Uncut Gems (2019)
★★★★☆
Uncut Gems is the Safdie brothers’ Good Times on speed, starring Adam Sandler in eye-popping perpetual motion.
★★★★
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Di Qiu Zui Hou De Ye Wan) (2018)
★★★★☆
Long Day’s Journey Into Night is memorable, mesmeric virtuoso filmmaking by Gan Bi, creating a universe where time moves sinuously.
Little Women (2019)
★★★★☆
Greta Gerwig’s Little Women is a dream-come-true feminist re-reading of Louisa May Alcot’s childhood classic.
The Kingmaker (2019)
★★★★☆
The Kingmaker, Lauren Greenfield’s revealing documentary about Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, is a fascinating and horrifying must-see.
Aquarela (2018)
★★★★☆
Aquarela, Victor Kossakovsky’s unforgettable, visionary documentary, immerses you in water in all its forms.
Ordinary Love (2019)
★★★★☆
Owen McCafferty’s sensitive and beautifully observed drama Ordinary Love, starring Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson, is subtly directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Good Vibrations).
Honey Boy (2019)
★★★★☆
Honey Boy by Shia LaBeouf is a searingly personal, self-immolating childhood memoir.
The Two Popes (2019)
★★★★☆
The Two Popes by Fernando Mereilles, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, is a sparklingly written, joyfully acted, behind-the-scenes imagining of historic events made personal.
La Belle Époque (2019)
★★★★☆
La Belle Époque by Nicolas Bedos has sublime performances from its central characters that combine with a clever, witty, seamless screenplay to create an unashamedly super-enjoyable film.
Harriet (2019)
★★★★☆
Harriet, directed by Kasi Lemmons, is a conventionally made biopic of a supremely unconventional and inspirational woman, Harriet Tubman, taking her life story from slave to fearless abolitionist and conductor on the underground railroad to freedom.
The Report (2019)
★★★★☆
The Report by Scott Z Burns is a gripping dramatisation of lawyer Daniel Jones’ investigations into the government-sanctioned CIA torture during interrogation of terrorist suspects: the suppression of reports into government behaviour is now an incredibly timely subject.
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019)
★★★★☆
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound by Midge Costin is one of those fascinating documentaries that take you behind the scenes to explain how things happen that are so crucial but you had never previously noticed.
Sorry We Missed You (2019)
★★★★☆
Sorry We Missed you is a coruscating anti-capitalist manifesto from veteran politically engaged filmmaker Ken Loach and his longtime collaborator and screenwriter Paul Laverty.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
★★★★☆
In The Last Black Man in San Francisco, writer/director Joe Talbot takes a true story and turns it into a poetic and haunting version of itself – a brightly lit, lyrical, stylised drama.