Tagged london film festival 2015

Dark, intermittently hilarious and downright peculiar throughout, Men and Chicken offers a mixed bag as comedy and drama are both touched upon, albeit without either approach to this farcical tale ever...

With powerful performances, gorgeous cinematography and a score to make you weep, The Daughter is independent drama at its finest. Picking a highlight from the uniformly excellent cast is no mean feat,...

Green Room has a decent concept compared to what one might expect of a thriller/slasher flick: an unsigned band (all very credibly acted) plays a last-minute gig at a seedy, backwater venue, leading to...

Fearless and virtuosic, Victoria's one-take style is both a fascinating formal experiment and a thrilling, interpolating cinematic technique in its own right. Nils Frahm's hypnotic and atmospheric score...

High-Rise is quite the experience: weird, twisted, debauched – and sometimes downright confusing in its meanderings between multiple characters and bizarre scenarios.  The claustrophobic atmosphere of the...

The Ones Below takes a universal concept (pregnancy) and examines the baser human instincts involved in the potentially claustrophobic - and competitive - environment of new neighbours both expecting at the...

A welcome period setting - almost legitimizing the horror aspects for anyone not keen on the genre - allows The Witch to add gravitas to its story through the use of genuine 1600s New England records of...

Hitchcock/Truffaut is a gentle but revealing documentary, 50 years on from the exhaustive interviews conducted by François Truffaut. Concentrating on re-evaluating Hitchcock’s work and the context...

Truth makes for well-rounded characters. The constantly impressive Blanchett is maverick news producer Mapes, with the depressingly radical support of her ‘house-husband’ (a sincere Hickey), and further...

The Survivalist’s plot of a man living in a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world after its oil runs out feels deceptively new, but it ends up treading the same ground as countless other films, books and TV...

You never really know how much you need to see Ralph Fiennes dancing until it’s happening in front of your eyes. His boogie by an Italian poolside is typical of the joie de vivre and impish flirtation that...

Trumbo, despite its blacklist subject matter, keeps things light and irreverent with a wry screenplay, emphasising the absurdity of America’s Communist paranoia post-World War Two. Bryan Cranston has a...

The Assassin is undeniably one of the most beautiful-looking films to come out all year - however fans of interesting characters, cinematic thrills and coherent narratives should look elsewhere. A...

Donaghue’s adaptation of her own novel translates the vastly distinct sections of Room equally skilfully, and treats the recoveries of both Jack and Ma with nuance. It’s Jack’s charming perspective...

At the start of the 2015 London Film Festival, festival director Clare Stewart announced it was "the year of the strong women". Our summary of the best of the festival suggests that she just might have been...