London Film Festival — A–Z of films

If, like me, you’re a fully paid-up member of the Boyle fan club, this still has all the things you go to his movies for – imagination, heart, humour and a constant desire to try something new.

Ultimately, what you see is what you get in 13 Assassins. Lots of blood and death and despicable cruelty.

There's some late in the day pathos which does pull at the heart strings, but the film falls flat once more with a half-baked open ended conclusion.

The killer-for-hire subgenre takes on an abstract, existentialist complexion.

Although the tragicomic episodes that make up Another Year seem casual and low-key, they encompass birth, death and everything in between.

Memory, reality, fact and fiction blend to give you a vivid 'feel' for the interviewees' recollections while being acutely aware that this remains a remembered reconstruction of the past.

Africa United is a simple, feel-good road movie that seems comfortable with its shortcomings.

A beautifully observed study of a small community remaining united in the face of seismic shifts.

Hogg has been praised for her bravery in making films about the contemporary middle class and she has certainly succeeded again here, sedately unfolding a web of universal issues with a deceptive simplicity.

Always moving and often downright terrifying it reminds us once again of some uncomfortable truths.

Ramshackle, poignant and very British but capturing the sheer joy of being allowed to make music and prat about on stage for a living.

Bardem gives a stronger, more all-encompassing performance here than we have seen in any of his previous films.

As elegant and overblown as ballet itself.

No-one has ever come close to Simon's performance as the original screen Boudu.

Waiting for the chop, as it were, makes for a captivating and disquieting watch, an experience which Stever herself describes as sitting through a horror film.

There's potential with no pay-off, desolation with little downslide.

Overall, East meets West with mutual respect, but this debut is still an uneven, mismatched effort.

Lean's bridge-building drama doesn't grip as much as its reputation promises.

There is a full-throttle, head-long feel to Trapero's film that sends it careering along.

This is bravura filmmaking.

At times the tone gets hysterical and there are moments of utter ridiculousness, but there are smart layers of black satire underlying the proceedings and any extreme material ends up helping emphasise the journey into murderous insanity the film takes us

This understated moodpiece is a real treat for those in tune with Lucrecia Martel's brand of nuanced suggestiveness - and is full of pretty pictures for everyone else.

We shouldn’t feel so obviously manipulated and steered away from everything else towards the leads’ performances.

The film is adapted from the book Elisa Kiseljak by Lolita Bosch and its origins hang like a millstone round its neck courtesy of ponderous and never-ending narration.

There is no other film in the apocalypse subgenre that quite matches its low-key approach to the unravelling of the human species.

The cinematography is jarringly stunning, with episodes of pursuit and suspense broken up by breathtaking vistas of harsh landscapes.

There's something increasingly bland and uninvolving about this Will Ferrell vehicle which, like him or loathe him, you've got to admit is a kind of achievement.

A journey from time immemorial, played out in a contemporary drama with sensitivity and an eye that will not flinch from the pain that is involved.

Shot over three years, the film treads a line between documentary and fiction... and it combines extreme naturalism with surprisingly avant-garde techniques.

A dizzying array of original and masterly techniques.

The thrilling archival clips and charismatic talking heads alone would make a fabulous documentary in the most traditional sense, but the judicious use of music really brings the film alive.

There is plenty of intriguing historical backdrop to this story, and Chadwick manages to incorporate much of it without losing focus on the very personal subject at the film's centre.

A feel-good recognition that nobody’s perfect, despite the ideal lifestyles we’re marketed.

The moneyed, beautiful bourgeoisie cooly emoting the eloquent travails of a menage á quatre.

Dolan – in all his incarnations – has proved himself a name to watch here.

The real standout performance is Franco’s.

A work of chilling beauty, whose sparse, unforgiving landscapes can accommodate all manner of allegorical readings.

Charles Ferguson's documentary - unlike the subject matter he is broaching - makes a virtue of economy.

It’s kind of a good film, but it’s kind of an irritating one too.

The picture is a claustrophobic, intimate jumble... The terrific sound design is instrumental as well.

Squarely aimed at a student demographic, the entire affair plays out like an episode of Scooby Doo on acid with the added fuel of frequent sex.

