Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

This is great stuff - a fantastic musical documentary.

Striking stuff.

With strong performances all round and gorgeous cinematography by Óscar Faura, it's a powerful piece of work.

Drawing on the grand guignol horror that its creator had loved since his own childhood, Beetlejuice combines gleefully gory special effects with high camp, sharp wit and irreverent humour.

In the space of 22 minutes, Roger Pratt's cinematography revolutionised the genre.

Pooley and cinematographer Richard Bluck bring the story to life - along with the vivid possibility of death - and the big screen is the place to see it.

Visually arresting, impressively taut and enjoyably idiosyncratic.

The children, including Nico Liersch as Leisel's friend Rudy, are genuinely good, but they are strong performances in service of a film that doesn't quite work.

The director's uncompromising approach and rigour pulls us along at least until the half way point when the pace begins to falter and its lack of obvious intentions starts to grate.

There isn't enough to get a proper grasp of.

To begrudge this film its faults would be to ignore the way it cuts to the very heart of the contradictions and hypocrisies of a nation that still regards women as vessels for male bloodlines.

Although displaying much of the barbed wit of his first film, this is a more measured and moving work.

Worth seeing for its gripping central performances and Cuenca's impressive camerawork - signposting better films from him to come - even though the story lacks killer instinct.

Technically this is excellent.

A good wee film.

A powerful piece of work, beautifully depicted.

A brilliant central performance from Robin Weigert.

Well worth tracking down.

Brontis really does steal the show, offering a multi-layered, sensitive performance that begs the question why we haven't seen more of him over the years.

Konstantin Kolesov's film doesn't have nothing to say but it doesn't have much to say about nothing.

Dark Blood is an offbeat film no one would call formally perfect, yet the depths it gutsily goes for and its strange vein of comedy make it one to think about and enjoy

In contrast with today's studiously dignified portrayals of the dying, Bette Davis' portrayal of Judith as angry and confused is perhaps more honest, more humane.

The Dirties... has two leads who work well with each other and whose naturalism and likeability draws us in

I wished for Billy Wilder's spirit from The Apartment to take over the tone just a little bit.

An affecting piece of film-making.

Karasawa's film is at its strongest when Stritch is allowed to open up her life to us in all its intimate detail.

Powerful stuff.

Montaldo has to some extent revealed the horror of the body as a thing itself.

In taking us on a tour of Muirhouse. Fraser doesn't try to cover anything up.

Directors Martin Clark and Cara Connolly have an eye for detail.

Mabasa is delightful in the lead.

Simple things like a radio suddenly switching on, a wine glass falling to the floor, or an insistent knocking at the door are an object lesson to contemporary horror’s blood-soaked tyros.

While there is no doubting the admirable intentions of Vercoe's idea, the end result feels far too focused on her response to what happened than on the more universal impact of the events themselves.

An amazing film, masterfully paced.

Leigh embraces the artificiality of Scarlett.

This is Scorsese at the top of his game.

An extraordinary piece of imaginative cinema.

A flowing, lyrical film, at times startlingly beautiful, The Golden Dream hypnotises the viewer with its constant movement, its unceasing rhythm.

Wrathall's considered, thorough and thoroughly entertaining film gives not just a sense of the man but also the importance to the world of iconoclasts like him.

An emotionally engaging tale that sucks you in with its gentle humour and melancholy.

Although the actors acquit themselves with some distinction the performances cannot quite disguise the one dimensional aspect of the characters.

Matsuda is excellent in the demanding central role.

Slight but entertaining.

A film worth shouting about.

The film has a lot more to say than viewers might initially expect.

Captured at a challenging point in his life, Wizard is a well-chosen subject and eminently watchable.

Its realism isn't textural or technical, but emotional.

Scott's voice brings a welcome authenticity to the subject and gets at social and cultural issues that outsiders routinely miss.

A still, painterly vision in silvery monochrome - capturing the quiet contemplation of the two women and simultaneously encouraging the same on the part of the viewer.

Ilo Ilo is a quietly assured first feature that marks the director out as a bright new talent.

Strikingly presented.

If prompting an audience to think of other things it's usually prudent to bring their attention back.

Its shock tactics never feel cheap and its cerebral bent should see it transcend the torture porn ghetto.

A tale that's rich in allusion without its various acts of homage becoming too heavy-handed.

Otto's sensitively structured portrait of an engaging Peter Pan draws us irresistibly into his world.

The film with all its large time leaps gives the impression not of something alien, long dead, but very pertinent to the now.

Anderson creates sealed, self-supporting worlds, crammed with excruciating detail.

It's like a suicide. And there's nothing to look at

Sweet-natured and sometimes charming.

Sheer unadulterated pleasure often comes from the most unexpected quarters.

Imbach’s production eschews costume drama clichés for a spare and taut account.

Nat Di Resta gives Polly a naive enthusiasm that makes her likeable even when it's clear that she needs to be locked up.

