Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
★★★★☆
A sister, a cult member, an alias – Sean Durkin’s psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene is an assured debut as gripping as it is haunting.
Genre
Patience (After Sebald) (2012)
★★★☆☆
Patience (After Sebald) sees Grant Gee’s richly-textured path meander through the Suffolk countryside and the work of the acclaimed Anglo-German writer.
The Nine Muses (2010)
★★★☆☆
Respected Afro-British director John Akomfrah’s haunting film The Nine Muses is an unusual, genre defying, literary based contemplation of migration, memory and the power of elegy.
We Have A Pope / Habemus Papam (2011)
★★★☆☆
Our man in the Vatican, Nanni Moretti’s We Have A Pope delights both in the vibrant ritual of the papal conclave and rattling its cardinals’ chasubles.
Take Shelter (2011)
★★★★☆
With thunderous performances by Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter is a mind blowing twister of mental illness, austerity America and the apocalypse.
We Were Here (2011)
★★★★☆
Documenting five testimonies of San Francisco’s AIDS crisis, Bill Weber and David Weissman’s We Were Here brings the battle to the people.
The Deep Blue Sea (2011)
★★★★☆
With a career redefining performance from Rachel Weisz, Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea is a tour de force of classic filmmaking and nostalgia.
Wuthering Heights (2011)
★★★☆☆
“Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy come home,” Andrea Arnold drops the high drama of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in return for an opulence of visual treats.
Weekend (2011)
★★★★☆
A Nottingham-set gay love story, Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is love in the real lane – tender, confusing and painful. It’s funny, but it ain’t no hom-com.
The Ides Of March (2011)
★★★☆☆
Embroiled in politics corrupt and corrupting, George Clooney’s The Ides Of March charts the tragic fate of one man irredeemably lost, and on the way up.
Restless (2011)
★★★★☆
Doomed love with a straight twist, Gus Van Sant’s Restless hides a Last Days morbidity in a quirky teenage romance between a terminally ill girl and a funeral mourner.
Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)
★★★★☆
Apathy and the black fight for civil rights, Göran Hugo Olsson’s Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 scours the Swedish vaults for an all-American independence.
Drive (2011)
★★★★☆
With Ryan Gosling as an übercool, unnamed getaway driver, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive mixes LA heist movie with Melvillian lonerism for a sexy, seething delight.
Perfect Sense (2010)
★★★★☆
David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense is a twist on both thriller and love story as a couple find each other while the world around them crumbles, sense by sense.