drama An Elephant Sitting Still 2 Mar 2021Mar 2, 2021 "You can go wherever you want. However, you'll find nothing different." ★★★★★ Despite its extremely positive reviews from critics and the audience alike, Hu Bo's 2018 drama An Elephant Sitting…
thriller The Stanford Prison Experiment 26 Feb 2021Feb 26, 2021 "You have no right to mess with my head" ★★★★★ Kyle Patrick Alvarez's American thriller The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) unearths the 1971 social psychology experiment led by Philip Zimbardo,…
animation When Marnie Was There 23 Feb 2021Feb 23, 2021 "You're my precious secret" ★★★★ Studio Ghibli's 2014 anime drama When Marnie Was There (Japanese: 思い出のマーニー, Marnie of [my] Memories) was the production company's last project before its six-year hiatus,…
thriller Dukhtar 19 Feb 2021Feb 23, 2021 "This state of war is like a sickness. It consumed me." ★★★★ Written and directed by Afia Nathaniel, the Pakistani thriller-drama Dukhtar (Translation from Urdu: Daughter, 2014) struggled for years…
comedy Look Who’s Back 16 Feb 2021Feb 23, 2021 "Do I look like a criminal?" ★★★★ Inspired by the success of Timur Vermes’ 2012 novel, David Wnendt directed the 2015 satirical comedy Look Who's Back (German title: Er ist wieder da).…
sci-fi Space Sweepers 12 Feb 2021Feb 23, 2021 "This isn't dirty. Human beings are dirty." ★★★ Jo Sung-hee's South Korean space opera Space Sweepers (Korean: 승리호, 2021) is regarded as the country's first space blockbuster. It should be…
fantasy Alice 9 Feb 2021Feb 23, 2021 "Close your eyes, otherwise you won't see anything" ★★★★★ Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been an endless source of inspiration, but none of its adaptations can match the…
romance Malcolm & Marie 6 Feb 2021Feb 6, 2021 "Don't be sensitive, this isn't a fight" ★★★★ Sam Levinson, known as the creator of Euphoria (2019 -), took on the challenge of directing the American romantic drama Malcolm &…
comedy Stuck Apart 3 Feb 2021Feb 6, 2021 "You can be alone, but not too much" ★★★★ Stuck Apart (Turkish: Azizler, 2021), directed by Durul and Yağmur Taylan, is a film that pays little mind to traditional genre categorization.…
action U-571 1 Feb 2021Feb 6, 2021 "Either you succeed in sinking that ship, or you see to it that none of us survive to be captured" ★★★★ Jonathan Mostow's film U-571 (2000) exists in the liminal…
thriller Escape from Pretoria 29 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "Freedom is a very simple idea, which is perhaps why it can be so easily lost" ★★★★★ Francis Annan's Australian thriller Escape from Pretoria (2020) is based on the real-life…
drama Corpus Christi 27 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "You know what we're good at? Giving up on people" ★★★★ Jan Komasa's Corpus Christi (Polish: Boże Ciało) managed to outgrow the Polish borders in 2019, receiving many prestigious awards worldwide,…
Series Lupin 25 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 You didn’t look at me. You saw me, but you didn’t really look. ★★★★★ The French mystery thriller series Lupin (2021- ), created by George Kay and François Uzan, was…
action The Wave 22 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "This whole country is one big rock" ★★★★ Roar Uthaug's disaster film The Wave (Norwegian: Bølgen, 2015) depicts an event that is expected to happen in Møre og Romsdal, a…
horror The Ritual 20 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "We're not the only animals in the woods" ★★★ At first glance, and much to the elation of all horror fans, David Bruckner’s British debut feature film The Ritual (2017)…
animation Arjun: The Warrior Prince 18 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "You seek penance with a bow and arrow?" ★★★★ Arnab Chaudhuri's Indian animated action film Arjun: The Warrior Prince (2012), co-produced by UTV Moon Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures India,…
adventure Embrace of the Serpent 15 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "In this journey he must find out, in solitude and silence, who he truly is" ★★★★★ In his 2015 Colombian adventure drama Embrace of the Serpent (Spanish: El Albrazo de…
romance Elisa & Marcela 13 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "Reading your words is the closest thing to touching you" ★★★ In her biographical romantic drama Elisa & Marcela (2019), Catalan director Isabel Coixet uses an artistically promising black and…
drama I Am Kalam 11 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "Do you believe that destiny makes a man, or his actions?" ★★★★ Nila Madhab Panda's Indian drama I Am Kalam (2010) was produced by the charity Smile Foundation, an NGO…
sci-fi Dark City 8 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "Nothing like a little healthy paranoia" ★★★★★ Some films are doomed to obscurity, just like the citizens in Alex Proyas’ Dark City (1998). Subject to the circumstantial time and space…
comedy Rose Island 6 Jan 2021Feb 6, 2021 "The important thing is to change the world" ★★★★ Sydney Sibilia's 2020 comedy-drama Rose Island (Italian: L'incredibile storia dell'Isola delle Rose) tells the incredible true story of the Republic of Rose…
horror Dead Snow 4 Jan 2021Feb 1, 2021 "We should have gone to the beach, like I told you" ★★★★ Scandinavian cinema is best known for its offbeat humour, dark style and philosophical parametres that stretch both the…
