London Film Festival — A–Z of films

An elegant, inspiring piece of silent cinema, which is strongly recommended for any hopeless romantics out there.

It should come as no surprise, given the kitsch and extravagant props and costumes, that the film has been co-produced by Pedro Almodovar and his brother Augustin.

Joe Penna's thriller is as lean and spare as life up in the Arctic wilderness.

Higashide will no doubt attract most attention, impressive in his ability to inhabit two very different characters, yet it's Karata who is the power at the heart of the film.

Older viewers may find it too much but it's spot on for what it's trying to achieve.

Scruggs still suffers from the problem that afflicts too many other anthologies - not all the tales come up to the same level in telling the essentially Coen-esque truth over and over.

The performances are a tribute to a screenplay that avoids the worst indulgences of the urban jungle.

Green's richly detailed documentary is a portrait of a remarkable woman, a love letter to early cinema and a fascinating detective story all in one.

This isn't the finest example of the documentary art, but it may well be one of the most enjoyable films you see this year.

The rituals set in motion at the start, also tune us into the wavelength of portent, so that a heron's feet on a rug or the sound of locusts carry at least as much threat as the site of a loaded gun.

Though the film feels too smart and too busy for its own good at times, the story remains fascinating (though troubling), and the cinematography always striking.

An original and highly ambitious premise that maintains its grip your attention and imagination.

Lee works the narrative with an ambivalence that borders on the inscrutable

Screenwriter Isa Mazzei is a former camgirl herself and it shows in the film’s focus on the business side of proceedings, but director Daniel Goldhaber extends her work in a much stranger direction.

The writers start from a place where the screw is already turned and, just when you think they can't get it any tighter, find new ways to increase the tension - matching their torque with action.

McCarthy is a revelation.

You might notice the elegance of composition while knowing that the place contains so much human suffering.

Chained For Life finds a rich vein of comedy in the awfulness of many people's reactions to disability.

This is a quiet movie, which never loses its focus on its central character study, while allowing points about economic and social inequalities to sound out loud and clear.

This evocation of Colette in 2018 knows that its heroine will always be larger than what is on screen.

Shooting under predominantly grey skies in landscapes built of concrete, chipboard and peeling plaster, director Darko Stante invites the audience to share Andrej's feelings of confinement and hopelessness.

Beautifully lit, Daughter Of Mine conjures up a tremendous sense of place, all salt breezes, scrubland and golden sand.

The cinematography of Dead Pigs is consistently picturesque, even during the most melancholic moments.

It's essentially a character study - the trouble is that there's not much character there.

The film carries a message about the importance of tolerance, love and a healthy dose of silliness in the face of the darker elements of modern life.

Michel Ocelot's combination of live film, photo-realistic images and animation brings out the magic of Paris as if were being seen for the first time.

Because Simone is so one-note, it's hard to fully swallow the lengths Marcello ultimately goes to in order to shield him.

Each successive scene hits you over the head with the ferocity of the action.

Long, slow and at times painful.

Imhoof tries to open the debate out to consider the unsavoury economics of the situation, with the personal touchstone ensuring that his film retains a character of its own that marks it out from others on the same subject.

The dialogue is irreverent and sharp like a raven's claw.

Simple things like a radio suddenly switching on, a wine glass falling to the floor, or an insistent knocking at the door are an object lesson to contemporary horror’s blood-soaked tyros.

Arebi's patiently observational film is full of small moments that encapsulate horrific prejudice or warm, resilient humour.

Touching and brave.

The film stands back, doesn’t take sides. As a political thriller it stays out of politics. As a human drama it rocks to a gentle rhythm.

Directed with admirable understatement and restraint.

Well-written dialogue, strong acting all round and unobtrusive but taut direction give it real strength.

Newcomer Tardiolo is splendid in the lead.

Sonne, seemingly named for her role, moves through it with languorous ease.

This is a story of building a thing against impossible odds.

A powerful condemnation of endemic and structural racism, a sweet love story and, at a technical level, a beautifully produced film, If Beale Street Could Talk has much to recommend it.

Elusively impenetrable stuff that only loosely can be described as cinema.

You might not think you're in the mood for buying, but his extravagant sales pitch is likely to win you over by the end.

If you're interested in the technical details of the sport or the process of filmmaking, you may find Julien Faraut's unapologetically artsy film fascinating.

It is carefully crafted, the work of a film-maker who is very in charge of what he is doing.

Clavellino's approach is unsentimental and all the more believable for that.

For anyone who has experienced the obsessive attentions of a teacher, this makes for uncomfortable viewing.

This isn't the kind of film that's destined to win mainstream awards but Paradis' performance deserves to be remembered.

Ladyworld becomes so burdened by art and symbolism that it almost loses sight of the need to tell a story.

