Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

McDonald is excellent.

It’s the multiple layers of mystery – which have less to do with actual events than with what different characters are thinking – which make the film compelling.

It’s solidly rooted in the ordinary and yet its habit of drawing out small absurdities means that ordinary things and places won’t seem so safe after you’ve seen it.

Sakamoto manages to keep this light and charming even when people are bleeding, struggling to breathe or actually dying in the dirt.

One of the greatest achievements in documentary to date.

The Beast explores what Henry James diagnosed so devastatingly. The chill of egotism and the feverish dance around the void are so desperately relevant today that it leaves one breathless.

Bend It Like Beckham understands the rules of feelgood and will do well for that reason.

This is more an introduction to Douglas as a man than a creator.

There is great chemistry between them and Jaques knows when to tread lightly, letting their natural humour take over.

The acting and the visuals are of the highest order, especially given the sensitive and personal nature of some of the revelations.

Blue Sunshine was made by a woman who has been through it herself, and that shows in every fibre of the film.

This feels, at times, like a kind of anti-cinema. It offers its share of sensation and big emotion, but elevates the ordinary, the joys of a more mundane life.

Brick is something altogether peculiar, more than the sum of its parts

Eventually, Diallo will travel far beyond the villages, to another country, to continue his quest, going to lengths few documentarians would consider - but what he learns there will reveal that the real answer lies back home.

Rohrwacher’s visually eclectic style is well suited to exploring the contrasts between present and past, natural and artificial, poverty and wealth.

Erlingur Thoroddsen has done a fairly good job of cramming in an expansive and complicated story with very little compromise.

An intriguing piece of work which probes the psychology of contestant, producers and viewers alike.

How it feels to take credit for something you haven’t done is one of the questions Coup! invites us to contemplate.

Whilst exploring ideas around power, perception and the reshaping of boundaries, Teixeira also delivers a tender love story.

It’s in [its] understanding of working life that the film really excels, and it’s refreshing to see working class characters given centre stage in a story like this.

If there’s vacillation in general at work, the slippery nature of the film, greased with the sweat of physical and metaphorical dance, remains beguiling.

By mixing the situations of a crime drama with dysfunctional family dynamics, the everyday becomes accentuated, meaning that outbreaks of violence are absurdly comic but still retain a nasty edge.

Anthony Chen's slow-burn character study is essentially a showcase for its star Cynthia Erivo

This is one of the few films I've seen where a length of ribbon drew a round of applause.

As the film’s themes darken, so do the initially bright landscapes, and the colours of Evie’s clothes fade. This creates something of a sense that the characters are slipping backwards into a troubled past.

Aboyan lets Layla drive the film with an emotional intensity alongside which everything else fades.

As might be expected from an actress-turned-director, the performances are important to Tezel but she also shows an aptitude for visual storytelling.

Wells finds within his story many formative elements of 20th Century US history, with Capra’s tragedy and contradictions speaking to the country’s own.

While Ann can handle a knife, there’s a sense that her look might just as easily strike others dead.

Essential, urgent and damning.

Kar-Wai avoids cultish gay stereotyping.

Hesitation Wound is a melancholy piece of cinema but such an accomplished one that it is a delight to watch.

A fascinating piece of work, mixing glamour and darkness and a lot of uncertainty.

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

Hoard goes further, creeps around, becomes something you can start to smell, to taste.

Even non-football fans are likely to find themselves won over almost immediately by this tale of one team’s determination against the odds.

Some films take time to gather momentum, but there’s a sense of movement right from the off in Kamal Lazraq’s debut feature.

The house has an older past which, at her tender age, [Rebecca] has not reckoned with, and her discovery of this goes hand in hand with her developing awareness of the political climate surrounding her.

It’s inventive throughout, well worked out in terms of effects, and equipped with characters we can really get to know, with some great work even in the smallest roles.

Writer/director Zarrar Khan uses techniques borrowed from the horror genre to address the experience of living in an environment where one is seen as less than fully human, or even as prey.

First-timer Sarr - who is a musician - is a remarkable lead and matched by the support from fellow novice Fall.

