London Film Festival — A–Z of films

The idea of the bare room, the helpless prisoner and the group of aggressive men is profoundly Pinteresque. Unfortunately it has neither Pinter's wit nor his brevity.

45365 proves visually delightful and while it may romantically honour the everyday and find beauty in the individual, but it saves a dispiriting, melancholic tone for the whole

By allowing a slow-build to his drama, he ensures we get a feel for the extended family dynamic before wrong-footing the characters and his audience with the suddeness and deftness of a heartbeat.

Delicately scored by Katsuhiko Maeda, the early part of the film has a real magic about it, its sweet-natured heroine conveying an infectious sense of wonder.

Although we are talking age old themes here – first love, dodgy geezers, questions of class – the material is spectacularly well handled.

The intricate detail of the colourful computer animation will wow viewers.

There are plenty of incendiary tensions to go round in Ajami, and they fuel one another in unexpected ways, as the personal and the political become horrifically confused.

American: The Bill Hicks Story provides us with a wonderful glimpse behind the curtain of performance and lets us see the sensitive, warm, patriotic and fiercely intelligent man we all suspected lay beneath the act.

Simple messages, simply but warmly told.

A film where horror is evaded, elided or merely glimpsed sidelong – but is all the more horrific for that.

Despite its structural instability, Connolly still manages to find plenty of poignancy and to gather an emotional head of steam.

No film by Herzog has ever been so defiantly mainstream – and yet at the same time this remains one of the director's craziest, most outlandish affairs.

Though well executed, there isn’t a great deal to elevate the story beyond a solid genre piece.

Ultimately, this is your basic talking heads documentary, interspersed with footage that redefines cinematic cool.

This carefully played comedy sees characters buzz around each other whilst a network of words and expectations, often subtly misunderstood, seems to bind them to mutually frustrating situations.

An affecting blend of warm comedy and high pathos, The Boys Are Back brings an unusual all-male perspective to its otherwise familiar themes of domesticity, death and dysfunction.

A poignant and rewarding tale.

A dreamily picaresque film most of whose flaws stem from a lack of discipline and a tendency to use its expansive potential as an excuse to move on every time it runs out of ideas.

Once - and if - you accept that this is a B-movie plot, it is possible to find a level of enjoyment from its undeniably A-movie trappings.

Rather than pursue a nationalist agenda, director Lu Chuan searches for humanity in all his characters, and all his characters are flawed.

With tongue firmly in cheek Cold Souls thrives off the irony and contradictions that plague its protagonist.

Juno Temple, building on the early promise she showed in Atonement, is superb as Di, fragile and sympathetic even at her most unpleasant.

Totally charming.

A stunning little film.

While the result is visually flawless, the film is often very confusing.

Don't read this review... simply go and see it, for if ever there was a film that is best experienced without knowing a single detail, this unforgettable oddity from Greece is the one.

For the most part it’s a clever, solid script with a quirky take on the femme fatale role.

It is easy enough to appreciate what Don't Worry About Me might have been, but much harder to like what it is.

Some will find the apparently random nature of its early scenes so irritating that they'll just give up. But there will almost certainly be others who will consider this to be one of the best films they have ever seen.

A day-glo postmortem avant-garde mind-trip that for some will be enlightening, while others will find it to be little more than an endurance test.

A minor mumblecore treat.

A controversial subject that is tackled as full on as is possible within the constraints of Israeli sensibility.

Hansen-Love prefers to make her points through gesture and nuance and the film is all the better for it.

A fantastic adaptation that manages to surpass its source material while staying entirely true to its spirit.

It's an old story, but rarely has it been this appealingly told.

This haunting ghost story is an old-fashioned family film that will delight both kids and adults. S

Engagement with this film requires patience and hinges on the performance of Camandule.

Because it is so self-consciously light, this film never quite has the impact it might have done, but it's still an interesting take on an unusual phenomenon.

For a film about the brimming over of one girl's emotional fervour, it does surprisingly little to elicit a 'gut response' from the audience.

Clouzot's vivid imagery is quite sufficient on its own to make this film a must-see.

Events, as they unfold, are both shocking and satisfying.

Concentrated insights (without any complicating distractions) into sex, family, the shifts in generations and the continuities of life.

Soderbergh has great fun playing with the conventions of the conspiracy thriller.

