Despite dividing critics following its world premiere, Jojo Rabbit won over audiences in the public vote: Joker may well have had the last laugh at Venice, but it was Taika Waititi’s Second World War satire that won over audiences in Toronto, hopping ahead as...
★★☆☆☆ A creature feature for the environmentalist age, Irish TV and film director Neasa Hardiman’s latest project is a fun and inventive body horror that falls just short of a recommendation. Combining elements from Sphere, