Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

A wonderful black comedy.

There is more melancholy in About Endlessness, however, than in his preceding 'Living Trilogy', as despite moments of humour and hopefulness, its dominant themes are regret and loss.

A nicely observed drama with rounded, sympathetic characters.

Every time we are away from the older generation, they're sorely missed and the action drags without their presence.

This is chiefly a character study of one man's humanity in the face of grief but it echoes the wider trauma of a nation that was decimated by hunger.

A film full of despair and tortured masculinity.

Creates a unique and eerily grounded suspense that transcends genre.

Despite all the ugliness in this story, it emerges as a celebration of the power of sisterhood.

Narratively slight but stylistically lush.

With dazzling visual effects and stunning sets, Brazil is a film that you should see on the biggest screen possible.

Whatever else you think of it, it’s clearly a labour of love.

Though they are archetypes with a predictable assortment of problems at home, the young people in this story all come across as real.

It's usually Keoghan who gets the acting plaudits, but though he is good as a wannabe bad guy, it's Jarvis who provides the heft, in more ways than one here.

Daniel Vernon’s film is one of those meandering documentaries that starts out trying to do one thing and ends up going in directions that nobody involved seems to have anticipated.

The beauty of Chicken Run is its refusal to accept modernity as having squatting rights in a Yorkshire state of mind. Park's heart is with the comics his dad read.

This is a film that takes no prisoners. It will live long in the memory.

LeVeck has more story ideas than are initially apparent and saves the best till last.

Hákonarson's woman against corporate Mafia premise is solid enough but The County never manages to generate the emotional intensity that the feuding brothers brought to his previous film.

The trouble is that for all its visual elegance, Anderson Falls features some clichéd dialogue and leaden delivery.

Lines like “Funny how when the chopper falls everyone just accepts it” are disturbingly prescient.

The director proves a master of the tragicomic as he observes one man's slip from midlife crisis to madness by way of obsession.

The jarring juxtaposition of sparkly, sexualised Seventies choreography and fire-and-brimstone Catholicism is absolutely key to a film that explores the mismatch between devout religious beliefs and modernity.

The sight of a four month old child standing upright on Snorri's hand, raised up above the water, will simultaneously awe and terrify many parents.

Beautifully acted all round, Driveways is a small film with a big heart.

District 9 actually has some intelligence behind it and expects some in front of it, too.

The disparate vignettes of Echo are held together by strange rhymes and resonances.

This is immersive filmmaking, intense and absorbing all the way up to its unexpected ending.

This is a thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat but that also has something going on upstairs.

There's a volatility and a sweetness at play in what is, at heart, a character study and writer/director Craig Roberts strikes an impressive balance of mood.

Coster-Waldau is a superb lead, distant in the way one would expect of a man going through such a difficult experience, yet compelling.

Keane himself is performing a tricky act here, juggling the real and the surreal while walking a tightrope of story.

James Wong's debut feature mixes a little psychic spookiness into the teenage body count.

With beautifully drawn relationships and a fine central performance, The Garden Left Behind takes frequently politicised subject matter and reminds us of the human side of it.

There's a melancholy undercurrent to the tale throughout, but that only makes its upbeat moments more delightful.

Where the narrative is hampered by a lack of self awareness, Feldman finds a way to turn it into something more poignant.

This is a gem of a role and Peretti allows himself to be fully absorbed by it.

There's much to enjoy here, from the gripping performances, particularly from Taujanskaité and Bagdziunas to the handsome cinematography from Denis Luschick, showing bags of potential in his first feature

In the quarry, just beneath the surface of the world as we normally see it, primitive impulses are never far away.

The potential for violence and creeping paranoia haunt the film, but though some elements of it may feel murkier than others, there's always a sense that Matulevicius and his cinematographer Narvydas Naujalis are in control.

The music used is sufficiently varied that there will be something to please and something to annoy almost everyone.

The comedic interplay between the two leads has that intimate quality like squabbling between family members.

Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway reboots the genre by both using and subverting its conventions.

The film has an organic quality, seeming like another product of the land.

The film is full of daft but unforgettable moments.

A work of such singular vision that it scarcely seems like the product of a team.

Oakley doesn't oversell the unnerving elements, instead letting them unsettle us as they settle on Ruth.

Mother and son team Anca and Anghel Damian have created something special here by telling the story wholly from the dog's perspective.

Luca Marinelli is excellent in the lead, balancing intensity with intelligence, convincing at every stage of Martin's journey.

Do not see it with an empty stomach and a full wallet or they will soon be the other way round.

This is a romcom in which the comedy frequently comes at the expense of the romance.

Ly wanted the people who have lived in these schemes to have the chance to tell their own stories, which gives Les Misérables an unerring sense of authenticity.

Brummer is the perfect choice to play Nick.

Brown gives the film the kind of iconic weight of past masters like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.

Markovics intentionally pushes viewers out of their comfort zone.

Korean comedies are known for their quirkiness and The Odd Family combines this with a set of principal characters so wilfully obnoxious that it would be difficult not to like them.

This documentary is a treasure trove full of interesting bits and pieces many of which could easily provide enough material for a film in their own right.

Olympic Dreams brings warmth to these snowy vistas and finds a special kind of joy that might be impossible without the loneliness surrounding it.

This is an extraordinarily intimate film.

Writer Jeff Murphy and director Adrian Shergold use the comedic pretext to explore themes around mental illness and the damage done to people in poverty by a system obsessed with meting out punishment.

The way ahead may be a little pre-destined but the director let's the tension drip through every beautifully shot moment by cinematographer Michal Englert - with the sort of imagery that could see her film achieve its own cult appeal.