As a study of the mirage of celebrity and the emptiness of fanaticism, Kicks is frank, insightful and hard-hitting.

Offers lashings of humour alongside its damning critique of greed and manipulation.

I suspect even Jarmusch’s most ardent fans will find longeurs.

Recha depicts a hardscrabble existence but finds fleeting moments of beauty, affection, and pleasure by focussing on the things that truly matter to Arnau.

Emotional explorations are the life-blood of London River, but it is clogged up by the weight of sorrow running through it.

This is a film with a fine regard for detail, and it is neither mocking nor deferential.

The bleached-to-monochrome palette and rich textures are stunningly beautiful to behold, if also deeply unnerving.

Although the layers of symbolism and allegory certainly add to the depth of the film's resonance, those who consider it purely as a more simply magic realist-inflected coming of age tale are unlikely to be disappointed either.

An enjoyable if uneven feel-good swipe at both US military and human endeavours.

A riot of slapstick humour, bizarre gadgetry, spectacular stunts and unlikely adventures.

When it comes to subverting the audience’s expectations, Joon-ho proves he is a puppet master, pulling our strings without us ever suspecting it.

For those who think they know what is going on in this once stable and prosperous country, to be faced with the Campbells’ story is a stark reminder that reading opinion pieces in newspapers is like witnessing a massacre from behind a wall.

In the central role, Elit Iscan demonstrate a confidence that belies her years.

There is something a bit bland, a bit kitchen sink, a bit telemovie, about this portrait of the artist as a young man.

The 'story' is somewhat simplistic, but the state-of-a-nation snapshot it allows to be revealed is complex and highly emotive.

Eerie and enigmatic.

Bissonette handles the gradually shifting points of view with such deftness and subtlety that many viewers may find themselves genuinely wrong-footed.

Despite being slightly reductive, this low budget Argentinean film is still largely a sweet and honest portrayal of two men falling in love.

Green's film, like Verde's, will no doubt seem boring to some, overly intellectual to others, while still others will find it deeply affecting.

This is no TV-movie style real life horror re-run. It's something whose focus is cultural, moral and - eventually - personal.

An unlikely, but highly effective, marriage of arthouse and mainstream sensibilities.

This is an actors' movie through and through, with all of them pulling off the key emotional scenes magnificently.

Pure, stripped-down bleakness, both in the desaturated drabness of its appearance and in the last-days essentialism of its themes.

She, A Chinese is slow to build yet powerful throughout, its pumping Chinese pop music soundtrack hinting at the passion that simmers inside mild-faced Mei.

Firth produces a subtle and deeply moving performance.

The movie works by getting under your skin in ways that you only realise when the situation turns sour.

Despite showing a lot of directorial potential, the film is let down somewhat by its story, as Thorne forgets that an audience, like the scouts, need to be prepared for plot developments if we are to fully accept them.

A fine example of the uniquely offbeat, demonstrative, allusive cinema that only Joel and Ethan Coen can deliver.

A film that makes sceptics of us all, shaking us from brainwashed passivity into a state of awareness that makes resistance possible.

Beesley uses his conventional frame to cast light on people who normally have no voice, on issues that have few public champions and on 'inside' perspectives that invert expectation.

A loving and gently funny take on one of the defining moments of America’s counter-culture era.

It is presented as comedy, and judged as comedy it is only partially successful.

The film is a purely visceral experience, which by and large does everything it sets out to do – repel, amuse, horrify, bore – with a sickening but punk-rock panache.

Technically, imaginatively, emotionally, John Lasseter's sequel matches the original.

A quick script and sharp performances all round help deliver an enjoyable, if ultimately sentimental commentary of the times.

The difficulty with sustaining intensity for any period of time is that it so easily becomes ridiculous, but there is absolutely nothing in this brutal, at times violent film that will have you laughing.

Filippo Timi is excellent as the young, supremely egotistical Mussolini.

If you’re in the mood for an original riff on a familiar tune, you could do worse than hop on board.

As if the thematic richness and subtlety of The White Space were not enough, it is also directed by Francesca Comencini with style and sensitivity.

This is amazing: ephemeral, illuminating, ingenious.

Seamlessly balances the scenes that made the band infamous, with the intimate moments and the atmosphere of an era.

The slippery nature of the morality on show coupled with the shifting sands of the narrative makes this an uneasy watch - yet it is also a beautiful and masterfully constructed film.