This is a grim, austere story of the pressure cooker of frustration, rage and fear that results when the patriarchy squeezes just as tight as the corsets of the time.

Glavonic, who has a background in documentary, has crafted a moody and broody piece, built less on onscreen incident than the oppressive atmosphere and offscreen imaginings.

This is a woozily shot, dislocating experience that in its best moments generates the sort of tense mental anxiety that Lynne Ramsay has made her calling card.

The film only lives up to about 80% of the promise whereas I wanted 150%.

Gilliam’s script cannot quite stand the excesses of his own imagination.

Bobbie Cousins' marvellous production design packs in the details that inform us about the life that is fading.

Thumbs up here for graphics that are colourful, inventive and always interesting.

Both Rodriguez and Rohana deliver delicate, nuanced performances in a story that revolves in large part around friendship.

The director has an aptitude for taking a dash of the familiar and giving it an individual twist.

An intense character study in triplicate, made gripping both by the deliberately ambiguous way in which Christina Choe approaches everyone's mental state and by the performances.

Fabiula Nascimento is superb as the frustrated Odete.

In Assayas's smashingly sad comedy of manners, shoes drop left and right.

If Tucker hadn’t been a real person, you would have had had to invent him so Redford could play him, so perfect is the fit.

A seriously intelligent script.

When it comes to action, the film doesn't disappoint, and the final scenes of men running around in mud are up there with the best.

If you see one portrayal of a screwed up female detective with a drink problem this year, make it this one.

Beautifully written and sensitively directed.

In his desire to inform our heads, Leigh often forgets that he needs to engage our hearts us as well.

The fight scenes are kept fairly simple, the focus not on gimmicky set pieces but on doing simple things really well.

Heineman’s docu-style fits perfectly into the look and sound of things.

Mansky's bigger picture about the manipulation of a nation is crystal clear.

Like its predecessor, the film does an impressive amount with an obviously limited budget.

Billingham's consideration calls for empathy rather than condemnation.

We are at a point where the wonders of earth and an awe in regards to nature cannot be shown often enough.

Showing a keen understanding of the nature of sex work and of life on the streets, Vidal-Naquet carries us through several days in Léo's life in a observational, non-judgemental way.

Going along with a bonkers plot and lashings of melodramatic confrontations between the characters is a hell of a lot easier to do when you have a well-done Wuxia spectacular to delight your eyes.

Phoenix gives his character more depth than such men are usually afforded but deliberately takes a back seat, allowing Reilly the dramatic lead role he has long deserved.

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

I've seen it described as a film with a twist but that suggests it's got just one. It's full of them, it's made of them, it reels and gyres and tumbles into something special.

The performances by Steve Coogan (Stan) and John C Reilly (Ollie) are above and beyond the call of duty. They give the film heart.

There's a strong sense of isolation from the start in Fisher's film.

Sunset while resisting the digital, flings us into a dreamworld where nostalgia for the past is twin to premonition of our future.

Hall makes you feel the constant battle between exhaustion, frustration, and compassion,

If we compared the original to a Mark Rothko canvas - a distillation of raw emotion - this version is more akin to a colossal, baffling kinetic sculpture, one that seems to exist in more dimensions than it ought to.

The documentary lifts the various stones around the movie's creation and lets us have a good look at the monsters hiding underneath Welles's barely watchable, misogynistic hate parade.

Jackson’s interventions into archive material are often startling and sometimes very transporting and moving, but in my view this film is best approached as more of a well-intentioned artistic reinterpretation.. than a restoration.

This isn't racism as white sheet-wearing, torch-bearing awfulness, but the more 'respectable' version that looks squeaky clean and masquerades as 'tolerant' while being insidiously malevolent.

For all his character's vacillations, this is a masterclass in filmmaking control.

If we have, ourselves, become greedy to know exactly what the secret is by this point, Barve certainly does not disappoint.

While content is important, it is context that is king in a documentary, and this film could do with a lot more of it to orient viewers, especially those who don't have a full working knowledge of the American South.

Hare finds contrast between Nureyev's physical grace and his considerably more abrasive personality.

Recent Hollywood heist films - typified by the Ocean's franchise - have been largely concerned with shiny surfaces, gloss and froth but British director Steve McQueen is much more interested in what lies beneath.

Landscape and music and everyday objects are used to splendid effect.

Nicole Taylor's quickfire script provides great material for the actors to work with .

There's a refreshing lack of sentimentality in the way Omerzu captures his duo of protagonists.

This is joyful, beautiful, up-lifting - and bleak too, a clarion call to direct climate action at the personal and the political levels.

Neville makes a solid case about why Rogers' impact remains so great even if the man himself remains partially concealed from us.

Shawky allows his characters to sit firmly in the driving seat.