Deadpool (2016)
★★★★☆
Nimble, witty and downright rib-tickling, Tim Miller’s Deadpool takes on the superhero genre with postmodern sharpness.
Trumbo (2015)
★★★★☆
Hollywood eats itself in Jay Roach’s comprehensively entertaining biopic of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, earning Bryan Cranston an Oscar nomination.
Rams (2015)
★★★★☆
A humanistic Icelandic tragi-comedy, Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams sees two estranged brothers forced to unite to save their prized rams.
The Big Short (2015)
★★★★☆
Fast-paced comedy-drama about the global financial crash, Adam McKay’s The Big Short makes brilliant entertainment out of a true story of men behaving madly.
Lost In Karastan (2015)
★★★☆☆
Set in a fictitious former Soviet-bloc republic, Ben Hopkins’ Lost in Karastan is a very British satire about a very British film director adrift in a totalitarian dictatorship
The Forbiddden Room (2015)
★★★★☆
Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room is a bizarre yet affectionate pastiche of all those films from his favourite filmmaking eras that never got made.
Grandma (2015)
★★★★☆
A lot of fun with an emotional punch, Paul Weitz’s Grandma is an Oscar-worthy tour de force for Lily Tomlin as a rambunctious lesbian feminist grandmother.
The Lady In The Van (2015)
★★★★☆
Reuniting Alan Bennett with Maggie Smith on screen, Nicholas Hytner’s The Lady In The Van deals a hilarious, thoughtprovoking play between life and fiction.
He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating though soft-focus documentary, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala reveals the inspirational teenager fighting for girls’ right to education.
Festival Review: They Will Have To Kill Us First (2015)
★★★☆☆
Malian music in exile, Johanna Schwartz’s documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First is a celebration of music and its invincible power.
Festival Review: Green Room (2015)
★★★☆☆
Carving out his own genre of trapped men fighting for survival, Jeremy Saulnier’s taut, gruesome and suspenseful Green Room pulls no punches.
Festival Review: The Lady In The Van (2015)
★★★★☆
The funny and poignant tale of Bennett’s live-in codger, Nicholas Hytner’s The Lady In The Van is entertainment at its most prestigious.
Suffragette (2015)
★★★☆☆
Celebrating nearly a century of women’s right to vote, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette is an important and inspirational film on democracy in action.
Festival Review: Room (2015)
★★★★☆
A sensitive study of imprisonment and the painfulness of freedom, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room is an emotional, cinematic tour-de-force.