Sundance Film Festival — A–Z of films

To make a film that is touchingly beautiful at the same time as dealing with very bad things is a remarkable achievement.

Flawed though it is, 500 Days Of Summer is still a fair cut above the average piece of Hollywood fare both in terms of its laugh quotient and offbeat romance.

There's a mood of eerie melancholy as Milk lays out the reasons why he might become a target for someone who is "insecure, terrified, afraid" - a concept that has lost none of its resonance with campaigners in many fields of equal rights in the years that have passed since.

Rose Byrne just gets better and better.

At its core, Adventureland is a surprisingly sweet and tender coming-of-age romance.

Although not breaking new ground in terms of the way it is shot and edited, this is a compelling story and features some excellent archive footage.

Although we are talking age old themes here – first love, dodgy geezers, questions of class – the material is spectacularly well handled.

Dabis is certainly to be praised for her lightness of touch, filling many of her scenes with a humour often lacking from films addressing issues of migration.

Tom Hardy makes other movie hardmen look like they belong on the Muppet Show.

Paul may in many ways be the ultimate ‘loser’ but he feels like a ‘winner’, so this becomes not just a study of obsession but of the essence of self-delusion and its importance in many people's lives.

This is Jackass for the saddest and most isolated.

The key to Black Dynamite’s success is that the film-makers know the difference between a good-bad movie and a bad-bad movie.

Has a brooding and moody power that makes up for what it lacks in originality.

A Japanese journalist is shot dead in the street. Gunfire can be heard everywhere. Crowds run in panic.

With tongue firmly in cheek Cold Souls thrives off the irony and contradictions that plague its protagonist.

Scratch the good-looking surface and The Cove's contentions start to look very wobbly.

I find Tarkovsky’s mindset literal and linear by comparison to that of Nakajima.

In airing the opposing viewpoint, through the use of the petroleum giant's videos and spokesmen, he gives Chevron just enough rope to hang itself with.

A highly entertaining, if derivative, thrill ride.

One cannot come away from this film without thinking twice about that next order for Sashimi.

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.

A low-key gem.

There is no doubt that the women's stories are heartbreaking, but they are not helped to express their views by Rahmanian, who persists in thrusting the camera in their faces at every opportunity.

Grace marks the arrival of a thoughtful and reverent new talent to the genre.

Docudrama at a basic level.

A mumblecore masterpiece.

At once poignant, disturbing and at times, hilarious.

Line after line proves infinitely quotable... suggesting cult status as well as critical acclaim beckons.

Looks for insight where there clearly isn’t any to be found.

Intelligent, well-constructed visuals work effectively in tandem with what is being said by the musicians and save us from the stale talking-heads format.

What makes it work is that the film sticks so close to the form of a traditional Hollywood romance, ignoring the tropes of gay indie cinema.

The film is a heartfelt cry for someone to stop these children being exploited so cruelly, but offers no easy answers.

The animation is exquisitely timed for terrific comic impact.

Mirabella-Davis lets his film unwind slowly. Tension hangs heavy as the humidity in the air.

Although not breaking any new ground, anything which challenges people's preconceptions has got to be a good thing.

A moment perfectly captured.

Lulu And Jimi certainly shares with Lynch a level of surrealism and an ability to switch mood dramatically from the candy floss highs of love to much darker territory.

While it might be a bit too heavy handed in terms of symbolism and part of a very crowded genre, Lymelife isn't guilty of any major sins either.

Catalina Saavedra gives a wonderful performance as the frustrated Raquel.

An excellent documentary, putting you so close to the action you can almost feel the sweat and taste the chalk dust.

There is no escaping the weightiness of the subject matter and Movermann treats it with the necessary respect, but he also shows evidence of a lighter touch, which helps to alleviate the pathos and prevents the film sliding into melodrama.

There may not be much beyond the surface, but it's a fine surface

Exquisite attention to detail that creates not only a complex portrait of each of the main characters but also a vivid sense of place.

Moon represents a return to a more sedate and thoughtful science fiction of the Seventies and Eighties.

This is ‘day from hell’ territory, but none of the comedy rises to the occasion.

The charm of this film lies in its unpretentious mode of letting the filmmakers, artists and historians speak for themselves.

A thoroughly disarming horse-fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Pomegranates And Myrrh is concerned with living within the Palestinian diaspora, and living within a situation you have no power to change.

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

The intensity of director Brady Corbet's debut feature The Childhood Of A Leader is present in this short film

This is no talking heads documentary. Cameras take us into the displacement camps of Uganda, where local survivors talk of their babies beaten to death.

When I watched this film, many in the audience were in tears.

Bernal and Luna bring the same casual and endearing spontaneity they showed in Y Tu Mama Tambien to the fore again here.

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

Rarely does cinema speak in the first person, and rarely is it so effective when doing so.

A disarmingly and deliciously unexpected celebration of matriarchs with attitude.

At times extraordinarily moving, the film ultimately fails to allow the audience to connect to either the fallen marine or Strobl himself.

An excellent combination of charming pop-culture parodies and subtle mockery of the stiff upper lip of the central characters.

Short, sweet and wonderfully unhinged.

Like the heavyweight prize-fighter in his prime, this is documentary stripped back to its leanest form.

Strives for profundity but instead grates irritatingly.

As the film progresses, its identity crisis becomes increasingly evident as standard indie tropes are interrupted by cackhanded attempts and comedy of the broadest type.

A pitch-black satire on our selective memories of death and the deceased.

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

Screenwriters Eddy Moretti and Shane Smith play rather too fast and loose with the facts at times.

There's no denying that they make some good points, well substantiated with damning words straight from the horse's mouth.