The Survivalist (2015)
★★★★☆
A stunning feature debut for director Stephen Fingleton, The Survivalist is a tense post-apocalyptic thriller with a strangely rural setting.
★★★★☆
A stunning feature debut for director Stephen Fingleton, The Survivalist is a tense post-apocalyptic thriller with a strangely rural setting.
★★★☆☆
A sizzling relationship drama of lingering sensuality and unspoken tension, Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash fizzles beneath the weight of an incongruous plot.
★★★★☆
A humanistic Icelandic tragi-comedy, Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams sees two estranged brothers forced to unite to save their prized rams.
★★★☆☆
A cornucopia of secrets, betrayal, friendship and regret, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth is the old sod to The Great Beauty‘s bright young things.
★★★★☆
Grant Gee’s Innocence of Memories is a multilayered exploration of the innovative novel Museum of Innocence by the Turkish Nobel prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk.
★★★☆☆
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
★★★★☆
With heartbreaking performances from an exceptional cast, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room is a triumph of delicate relationships and emotional fallout.
★★★☆☆
With a powerful pair of performances from Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl is dressed to the nines, but can’t quite get under the skin.
★★★☆☆
A symphony for a forgotten Scotland, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song gets caught between majestic imagery and a meandering narrative in a minor key.
★★★★☆
Exposing a drug fuelled, self-destructive seam within London’s gay community, William Fairman and Max Gogarty’s Chemsex makes for intoxicating viewing.
★★★☆☆
Bringing sex to the screen in glorious, terrifying 3D, Gaspar Noé’s Love offers a long hard look at love, sex and Gaspar Noé.
★★★★☆
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.
★★★☆☆
A fascinating though soft-focus documentary, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala reveals the inspirational teenager fighting for girls’ right to education.
★★★☆☆
Childhood, studenthood and falling in love, Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days paints an intriguing and at times erratic portrait of a boy becoming a man.