Reviews by Anne-Katrin Titze

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  A Quiet Passion (2016)

  Review preview for A Quiet Passion

  Davies looks at questions of the soul, family, war, creativity and how to be true to yourself - all in stunningly beautiful images.

  The story of American poet Emily Dickinson.
• 
  Reaching For The Moon (2013)

  Review preview for Reaching For The Moon

  Barreto's film is a stylish feast for the eyes, registering the nuances of the 50s turning into the 60s.

  The poet Elizabeth Bishop falls in love and finds inspiration.
• 
  Remember (2015)

  Review preview for Remember

  Atom Egoyan's terrifically paced episodic thriller Remember is hard to forget.

  Zev has a mission: to avenge family, murdered 70 years ago by a Nazi guard who lives under an assumed identity in America.
• 
  Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out (2012)

  Review preview for Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

  The story is not over, yet.

  A follow-up to Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired, looking at recent developments in the director's legal situation.
• 
  A Radiant Girl (2021)

  Review preview for A Radiant Girl

  The best scenes are those where the human condition and awareness of teenagers everywhere at the cusp of adulthood encounters the unfathomable.

  Paris, summer 1942. Irene is Jewish and French. She is 19 and living a life of passions - Her friendships, her new love, her desire to be an actress. Nothing suggests that Irene's time is running out.
• 
  Raising Colors (2018)

  Review preview for Raising Colors

  Raising Colors treads on unfashionable grounds and emerges victorious.

  Drama about a young woman who decides to join the French Navy.
• 
  Red, White And Blue (2020)

  Review preview for Red, White And Blue

  Each scene builds on the next to illuminate the specifics as well as the universal quality of experiences.

  A drama set in London's West Indian community.
• 
  The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012)

  Review preview for The Reluctant Fundamentalist

  Through heartfelt and very conventional storytelling Nair simplifies, pleads, and misses the chances to shift the very current problematics into a new light.

  A successful stockbroker finds his glittering career shattered after the Twin Towers fall, and is drawn back to the conflict in his homeland of Pakistan.
• 
  Remembering Every Night (2022)

  Review preview for Remembering Every Night

  Memories connect and even if they are not ours, they can make us understand something urgently human.

  Drama involving the quiet pursuits of several women over a single afternoon.
• 
  The Restless (2021)

  Review preview for The Restless

  Lafosse makes excellent choices with his editor Marie-Hélène Dozo (long-time collaborator of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) in what is shown on screen and what is left out for us to fill in.

  A family struggles with the father's bipolar disorder.
• 
  The Rider (2017)

  Review preview for The Rider

  The craft, the knowledge, the deep communication with the animal, shown without words - this is breathtaking, transcendent cinema.

  A young cowboy tries to carve out a new identity.
• 
  Roma (2018)

  Review preview for Roma

  We are at a point where the wonders of earth and an awe in regards to nature cannot be shown often enough.

  Chronicle of a middle-class family in the 1970s.
• 
  The Room Next Door (2024)

  Review preview for The Room Next Door

  Almodóvar goes all out with the delights fashion has to offer, bright colours, the joy of transformation - because it is never too late for sartorial metamorphosis.

  When Ingrid finds out that her old friend Martha is seriously ill, they reunite and embark on a journey of discoveries.
• 
  The Rossellinis (2020)

  Review preview for The Rossellinis

  Insightful and at times wonderfully playful.

  A documentary recounting the lives of Roberto Rossellini's children from the perspective of Alessandro Rossellini, the first grandson of the director.
• 
  Sacro GRA (2013)

  Review preview for Sacro GRA

  Rosi's panorama manages to circle back, making you love humanity.

  A documentary journey into the lives of people who inhabit the outskirts of Rome.
• 
  The Salt Of The Earth (2014)

  Review preview for The Salt Of The Earth

  Wenders as a curious, excited filmmaker stretches out his hands to show us all the treasures he has found.

  Documentary about photographer Sebastião Salgado.
• 
  Samba (2014)

  Review preview for Samba

  An interesting tweed coat, a seemingly make-up free face, classic pumps, and impeccable comedic timing go a long way. Gainsbourg's Alice holds all of the above.