A whip-smart, often very funny family drama, presenting observations on domestic life that are all too uncomfortably recognisable.

Although there is a lot of humour, crowd-pleasing fun and some award-worthy performances, there seems to be a lack of edge and darkness here.

Director Oliver Shmitz does a good job of balancing the immediate, visible tragedy of the characters we follow with a wider, national problem.

The film's action ultimately moves to a borderland between not just France and Spain, but also crime thriller and love story, dreams and reality.

It has nearly everything that filmgoers loved about Alfredson's Swedish original – except the originality.

Anchored by Depardieu's unflinching performance and his sheer physicality, the film mixes melancholic nostalgia and mordant satire with a strong sense of the absurd.

Along with her eye for composition, Reichardt also deserves praise for the focus on the smaller period details.

Never Let Me Go arrives trailing a lot of hype and carrying a considerable weight of expectation. Happily, it more than delivers.

It’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, having more the feel of a gallery installation than a feature film.

The humour and emotion are so sharp you might not feel them at the time, but Mullan's film cuts deep and leaves its mark.

If this sounds grim, it is, but it keeps the audience engaged thanks to a beautifully judged script and a keen sense of the absurd.

Beautiful imagery and subtle acting sustain it well, but still the pace will be too slow for many.

More a portrait than a narrative film, it may place viewers in park for its relatively brief duration rather than drive them in any particular direction, but Eckman's subjects are so wittily articulate that the film just offers one quotable zinger after a

We are reintroduced, through the most improbably modest of routes, to the extraordinary power that cinema can have to galvanise a community and bring it together.

Sampat is a subject so complex and compelling, so fearless and flawed, that in the end the documentary itself is drawn into her irresistible orbit no less than she dominates all the people and situations around her.

In between helicopter shots of the glorious landscape and the slightly irritating finger-wagging, there's a good story here with a sprinkling of jaw-dropping moments.

Full of striking imagery which, once seen , will stay with you forever.

Veteran actress Yun Jeong-hie, who came out of a 15-year retirement to take on the role of Mija brings a fragile beauty and strength to the part, lending her character an air of inscrutability that is intriguing rather than frustrating.

The twisting narrative is rendered skilfully so that it is easy to follow even as allegiences and alliances shift, and there is plenty of space to revel in the complexity of the characters.

There's a creepiness here from the outset and no amount of dark humour can alleviate it; as the tension escalates grown adults will also find themselves hiding behind the seats.

Route Irish just about overcomes these shortcomings in its portrayal of the de-humanising consequences of modern warfare.

Its occasional flashes of quirkiness are never enough to justify its overstretched duration.

Alexey Fedorchenko's elegiac and moving film marries melancholic longing with absurdism and presents its fiction in the cloak of facts.

Gast's documentary has an effortless charm.

Lacking any sort of critical distance or self-reflection, it’s merely a wafer-thin portrait of an artist suffering from… something.

Spork may pluck the heartstrings but its does so with an askew sense of humour free of Hollywood schmaltz.

Ayoade’s aesthetic choices as well as his many cinematic nods make the film a genuine treat for the cinephile set, but not to the extent of alienating those who may not grab the references to Bergman, Roeg, or the French New Wave.

Performances are strong throughout the film, generating an effective mixture of simultaneous sympathy and anger in the audience.

The gradual slip into tragedy in the film's last few reels offer up a reeling pathos rare in a Svankmajer picture.

Morris traces this perfect tabloid tale in all its hilarious, sad and bizarre particulars.

In many ways, The Taqwacores is punk movie-making by numbers.

A true original, collapsing and cross-fertilising all manner of shifting ideologies in the best unlikely pairing since Laurel and Hardy.

The contrasts in education, class and outlook between likable buffoon Aidan and his 'straight man' Tom, though certainly funny, also come with an underlying pathos, as both men struggle to find their place in the world

The Trip is a big costume drama without the costumes.

Walker's documentary is moving, life-affirming and challenges what you think you might know about these people who pick through the rubbish.

Although the comedy feels as broad as the Atlantic initially, once the main characters are transplanted to Pakistan things look up as the script begins to properly probe the emotional flaws of the characters rather than just opting for cheap laughs.

Bleak and spare... would be deeply depressing were it not so absurdly funny.