A story of survival, adjustment and reclaiming a place in the world, full of unexpected joys.

It’s Clennon’s first ever film role, but you wouldn’t think it. The interiority, the subtlety of his performance is what really sells it.

Aslin and Lennon convey this very effectively, without being too blunt.

There’s nothing to challenge or expand upon the average viewer’s pre-existing knowledge of who Janey is.

This may be Will Gilbey’s first feature as director, but his background as an editor means he knows how to construct an action sequence, and he delivers one great set piece after another.

It’s a clever structure but one which could easily go awry. Neal handles it well, with the confidence to alter events very slightly so as to communicate the different perspectives of his principal characters.

Lousy Carter provides pleasant enough distraction in the moment but gives viewers very little to take away.

There's no doubt that by presenting several characters as pure id is quite a dangerous gambit for a filmmaker but Glass keeps things interesting by having them driven by different things.

Hinton’s documentary visually points to all the complicated, often triangular entanglements.

This is a splendid exercise in world building. Bösch gives us everything we need to believe in this place and understand the character dynamics, but does not stray beyond that.

It’s an uncomfortable watch, as we stay close to its troubled central character. The challenge to viewers is to see what she’s missing.

If one bears in mind that parts of it may be more fiction than fact, it’s an interesting character study, as well as one of the more unusual cinematic portraits of a marriage under stress.

A brilliant exercise in plotting, drama, comedy and action with a fitting denouement.

Viewers … must be patient and wait for their rewards – but like the old man, we are sometimes caught be surprise, confronted with sudden moments of exquisite beauty.

No matter that the plot development is deliberately murky, it’s the mood that catches you in its tides.

It’s a tremendously challenging role, in which Maadi excels.

[DuVernay is] not here to tell people what to think – rather, she’s presenting them with the tools to start thinking for themselves and making their own discoveries.

Excitement shivers through each scene with quirky, individual peculiarity.

There’s a reason why formulas work and this one is marked: Caution, may make you cry.

There is an artistic sensibility in Ramsay's approach to film.

It’s nice to see a film which problematises familiar, overly comfortable assumptions about the sociological response to new technologies, and which doesn’t insist that babies need to be thrown out with bathwater.

Told from a child’s point of view, immediate and haphazard, magical and unlikely.

It’s a reflexive, even self-conscious work, interested in the infrastructure of oil, of film.

Danny Boyle directs with the right balance of tension and wit, never forgetting that violence begets violence as one thing leads to another.

Mixing horror elements with character study and a tender portrait of a relationship in crisis, Sleep easily slides between genres and, in the process, keeps viewers guessing.

Solo features wonderfully detailed sets which give depth and meaning to its characters’ lives, plus fantastic costume work both on and off the stage.

The film wonderfully captures the dynamics of workplace small talk.

Part fantasy, part western, the film is exquisitely shot, the humid atmosphere of the island creating a degree of visual uncertainty to confound viewers further.

By taking their time and standing back from the fray, Mones and Suh are able to take a much more objective look at these social phenomena.

A Teacher is not the most finely crafted film, but it is a cri de cœur.

Thrums from start to almost finish with the sweaty tension of a looming maths test.

The characters are not unrealistically attached to their well-intentioned lies, and get into trouble in part because of the ease with which they give way to awkward compromises. As a result, they feel very human.

Though effective in places, it doesn’t have enough going on to justify its running time, mistaking expositional twists for substance, and when it slows, the device at its heart becomes really, really irritating.

Multiverses have become a box office staple lately, courtesy of Marvel and the like, but they are rarely as elegantly mounted as this retro and twisty little mystery from Timm Kröger.

An immensely dark, macabre and unsettling work.

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

Australia's finest horror film in years.

Although the plot is a tired one, Walk The Line avoids hitting any dud notes, thanks to the excellence of the two leads.

Pure joy from start to finish.

The distilled essence of European Gothic.

This may be, ironically, rather stagey, but for all its artificiality and slightness, it packs an emotional punch.

The film keeps us guessing for quite some time, despite delivering a number of unsettling hints