Snow In Paradise (2014)
★★★☆☆
Drugs and violent crime trigger a surprising religious conversion for a small-time gangster in London’s East End, in a story that reflects a changing urban society.
UK
Festival Review: Eisenstein In Guanajuato (2015)
★★★★☆
A visual extravaganza of the Russian director’s sexual awakening in Mexico, Peter Greenaway’s Eisenstein In Guanajuato is a shameless return to form.
Festival Review: Woman In Gold (2015)
★★★☆☆
Dramatising the legal battle over Klimt’s most famous work stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis, Woman In Gold is a moving courtroom quest for justice.
Festival Review: Mr Holmes (2015)
★★★☆☆
With a bright-eyed performance from Ian McKellen, Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes is a handsome portrait of the detective as an old man.
Festival Review: 45 Years (2015)
★★★★☆
With brilliant performances from Rampling and Courtenay, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years is an intense observation of a lifetime of marriage unravelled in one week.
Testament Of Youth (2014)
★★★★☆
A beautiful adaptation of Vera Brittain’s bestselling memoir, James Kent’s Testament Of Youth is a bitter tale of love in wartime for the 21st century.
The Theory Of Everything (2014)
★★★★☆
Dramatisation of Stephen Hawking’s life from gifted university student and romance with the woman who became his wife, to international acclaim as a physicist and the break-up of his marriage.
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.
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.
Black Sea (2014)
★★★☆☆
In Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea, a motley crew of British and Russian submariners try to recover a fortune in gold from a sunk World War II German submarine.
Hello Carter (2013)
★★★☆☆
Down-on-his-luck Carter has recently become homeless, single and unemployed. Desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend, he goes off on an adventure throughout London to find her, picking up some odd helpers along the way.
Hockney (2014)
★★★★★
Unseen footage from David Hockney’s personal video library and revealing interviews make this the definitive biography of Britain’s most influential living artist.
The Imitation Game (2014)
★★★★☆
Galvanising intense performances from a stellar cast, Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game is a war movie to stir the blood, but trips up over its queer hero.
The Possibilities Are Endless (2014)
★★★★★
Life-affirming, powerful and utterly moving, this account of Scottish music icon Edwyn Collins is a truly remarkable achievement in filmmaking.