  Samba migrated to France ten years ago from Senegal, and has since been plugging away at various lowly jobs...
• 
  School Life (2016)

  Review preview for School Life

  The camera of Ní Chianáin has the light touch of a welcomed guardian angel, not an intruder.

  Life at a boarding school, where the teachers' careers are drawing to a close.
• 
  The Seasons In Quincy (2016)

  Review preview for The Seasons In Quincy

  The combination allows for fascinating interplay of concerns.

  Four film essays about the much loved artist and storyteller.
• 
  Side Effects (2013)

  Review preview for Side Effects

  Soderbergh, just as he did with his 2011 film Contagion shows that the disaster you expected safely elsewhere, is right in front of you.

  A successful couple's lives spiral out of control after one of them is prescribed a drug to treat anxiety.
• 
  Silent House (2011)

  Review preview for Silent House

  All suspense is lost when everything is dark, strange and unfamiliar.

  A trip to clear out a lake house turns into a nightmare for a young woman.
• 
  SK1 (2014)

  Review preview for SK1

  SK1 at its best, is an examination of doubt.

  Drama about the multi-year hunt, arrest, and trial of serial killer Guy Georges — nicknamed The Beast of Bastille.
• 
  Soldate Jeannette (2013)

  Review preview for Soldate Jeannette

  Don't expect anyone to smile in this humorous and provoking film.

  The language of fashion reveals disconnection in an improvised examination of modern life.
• 
  Something In The Air (2012)

  Review preview for Something In The Air

  Most real, and at once divine, are the scenes in nature.

  An 18-year-old man reacts to the social changes of late 1960s Europe.
• 
  Sophie's Misfortunes (2016)

  Review preview for Sophie's Misfortunes

  It all works together to pay tribute to the tiny, all important, personality-building feelings that are so often forgotten.

  A girl's life changes dramatically after she is left in the care of her stepmother.
• 
  Scarlet (2022)

  Review preview for Scarlet

  There are astounding moments of audio visual density that make Scarlet so wonderful a film - especially because we are bestowed with a generosity in spirit and utter lack of prejudice.

  A wood craftsman returns from the First World War and unites with his infant daughter, who one day will receive a premonition from the local sorceress saying that scarlet sails shall take her away.
• 
  The Secret Agent (2025)

  Review preview for The Secret Agent

  Marcelo is at home in the fine tradition of flicks where the fact that they are an agent is mainly a secret to them.

  Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son but soon realises that the city is far from being the non-violent refuge he seeks.
• 
  A Separation (2011)

  Review preview for A Separation

  The moral complexities in this film stay with you.

  An Iranian couple's trial separation is complicated by their interactions with another troubled family.
• 
  Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

  Review preview for Silver Linings Playbook

  Russell impressively couples gambling strategies with self-help mantras to expose the machinations of searching minds who don't know how to flee the ugly banal lives of most common betrayals and economic anxieties.

  A man trying to reconcile with his wife after a stint in a mental institution finds things get complicated when he meets a mystery girl.
• 
  Simone: Woman Of The Century (2022)

  Review preview for Simone: Woman Of The Century

  This challengingly structured moving picture connects past with present not in linear form but in fragments of story that come in waves.

  An intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era defending a humanist message still keenly relevant today.
• 
  Sisi & I (2023)

  Review preview for Sisi & I

  Sisi & I weaves a tapestry of finely observed moments with the sparkling duo of Wolff and Hüller at the top of their game.

  In this wild reinterpretation of the “Sisi” myth, the focus is on Austrian Empress Elisabeth’s close friendship with her last lady-in-waiting, Irma Countess von Sztáray, who falls in love with the charismatic Sisi and is captivated by her modern ideas.
• 
  Six Minutes To Midnight (2020)

  Review preview for Six Minutes To Midnight

  Six Minutes To Midnight is a labour of love and it shows us how innocence can be lost.

  Trouble brews for a teacher who has taken a last minute and controversial role teaching English to the daughters of high-ranking Nazis.
• 
  Slack Bay (2016)

  Review preview for Slack Bay

  The absurd exaggerations and the wild parishes of humor are completely original, never cruel, and attached to a physicality that is pure cinema.

