The Human Voice (2020)
★★★★☆
The Human Voice is a gripping half-hour monologue of madness and melancholy that brings director Pedro Almodóvar and other-worldly actress Tilda Swinton together in an artistic marriage made in heaven.
Europe
Frankie (2019)
★★★☆☆
In Frankie, written and directed by Ira Sachs, Isabelle Huppert stars in an ensemble piece that illuminates a terminally ill actress’s final attempts to control the tangled relationships of her extended family.
The Mauritanian (2021) – on digital
★★★★☆
The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin MacDonald, brings a legal drama to devastating life on screen from the New York Times acclaimed best-selling memoir Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was tortured and detained without charge in Guantánamo for 14 years.
Undergods (2020)
★★★☆☆
Undergods, Chino Moya’s disturbing first feature set in a dystopian future, has its world premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival and is released now.
Apples (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Apples, Christos Nikou’s assured debut as a director, is a disturbing, opaque fable about the relationship between memory, identity, grief and the selfie culture, set in Athens during an allegorical pandemic.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Inspired comic creation Borat and his daughter fearlessly tease Trump’s America in Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest Kazakhstani spoof Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Unmissable satire.
Promising Young Woman (2020) – on demand – Oscar winner
★★★★☆
Promising Young Woman stars Carey Mulligan in a witty, much-talked-about and multi-award-nominated writer/director debut by actor Emerald Fennell.
Undine (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Undine by Christian Petzold is a strange, otherworldly, watery romance with unsettling depths.
BFI Flare: Firebird (2021) – on demand
★★☆☆☆
At an Estonian air base in the Cold War a junior officer falls for a new lieutenant, leading to a forbidden romance which affects a number of lives in director Peeter Rebane’s romantic drama Firebird.
Ammonite (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Francis Lee’s second feature after his stunning, award-winning debut God’s Own Country is another queer love story, this time between two women in 1840s Lyme Regis, starring Kate Winslet and Saorse Ronan.
BFI Flare: Boy Meets Boy (2021) – on demand
★★★☆☆
After meeting high in a Berlin nightclub, Johannes and Harry casually drift around the city coming down and getting to know each other in Daniel Sanchez Lopez’s Boy Meets Boy
Notturno (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Filmed over three years in war zones in Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, Notturno (Nocturne) by Gianfranco Rosi is a documentary oddity.
The Exception (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
Working relations between four women working at a Danish research facility escalate dangerously when death threats are received and suspicions start to turn within the team in Jesper W. Nielsen’s The Exception.
Billie (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
Billie is no bio-pic in the conventional sense. James Erskine’s documentary transcends the clichés and presents a new angle on the Billie Holiday legend.