54th BFI London Film Festival

An unsettling tale of bourgeois discontent posited between the comic, the tragic, the absurd and the surreal. 

 Wang Xiaoshuai builds his drama on a pattern of failed relationships, moral cross-purposes and sexual misunderstandings. The resulting emotional complexities are more than satisfying.

Boo Junfeng’s accomplished debut feature focuses on a young man awaiting conscription into Singapore's military service as he discovers some truths about his late father.

Centring on a man struggling to get ahead in Manila, Red’s characteristically vivid images give this underworld odyssey a hint of the mythic, complete with elements of film noir and magic realism.

Three women medics, leave the city for an impoverished hamlet in the Santa Fé province to treat a population trapped by scarce resources, poor sanitation and limited education.

In his first film to be shot outside the US, James Benning brings his rigorous perspective to bear on the heavily industrialised Ruhr region in Germany.

Reclusive songwriter Stephin Merritt takes centre stage in this entertaining insight into one of the most precious and significant figures in contemporary pop.

From Spanish director Juana Macías comes a moving triptych of intersecting tales juxtaposing different choices faced by three women over a 24-hour period.

Leon Gast took the documentary prize at Sundance this year for this fascinating profile of Ron Galella, a divisive figure who, it’s argued, is either upholding the First Amendment, or is the price to be paid for it.

This deeply moving and refreshingly honest documentary is inspired by Miguel Gallardo’s award-winning comic strip capturing the idiosyncrasies and routines of life with María. The day-to-day holiday adventures of father and daughter are charted with humour, irony, and a sincerity that never appears earnest or sentimental.

Filmmaker John Gianvito's examination of the ecological and social devastation left behind as the US pulled out of Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

In this work of uncommon intelligence, a vast array of material is combined to form a series of tone poems that feel, rather than tell, the history of mass migration to postwar Britain.

One of the undoubted hits of the SXSW Film Festival, Cold Weather is the most charming, ingenious and refreshing indie feature to have emerged in recent years.

Twice a day, at the low tides of dawn and dusk, Jen Cassad drags her heavy sled out across the mudflats, wading through the water to prise out her catch.

Involved in a space race to find out once and for all whether there’s life on the planet, NASA is prompted to dispatch three human astronauts to Mars.

Yony Leyser’s riveting documentary portrait of Burroughs attempts to get to the heart of the man beyond the work, using the themes that drove him.

Thanks to a series of accidents – a small coffee shop acquires a distinctive identity as an exchange mart...

When Khaled returns to Alexandria after years of travel, he stumbles upon Alexandria’s underground music scene, a secret world filled with hip-hop singers, rock musicians and graffiti artists.

As much a reflection on the craftsmanship of filmmaking as it is a study of small-town life, The Peddler’s gentle humour and unfussy style deliver a unique study of a filmmaker’s working process.

A small wonder of a film, marking the arrival of Alistair Banks Griffin as an urgent and welcome new voice in American independent cinema.

The final part in a trilogy of films from director Mijke de Jong, Joy is an emotionally honest slice of social realism filmed amid Amsterdam’s high-rises and shelters.

One of the most striking debuts in Korean film history, End of Animal conjures up an apocalypse whose implications are out of all proportion with the film’s own scale.

The Parking Lot Movie is warmly playful, hilariously funny and disarmingly perceptive take on the service industry.