and his enthusiasm for it, evidenced in his first film Optical Illusions and again here, goes a good way to convincing you to take the ride.

An unassuming, funny family film with an unexpected ending that is well worth seeing.

Unfortunately, the strong performances and engaging visuals come together to form a film that ultimately seems to lack direction.

Few music documentaries manage to pull together this many top contributors.

You'd have to be a real Grouch not to enjoy it.

This is a fantastic chance to see some of the industry's greatest talents at the top of their game.

Rajesh is a real life private detective, the founder of Always Investigatings and Security Concern, and he runs it as if he learned everything he needed to know from Seventies TV shows.

As comfy and cosily British as a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

In the constructedness of its approach, the split-screens, the mute passage of time before us, it becomes evocative, enlightening, impressive.

Like many an Old West prospector's treasure, while Mateo Gil's movie has a good- looking gloss its substance is more fool's gold that fortune.

The film is beautiful, often mesmerising and the soundtrack is superb.

Channing's friendliness and evident joie de vivre light up this film every bit as much as the bright lights, the dance routines and the fabulous costumes.

It's refreshing to see a young woman in a horror movie with various potential weaknesses who still emerges as a strong, upbeat individual.

Captivating and informative.

The two central performances – Vianello’s bewildered, sensitive, lonely young girl and Cantalupo’s harassed moral inadequate – are pitch-perfect.

Full of gothic visuals and brooding melancholy, the bleak gloom is striking.

Darín is superb in the leading role, sympathetic even at his most misanthropic.

Stella is a gleefully crude dyke who could give Malcolm Tucker a run for his money in a creative swearing contest.

Scores high in the derivative stakes but low on satisfaction.

Aarniokoski shows real flair for staging visceral, splattery action.

Benefits from ravishing cinematography and elegant production design that helps to bring out the character of Buenos Aires itself.

Though it doesn't have many new things to say - that's part of the point - it works thanks to a powerful central performance from young Muatasem Mishal.

Patterson’s undoubtedly got the confidence of these rad dudes, creating the feel of a genuine dispatch from another tribe.

Petzold exposes the social machinations behind the seemingly simple love stories.

The fantastic interrupts the profane.

After seeing three films in and around the small town of Dreileben, the landscape has become familiar and inescapable.

Bertrand Tavernier’s 1980 curio Death Watch remains a chilly and enigmatic film, one which is hard to love but not hard to admire.

Once you have seen it you cannot help but measure every film you have ever seen against it.

What comes over very strongly in the film is that Vivienne is an endearing mixture of the anarchic and the down to earth.

Alien invasion aficionados would do well to avoid but if you're a fan of the comedy of discomfort with a slacker vibe and a hint of romance, Extraterrestrial certainly has charms.

The film's main problem is that it's a good 25 minute short padded out to an hour and a half.

Set over 25 years, this is an effective historical record, but it never really captures the energy of the band.

Throughout it all, the requisite nausea-inducing camerawork and ear-piercing shrieking will have you wishing this was one found footage flick that had stayed lost.

Despite the fantastic image this family first presents, the film's best trick is to reveal the ways in which it resembles any other.

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

A nice little piece, characterful if not compelling.

With absolutely stunning cinematography and subtly effective performances, Finisterrae is more moving than you might expect.

Moody, meditative, and of tremendous quality.

Judith Johnstone's design and model making are tremendous.

Tthere are about six or seven fascinating shorts competing for attention here, and Burch and Sekula’s respective backgrounds pull the film one way and then the other, never quite settling into a structurally or aesthetically consistent framework.

Like Richter's creations, this deceptively simple film is many-layered.

Perceptions make this film such a pleasure to watch. Everything feels believable, real, and thought through.

There's the germ of a good idea here, but the film feels like a rough cut.

Pins down the horrors of a dehumanising industry.

Whether you're an addict or a skeptic, this is a documentary with real style, relentlessly upbeat and energised, full of fun.

The fox that befriends our protagonist is quite an ominous fox.

Strong, engaging, deeply personal.

It is the black comedy that is the real surprise, rescuing Headhunters from both Norwegian dourness and Tinseltown blandness.

The most important message the film has is follow your heart, no matter how weird other people think you are for doing so.

Director Aki Kaurismäki's latest is a humanist hug of a fable, which concludes that while big miracles may happen, it's the everyday 'miracles' people create for one another that really count.

An unflinching indictment of the savagery at the heart of the American dream.

Make no mistake, this is a difficult film to watch - but it is also a surprisingly uplifting one.

The couple's love of old Soviet style filmmaking techniques manifests gloriously in images that charm and delight.

Despite the good dialogue the script is lacking depth.

Elegantly photographed, with beautifully constructed sets, this is a film that exudes quality from beginning to end.

An intriguing if uneven journey into a strange, violent and very sad part of modern America.

Agnieszka Holland understands that what really makes an impression is the internal experience of such extreme situations.

It would seem fairest to judge this film on its own merits but that's hard when it's trying so self-consciously to be Trainspotting.

This is a change of pace for Segel and it allows him to showcase the full breadth of his talent, creating a very full-on character who, beneath his bluster, has a surprising amount of depth.

Smith's restraint and Jimmy's drive combine to make a powerful portrait of a man and his work.

Italy is the classical home of the diabolical morality tale, and beneath all the sophisticated modern trappings that's exactly what we have here.

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

If you really believe Russia opened up with its famous perestroika, this film will change the way you see things.

Beercan aeroplanes in stark-white skies, wire-wheeled wonders carrying characters and plot.

This is a film of limited scope and surprising vista.

