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…
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…
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,…
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)…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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)…
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…
romance Vita & Virginia 4 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "If you leave me stranded, I will hurt you" ★★★ Chanya Button's biographical romantic drama Vita & Virginia (2018) portrays the love affair between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sachville-West, which…
drama Metamorphoses 2 Nov 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Mouths are gateways to the soul" ★★★ Christophe Honoré's Metamorphoses (2014) is an ambitious project aiming to transform the massive and multifaceted magnum opus of the Roman poet Ovid (comprised of…
comedy Toc Toc 28 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "That's why I'm here. To be reprogrammed." ★★★★★ Toc Toc (2017), the Spanish comedy written and directed by Vicente Villanueva, is based on Laurent Baffie's 2005 French play of the…
drama Pity 26 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "And then people stop pitying you. They get tired." ★★★★ After his debut film L in 2011, Greek director Babis Makridis’ second feature film explores the raw emotion of grief…
drama The Emperor of Paris 23 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Serve your country or remain mediocre" ★★★★ Jean-François Richet's 2018 historical drama The Emperor of Paris (French: L'Empereur de Paris) puts a modern spin on the tale of the historical…
sci-fi Cargo 21 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "It's incredibly cold here. You could hardly imagine it." ★★★ Switzerland produced its first dystopian sci-fi film under the direction of Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter in 2009, claiming a place…
thriller Eastern Promises 19 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Anger is dangerous. It makes people do stupid things." ★★★★ Congruent with David Cronenberg's other projects, such as The Fly (1986) or Dead Ringers (1988), the 2007 British-Canadian co-production Eastern…
horror Haze 16 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "A dream of being awake?" ★★★★ Best known for his cyberpunk films Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and Vital (2004), Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto masterfully switches between different roles in his…
romance Below Her Mouth 14 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "I'm going to starve to death in your bed" ★★★★ April Mullen's Canadian erotic romance Below Her Mouth (2016) is known for its all-female ensemble, with the film being written,…
horror Escape Room 12 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Surviving is a choice. Make yours." ★★★ Following the tragic escape room disaster that claimed the lives of five teenage girls in a blazing fire, it's no wonder that the…
drama Sleeping Beauty 9 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Some people fake their deaths. I'm faking my life." ★★★ Do not let the title of this Australian erotic drama mislead you. Ten seconds into the trailer, you will be…
drama The Wild Pear Tree 3 Oct 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Who says free will is free? Even if it was, how could you trust it?" ★★★★★ Acclaimed Turkish film director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon A Time in Anatolia, 2011)…
comedy The Commitments 30 Sep 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The Irish are the blacks of Europe, Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and the North Siders are the blacks of Dublin." ★★★★★ Alan Parker's The Commitments (1991) offers a…
drama Taste of Cherry 27 Sep 2020Dec 21, 2020 "When you're unhappy, you hurt other people, too" ★★★★ Iranian films do not necessarily get the attention they deserve, unless they are featured in renowned international award competitions. Perhaps this…
horror Slaughterhouse Rulez 24 Sep 2020Dec 21, 2020 "This is war. No, this is Sparta." ★★★ Bringing back the comedic duo from Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead (2004) sounds like the greatest idea since sliced bread, enriching…