  Period comedy, set in 1910, about the investigation into disappearances from beaches in France.
• 
  Smooth Talk (1985)

  Review preview for Smooth Talk

  It is comforting to keep in mind that the devil cannot cross your threshold without an invitation.

  A free-spirited teenager has an encounter with a dangerous man.
• 
  The Son (2022)

  Review preview for The Son

  This is a film of boundaries and barriers and attempts to overcome them.

  Peter's busy life with new wife Beth and their baby is thrown into disarray when his ex-wife Kate comes to him with concerns about their teenage son, Nicholas.
• 
  Sound Of Falling (2025)

  Review preview for Sound Of Falling

  The lives mirror each other, build on each other, contradict each other, haunt each other.

  Four girls, Alma, Erika, Angelika, and Lenka, each spend their youth on the same farm in northern Germany. As the home evolves over a century, echoes of the past linger in its walls. Though separated by time, their lives begin to mirror each other.
• 
  The Souvenir (2019)

  Review preview for The Souvenir

  The costumes in The Souvenir speak volumes about female and male desire and the search for identity that garments can encompass.

  A quiet film student begins finding her voice as an artist while navigating a turbulent courtship with a charismatic but untrustworthy man.
• 
  Spotlight (2015)

  Review preview for Spotlight

  Spotlight does not fall into the trap of explanatory flashbacks. We do not need to see the protagonists' past because we can tell so much from what they are wearing.

  The true story of how The Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child abuse and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese.
• 
  Spring Breakers (2012)

  Review preview for Spring Breakers

  Korine packages his ideologically poisoned gift basket as art by reveling in shameless self-manipulation.

  Four college students form an unlikely allegiance with a drug dealer.
• 
  Sunset (2018)

  Review preview for Sunset

  Sunset while resisting the digital, flings us into a dreamworld where nostalgia for the past is twin to premonition of our future.

  A young wannabe milliner in Budapest meets a man connected to her past and begins to uncover family secrets.
• 
  Steve Jobs (2015)

  Review preview for Steve Jobs

  Fassbender does his best to not make the man easily likable at first.

  A biopic of the computing entrepeneur.
• 
  Still Alice (2014)

  Review preview for Still Alice

  Moore runs away with the film.

  A woman and her family struggle to cope after she is diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
• 
  Struck By Lightning (2012)

  Review preview for Struck By Lightning

  Some of the dialogue could be more polished, but the brutal honesty... makes up for it.

  Even being killed by a bolt of lightning won’t keep Carson Phillips quiet.
• 
  Summertime (2015)

  Review preview for Summertime

  Though the events unfold forward, the feel of Summertime is that of a pleasantly painful memory recalled backwards, clutching you emotionally as if you were looking at a faded photo album.

  Drama about social change in France in the early 1970s.
• 
  Sunshine Superman (2014)

  Review preview for Sunshine Superman

  What is most astonishing about Sunshine Superman is how genuinely happy everybody looks.

  Portrait of the father of Base jumping Carl Boenish.
• 
  Things To Come (2016)

  Review preview for Things To Come

  Huppert is perfect - no trace of self-pity waters down the complicated emotions at work.

  A philosophy teacher soldiers through her life being turned upside down on all fronts.
• 
  Those Happy Years (2013)

  Review preview for Those Happy Years

  Glistens with the best kind of nostalgia.

  Romantic comedy about the ups and downs of a struggling experimental artist in 1970s Italy and his relationship with his wife and two children.
• 
  Timbuktu (2014)

  Review preview for Timbuktu

  The way Sissako exposes the double standard makes the Jihadists' behavior no less threatening, on the contrary.

  After a herdsman accidentally kills someone, he finds himself a victim of Sharia law fundamentalists.
• 
  Towheads (2013)

  Review preview for Towheads

  Through disguises, Plumb deconstructs societal expectations and performs a few answers to Sigmund Freud's famous question 'What does a woman want?'

  A Brooklyn mother finds comic relief from domestic drudgery.
• 
  Tracks (2013)

  Review preview for Tracks

  Mandy Walker's cinematography is the window into the heroine's emotions.

  Based on the true story of Robyn Davidson who in 1977 undertook an extraordinary solo trek across the harsh Australian outback.