Tirdad Derakhshani

It’s a true American masterpiece and one of the best films of the decade.

At turns elegiac, absurdist, and gently satirical, Lonergan’s drama is a deeply affecting chamber piece that features an outstanding performance by Casey Affleck.

I’m Not Your Negro is an unforgettable work. Baldwin’s words – eloquently spoken by Samuel Jackson – will haunt you.

An immensely rich, deeply felt exploration of human relationships that draws you in and holds you fast for nearly three hours.

A transcendent political poem as intellectually rigorous as it is beautiful.

Paterson is easily one of Jarmusch’s most accomplished films. He portrays the life of the mind and the workings of the creative soul as a kind of secret love affair, a deep, hidden well inside the most ordinary, mundane existence.

Strictly speaking, Elle is a comedy, a blacker-than-death social satire about bourgeois values, set in contemporary Paris. It’s viciously, demonically funny in parts.

Less famous perhaps than some of Alfred Hitchcock's other wartime thrillers, this 1940 spy yarn is possibly one of his best. [07 Mar 2014, p.W15]

At its satirical best, Things to Come takes aim at some of the sacred cows of French academia, showing how the posturing of today’s radical kids seems to repeat the attitudes their parents had in the '60s.

Always, murmuring just beneath the surface, there's a political undercurrent to Farhadi's films, a gentle whisper of a critique aimed at the weight of Iran's combined cultural and political intransigence.

The story is simple, illogical, mysterious, strange, and, of course, very, very sparse.

It can feel inchoate, dropping the viewer in the middle of events without much context, and it exacts an emotional toll. But its raw quality also makes it compelling viewing.

Drug War is a deeply intelligent, exhilarating and eminently satisfying adult crime story, one of the best thrillers you're likely to see this year.

Wake in Fright is essential viewing for anyone interested in the roots of male violence.

A transcendent work from Ireland's Cartoon Saloon studio that's almost wasted on kids.

The animated French family film April and the Extraordinary World will have your imagination doing somersaults and cartwheels.

Far too good to be watched in one sitting.

If you want to expose your children to a work of art with real soul, you could do a lot worse than Kubo and the Two Strings.

It leaves behind a nagging feeling, a suggestion there's more to the story than its story.

Swinton is delightful in a twisted turn as Wilford's enforcer, a Margaret Thatcherian dragon lady who adores watching her men torture miscreants who have defied the train's No. 1 rule: Know your place.

The weight of the picture's moral and political message rests on Ice Cube's Calvin. A decent, honest man with a well-developed sense of responsibility and a passion for social justice, he's an iconic American type - the reluctant hero. He'd rather tend to his own garden, but when called to duty, he's all in.

The Salt of the Earth, has the power to draw you into its world, transfix, and perhaps eventually transform you.

Very few of us would like to think about the physical and emotional toll that life in captivity takes on these magnificent creatures. Gabriela Cowperthwaite's powerful, heartbreaking, and beautifully crafted documentary, Blackfish, forces us to do just that.

A richly observed coming-of-age drama about two teenage boys who are drawn to each other with a complicated mix of attraction, repulsion, tenderness, and aggression.

An immensely enjoyable, warmhearted, and gentle showbiz dramedy.

At 120 minutes, The Love Witch is too long. Biller has too much material on her hands and too many non sequitur scenes.

A breathtaking, disturbing look at urban angst and the emptiness of youth culture.

Sadly, director Lee Toland Krieger's offering, a weak wanna-be Jean Cocteau-esque fable with magical realist pretensions, does great disservice to Lively and her remarkably accomplished costars.