SIRAT (2025)
★★★★☆
Sirat by Oliver Laxe is a desert survival story — and one of the year’s most gripping films
France
Nouvelle Vague (2025)
★★★★☆
Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) and Citizen Kane are generally accepted to be the most influential films ever made: Jean-Luc Godard and Orson Welles, their directors. Breathless was on television recently: it is now part of film history.
Suleymane’s Story (2024) (L’Histoire de Suleymane)
★★★★☆
Souleymane’s Story, directed by Boris Lojkine, is a searingly realistic two days in the life of one of the invisible asylum seekers – a bicycle courier in Paris.
The Kitchen Brigade (2022)
★★☆☆☆
The Kitchen Brigade is a wish-fulfilment comedy about the topical issue of migration to the European Union.
The Other Way Around (2024) (Volveréis)
★★★☆☆
The Other Way Around directed by Jonás Trueba is a glossy romcom in reverse with a deeper philosophy.
Cannes Film Festival 2025: Opening Film Tuesday 13 May: Partir Un Jour (2025) (Leave One Day)
★★★★☆
Cannes 2025: Opening Film 13 May 2025,
Holy Cow (2024)
★★★★☆
Holy Cow, co-written and directed by Louise Courvoisier, is a lovely, involving coming-of-age story set in rural France.
BFI Flare: The Pleasure is Mine (2024) (El Placer es Mío)
★★★☆☆
Young bisexual Antonio drifts through life lying, stealing, and using people while feeling incapable of love in writer-director Sacha Amaral’s Buenos Aires-set character study The Pleasure Is Mine.
Misericordia (2024) (Miséricorde)
★★★☆☆
Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie is an entertaining and disturbing mixture of sex and death.
When Autumn Falls (2024) Quand vient l’automne
★★★★☆
When Autumn Falls by François Ozon is a beguiling mixture of genres, suspense, love and beauty.
All We Imagine As Light (2024)
★★★★★
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
The Crime is Mine (2023) (Mon Crime)
★★★★☆
The Crime is Mine directed by François Ozon is a fast-moving comedy wolf in sheep’s clothing about gay rights and women’s equality, starring Isabelle Huppert.
BFI LFF 2024: All We Imagine As Light (2024)
★★★★☆
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
BFI London Film Festival 2024: Aïcha (2023)
★★★☆☆
Aïcha, directed by Mehdi Barsaoui, is a gripping, thrilling study of the evolution of a young woman as she tries to find a new life and new identity after being assumed dead, amid endemic corruption in Tunisia.