Whiplash (2014)
★★★★★
Ferocious, electric and unrelenting, Simmons and Teller never miss a beat in Damien Chazelle’s phenomenal second feature Whiplash.
cinema
The Last Of The Unjust / Le Dernier Des Injustes (2013)
★★★★☆
If this is a man. Claude Lanzmann’s The Last Of The Unjust recuts unused Shoah interviews to reveal the controversial figure of Benjamin Murmelstein – Europe’s last Jewish Elder.
Erebus: Into The Unknown (2014)
★★★☆☆
A dramatic reconstruction of New Zealand’s worst air disaster, Charlotte Purdy’s Erebus: Into The Unknown loses itself in the snows of Antarctica.
Birdman (2014)
★★★★☆
Satire and fantasy mix intriguingly as an actor known for his portrayal of a superhero in a movie series tries to earn artistic credibility by financing a Broadway production of his own adaptation of a novel.
The Woman in Black: The Angel of Death (2015)
★★★☆☆
Horror story which begins as schoolchildren and their teachers are evacuated from London to a deserted house in the remote countryside in World War II.
Unbroken (2014)
★★★☆☆
A well-deserved and accomplished tribute to a survivor’s trials of war, Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken is nevertheless a shallow experience of suffering.
Kon-Tiki (2012)
★★★☆☆
Friends since childhood, Kon-Tiki directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg sail through their Norse saga of adventure, friendship and trust with a handsome parable on film-making.
The Circle / Der Kreis (2014)
★★★★☆
Going back to the future through interviews with Switzerland’s first gay married couple, Stefan Haupt’s half-documentary The Circle reveals a postwar openness ahead of its time.
Electricity (2014)
★★★☆☆
Occasionally hampered by one-dimensional characters, Agyness Deyn is the scintillating spark of a film that convincingly encapsulates the defiance of life with epilepsy.
The Great Museum / Das große Museum (2014)
★★★★☆
A fascinating glimpse of the goings-on at one of the grandes dames of Europe’s museum scene, The Great Museum offers a compelling portrait of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
The Green Prince (2014)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating tale of friendship and betrayal, Nadav Schulman’s documentary The Green Prince reminds us of the importance of placing ethics over politics.
Men, Women & Children (2014)
★★★★☆
Jason Reitman’s incisive slice of modern suburbia is a sad, humorous and painfully relevant snapshot of our subservience to social media.
Eastern Boys (2013)
★★★★☆
A strangely romantic tale of east meets west, Robin Campillo’s Eastern Boys brings European immigration from the political into the personal scale.
School of Babel/La Cour de Babel (2014)
★★★★☆
French director Julie Bertuccelli’s classroom documentary School of Babel examines twenty-four foreign teenagers’ struggles as they adapt to a new life, culture and language in France.