Search: Starring Rain

Everything that is wrong with the contemporary US indie movie is here.

We are plunged straight into the emotional world of characters whose feelings for each other are as pertinent as their survival and combat skills.

This is another downward spiralling character piece with the same bruising toughness of its predecessor, but handled with a tauter, darkly playful control.

It's not so much kitchen sink, as tenement trauma.

Pirot has crafted a sweet, if slight debut, that suggests more and better to come.

The best gags, at least for the over 20s, subvert 50s sci-fi movie convention.

The end result may look good but it never feels distinctive despite the wealth of talent involved in front of and behind the camera.

This should carry you to Christmas on a wave of nostalgia... but it doesn't.

A ragbag of cliches, in which Richard Harris attempts to give an acting lesson.

At heart a deeply misogynistic view of female empowerment.

This is one of my favourite performances of the year.

Sexuality, Francois Ozon's latest film declares, can be as complex as desiring another person can be simple.

A tragicomic ensemble piece about people on the edge and love on the rocks.

This is an intimate and very endearing film. It's also delightfully quirky.

It’s hard not to become desensitised to the excessive hyper-violence playing out before you, which has clearly been employed to patch up what is an agonisingly threadbare plot.

But while visually striking at times, narratively the film often plods along and the revolutionary rants tend to get repetitive.

We never get a real sense of who Nimona is as an individual, beyond the impressions she gives to other people, so that the film comes to rely on the old trope of eliciting sympathy for a monster rather than de-monstering her.

This is stunning country under any circumstances, and if you can’t be there in person, watching this on a big screen is the next best thing.

The chemisty is perfect. Although Bergman dominates by sheer force of character, Grant's cool persona slips effortlessly into her pocket.

The film is appallingly directed, exposing the actors to scenes of baffling embarrassment.

Although Steve Carell is an undoubtedly talented actor with fantastic comedic ability, his shouty boss frequently overplays things and lacks the subtlety that made Gervais’ Brent so watchable.

The second series improves immeasurably over the first and proves all its doubters - including me - totally wrong.

The sketches are parodies of What The Butler Saw, titillating sexual fantasies taken a little further and given unexpurgated dialogue to shock the audience into nervous laughter.

A seriously intelligent script.

The film is elevated by a superb turn from Mistry.

A gentle, family-friendly comedy adventure with serious undertones.

The Persian Connection is anchored by an affecting performance from Safai.

Muldowney takes things seriously, with cinematographer Tom Comerford using the lowering skies and boggy heaviness to his advantage

Visually and emotionally restrained, the Painted Veil shines with intellectual integrity.

Every performance in this film is spot on.

Details sparkle in the script too, pared back to only what is needed.

If you’re in it for the gore and grotesquerie...you’ll find a good deal to satisfy you, but it does give the impression of wanting to deliver in more sophisticated ways as well.

If you see one dance film in your life, see this one with those 3D glasses.

In the absence of script and character development he relies on things like the heavy use of a blue filter and the increasing volume of Handel's Sarabande form Suite No4 in D Minor in a bid to shore up the mood.

In piecing the whole thing together, Kontakos appears to have been spoiled for choices, but she delivers a strong narrative which never gets overwhelmed by its content.

The unrelenting brutality, both mental and physical, denies hope and leaves the audience stunned.

There is something here that strikes home.

This junk should be scrapped and left to rust.

After a slow and largely laugh-free start, this does build up a reasonable head of steam, with enough smart lines and well-timed physical comedy to keep its head above water.

The fights are amazing.

There is certainly some pleasing schadenfreude, but it doesn’t have the nerve to go all out, and ultimately it’s not as clever as it thinks it is.

With its lack of character insight and misdirected lack of focus, Risen is never going to be the knock out its central character once was.

Issues of originality aside, Romancing ultimately succeeds thanks to the natural on-screen chemistry between Douglas and Turner.

Apart from setting the tone and maintaining it, the strongest point of Schleinzer’s filmmaking is casting and directing the actors' interactions between one another and the environment.

This is at times quite uncomfortable viewing, intimate, neatly demonstrating the barriers that can be created for and by people in their lives.

Gaup Beaska is an accomplished yoiker, so perfectly cast as Maia, the primal pull of this often ululating music matched by lyrics that speak of her character's connection to her Sámi culture.

Apart from Mike Eley's lustrous, lyrical cinematography, The Selfish Giant is also elevated by the central performances of Chapman and Thomas.

A monumental bore.

The film seems to be building to a confrontation between the actors but instead you get the credits. And given the fine cast, this lack of a Third Act is a major mistake.

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.