San Sebastian Film Festival — A–Z of films

Director Patxi Amézcua sets the pace carefully – it’s fast enough to keep your heart-rate up but not in that forced, dizzying, blink-and-you’ll miss it style with which Hollywood is so enamoured.

Simple messages, simply but warmly told.

There are some nice set pieces here and there but, like the air on Terra, everything feels stodgier than normal.

A slow-burning, emotionally haunting film that thrusts the bond between mother and child under a microscope.

There is a violence here, a passion, all beautifully shot, all haunting.

Once - and if - you accept that this is a B-movie plot, it is possible to find a level of enjoyment from its undeniably A-movie trappings.

Rather than pursue a nationalist agenda, director Lu Chuan searches for humanity in all his characters, and all his characters are flawed.

It's hard to know who exactly will willingly sign up to watch quite so much sex couched in quite such a disturbing set up.

An intriguing ‘what if’ that only comes unstuck at the end, as the movie doesn’t know how to resolve itself after a kinetic climax.

Although this is worth watching purely for Duvall's superb turn, he doesn't want for support.

Engagement with this film requires patience and hinges on the performance of Camandule.

For a film about the brimming over of one girl's emotional fervour, it does surprisingly little to elicit a 'gut response' from the audience.

If the story of a stranger arriving to try and save a beautiful young woman sounds like a familiar fairytale, beware - this is Gilliam's work after all, and nothing is quite as it seems.

Graphic violence is mixed with tongue-twisting wittiness in Tarantino’s peerless signature style.

The director allows moments to linger, shots to be held and actors to provide understated performances.

I suspect even Jarmusch’s most ardent fans will find longeurs.

Emotional explorations are the life-blood of London River, but it is clogged up by the weight of sorrow running through it.

When it comes to subverting the audience’s expectations, Joon-ho proves he is a puppet master, pulling our strings without us ever suspecting it.

Bening’s performance is a triumph over leaden writing.

Henry Selick directs with clever staging and infinite patience. The musical numbers are catchy, boisterous and hugely entertaining.

A quietly humorous, gently endearing examination of one man's attempts to get his hands on the American dream.

The 'story' is somewhat simplistic, but the state-of-a-nation snapshot it allows to be revealed is complex and highly emotive.

While one expects a strong environmental theme in a Miyazaki work, it has never before been so heavy handed and crude.

An unlikely, but highly effective, marriage of arthouse and mainstream sensibilities.

This is an actors' movie through and through, with all of them pulling off the key emotional scenes magnificently.

Emotions run like torrents through François Ozon's Le Refuge, despite the apparent simplicity of the surface narrative.

This is a strong story, encompassing romance, thriller aspects, comedy and even political intrigue, zipping back and forward in time but always carrying you with it to a conclusion that is thoroughly satisfying on all counts.

Planell has been working as a writer on Spanish television for several years, so it is little surprise that this story feels as though it could just as easily be an episode in an ongoing soap opera as the basis for a feature film.

This is a vivid portrait of the landscape of the Americas, picking apart every step of the migrant’s journey.

Despite showing a lot of directorial potential, the film is let down somewhat by its story, as Thorne forgets that an audience, like the scouts, need to be prepared for plot developments if we are to fully accept them.

A loving and gently funny take on one of the defining moments of America’s counter-culture era.

Obsessive/misguided love is a subject ripe for exploration and although he makes a fair stab at it, Matthias Glasner’s film lacks the structural stability to fully do it justice.

The 3-D is subtly done... There are no obvious changes to the picture, which is to Disney's credit.

This is a delicate examination of attitudes and social mores, touching on issues of self-hate and betrayal.

With Vengeance, To gives well-worn tropes of the revenge thriller some mannered tweaks, before ultimately turning them on their head.

While you may well have heard this sort of thing before, the familiarity of the humour makes it all the more lovable.

Seamlessly balances the scenes that made the band infamous, with the intimate moments and the atmosphere of an era.

The slippery nature of the morality on show coupled with the shifting sands of the narrative makes this an uneasy watch - yet it is also a beautiful and masterfully constructed film.