In a world where everyone seems so lost, The Kid With A Bike will help you find your humanity again.

There's a loneliness, a melancholy at the heart of Livid that is truly haunting.

Sigurbjörnsson does excellent work in between the lines of the script and Rúnarsson gives him plenty of space, so that not a single moment of the 17 here feels hurried.

A perfect example of film-noir, Laura has an intelligent and unpredictable plot, beautiful cinematography and an unforgettable score.

Long Distance Information depicts that phone call so well, the stilted awkwardness as you ask about things you don't care about.

A classical exploration of power, love, violence and misery.

The confidences he shares with Bonicos may not be deep but they always feel genuine.

Mesnak has to be up there with the very best screen adaptations of Hamlet.

A film about photographers, by photographers, for photographers, and every bit of it a visual delight.

Good, entertaining, verging at times on the self-indulgent.

Quietly, in the background, details become almost too horrible to watch.

Riisa Naka is great as somewhat obnoxious Mitsuko.

Structured like a Greek tragedy, steeped in Gothic gloom, this is a bold and dramatic tale but also a sly one.

As long as this zany crew of misfits continues to raise a smile, a laugh, even a tear, there remains a place for their alchemic power to turn on- and off-stage mishaps, arch pop-culture commentary and sly self-parody into entertainment gold.

The movie is eccentric and wild in one respect and positive and cool in another.

The film has sufficient tact and poise to let its subject speak for herself.

Gives the sense that humans are almost incidental in the battle between a man-made Titan and a force of nature.

We lurch between environments where there is no freedom at all and where one might get away with anything, and the effect is morally dizzying.

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia produces the most exciting boredom.

A great collection of contributers bring depth and complexity as well as celebrity status to the film.

Oxygen is a breath of fresh air.

A film that is satisfying intuitively even when it misfires at other levels.

The mockumentary is, by now, far from a fresh format, but this film brings so much fresh energy to it that the result it much more fun than you'd expect.

Yi proves adept at documenting the tactile nature of Young-Chan's relationship with the world

Among the dropped frames it seems more forced than it ought, less critical.

It takes a special kind of documentarian to look behind the right curtain.

Shot in lush, vivid black and white, the film carries a sense of age and expectation.

Well worth a watch, with considerably more going for it than mere novelty value.

In this way, Miyazaki avoids any simplistic 'message', preferring to present a more complicated dialectic on the environmental difficulties that continue to 'curse' us to this day.

The cast do a splendid job of portraying the rough and tumble inhabitants of the mining town, each with their own problems and desires.

This is Hammer Horror through and through, yet distinctly inferior to most of their other works.

Bruce Lee is back, and he's Indonesian.

Visually striking, animated in a densely layered drawing.

It is not pleasant, but it is powerful, strikingly so.

Blunt and McGregor do what they can but they, like their characters, are swimming upstream in a river of syrup to a soundtrack that came from the drawer marked Now That's What I Call Celtic.

Milan Maric and Milo Timotijevic deliver good performances which require them to go in very different directions.

It’s impossible not to admire Belafonte's courage and commitment.

It's a mark of its quality how ably it wrong-foots.

Fascinating throughout but often difficult to watch.

This is a complex love story, as much about brotherhood as anything else. It's also a fantastic comedy.

Singin' in the Rain remains one of the most enduring, effervescent and exuberant of films.

Slacker 2011 suffers from the same essential flaws as its predecessor.

A lurching and uneven film, Sleeping Sickness resembles a dream.

The Somnambulists is a powerful, unapologetically political contribution to the discourse about this country's questionable manoeuvrings abroad since 9/11, lest we forget.

Peschel delivers a superb physical performance.

St Nick is acutely observed and poignantly delivered.

This documentary's great strength is in the variety of characters it presents to us.

Remains unbeaten in terms of influence and iconic moments.

While the film may be monochrome, every colour of emotion is represented here, from elation in the creative process to anxiousness and disillusionment.

This is far more than a lighthearted romp.

The effect is absorbing, like opening a wonderfully illustrated storybook.

A sad, mournful and bittersweet air pervades the entire film both in the shorts and the biographical segments, as if Tatsumi's success and clear artistic ability never allowed him to outrun certain doubts and worries.

A refreshingly intelligent film with skillfully drawn characters.

There is a charm and grace to this 'not' film that mirrors all of Panahi's previous filmic masterpieces.

Funny, moving and endlessly surprising.

This is, in fact, a fascinating documentary about the cubicle.

Has all the appeal you'd expect from a lesson on late 20th century Bulgarian history.

In the central role, Frieda Pinto shows that she has come of age, delivering the story's most powerful screen heroine yet.

The central performances are great - the warriors speak in the old tongue, subtitled.

Refreshingly honest and unconventional.

If this is a character study, there is little character in it.

While Up There is jam-packed with dry Scottish humour and absurd situations brought on by the dead's physical handicap, the film never fails to engage with its audience on a more philosophical level.

Fitz's portrayal as someone tortured by his Tourette's and haunted by all he has lost because of it is touching and believable.

The film displays a healthy awareness of its own absurdity, never sensationalising or exploiting the situation it portrays.

One wonders if Robyn O'Neil's original artwork would have been aided by being static.

A thought-provoking consideration of ageing from the perspective of the elderly that is, perhaps ironically, hard to forget.

Labaki manages to get across a view of life that is not predominant in cinematic stories, without making it seem like an agenda.

The steady - but never sluggish - pace allows the characters to live and breathe.

A mature approach is not matched by the quality of the performances or script.

What you get out of Your Sister's Sister is likely to depend quite a bit on the audience you see it with.