RUN (2019)
★★★☆☆
Scottish nouveau dreich, downbeat Run, expanded from a short by director Scott Graham, still has a way to go.
BFI London Film Festival
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a sumptuously sensual lesbian love story set in 1770 that comments fiercely on the role of women in society – then and now.
First Love (Hatsukoi) (2019)
★★★★☆
Deceptively titled First Love is Takeshi Miike’s irresistibly anarchic yakuza noir, stuffed with gratuitous violence, comedy, romance and severed heads.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote by Terry Gilliam is a confusingly intricate blend of past and present, fiction, reality and filmmaking.
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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.
Honey Boy (2019)
★★★★☆
Honey Boy by Shia LaBeouf is a searingly personal, self-immolating childhood memoir.
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.
Sunset (2018)
★★★★☆
Sunset (Napszállt) by László Nemes is must-see, tour de force, immersive filmmaking that captures a chaotic watershed in 20th century European history.
The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)
★★★★☆
The pursuit of artistic desire goes too far in writer/director Sara Colangelo’s slow burning drama The Kindergarten Teacher based on the 2014 Israeli film and showcasing a tremendous performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
★★★☆☆
Sorry to Bother You, the stunningly accomplished debut feature film by rapper Boots Riley, is a satirical morality tale about workplace culture, black exploitation and rampant capitalism.
BFI LFF: The Winners 2018
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2018 Competition winners
Wonderstruck (2017)
★★★★☆
In Wonderstruck Todd Haynes opens a cabinet of cinematic wonders as two deaf children’s stories interlink 50 years apart in the magic of New York.
Happy End (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Haneke’s Happy End deconstructs the internal dynamics of a wealthy bourgeois family living a life oblivious to the human beings around them, with chilling results.
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