Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

For the patient and intelligent viewer willing to give it a chance or for those interested in the topic at hand, this is cinematic gold-dust.

While Gates has found an intriguing setting for her war satire, it’s less clear what she wants to say with it.

With a past working for a management company used by YouTube stars, Bongard knows his subject matter well.

The connection that forms between them feels more real because it’s so unlikely. Duplass, co-writing with Strassner, has the skill to pull it off, and both lead actors are up to the task.

The Battle of Algiers is an unforgettable piece of cinema, utterly absorbing and very hard hitting.

Boorman has an extraordinary openness about him which would make him a compelling subject even if he’d never made a film in his life.

This isn’t about rejection but about navigating the difficulties full acceptance bring.

The lads’ delight at their early success is engaging, and both stars acquit themselves well.

The irreverent score, the gothic art direction, and Mario Tosi’s kaleidoscopic, slithering cinematography coalesce into something mesmeric.

Bright, white-painted spaces give way to slowly deepening blues as the story progresses, so that when we see the colour red, it leaps out at us.

Laperrière's focus is on creating a sensorial experience, allowing the narrative to become somewhat murky.

This film's sharp political observations are as relevant now as they ever were.

There’s a lot of very good work in The Dutchman.

Such is the force in Gwenllian’s performance that it would be almost impossible not to root for her.

Finney adds definite class to Roberts high octane performance.

Even for those who were present on the day, there are likely to be revelations.

It is, of course, Mullan’s film. He brings gravitas and emotional complexity to a story which could easily have collapsed otherwise.

A thoughtful and lyrical film unafraid to do things differently.

Aleñar Iglesias... presents the ordinary world as loaded with meaning.

Playful biopic that rips up chronology and frequently tears down the fourth wall so that we’re never sure if we’re going to be the ones looking into the fishbowl of his life or the ones being inspected.

Good Night, And Good Luck proves that it is still possible in the cinema, if not in television, to inform without being boring and entertain without condescending.

You’re unlikely to see anything quite like it any time soon.

The real candy is the omnipresent densely uncomfortable atmosphere that comes on top of the richly detailed observations and conclusions in the film's lower layers.

Jailbroken is a pared down thriller that really grips.

The documentary is attentive to contradiction without flattening its subjects into symbols.

It holds nothing back – it’s funny, violent, suspenseful and tense while still discussing our current cultural moment, both locally and globally, and being very incisive and dangerous about it.

The performances are thrilling, emotionally direct and physically exacting, but they function as narrative instruments too.

Blends a shaggy dog story with a road trip.

At times it feels as if Jensen is trying to spin too many plates at once, but in the moments when it all comes together, it’s a delight to watch.

Burch and Jones clearly enjoy updating rich kid Myers and his literary salon pals to the present without ever falling into clownish cliché.

Adopting a style that blends collage and observational filmmaking, they probe how human minds and bodies contort, struggle and resist against a cruel war and its repercussions.

Marc Silver’s film is refreshingly alert to the nuances of the issue.

Nino offers a glimpse into an ordinary, possibly unfulfilled life and the psyche of a contemporary man trying to reconfigure things in the wake of a challenge.

The underlying formula is a simple one but the chaos around it is managed magnificently so that you can never be sure what will happen next.

If you’re looking for a witty and heartfelt story with characters you can care about, you may find yourself falling head over heels.

There is no grand adventure, no melodramatic pathos, no broad comedy, just life as an eternal struggle for survival and for the chance of thriving, but also with a sense of warmth.

Offers food for thought in the realm of a slightly ungainly and sprawling all-you-can-eat buffet rather than a satisfying sit-down feast.

Watching the two young men, you may well find your sympathies shifting – and you may wonder which of them, if either, is actually en route to becoming a killer.

It’s in the moment, in the process, in the commingling of voices that something divine is found.

It could not be more apposite in exploring how whose who have lost everything in such environmental disasters, find resilience in human connections.

The production design of Redoubt is nothing short of a triumph.

A first stab at directing for actor Craig Conway, Red Riding scores high on atmosphere and is grounded by a strong central performance.

Director/co-writer Glenn McQuaid uses larger than life cinematic tropes as a means of getting at his subject effectively.

Jenkin’s style, impressionistic when it comes to places, is particular in regard to objects, the real anchors of our lives.

There are long stretches when nothing much happens

This is possibly the raciest picture ever to get a U-rating.

It’s hard to care about a film when those involved don’t appear to have done so themselves.

This is about war being fought in a moral maze as Hawkins considers the invasion of space owned by others and the way that borders, both physical and ethical, can be redrawn from a very corporeal perspective.

This is a film with a deep interest in women’s lives, in the effects of continued inequality, and in the various means that women use to exercise agency despite this.

There’s a “Warriors, come out to play!” vibe about it, but alas, like that film, it is better to remember than it is to watch.

Underscoring everything here is the can-do spirit to be found in the film’s heroes and in its creators.

We Believe You works to perfection thanks to the dedication and stellar directing, acting and technical work.

Dano has chosen to use the same flat vocal expression throughout, a technique well suited to satire which might have worked if only the rest of the film had been a bit more lively.