France

The director and star of In the Mood for Love return to 60s Hong Kong in this sumptuous romantic sequel. “It's wonderful – a rich, glamorous and acutely human work with superb performances by Leung and the four gorgeous actresses.” — Richard Corliss, Time

Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil go head to head in this sleek cop vs cop drama, a hit in France late last year. "This stylish, relentlessly moody cop saga benefits from crackerjack scripting, intriguing motivations and excellent performances." — Variety

This collection of films selected especially for our youngest audience promises some laughs, some frights – and some food for thought. This year’s programme is probably best suited to a slightly older age group (6-10) than previous years’.

Our popular yearly programme of the year’s best animate shorts is one of the strongest collections in a long time, celebrating the sheer diversity of the animated art form. Including the Oscar winning Ryan.

"A jet-black social comedy marbled with delectably handled close calls, The Ax puts the merciless world of downsizing, outsourcing and other capitalist trends on the chopping block." — Lisa Nesselson, Variety

Actor Richard Burton was never more compelling on screen than as the cynical, cocksure Captain Leith in Nicholas Ray’s tale of a British commando raid into Nazi-occupied Libya.

We’re proud to present the winner of this year’s Palme d’Or direct from the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a riveting, at times alarmingly suspenseful moral tale of a feckless young hustler whose cavalier attitude to fatherhood takes him into very deep waters indeed. “A profoundly moving and engaging realist picture.” — The Guardian

Three very different short films about still photography by the French New Wave’s 76-year-old doyenne. “Agnes Varda's photography is pure joy… For photo buffs and Varda fans, it's a can't-miss.” — salon.com

“It is a small film but one made with great craft, and control that gently seduces the audience with its sympathetic characters and human-interest drama.” — Allan Hunter, Screendaily

A jaw-dropping and scathing exposé of the ecological devastation and economic exploitation of Tanzania's Lake Victoria.

Can a corporation balance profit-making and social responsibility? Cellphone giant Nokia sends their Ethics and Environmental Specialist to China to audit one of its suppliers in this revealing documentary.

The highlights in the past year of digital animation, this selection of works favouring abstraction over representation, and experimentation over application.

Tough, provocative and utterly gripping, this year’s opening night film is a psychological thriller by a filmmaker at the top of his formidable powers. Winner of the best Director Award at Cannes, Hidden is poised to be the year’s most hotly debated film.

Mysterious hulking deviant pursues female college students in the most devilish cat-and-mouse chiller in years.

"[Claire] Denis is one of cinema's greatest narrative poets, and The Intruder, the story of an adventurer, is her most adventurous cinematic poem." — Amy Taubin, Film Comment

This marvelously unpredictable tragicomedy concerns the lovely, rather enigmatic Nora and the constellation of males circling her: aging father, young son and former flame. “If there’s a more humane, joyous, tragic, life-affirming movie to be found at the moment, I’m not aware of it.” — LA Weekly

George Romero, the individual most responsible for the world's enduring affection for the undead has returned to claim his title as King of Horror. We’re stoked to be presenting the premiere of his long-awaited futuristic zombie epic on the big screen.

Compelling and eccentric, this boldly stylized film elucidates the unfulfilling love lives and fledging vocations of two young couples in 70s Paris.

A brilliantly choreographed extravaganza, complete with lovesick donkey and home-invading bear, Life Is a Miracle marks the overdue return to the screen of Balkan maestro Emir Kusturica (Black Cat, White Cat).

Tender, suspenseful, beautifully observed tale of the bond that develops between a young Argentinian farmhand and the farmers’ neglected baby.

A sharply observed drama of celebrity and its casualties set in the Parisian publishing and music worlds. “A delightful metropolitan comedy… this is a French triumph.” — The Guardian

"Machuca... is both sweet and stringent, attuned to the wonders of childhood as well as its cruelty and terror." — A.O. Scott, NY Times

From the Shroud of Turin to Graceland, this superbly filmed world tour of venerated objects is like Koyannisqatsi without the bombast, exuding instead a gentle, inquisitive wit.

“A fascinating picture on wine as business and pleasure, poetry and philosophy, a way of life and a form of colonialism.” — Philip French, The Observer

In this stirring film by the 81-year-old father of African cinema, the defiant wife of an elder in a West African village refuses to allow four girls to undergo the traditional initation rite. “It makes a powerful statement and at the same time contains humor, charm and astonishing visual beauty.” — Roger Ebert

Breathing new life into the ‘car trouble leaves protagonist stranded’ formula, this perverse film twists conventions and delivers one creepy and funny Gothic horror.

The two young Palestinian suicide bombers at the centre of this provocatively adrenalised film are hardly the fundamentalist zealots of legend. Paradise Now wracks up the suspense, compounding their moral panic with our own terror of impending detonation.

Family chaos takes to the road in this amiable comedy from Argentina. “Slyly funny… a multi-generational road movie proving that the family that travels together unravels together.” — Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

Javier Bardem is superb in this year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, the true story of Ramón Sampedro, who famously fought the Spanish government for the right to end his life.

Various petty felons and their defenders confront a formidably sensible magistrate – and she metes out French justice in this fascinating fly-on-the-wall courtroom documentary.

Arab-Jewish filmmaker Simone Bitton surveys the impact on both sides of the wall designed to divide Arab West Bank territories from Jewish communities.

The most-talked about film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Festival regular Tsai Ming-liang delivers a film that fluctuates wildly between broad camp tomfoolery and a desolate view of pornography.

"We are in the hands of a master… his imagery is so boilingly alive that we come away from it feeling exhilarated rather than depressed." — David Chute, LA Weekly