Tribeca Festival — A–Z of films

A painstakingly deliberate neo-noir, heavy on atmosphere and taking its time to build.

As if it's not bad enough that Chef is marinated in sticky sentiment, Favreau's occasional attempts to sprinkle in heavy-handed drama make for a stodgy mix.

Frédéric Tcheng's documentary about a house and its ghosts in past and present is all you could desire from a fashion film.

What makes this film so much more than a thriller is the very terrible human emotional territory it dares to venture in.

By the time Frost heads north, Perkins has ensured we are fully invested in his quest and carefully chooses his shots to suggest an opening out of the Londoner's understanding.

Angus MacLachlan finds little new to say about the rocky road back to equilibrium after divorce.

Paolo Virzì's study of capitalism in crisis gives the audience all it covets.

Shows how tension can be mounted on a budget.

With the pacing so glacial, the predictable story is likely to prove fatal for all but the most patient viewers.

The neat trick of Aakeson and Moland is to balance the humour with unexpected moments of poignancy and humanity as fathers from both sides of the criminal tracks share the common ground of parenthood.

A meditative miniature of hypnotic grace.

The rules of the funny games of fiction and documentary do not apply here - as long as the addictions are taken care of, anything goes.

The contrast between the characters and the actors sparky chemistry means the laughs have a head start, but there is also a considerable amount of psychological terrain being covered.

Courageous and uncompromising

Griffiths enjoys showing us the particulars of Ellie's life and it doesn't feel like exposition though it might look a little ersatz.

As a portrait of a particular community at a critical moment in its history, this film is undoubtedly valuable.

Reichardt observes the game coolly, yet provides more than enough detail to show the contradictions in her players' gambits.

As a study of one man's narcissistic motivations, Curry's film is taut but the bigger picture remains frustratingly out of reach.

If there's a wish for more in Palo Alto, it's largely because what is here works so well.

Mackenzie shows everyone, inmates and guards alike, to be trapped in a corrupted, corrupting system that resists all change.

Seigner is wonderfully playful and her bold risk taking shows how much she trusts Polanski.

What makes von Einsiedel's film work so well is the human - and gorilla - face that he gives to the problem.

The biggest problem with Ryan Piers Williams' latest is that, although it is nicely shot and well acted, the characters with the most going for them are given the least screentime.

The film, shot on 16mm by Sean Williams, gives the film a retro out-of-time feel and Betzer gives us room to think, the spartan scripting matched by a minimalistic approach to the music.

Simply aping horror films of yesteryear, layering on the piles of intestines, and putting self-aware performances on screen, isn’t enough on its own in today’s crowded field of horror parodies.