New York Film Festival — A–Z of films

Campillo has a weakness in not knowing when to trim all the talking.

We get family background and find out why fathers are always mythological figures.

Sometimes absurd, sometimes bone-chilling, strikingly original.

A life like this is never tidy and neither is Driver's documentary.

It is fundamentally a film about the workings of infatuation with a charmed fever that contaminates its characters.

The directors' intentions remain obscure; as always, one feels that by watching their work one is becoming a part of the experiment.

McAlpine is so eager that we experience the same sense of joy that she is that she over-editorialises, offering voice-over observations that are more distracting than deep.

A western for sleepwalkers and dreamers.

Whether she is probing at the ideas of the ties that bind us to a home or considering the morality of goat horns, she constantly nudges us to move around and, perhaps, get a better view.

Few voices are missing from this incredibly thorough piece of work.

The film’s most gripping aspect is the delicacy with which it handles its extraordinary emotional depth

The script doesn't patronise its characters, showing they're just as capable of the best of actions and the worst as anybody else, but makes sure we understand the additional pressures they face.

How does Ismael have the derring-do to believe that all these women are there, like a bouquet, for him to choose from? He is an artist, of course, who creates his own reality.

Morgen infuses new life into Jane Goodall's groundbreaking wildlife study that took place over half a century ago.

It is always wonderful when a film about a writer you admire produces sentences - be it in dialogue, commentary or excerpts you overlooked or forgot from the published texts - that are so poignant in the here and now and feel brand new.

Carell is extremely impressive here.

Her honesty cuts through you like an Arctic storm

Denis and Binoche take a perceptive and light approach to what could have been hackneyed material.

The balance of the super real with intricately timed artifice and how they collapse into each other is Baumbach's crown achievement.

Although we alight at many points of interest throughout the journey, we never stop long enough anywhere to explore.

Both Hedlund and Mitchell deliver strong performances and balance well against one another.

More than 60 years after its initial release as a critical and commercial flop, The Night of the Hunter remains a brilliant oddity without equal.

Although Whale is working with clichés, many of them were only established in literary form in 1932, and are presented on film here for the first time in forms that continue to be imitated to this day.

The director has a flare for encapsulating a world of emotion in a single moment.

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

A film of vital importance.

The craft, the knowledge, the deep communication with the animal, shown without words - this is breathtaking, transcendent cinema.

While satirically entertaining in places it has too many threads competing for attention and ultimately runs out of steam.

Tarkovsky's gently gliding camera expertly frames each shot and the use of light and of crisp natural sound is breathtaking.

By simply observing the men as they move around, the film avoids over-interpretation, working hard to leave space for each person watching to find their own narrative as to why each man might have chosen this sport.

It has the ungainly but attractive ambience of an old fairy tale being passed down through the generations, becoming more and more embellished on each retelling.

Thelma appears aloof on the surface, but her constant choice of statement lipsticks, despite her otherwise conservative dress code, hints at the emotions screaming from within.

This creative and visually arresting adaptation of Brian Selznick’s critically acclaimed novel marks a filmmaker at the top of his game.

When Allen foregoes his crutches, any kind of movie seems possible.

It quite subtly toys with the iconography of the genre - poking at the outlying parts of it, the parts dealing with "foreigness" and "home" rather than the more dependable elements of right and wrong.

This is a very particular film - one where particles of detail crystallise into observation, meaning and import accreting like nacre around grit, producing a pearl, a natural jewel.