London Film Festival — A–Z of films

After Lucia is an uncomfortable and disturbing experience with a vengeful sting in the tail.

Haneke goes far beyond pushing emotional buttons into territory where our most visceral fears lurk.

As a first feature, it may not be totally surprising or very subtle, but it does have some impact, particularly visually.

Affleck knows how to keep a tight grip on a story, gets better at ratcheting tension with every film, and displays a fearlessness when it comes to mixing genre.

There's poetry, tough love and, above all, a fierce stoicism on the bayou in Benh Zeitlin's strikingly beautiful and haunting debut.

Although much of the action is played for dark comedy, Berger undercuts his pastiche with unexpected poignancy at key moments.

What comes out in the film seems like the very essence of a rock life, though Baker demands to be called a jazz, as opposed to a rock, musician.

If the way Alina cries and hugs her friend hello, in between train tracks, does not trigger your empathy, you are possibly already dead.

It is violent and visceral, of course, but also a metaphor for the irreversibility of time.

There simply isn't anything here that will surprise anyone who is a veteran of cop films, with characters' actions, plot twists, misdirections and revelations quite easy to see coming.

Underneath the sound and fury is a subtle, poignant and often very funny take on growing up.

Mendoza never lets your expectations, or your blood pressure, settle as the strange and isolated group face physical and existential threats.

The bottom falls out of sanity in a way that, despite being based on real events, feels deeply unsatisfactory.

The writing is so sharp and rapid-fire, and the performances so charmingly self-lacerating, that you will be happy to spend time in these characters' company.

A powerful, psychologically complex portrait of a community.

Anchored by a sincerely anguished turn from talented young Welsh star Aneurin Barnard.

It is precisely Ed's inertia that makes The Comedian more a sketch than a film of action – and when things do happen, it is almost in spite of the protagonist.

Rebollo, reinvents the Road Movie, just as Leos Carax does in Holy Motors.

Doomsday Book sandwiches Kim's serious and savoury speculative fiction between Yim's two altogether more absurdist slices of Armageddon.

Dormant Beauty expands beyond the central case to look at myriad issues around coma, caring, bereavement, euthanasia, suicide and choice.

This is at once a densely interlocking slice of Scandi-crime, an intense set of character pieces, and a poly-lingual indictment of a variety of shades of greed.

Sit back and enjoy the ride with LA's finest.

Small-town prejudice and the fear of otherness are roundly exposed for their absurdity, but the sensitivity of the artistic disposition and even the importance of good dental care are also sensibly celebrated.

Ana Piterbarg attempts the acrobatic and ill-advised feat of presenting the plot of a B movie noir through the prism of arthouse sombreness.

Stéphane Brizé's perfectly balanced two-hander is a breath of fresh air.

Hunter S. Thompson and the crazy stories of what the pair got up to in the USA are an obvious highlight.

While drawing on influences from the Golden Age of Universal horror movies such as Wolfman and Frankenstein, this is a animal entirely borne of Burton - and it's all the better for it.

A confident metaphysical mystery which, as a calling card, offers a tantalising glimpse into the future of Korean cinema, while coming with a gimmick of its own.

Vibrant, funny and ultimately touching, Leon's loose limbed narrative is an ode to both the tribulations of adolescence and the city in which it's set.

Fanning's sincere face in happiness and disbelief is the essence of the film.

This is a joyous pearl of a film.

Perhaps wisely, Grassroots never really seems especially engaged with ideology.

Mike Newell’s take does not disappoint, with sumptuous cinematography and an impressive British cast.

The sort of film that practically defines the festival experience, but that one could not ever imagine watching in any other context.

Stark, beautifully observed, genuinely captivating, A Hijacking grabs its audience and does not let go.

An intense performance from Mads Mikkelsen, who is an actor rarely bettered when it comes to playing men in savage situations.

Are Bill Murray's fabulous presidential brogues what is worth remembering most, or are some of the statements about gender still valid commentary?

Ozon loves to let his audience's perceptions clash.

One acquires a keen sense of the positive consciousness that might emerge through a struggle for organisation, acceptance and liberation.

Keeping us focused as the story meanders is Cipri's own elegant cinematography, which finds a poetry in the grimmest of places.

Given the Rampling family pedigree there are certain expectations of quality, and Southcombe largely lives up to the promise with this sharply stylish crime mystery that gives plenty of space for Rampling to flex her acting muscles.

It may sound like a spurious stream-of-consciousness from someone who’s taken too many drugs in their life, but it’s not.

Since the film so closely follows the couple, it is vital that we feel this sense of alienation and despair, and feel it we do.

There's a real sense of being there, not only in the same physical spaces but in the same emotional ones.

A gently paced but unsparing and unglamorous portrait of a gay relationship where love doesn't and perhaps never could conquer all.

Evans coaxes excellent performances from a couple of very talented young actors.

A sublime lesson in emotional manipulation through cinematic traditions.

