Sound of Metal (2019)
★★★★☆
Sound of Metal by Darius Marder, starring Riz Ahmed, is the sensitively told and brilliantly acted story of every musician’s worst nightmare – going deaf.
★★★★
The Mauritanian (2021) – on digital
★★★★☆
The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin MacDonald, brings a legal drama to devastating life on screen from the New York Times acclaimed best-selling memoir Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was tortured and detained without charge in Guantánamo for 14 years.
Apples (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Apples, Christos Nikou’s assured debut as a director, is a disturbing, opaque fable about the relationship between memory, identity, grief and the selfie culture, set in Athens during an allegorical pandemic.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
The Trial of the Chicago 7‘s all-star cast enlivens and sharpens the points of Aaron Sorkin‘s docudrama of a historic court case intended to destroy the ’60s counterculture.
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) – on demand – Oscar winner
★★★★☆
Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah directed by Shaka King, a tragic true story of a brutal state assassination in the US starring LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya, is gripping, heart-wrenching and sadly still topical.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Inspired comic creation Borat and his daughter fearlessly tease Trump’s America in Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest Kazakhstani spoof Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Unmissable satire.
Promising Young Woman (2020) – on demand – Oscar winner
★★★★☆
Promising Young Woman stars Carey Mulligan in a witty, much-talked-about and multi-award-nominated writer/director debut by actor Emerald Fennell.
Sequin in a Blue Room (2019) – on demand
★★★★☆
An Australian teen’s obsession with an anonymous sex app ventures into dangerous territory when he is invited into the Blue Room in Samuel Van Grinsven’s stylish gay thriller Sequin in a Blue Room.
BFI Flare: My First Summer (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
In My First Summer by Katie Found, in rural Australia a sheltered teenage girl suffers a devastating loss but is unexpectedly brought to life by a sudden special connection with a fellow teen.
Notturno (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Filmed over three years in war zones in Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, Notturno (Nocturne) by Gianfranco Rosi is a documentary oddity.
The Exception (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
Working relations between four women working at a Danish research facility escalate dangerously when death threats are received and suspicions start to turn within the team in Jesper W. Nielsen’s The Exception.
Billie (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
Billie is no bio-pic in the conventional sense. James Erskine’s documentary transcends the clichés and presents a new angle on the Billie Holiday legend.
Perfect 10 (2019) – on demand
★★★★☆
Perfect 10 is a bold, moving and immersive coming-of-age debut by rising star writer-director Eva Riley.
Proxima (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
The French female astronaut in woman-centred Proxima, directed by Anna Winocour, is torn apart by the conflict between needing the freedom to achieve and the pain of separation from her daughter.