Although we are talking age old themes here – first love, dodgy geezers, questions of class – the material is spectacularly well handled.
A 16-year-old - and her family - are swept off their feet by a debonair older man.
(Country: UK; Year: 2009; Director: Lone Scherfig; Writer: Nick Hornby, based on a memoir by Lynn Barber; Stars: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Cara Seymour, Emma Thompson, Sally Hawkins, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Olivia Williams, Matthew Beard)
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Tom Hardy makes other movie hardmen look like they belong on the Muppet Show.
Examination of the life of Britain's self-titled "most dangerous criminal". Out on re-release.
(Country: UK; Year: 2008; Director: Nicolas Winding Refn; Writer: Brock Norman Brock; Stars: Tom Hardy, Matt King, Terry Stone, Amanda Burton, Jonathan Phillips, Hugh Ross, Kelly Adams, China-Black, Joe Tucker, Edward Bennett-Coles, Katy Barker)
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Dada is a flirtatious young woman who lives with her mother in a small town. Having to fend off the constant advances of her mother's boyfriend who tells her she is adopted, she undertakes a journey in search of her birth mother.
(Country: China; Year: 2008; Director: Zhang Yuan; Writer: Li Xiaofeng, Zhang Yuan; Stars: Li Xinyun, Li Xiaofeng, Gai Ge, Chen Jun)
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.
Two men from the same town but from different sides of the Irish political divide discover that the past is never dead - in fact it isn't even past.
(Country: UK; Year: 2009; Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel; Writer: Guy Hibbert; Stars: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Anamaria Marinca, Niamh Cusack, Conor MacNeill, Lalor Roddy, Barry McEvoy, Richard Dormer, Paul Kennedy, Jonathan Harden)
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.
Lovers go on the run in late Fifties Germany.
(Country: Germany, France; Year: 2009; Director: Oskar Roehler; Writer: Oskar Roehler; Stars: Jennifer Decker, Ray Fearon, Katrin Saß, Rolf Zacher, Udo Kier)
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One languid summer day, a man heads to the beach in search of sunshine and bit of peace, but finds himself tangled up in the dramas of an eclectic group of nearby sunbathers.
(Country: Italy; Year: 2009; Director: Stefano Tummolini; Writer: Antonio Merone, Stefano Tummolini; Stars: Tiziana Avarista, Chiara Francini, Francesco Grifoni, Lucia Mascino, Antonio Merone)
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Strives for profundity but instead grates irritatingly.
Two young foreigners find romance in the vibrant, artistic underground of London's East End.
(Country: UK; Year: 2009; Director: Alexis Dos Santos; Writer: Alexis Dos Santos; Stars: Fernando Tielve, Déborah François, Michiel Huisman, Iddo Goldberg, Richard Lintern, Katia Winter, Leonardo Brzezicki, Alexis Dos Santos, Lucy Tillet, Al Weaver)
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Over the course of one week in 1988, the search for a missing teammate, parental expectations, a burgeoning sexual awakening and the rock concert of the century all threaten to jolt a 16-year-old into adulthood.
(Country: Canada; Year: 2009; Director: David Bezmozgis; Writer: David Bezmozgis; Stars: Mark Rendall, Sergiy Kotelenets, Nataliya Alyexeyenko, Holly Deveaux, John Mavrogiannis)
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The disappearance of a young boy sends a wedge between two teenage brothers whose loyalty had been unshakeable, in this gritty story of a working class Tel Aviv single-parent family.
(Country: Israel, France; Year: 2008; Director: Eran Merav; Writer: Eran Merav; Stars: Reuven Badalov, Ronit Elkabetz, Tzahi Grad)
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