Skip to main content

Leeds International Film Festival · 2023

Leeds International Film Festival 2023

Thrill Rides

Programme

7 films · 4 reviews

Jump to a film

From Russia With Love (James Bond 2)

Review preview for From Russia With Love

In only his sophomore effort as James Bond, Sean Connery shows he has already mastered the role.

Stephen Carty · 4 out of 5
James Bond tries to foil a plot involving a stolen espionage machine, and faces off against a deadly assassin. Enjoying a reissue.

(Country: UK; Year: 1963; Director: Terence Young; Writer: Johanna Harwood, based on the book by Ian Fleming.; Stars: Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendáriz, Lotte Lenya, Vladek Sheybal, Robert Shaw, Bernard Lee, Eunice Gayson, Walter Gotell, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewellyn, Anthony Dawson) , Official site , Trailer

Full review

The Lady Vanishes

Review preview for The Lady Vanishes

Despite having all the elements of a classic Hitchcock mystery, this is really one for fans of the master's early, funny films.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Young Iris is horrified when the woman she has been talking to on a train disappears and no-one seems to remember her.

(Country: UK; Year: 1938; Director: Alfred Hitchcock; Writer: Sidney Gilliat, based on the book by Ethel Lina White.; Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty, Cecil Parker, Linden Travers, Naunton Wayne, Basil Radford)

Full review

The Narrow Margin

Passengers on a train are threatened by assassins in this twisty film noir.

(Country: US; Year: 1952; Director: Richard Fleischer; Stars: Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White, Gordon Gebert, Queenie Leonard, David Clarke, Peter Virgo, Don Beddoe, Paul Maxey, Harry Harvey)

North By Northwest

Review preview for North By Northwest

It's a nonsense, but when the storytelling is this good it doesn't matter.

Scott Macdonald · 5 out of 5
A case of mistaken identity and false accusation sees an innocent man go on the run from the CIA and a criminal gang.

(Country: US; Year: 1959; Director: Alfred Hitchcock; Writer: Ernest Lehman; Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll, Josephine Hutchinson, Philip Ober, Martin Landau, Adam Williams, Edward Platt)

Full review

Snowpiercer (Snow Piercer)

Review preview for Snowpiercer

The mix of action and satire also turns it into an absorbing hell of a ride.

Sophie Charlotte Rieger · 4.5 out of 5
In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine.

(Country: South Korea, US, France; Year: 2013; Director: Bong Joon Ho; Writer: Bong Joon Ho, Kelly Masterson, based on the story by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand, Jean-Marc Rochette; Stars: Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans, Luke Pasqualino, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Alison Pill, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Song Kang-ho, Kenny Doughty, Steve Park, Adnan Haskovic, Clark Middleton, Tómas Lemarquis)

Full review See: Interview with Bong Joon-ho about Snowpiercer , Interview with John Hurt about Snowpiercer

Strangers On A Train

Story of men who meet on a train and decide to exchange murders.

(Country: US; Year: 1951; Director: Alfred Hitchcock; Writer: Patricia Highsmith, Whitfield Cook, Czenzi Ormonde, Ben Hecht, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler; Stars: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Kasey Rogers, Marion Lorne, Jonathan Hale, Howard St. John, John Brown)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

A subway train is hijacked.

(Country: US; Year: 1974; Director: Joseph Sargent; Writer: John Godey, Peter Stone; Stars: Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Earl Hindman, James Broderick, Dick O'Neill, Lee Wallace, Tom Pedi, Beatrice Winde, Jerry Stiller, Nathan George, Rudy Bond, Kenneth McMillan, Doris Roberts)