★★★☆☆
Adam arrives in Cairo to study at the renowned Al-Azhar University and unexpectedly finds himself drawn into the centre of a dangerous world of religious and political power in writer/director Tarik Saleh’s compelling thriller.
★★★★☆
Set in a remote village in the beautiful mountains of Bhutan, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is a charming, photogenic feature debut by writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji.
★★★★☆
Close by Lukas Dhont (Girl) is a heartbreaking film of two boys’ friendship.
★★☆☆☆
All is Vanity directed by Marcos Mereles is a ‘Marmite’ feature debut.
★★★★★
strong>Drive My Car, directed with a delicate, luminous touch by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, deservedly won the Oscar this week for Best Film International Feature, the first Japanese film ever to do so.
★★★★☆
Award-winning Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacio with A Cop Movie has made a brilliant, intriguing and innovative – and startlingly genre-unclassifiable – film, starring Mónica Del Carmen and Raúl Briones.
★★★★☆
Drive My Car is directed with a delicate, luminous touch by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
★★★★☆
Boiling Point, directed in an amazing single take by Philip Barantini, stars a wonderful performance by Stephen Graham as a chef in a pressure-cooker kitchen.
★★★★☆
After escaping an abusive marriage, a young Irish mother’s plan to self-build a home is fraught with complications in director Phyllida Lloyd’s empowering Herself.
★★★★☆
Sometimes enigmatic and confusing, sometimes fiery with emotion, Pablo Larrain’s intriguing Ema peels the layers off a woman’s dance with death.
★★★★☆
Written by, directed by and starring Billie Piper, Rare Beasts, a self-styled ‘anti-romcom’, is a manic Munch-like scream about what it’s like to be a modern, thirty-something woman trying to have it all while there’s a crisis all around.
★★★★☆
Francis Lee’s second feature after his stunning, award-winning debut God’s Own Country is another queer love story, this time between two women in 1840s Lyme Regis, starring Kate Winslet and Saorse Ronan.
★★★★☆
Mogul Mowgli is a passionate, sincere, deeply felt snapshot of conflicting identity in contemporary Britain, starring Riz Ahmed, a strikingly compelling actor, directed by Bassam Tariq.
★★★☆☆
In original, smart buddy comedy movie The Climb co-writer/directors Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino play two losers also called Kyle and Mike.