The Patience Stone (2012)
★★★★☆
A war movie like no other, Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone leaves no woe unturned as a woman rails against man and the theatre of war.
Kill Your Darlings (2013)
★★★★☆
Will the circle be unbroken? John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings uncovers Allen Ginsberg’s dance with death as the Beat generation stage a writers’ revolution.
Nebraska (2013)
★★★★★
Determined to pick up a nonexistent million-dollar mailshot prize, an elderly father on the edge of dementia is driven across America by his long-suffering son.
Floating Skyscrapers / Plynace Wiezowce (2013)
★★★☆☆
Down and out in Warsaw, Tomasz Wasilewski’s haunting Floating Skyscrapers explores identity in flux and gay love in a hopeless place in contemporary Poland.
Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf’s (2013)
★★★☆☆
Matthew Miele’s Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s is a suitably sleek star-studded behind-the-scenes documentary looking at New York’s über department store.
Saving Mr Banks (2013)
★★★★☆
A clash of cultures with a war zone in the writers room, John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr Banks puts adaptation and that special relationship on trial
Young And Beautiful / Jeune Et Jolie (2013)
★★★★☆
Fathoming the sordid depths of taboo and transgression, François Ozon’s Jeune Et Jolie finds the unfathomable in a teenager trading innocence for money.
Leviathan (2012)
★☆☆☆☆
A vibrant kaleidoscope of life on the high seas, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel’s Leviathan sails the rough waters between video art and cinema.
NFA (No Fixed Abode) (2012)
★★★☆☆
Adam has it all – a beautiful wife and daughter and home, but one day he wakes up in a hostel for the homeless. How did he there and how can he get his life back?
Blue Is The Warmest Colour / La Vie d’Adèle (2012)
★★★★☆
Courting controversy all the way from Cannes, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is The Warmest Colour puts the graphic back into graphic novel.
Don Jon (2013)
★★★☆☆
A sexy battle of the sexes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s debut feature Don Jon looks at the modern craving for perfection through the prism of pornography.
Utopia (2013)
★★★☆☆
Veteran documentary filmmaker John Pilger’s latest, Utopia, is a hard-hitting investigation into modern Australia’s commitment to its indigenous communities.
Child’s Pose / Pozitia Copilului (2013)
★★★★☆
Seeing a way to reassert control over her adult son’s life when he runs over and kills a child, an affluent Romanian woman sets out on a campaign of emotional and social manipulation to keep him out of prison, navigating the waters of power, corruption and influence.
Gravity (2013)
★★★★☆
A heart-stopping tumble through space, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is a juggernaut of a survival movie, crashing down to Earth with a glorious bang.