It feels a bit like a box-ticking exercise at a funding body.

With Petterson’s novel heavily focused on Trond’s inner life, it’s no easy task to bring it to the screen.

Li is an incredible find.

Smutný gives us faces that will stories even when they're still, the weight of long experience etched into every line.

Engages with an energetic and angry vitality as well as authenticity.

With its quirky characterisation and abrupt shifts of tone, this is an odd little film which will delight some viewers and befuddle others.

Tim Mielants's quirky comedy is shot through with melancholy and holds a deep affection for its earnest hero even when he seems to be the butt of everybody's jokes.

Details sparkle in the script too, pared back to only what is needed.

The film generates a feel-good vibe even if beneath the pleasant froth lies a rather predictable polemic against the patriarchy.

Deftly mixes observational comedy with an awareness of the brothers’ very real sorrows.

Racial discrimination, the fragile relationship between faith and science, post-Cold War anti-nuclear damnation… the script misses no opportunity to use an ape society for clever analogy.

Fennell explores the lasting effects of traumatic events with care, never making light of the situation even amid moments of comedy.

The narrative manages to balance the personal with the wider world of space exploration while dealing with the issues of domesticity and family demands and the conflicts of pursuing a demanding work arc.

A further challenge is the credibility of the chemistry - it's in two senses that a flame flickers between the Curies, and in both it convinces.

Director Daniel Borgman elicits careful performances from his capable cast, working hard to get past the assumptions commonly made about people in these circumstances.

The camera is, literally, down with the kids, at their eye level, drinking in their mayhem, their laughter and their viewpoint.

Moody, poignant and rich in humour, the documentary unfolds with something of the character of a shaggy dog story.

Abdykalykov’s story is slight but its roots go deep.

Elegiacally epic camerawork sweeps over the snow-kissed landscape as lovingly as the man in a funny woolly hat plays Viking songs about Odin on his xylophone.

When someone dies, there’s grief that feels real, as disorientating as any fever.

Filmed in and around Iceland, the documentary encounters its participants in the course of their day to day lives – at home, at work or out and about – immediately dispelling many of the myths about their difference.

Nothing here is as peaceful as the various characters are trying to make it seem.

This small, heartbreaking story illuminates much bigger issues.

Nasiri is remarkable as the boy at the centre of it all, a child who is withdrawing into himself in the absence of reliable, consistent adult protection.

With such a powerful story and a charismatic lead like Heston, it's hard to go wrong.

Some films only ever really work with an audience – in this case, preferably a drunken one.

See Billy Crystal's name in a line-up like this and you probably expect wise-cracking comedy, but in fact this is a rare straight role for the actor and it illustrates what he's capable of when he really gets to flex his acting muscles.

What the cumulative effect of masterfully restored newsreel may lack in action, it more than makes up for with the numbing, slow-burn sensation of being drawn under the spell of state-orchestrated mass mourning.

Jan Vysocy’s soundscape is huge, overwhelming. It reminds us of the smallness of the human characters.

Bigelow delivers a neo noir that hides its hope and redemption under a throbbing veil of paranoia, tension and adrenalin.

Everything plays out within 80 minutes but you'll feel the impact of the crash for much longer.

Synchronic is science fiction thinking about itself.

A film which makes you rethink your perceptions and encourages you to ponder deeper questions of humanity.

Tightly paced and styled after the manner of a 1940s creature feature, this is a film peppered with bad jokes and innuendo yet played absolutely straight between its two leads.

This all-singing, all-dancing, big gun blazing, kangaroo-fucking anarchist had a style that was all her own.

Rinland’s film encourages viewers to meditate on this subject whilst observing the artistic process.

Madá’s entrepreneurial spirit and take-no-prisoners attitude make her an entertaining central character but Kogut doesn’t lose sight of the ugliness underlying the situation.

Longstanding fans will enjoy her extensive contributions, as considered and witty as ever.

At first glance it seems like a rollercoaster action movie but underneath it's full of ambiguities, hidden clues and red herrings.

As befits a film set on a rapid commuter train, the pace rarely lets up.

This starts as a chamber mystery about blackmail where everyone involved is massively aware of genre conventions, and from there furls and folds into something else.

It may be one of the finest performances you see this year, and see it you should.

In less sensitive hands than Kore-eda's, it could have come across as cloyingly introverted but instead there is wit and warmth in the observed relationship between the two women.

Every cherished symbol of Canadianness is here, from maple walnut ice cream to a fleetingly glimpsed but narratively influential narwhal.

Two of Us jolts the senses - you can smell when the hot pan stays on the stove too long and want to interfere.

Though the scenery is vast and beguiling, Gille keeps his camera close, keeps the story small and personal.

Full of gruesome violence but with a lot of heart, VFW is best watched as part of an audience, or at least with a group of friends and a good quantity of drink.

There is much to admire about this film.

Lorcan Finnegan never allows us to lose sight of the absurdity of the situation, nor of the real life absurdities that it points up.

A charming pastiche of the whole SF genre.

Westworld goes to some very dark places even before the androids become dangerous, but it does so in a way that's easily overlooked by viewers who identify with the amicable heroes and enjoy the ride.

The deeper into the film we get, and the closer the realities of the war become to Unamuno, the more Amenábar and his co-writer Alejandro Hernández lean into the melodrama.

The whistling language is fun - and, if anything, disappointingly underused - but it's the language of cinema that Porumboiu is really interested in.

White Riot is as brisk, to the point and direct as any punk song of the period.

A White, White Day mingles some very dark dramatic moments with the comedy of the absurd.

It's as though the director is so in love with the striking visual aesthetic that he forgets the need to narratively connect the dots.