Racer and the Jailbird
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Racer and the Jailbird stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Matthias Schoenaerts in an intense, high-speed love affair.
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Racer and the Jailbird stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Matthias Schoenaerts in an intense, high-speed love affair.
★★★★☆
Frederick Wiseman’s compelling and comprehensive documentary reveals the behind-the-scenes work of a monumental American institution, the New York Public Library.
★★★☆☆
François Ozon is on quirky erotic form in L’Amant Double, a mystery of psychoanalysis and seduction.
★★★★☆
Tony Zierra’s intriguing Filmworker tells Stanley Kubrick’s assistant Leon Vitali’s story and casts a hitherto-hidden light on the great director and his working methods.
★★★☆☆
On Chesil Beach is a well-acted, sensitive adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novella.
★★★★☆
John Cameron Mitchell’s How To Talk To Girls At Parties is an unlikely mash-up of punk and aliens in the British suburbs.
★★★★☆
Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete is coming-of-age road movie grounded in the all-American setting of quarter-horse racing.
★★★★☆
Michael Pearce’s assured feature debut Beast is a clever, feral psychological horror that constantly surprises.
★★★★☆
The Wound (Inxeba) by John Trengove stars Nakhane Touré in a tense drama of gay male sexuality brought into focus by the traditional Xhosa circumcision rite of passage.
★★★★☆
Funny Cow showcases Maxine Peake’s versatility when she stars as a ground-breaking female comedian surviving in the misogynistic Seventies.
★★★★☆
Juliette Binoche stars in a rom-com departure for Claire Denis in Let the Sunshine In (Un Beau Soleil Interior).
★★★★☆
The captivating German/Bulgarian culture clash in Valeska Grisebach’s Western could only happen in the EU and it’s subversive.
★★★★☆
A film adapted from his stage play, Thoroughbreds is Corey Finley’s directorial debut. It’s a stylised teen thriller/black comedy of well-plotted cross and double-cross with two amoral central characters.
★★★★★☆
In BPM director Robin Campillo turns his naturalistic documentary-style technique from The Class on a group of AIDS activists in the epidemic of the 1990s in a moving, tender and compassionate film.