Films by Collection

Staff Picks: Hayden Ellis

I’m always looking for the films that make you feel something new or awaken what was dormant. Films that challenge and excite you then leave with a lasting impression. My picks for this year range from Cannes winners to a 15 year passion project of DIY animation. With so many titles on offer it’s hard to make a must-see list, but the gems are always there, sometimes you just have to take a risk and watch them.

Leviathan

Andrey Zvyagintsev

Direct from Competition in Cannes, the new film from the Russian director of The Return is an involving, magnificently envisaged and blackly funny tale of one man’s struggle in a densely corrupt world.

Locke

Steven Knight

Tom Hardy mesmerises as a man dealing with crisis on all fronts, making and taking frantic phone calls as he steers his BMW through the night. Steven Knight’s breathless feat of real-time drama is set entirely inside the car.

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer

Scarlett Johansson is an alien creature in human guise cruising Glasgow on a mysterious mission to lure young men. Jonathan Glazer’s eerie spellbinder amalgamates chilling fantasy with covertly filmed reality.

White God

Fehér isten

Kornél Mundruczó

Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó’s audacious drama, about how a young girl’s separation from her dog leads to a full-blown canine uprising, won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Wild Tales

Relatos salvajes

Damián Szifrón

A surprise Cannes sensation from Argentina, Wild Tales is a compendium of six lavishly produced shorts united by a theme of vengeance – the kind that explodes in spectacular outbursts, sometimes planned, sometimes not!

The Wonders

Le meraviglie

Alice Rohrwacher

This intimate portrait of a marvellously idiosyncratic family of beekeepers in the Italian countryside is a classic picture of children growing up in nature – and won its young director the Grand Prix at Cannes.