Palm Springs International Film Festival — A–Z of films

This isn’t a plea for people to swap one source of authority for another. The focus is on encouraging us to think for ourselves.

Simón takes a loose approach to the narrative, letting the small dramas of family play out alongside larger ones, giving as much value to the transient pleasures of fresh peach juice and cooked snails as the tensions between siblings.

In its subtleties and strength it finds new ways to explore difficult ground.

It is often amongst the international Oscar contenders that one finds the year’s best films. Even after accounting for that, this is something special.

Sen could easily just have made an observational documentary about the brothers' day-to-day work or simply focused on the kites themselves but he stretches its wings much further than that.

The intimacies are staggering.

Darín excels in this complicated role, revealing his character layer by layer, almost in passing, as the story of the atrocities unfolds.

Banshees is lifted by good performances, particularly from Keoghan and Condon, whose major scene together has a delicacy of emotion that is sharply at odds with the brute force McDonagh more generally employs.

Iñárritu is very capable – one might even say brilliant – but has no idea how to restrain himself.

In long, slow takes, Sorogoyen lets the tension build, one situation after another seeming as if it might spill over into violence.

Much of the film’s raw effectiveness is due to the young cast’s wisdom and effortless on-screen chemistry.

It feels like the diktats of the Marvel Story Parliament have weighed almost as heavily as the loss of their star.

This knowingly difficult, multi-layered film deserves a wide audience.

Covert glances and dauntless gestures between the three protagonists, that keep us guessing about who knows what, weave a web as diaphanous as the stitching on fine cloth.

More pedantic than poetic, making for an unfulfilling watch.

By shining a light on the past, Lifshitz lights a beacon for people who feel outcast in today's world.

This is hardly a bastion of accuracy, but it does cover its ground well.

Loose camerawork from Frank van den Eeden enhances the intimate, raw spirit.

Haguel inverts viewers' habits, breaking conventions like a trickster.

Vicky Krieps...is in excellent form and up to the task of presenting to us the icon in all her idiosyncrasies.

Park does it the hard way, building up a complex psychological and intellectual relationship in which sexual desire feels like an emergent characteristic rather than a starting point.

Evocative, wide-ranging, and evermore timely.

The destination of the film might feel like a bit of a foregone conclusion but the graceful and sometimes unpredictable manner in which Carion arrives at it is impressive.

At once overstuffed and oddly slight, it’s a restrained and sincere work.

O’Connor does not fall for the myth of a romantic place which breeds talent. Instead she recognises the pressure cooker effect of a tightly constrained world.

The beast of burden’s travails seem to be a thinly veiled criticism of Polish society which erupts in one sequence into mindless violence.

Through the medium of drag – and with plenty of wit and glamour to enjoy along the way – Danger highlights the unreasonable expectations placed on all feminine people.

It’s a shame he wasn’t bolder in his use of the canvas of Hilma’s life, opting more for a careful still life approach to her history than the abstract adventurousness she merits.

This is less about the puzzle of who the murderer is... than about the way he slots into society and, after his arrest, is viewed by the public.

Wonderfully uncomfortable.

In less adept hands this could have become a clash of content but Václav keeps all his elements in balance, managing to celebrate the beauty of opera on the one hand while showing us uglier mini dramas playing out at the front and back of house.

It is not so much individual people who cause the problems but rather the constricting cultural circumstances that dictate everyone must play their allocated role.

The fast storytelling tempo transforms Kalev into a basketball game without a time-out.

Gorbach presents war as an insidious and dangerous beast, prowling about the edges of people's lives, swiping at those who aren't directly involved just as easily as those who are.

By the time that West is ready to show his hand directly, most viewers will be so wrapped up in Linoleum that that details will scarcely matter.

Often tender, charming and moving

The deliberate airlessness - which finds contrast in the likes of Miss Harris' joy at her first knickerbocker glory - works well initially, but as Nighy has less screen time and the film slips into considerations of the switch in Williams' life in the past tense, it drifts towards the stagey.

You could argue it's a bit broad but then charming crowdpleasers often are.

Though it’s nicely drawn and the performances are good, especially from Sánchez, this is all fairly familiar stuff.

Kyi has a sharp eye for the little details of people’s homes and unconscious behaviours which enrich our understanding of who they are.

Tom Hanks is trying to channel his inner Clint Eastwood for this US adaptation of Fredrik Bachman’s Swedish best-seller - the problem is, he simply isn’t grouchy enough.

Essentially an old fashioned tale in which the pursuit of dreams needs to be balanced by learning to appreciate what one has.

It might be that my empathy was miscalibrated that day, but I came out of Mediterranean Fever feeling worse than when I went in.

Both actors are masters of his kind of material and give the film a good deal more depth and nuance than is present in the script alone.

This an actors’ film, featuring sterling work from all three leads.

The love story is remarkable in its own right but the film also shows the way these sorts of histories could be hidden in plain sight.

There’s a real sense of fury behind this film.

At one point it seems “Panahi” could easily step from one country to the other, but as his film shows, leaving is not always an easy option.

Seydoux is superb as she runs the emotional gamut with subtlety and empathy, demonstrating an extraordinary survival spirit in complicated circumstances.

The combination of Efira and Magimel proves magnetic.

The shift in silences between two people in various scenes and the stark contrast in emotion is thrilling.

Quietly devastating.

This challengingly structured moving picture connects past with present not in linear form but in fragments of story that come in waves.

This is a film of boundaries and barriers and attempts to overcome them.

Director Linda Goldstein Knowlton mixes interviews with observational footage which highlights the importance of the domestic and the day-to-day.

While Subject works as a catch-up with the stars of some of the most captivating docs of the past 10 to 20 years, it also offers plenty of food for thought.

What really lights up the film is the chemistry between the boys and their wider circle of friends.

It’s Lerman’s shooting style which makes the biggest impression.

What begins as a spirited romp goes to dark places before it’s done

While exploitation is expertly outlined, the directors are never exploitative themselves in the way it is depicted.

The film is full of careful observations, from the looks on the faces of the villagers to the small things Kiran does as she reclaims her place in the world.

The stories that bloom here are rooted in the real, jacketed in the bruised flesh of familiar harms.

Grisi has a background in photography and though the images are moving here, there's often a stillness to them and they are no less perfectly composed.

Blasko tells the story with a plainness which adds to its power, sometimes using news-style framing as if to remind us of the political moment which we’re living through.

A film that often lacks subtlety in its execution despite the performances and impressive make-up craft.

Young star Paul Kircher puts in an impressively sensitive and emotionally raw peformance.

A delicate balance is achieved here between telling the girls’ story, exploring the role which Marike’s religion and culture play in her life, and critiquing aspects of the way she is expected to live.

It presents a radically different cinematic language, childlike, initially amoral, lyrical.