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).…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
action The International 3 Sep 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Sometimes a man can meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it" ★★ Tom Tykwer's 2009 action thriller The International was inspired by the Bank of Credit…
comedy A Perfect Day 14 Aug 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Many people hate foreigners because they come with war" ★★★★★ The Spanish dark comedy-drama A Perfect Day (Spanish: Un Día Perfecto, 2015), written and directed by Fernando León de Aramoa,…
horror Train to Busan 18 Jul 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Sorry, but you're infected" ★★★★★ Yeon Sang-ho's South Korean action-horror Train to Busan (2016) became the highest-grossing Korean film in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. And, seeing as its sequel…
drama Chicken with Plums 15 Jul 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Life is a breath, life is a sigh. It is this sigh that you must seize." ★★★★ Chicken with Plums (2011) is a lesser known drama created by acclaimed directors Marjane…
thriller Open Your Eyes 29 Jun 2020Dec 21, 2020 “It’s not important what you see, but what I see. It’s my dream.” ★★★★★ Everyone seems to know Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001), starring Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz, but what about the…
romance Indiscreet 26 Jun 2020Dec 21, 2020 "There is no sincerity like a woman telling a lie" ★★★★ Stanley Donen's Indiscreet (1958) not only reunited Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman after their work in Hitchcock's Notorious (1946),…
thriller The Invisible Guest 15 Jun 2020Dec 21, 2020 "There will be no salvation without suffering" ★★★★ Picking up from where he left off in The Body, Oriol Paolo directed the Spanish mystery thriller The Invisible Guest (original title:…
drama Loving Vincent 12 Jun 2020Dec 21, 2020 "You want to know so much about his death, but what do you know of his life?" ★★★★★ This 2017 experimental animated biographical drama about the life of Vincent van…
animation Princess Mononoke 10 Jun 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite" ★★★★★ A masterpiece that needs no introduction is this 1997 Japanese animated fantasy war film, written and…
drama 4L 4 Jun 2020Dec 21, 2020 "We're not talking. I don't bother life, and she leaves me alone." ★★ The latest Spanish dramedy featured on Netflix promises a life-changing road trip through the Sahara desert. With…
comedy Death at a Funeral 27 May 2020Dec 21, 2020 "We're all just thrown in here together, in a world full of chaos and confusion. A world full of questions and no answers." ★★★★ Contrary to lukewarm - or even…
fantasy Paradise Hills 19 May 2020Dec 21, 2020 "This place is a lie" ★★ Some people would argue that endings are far more important than beginnings. After all, it's the aftertaste that must make us crave the experience…
drama Ip Man 15 May 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The virtue of martial arts is benevolence" ★★★★★ Chinese action drama Ip Man (2008), written by Edmond Wong, was meant to be the first of a successful film series starring…
drama Handsome Devil 8 May 2020Dec 21, 2020 "If you spend your whole life being someone else, who is going to be you?" ★★★ As an ardent fan of Father Ted, I knew I was in for a…
thriller The Man from Nowhere 7 May 2020Dec 21, 2020 "The ones that live for tomorrow get f***** by the ones living for today" ★★★★★ Long before John Wick restored action films to their former glory in the West, The…
drama Like Father, Like Son 3 May 2020Dec 21, 2020 "Can you really love a child without your blood?" ★★★★★ Childhood seems to be a recurring theme of exploration for Japanese director and screenwriter Hirokazu Kore-eda [Nobody Knows, Still Walking].…