thriller Time to Hunt 30 Dec 2020 "If we continue on this path, nothing will change" ★★★ The recent sweeping rise of South Korean films in the West could not leave this year’s Berlin International Film Festival…
romance Your Name Engraved Herein 28 Dec 2020Feb 1, 2021 "Maybe more people would understand me in hell" ★★★★★ Kuang-Hui Liu's 2020 Taiwanese romantic drama Your Name Engraved Herein was released on Netflix only a few days before Christmas, but…
animation The Breadwinner 23 Dec 2020Feb 1, 2021 "Raise your words, not your voice" ★★★★★ Nora Twomey's 2017 film The Breadwinner is an animation based on Deborah Ellis' 2000 novel of the same name. Taking on a war-ravaged…
adventure Hunt for the Wilderpeople 21 Dec 2020Dec 22, 2020 "You've got to do that when sad things happen - process it" ★★★★★ Most people recognise the heavyweight director Taika Waititi from the superhero blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Best…
fantasy The City of Lost Children 18 Dec 2020Dec 21, 2020 "He believed a single teardrop could save him" ★★★★★ When a film opens with an array of Santa Clauses turning a child’s hopeful dream into an ominous nightmare, you know…
drama In The Name Of 16 Dec 2020Feb 1, 2021 "Every day we die and are reborn again" ★★★★★ Małgorzata Szumowska's 2013 Polish drama In The Name Of (Polish: W Imię) brings together Poland's two clashing entities - the Church…
comedy The Unknown Saint 14 Dec 2020Dec 21, 2020 "No one can steal from the Saint" ★★★★ Moroccan director Alaa Edine Aljem’s debut film The Unknown Saint (French: Le miracle du saint inconnu, 2019) builds on the holiness of black…
romance Rafiki 11 Dec 2020Feb 1, 2021 "I wish this was real" ★★★★ Wanuri Kahiu's 2018 romance Rafiki (Swahili for 'friend') was banned in its native Kenya. As the director stated in an interview with TIFF, this…
sci-fi Gantz: O 9 Dec 2020Dec 21, 2020 "We're stuck playing an endless survival game" ★★★★ Netflix's latest sci-fi addition has caused great controversy among those who have already been exposed to Hiroya Oku’s massive Gantz franchise, featuring manga,…
drama Atlantics 7 Dec 2020Feb 5, 2021 "Some memories are omens" ★★★★★ In an interview with Netflix, director Mati Diop stated that she wanted to dedicate her supernatural romantic drama Atlantics (French: Atlantique, 2019) to the lost…
comedy The Favourite 4 Dec 2020Feb 1, 2021 "We'll make a killer of you yet" ★★★★ Yorgos Lanthimos' dark comedy The Favourite (2018) hones in on one of history's most intricate power plays - one that took place…
thriller Mother 2 Dec 2020Dec 21, 2020 "You and me are one. We've only got each other." ★★★★★ The late 2000s saw a rise in mother-centred thrillers in South Korea. Released after the box office success The…
drama The Salvation 30 Nov 2020Feb 1, 2021 "Never start a fight you can't win" ★★★★ There are very few twists one can subject a western film to these days. Doing so would require the contortion of an…
comedy Brahman Naman 27 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "What is the colour of colour TV?" ★★★★ Quashiq Mukherjee's English-language Indian sex comedy Brahman Naman (2016) is set in 1980's Bangalore, and illuminates the psyches of four teenage boys…
action Cell 211 25 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The cure better not be worse than the illness" ★★★★★ After a whole year of conducting research into the realities of prison life by interviewing inmates, their relatives and prison…
thriller The Usual Suspects 23 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" ★★★★ Bryan Singer's (X-Men, Bohemian Rhapsody) neo-noir thriller The Usual Suspects (1995) got its title from…
romance Happy Together 20 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Turns out lonely people are all the same" ★★★★★ Wong Kar-wai's Hong Kong romance Happy Together (1997) stores most of its meaning in its title. The English translation was inspired…
comedy Paulette 18 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "I feel like I'm changing. At my age, that's scary." ★★★ In her last film before passing away, Bernadette Lafont (The Mother and The Whore, 1973) proves her legacy as…
thriller The Girl in the Fog 16 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The devil's greatest flaw is his vanity" ★★★★★ Donato Carrisi not only penned the 2015 novel that inspired the Italian psychological thriller The Girl in the Fog (Italian: La ragazza…
drama The Wife 13 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The public can't stomach bold prose from a woman" ★★★★★ The dazzling appeal of Björn L. Runge's drama The Wife (2017) rests in Glenn Close's reflections on her character, which…
animation The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales 11 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Let it blossom, let it flow. That's life." ★★★★★ Told in a quaint, almost Aesopian way, Benjamin Renner’s The Big Bad Fox (French: Le Grand Méchant Renard et autres contes, 2017)…
sci-fi The Wandering Earth 9 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "It is unreasonable to expect humans to stay reasonable" ★★★★ Frant Gwo's Chinese sci-fi action film The Wandering Earth (2019) is based on Liu Cixin's 2000 novella of the same…
horror The Hole in the Ground 6 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "They swing from monsters to angels and back again in the blink of an eye" ★★ There is something undeniably creepy about the bleak stares of children, whose mothers are…
