Ed Frankl

Timely issues of transgender rights both in Latin and North America help make A Fantastic Woman a bolder, brasher film, fiery in comparison with Gloria’s relatively tenderness, but anchored once more by a stellar central performance

It’s a generational drama anchored by three great performances, but it feels rather distinctly average — and it’s hard to make Isabelle Huppert look average.

Boyle’s verve as a director means there’s still plenty of vibrant imagery, alongside a script that, although lacking any of the electricity of the original’s state-of-the-nation wisecracks (“Scotland is a nation colonized by wankers”), is funny and disarmingly melancholic.

The chemistry between these two men is inescapable, their relationship growing almost imperceptibly, composed expertly in a nuanced script by Lee and unfussily filmed by director of photography Joshua James Richards (Songs My Brothers Taught Me).

A luscious, strangely enchanting watch and terrific fun for those who'll launch themselves into it.

Its child’s viewpoint and pastel-colored animation belies a cruel melancholy at the heart of My Life as a Courgette, as all its children lust for a life that is different from their own.

Mifune: The Last Samurai, the well-assembled documentary on the life of actor Toshirô Mifune, the long-time Akira Kurosawa collaborator, should be a worthy introduction to one of Japanese cinema’s greatest icons, if a little light on more revelatory findings.

Øvredal gives us B-movie thrills better than most of his peers, creating a campy, nasty, tremendously fun horror experience in which death proves not the ending we might expect.

Guatemala’s first-ever entry for the foreign language Oscar is an absorbing, beautifully-shot drama of cultural ritual and the drive of one young woman to escape a rudimentary social system.

The final sequences about loss, and art as a “cure” (in Jodorowsky’s own words), are heart-wrenchingly powerful.

Equity is more nuanced, if not as ferociously confidant as that 1987 Oliver Stone film, here focusing on the nitty gritty of a market launch of a social media-style security company.

Many will find the film’s final twist hard to take, especially after an unnecessary coda, but Remember remains a thought-provoking revenge drama that questions the ethics of violence so many years later, when memory, let alone hatred and guilt, has long gone.

The film’s pitfalls lie in the style-over-substance route that has befallen many films that have such an annoyingly gimmicky framing device at its center.

Kelly’s earnest, reportedly auto-biographical film has a lot of laughs and is best when it’s most deeply personal.

It’s only frustrating that however funny Fundamentals is, the dynamic is something we’ve seen many times before.

Carried by two accomplished performance, and despite a tight 87-minute running time, this is a rich saga, bathed in atmosphere that disturbs as much as it engrosses.

Asbæk is towering as Claus, never less than believable as the leader of his platoon, and standout as he comes to terms with the cracks in his own story.

Quemada-Díez filmed The Golden Dream chronologically using natural light and real locations, utilising Super 16 film to give his first feature a documentary shimmer. He also worked as a camera operator on Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003), with whom he shares his penchant for opulent landscapes and narratives, and a sense of beauty amidst unforgiving reality.

It feels more that Gemma Bovery goes through the motions of the novel, restricted by its own pretensions to meet high-brow literature.

Its stately pace doesn't preclude Mr. Holmes (2015) from being a delightful romp all the same.

The dark heart of In the Courtyard makes its comedy ever more piquant, while Deneuve and Kervern are exceptional as two lonely souls finding solace in each other's company during the twilight years of their lives.

Gerard Johnson's sophomore feature might look on the outset like the type of London crime thriller usually populated by Jason Statham, but it's more emotionally complex than its outset gives it credit for.

While the first half has a brisk, upfront approach, the final hour is gobsmackingly dull - with emphasis on the smacking.

At 82 minutes, this is a brisk but hugely powerful work that is cinema of the oppressed par excellence.

Little Accidents may be a little too sober, lacking the occasional spark that would make it more than just a film about moral decision points - but it's a likable small-town drama all the same.

Sachs and Love Is Strange co-writer Mauricio Zacharias craft an intergenerational love story believably told and immaculately acted.

This is a film of ideas, but it's a comedy first, and its boldness is that it doesn't aim to address a pro-choice or pro-life stance - it's about Donna just getting on with it all the same.

Its narrative might reach cliché towards the end, but powerful performances carry this fine fable of the American Dream lost in heartbreak.