New York Film Festival — A–Z of films

I cannot remember the last time a film made me cry and laugh out loud half a minute later, especially not in public. The Artist did that.

The film uses an unusually wide aspect ratio: 2.76:1, which accentuates the stillness of the fleets approaching before the screen erupts in the chaos of battle.

Unlike many of his other films where there are underlying touches of humor, Polanski plays this one more as a straight comedy.

Captivating and informative.

The two central performances – Vianello’s bewildered, sensitive, lonely young girl and Cantalupo’s harassed moral inadequate – are pitch-perfect.

Keira Knightley... will be tough to beat at next year's Academy Awards for her portrayal of Spielrein

Payne's premise resembles a dare: How can I make you care for a person who looks and acts like this? He works the Disney device of love at first sight in reverse.

Petzold exposes the social machinations behind the seemingly simple love stories.

The fantastic interrupts the profane.

After seeing three films in and around the small town of Dreileben, the landscape has become familiar and inescapable.

The initially breezy tone of the comedy gives way to a depiction of calculated cruelty monstrously vicious enough almost to qualify as horror, human enough to count as tragedy and nuanced enough to face viewers with a most unusual kind of dilemma, part in

Perceptions make this film such a pleasure to watch. Everything feels believable, real, and thought through.

Director Aki Kaurismäki's latest is a humanist hug of a fable, which concludes that while big miracles may happen, it's the everyday 'miracles' people create for one another that really count.

In a world where everyone seems so lost, The Kid With A Bike will help you find your humanity again.

The Loneliest Planet spins a carefully constructed net around your imagination.

As a moody, atmospheric study of paranoia, it is hard to beat.

Lars von Trier's sublime invitation to the end of the world is a grand film by a master story teller who does not repeat himself.

Naranjo never lets the tension slip and finds ways to make the situation worse for his hapless heroine while still keeping the narrative firmly in the realms of fact not fantasy.

You could wash your hair, play scrabble and still not miss the point.

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia produces the most exciting boredom.

If you see one dance film in your life, see this one with those 3D glasses.

There is a sense that we are glimpsing a society in flux.

Fassbender and Mulligan burn white hot in the central pairing, their emotional maelstrom magnetic even when no dialogue is used.

Almodóvar's trademark narrative divergence is in full effect but he keeps a delicious sense of control over his fabulously grotesque concoction.

A lurching and uneven film, Sleeping Sickness resembles a dream.

There is a charm and grace to this 'not' film that mirrors all of Panahi's previous filmic masterpieces.

This is a film where the absence of action is the point, as it plays out like a joke-shorn version of Beckett's Waiting For Godot.

Truth be told, it is annoying as hell and becomes very tired, very quickly.

Exquisite.