Poupaud and Clement subtly delineate their character’s changes while maintaining an intensity that keeps the audience involved amid all the flashy distractions.

What remains true now, as it was then, is the scale and scope of the thing.

Where it would have been easy to soften Lore, Shortland refuses to get sentimental, keeping us hanging on the edge with her as events grow more traumatic.

A classical exploration of power, love, violence and misery.

Gibney assembles interview subjects who offer a fascinating insight into how the Vatican functions behind its large exterior walls.

The film's power comes from Vincent Ebrahim's performance.

El Hosaini is wise to inject visual majesty into her otherwise gritty tale.

This goes on for more than two hours and will bore some viewers to death. Others, though, will find this quiet, complex film a fascinating piece of art in itself.

This documentary offers a uniquely personal account of events in the house from an eyewitness who has never really been heard before.

Because the pace is kept brisk and the two lead actors play so well off each other and are so magnetic on screen, Nameless Gangster never bores.

Pablo Larraín's No is a resounding yes!

Joachim LaFosse's film builds, inexorably, to an ending that we know from the start is coming.

There is a great story in here somewhere.. but the combination of the two narratives - presented as tonally and visually distinct from one another - does not entirely work.

As the film progresses, Seidl allows scenes to play out longer than expected, as they enter that uncomfortable territory (for protagonists, audiences and censor boards alike) of total unpredictability.

From Coca Cola as the perfect commodity, full of metaphysical reality ("The real thing!"), to the Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs with the toy inside... Fiennes and Zizek do their best to make theoretical concepts understandable.

In some ways it brings to mind the psychopathological novels of new wave science fiction.

Dustin Hoffman's condescending direction turns old people into horrible giggling puppets.

A strictly one-note parable.

The Red And The Blue is a real charmer despite moments of bleakness.

Through heartfelt and very conventional storytelling Nair simplifies, pleads, and misses the chances to shift the very current problematics into a new light.

Olivier's performance is immensely intelligent, fiercely energetic, unnervingly funny and deeply disturbing

Jake Schreier and scriptwriter Christopher Ford go well beyond the initial fun of the robot conceit to craft a thoughtful film musing on both the ageing process and our relationship with technology.

Some fans have become, as one admits, literally lost in the maze of the Overlook Hotel.

Rust And Bone is the rarest of cinematic delights - poignant, provocative and profoundly visceral.

By the close, the revenge motif has become completely decentred, giving way to a quirky study of lost souls.

It could be comedy gold, but the ball is dropped early.

Are there really people out there who didn't know disco had a social impact? Perhaps, but if so it seems unlikely they're the sort of folk who watch documentaries.

McDonagh just about makes this ultra violent meta train ride all hang together.

Isolation rules and comfort is cold in Scott Graham's gripping and emotionally tense feature debut.

Well worth the effort of tuning into its wavelength.

There’s no reassurance to be found in this cold world but Campos’s talent for getting mood whistling abominably through your ears is worthy of admiration.

It is a well-observed portrait of the family ties that bind, but with insufficient narrative development to justify its length.

Truth be told, I wept buckets.

It all feels a little thickly laid on, to the point of cliché.

It takes messy and unresolved dynamics and finds their poetry. Can’t say sexier than that.

If Malick's lands were bad, then Wheatley's are sad, as small injustices, petty jealousies and perceived slights lead to cold blooded murder and childish revenge.

The authenticity of the characters and the issues they face feels unimpeachable; however the dialogue can, at times, verge into maddening exposition.

The camera of Bárbara Álvarez carefully observes the tensions mounting against a backdrop of ... landscapes that mirror the young girl's anxieties.

When a journalist is so embedded, a bit of historical accuracy and broader perspective might actually have helped.

Intimate, engaging and appealingly optimistic, Village At The End Of The World does its simple job well.

Here, the old Chilean songs fulfill their original purpose, as storytelling elements, but now they bear the weight of a new history.

A cracking film by a born filmmaker and I can’t wait to see what all involved in it do next.

The wall is an undeniable presence, both solidly tangible and, thanks to some stunning sound design, resonantly audible as it redefines and demarcates the Woman's newly cloistered life.

Subtle and powerful, Abrahmson shows how easy it is for things to turn sour even in the most privileged and upstanding environments.

An immersive dive into an offbeat and murky corner of modern Argentine life.

No fictionalised crime drama ever felt as thrilling.

Towering performances from two of the twentieth century's greatest stars, a mercilessly witty script and direction which pulls no punches - quite simply the greatest melodrama of its era.

When the dam finally breaks it does so with a rush that still doesn't manage to overwhelm the sense of disappointment at its 'is that all?' reveal.

This as an enchanting film and perfect for family viewing.

The animated characters have a detailed, Disney-friendly feel, but there is little of the sentimentality that tends to fur the teeth of US animation.

Abdallah El Akal channels an unsettling amount of loathing.