Venice Film Festival — A–Z of films

Campillo has a weakness in not knowing when to trim all the talking.

There's not an inch of fat on this slickly edited and tightly plotted Belgian crime thriller

Densely structured and thorough.

As the tension between them escalates, it becomes apparent that somebody has seriously overstepped the mark, and that an initially awkward situation is headed for tragedy.

The desire to know where the documentary facet ends and the creative element from Ferrero and Biasin begins soon ebbs away in the face of bigger philosophical ideas.

Brawl In Cell Block 99 is one of the best action films of the year.

The directors' intentions remain obscure; as always, one feels that by watching their work one is becoming a part of the experiment.

Though a short film, even one of half-an-hour as Legrand’s was, can be carried almost solely on this sort of tension, a feature needs something more.

Alexander Payne's latest, unclassifiable film gallivants with us through a number of different worlds that all seem familiar, yet perplexing.

First Reformed ends up being a satisfying meditative echo rather than a simple replay of Schrader greats.

Samuel Maoz steps into the rhythm of the foxtrot to give structure to the three separate chapters of his intense, reverberating film.

Anna Dorval as the transplant's recipient, Dominique Blanc's surgeon, and Emmanuelle Seigner's turn as the mother of the donor are all note-perfect.

Breathtaking and heartbreaking

Ziad Doueiri's latest film shows how the embers of history can stay warm for a long time, easily flaring up under the right circumstances - even those that seem innocuous.

We get to see every inch of Hassane's skin without ever truly being able to get beneath it.

In the realm of the insane reason has no place. Anything is possible. Even the impossible

This is astonishing filmmaking.

No Date, No Signature is a moral maze in which superb performances mean we can never lose sight of the human impact of what might seem like logical decisions.

With a keen eye for absurdity and the hypocrisies of suburban life, Haywood finds comedy in the bleakest situations.

As entertaining as the above is with its two charismatic leads, it is not an especially novel path for a 'crime couple' thriller to take, and it is in the last act that Racer kind of goes off the rails.

A film of vital importance.

This is a powerful film that not only resonates with the recent cycle of films concerning rebellious girls, but with films made by indigerous peoples.

Hawkins has waited decades for a role like this, in which she can fully exercise her talents.

There is artistry here and an absence of cliche.

The plot as a whole is less like a conventional story and more akin to the plot of land on which Max's home sits, waiting for the tales of the characters to grow on it organically.

The lightness of touch so evident in his family films is no less deft here, as he woos us with the promise of cast iron fact.... only to spend the rest of the film oiling the ground beneath our beliefs until they can't stop sliding this way and that

Fortunately, McDormand never lets Mildred's hold on us slip, balancing the conundrum of a woman who is simultaneously a mum, who likes a beer and a game of pool, and a Rambo-style avenging angel.

The tone is deliberately odd blending the naturalism of the day-to-day emotions of relationships and grief, with the altogether more heightened tensions of a revenge thriller, while still keeping a cheeky eye on the absurdity of a mooning garden gnome.

Judi Dench has become the living embodiment of fine acting, so much so that it is easy to take her for granted. Don't even think it!

It quite subtly toys with the iconography of the genre - poking at the outlying parts of it, the parts dealing with "foreigness" and "home" rather than the more dependable elements of right and wrong.

This is a very particular film - one where particles of detail crystallise into observation, meaning and import accreting like nacre around grit, producing a pearl, a natural jewel.