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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | Tara Judah |Nick Bradshaw |Jason Anderson |Katie McCabe
Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown opens with a quotation from Edward Said: “In a way, it’s sort of the fate of Palestinians, not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.” Said’s words set a foreboding, fatalistic tone. The film is all about home, safety and humanity, and yet it is their absence that is most felt in this uncomfortable thriller.
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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | Nick Bradshaw |Jason Anderson |Katie McCabe |Rafa Sales Ross
Kids do not fly their nest in an Adam Elliot film. They may be pushed out, or their homes may crumble, but his characters do not want to take wing and have no hope of soaring. Among the many animal companions in the Australian animator’s ‘clayographic’ life fables, birds do figure, but at heart they are caged, or their wings broken, or their legs cut off. And their human keepers, Elliot’s very grounded subjects, are equally lumbered.
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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | Jason Anderson |Katie McCabe |Savina Petkova |Tara Judah
Peter Hastings’s movie incarnation of the popular graphic novel series presents a cheerful whirlwind of goofball gags, silly puns and moments of real poignancy in an endearing, unpolished package. 7 February 2025It’s a sign of the Hollywood screen comedy’s sorry state that connoisseurs of goofball non-sequiturs, absurdist slapstick and anarchic humour can mainly find what they seek in animated films for kids.
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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | John Wrathall |Tara Judah |Nicolas Rapold |Jason Anderson
Like Whit Stillman’s Barcelona, Before Sunrise was backed by Castle Rock, and the two films also share their basic premise: young Americans broaden their minds through encounters with European women in European Cities. In fact, the preppy American overheard in Before Sunrise complaining about the decadence of European’ culture as exemplified by poor service in cafes could have strayed in from a Stillman film.
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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | Ren Scateni |Nicolas Rapold |Jason Anderson |Leigh Singer
Yamada Naoko has always been fascinated by music, and since the K-On! franchise – an anime series (2009-10) and film (2011) following the lives of four members of a high school’s light music club – it has remained central to her storytelling.
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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | Nicolas Rapold Festivals |Nicolas Rapold |Jason Anderson |Leigh Singer
Reviewed from the 2025 Sundance Film FestivalIt’s been a full 17 years since Mary Bronstein’s crackling debut feature, and the long wait has filtered into the simmering anxieties and ambient aggression of her full-on follow-up. Piercingly funny and far from ingratiating, If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You enters the subjective orbit of a Montauk therapist, Linda (Rose Byrne), as she takes care of her sick daughter in a woeful motel while her boat-captain husband is away.
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2 months ago | 
bfi.org.uk | Jason Anderson |Leigh Singer |Guy Lodge |Anton Bitel
Kazik Radwanski’s wry Canadian romance follows Mara, a disillusioned creative writing professor, as she reconnects with a man from her past who’s now a successful author. 31 January 2025The protagonist in Kazik Radwanski’s fourth feature belongs to a particular subset of the stymied creatives we so often meet in movies: the writer who doesn’t write any more. Instead, Mara (Deragh Campbell) teaches it, albeit with a listless air that’s largely impervious to the enthusiasm of her keenest students.
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Dec 14, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Jason Anderson
Like Charlotte Le Bon’s eerie coming-of-age drama Falcon Lake (2022), this debut feature by Harley Chamandy may succeed first and foremost as an envy-inducing promotion for lakeside holidays in Quebec. Shot in the Eastern Townships region two hours drive from Montreal, Allen Sunshine exudes a rustic tranquility that feels endemic to the setting.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Savina Petkova |Saffron Maeve |Elizabeth Sussex |Jason Anderson
“What fresh hell awaits you today?” sighs a weary toddler mum in front of the bathroom mirror. With a grunt of habitual defeat, Mother (Amy Adams) drapes a stained, oversized shirt over the hairy bump on her lower back, noting its existence but ignoring that it weirdly resembles a tail. The protagonist of Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch is overtired and under-appreciated and, as in Rachel Yonder’s best-selling novel of 2021, on which the film is based, sometimes turns into a dog.
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Nov 28, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Jason Anderson |Sophia Satchell-Baeza |Lillian Crawford |Clara Bradbury-Rance
Clair Titley’s short and shocking documentary tells the story of Hamatsu Tomoaki, who in 1998 was cast on a Japanese TV show to spend 15 months naked in an apartment, surviving on winnings from entering magazine contests. 28 November 2024As Hamatsu Tomoaki prepared to leave his Fukushima home and head to Tokyo in hopes of succeeding as a comedian, his parents gave him this advice: “Whatever you do, don’t get naked.” This may seem unusual.