The overkill threatens to bludgeon the much-loved book into an over-wrought exercise in style.

Caine makes the most of the material on offer.

There's nothing stale, nor been-there about this animated pooch's fizzy brainstorms

Sen has crafted a tense thrill ride without ever forgetting his roots.

Conversations are awkwardly stilted and lacking in the rhythms of natural speech.

Reichardt observes the game coolly, yet provides more than enough detail to show the contradictions in her players' gambits.

A well-shot and occasionally sweaty run around the same old block.

A striking work.

Thought-provoking throughout.

Cinematographer Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson captures Iceland at its wildest and yet this is also a tale of intimacy without romanticism.

Rather than matching his subjects’ plight with a routinely rugged aesthetic, Drexel demonstrates both appreciable tact and a keen eye for the unexpectedly beautiful.

Unflinching in its observation, compelling in its detail.

Pandas is gleeful, brutal, mischievous and funny.

Managing for the most part to avoid the clichés of portraying the gypsy milieu, it has the stamp of authenticity.

Farhadi peels away the layers with simplicity, revealing the complicated and detailed emotions which lurk very close to the surface.

Overall the characters fail to transcend their archetypes, despite Kodi Smit-McPhee anchoring the film with real emotion.

Director Parker excels at misdirection but risks losing audience interest in the process.

If you are a fan of Kathleen and her work, this film is a must-see.

Almost as much documentation as documentary.

Comes as something of a disappointment, this is the first Pixar film that one suspects could have been done live-action.

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

Though intriguing, even entertaining, the film doesn't quite strike the right balance between subject and depiction.

The spirit of childhood skips and giggles through The Rocket even though Kim Mordaunt's debut fiction feature touches on deeply disturbing humanitarian issues.

A rambling tale that mixes drama with gentle comedy.

Gene Jones makes one of the most enigmatic and appalling cult leaders you'll ever see.

Saleh Bakri is superb in the central role, at first chilling, then lurching between brutality and incongruous tenderness.

Shaffer has adapted the story from his own comic book and tends towards self-indulgence.

Unflinching.

For all that its often said "they don't make them like they used to" this is very, very close.

The film is a template for disaster movies and strangers-trapped-in-a-train scenarios.

Few portrayals of autism spectrum disorders in film have ever had the authenticity of this.

Mackenzie shows everyone, inmates and guards alike, to be trapped in a corrupted, corrupting system that resists all change.

We're transported into a world of cinema; some of it is known, much of it unknown, which surely fires the imagination of any viewing cinephile.

A slow, mature film from first time director Mückstein, Talea showcases a rare talent in Epply.

The film is a great example of how powerful and universal small but well-crafted stories can be.

A touching tale of a magically real quest.

Some of the snatches of conversation we hear are like found art, poetic in what they capture and convey.

Riding along on the strength of its central mystery, They Will Return just about gets away with its unevenly paced story and variable acting.

The film doesn't really go anywhere but is nonetheless effective as a piece of contemplative art.

Seek it out.

A complex portrait of grief, Tom At The Farm is Dolan's strongest work to date, not least because of the performance he gives in the lead.

Visually the film has emotional qualities that contribute to the feeling of admiration for Robyn's quest

It does entertain, but it's gruelling.

With impressively sourced archive footage, much of it in colour, the film presents a fair overview of its subject and finds time for laughs even in stories with tragic endings.

A film that seeks to challenge and alienate its audience from the get-go, knowing full well that it won't win all of them back.

The sense of a community growing up in defiance of such nonsensical conservatism makes the second half hugely rousing.

Here, the old Chilean songs fulfill their original purpose, as storytelling elements, but now they bear the weight of a new history.

Àlex Brendemühl is superb as the doctor, by turns avuncular and ruthless, somebody on whom the family find themselves increasingly dependent even as they come to distrust him.

We Are The Best! is a rebel yell of positivism - with exclamation mark - that brings a fuzzy warmth to all the wintry Stockholm locations.

Silver may succeed in pushing emotional buttons but its people's heads that need to be engaged in tackling this complex issue, not just their hearts.

Miyazaki's films linger for a long time, they can't be pinned down, their meaning won't dissolve on the horizon.

A messy but highly enjoyable romp that takes a sideswipe at modern Spanish attitudes and the country's economic turmoil.

The Wizard Of Oz has something fresh and intangibly pure for me every time I see it.

John Jarrett dominates every scene in which he appears and quite a few in which he doesn't.

Valle’s deadpan comedy demonstrates a master image-maker at work.

Richard E Grant's performance is a masterpiece in comic acting.

Refined and illuminating.

You'll Be A Man goes a long way on the strength of its strong script and capable cast.

The actors have great chemistry and potently communicate things about human behavior in relationships, universal and specific, self-destructive and kind.

The Zero Theorem is a messy mélange of broad pratfalls, challenged idealism, dark satire, and expansive, indeed cosmic allegory - but it also .cannot escape being seen as a kind of Brazil vers. 2.0.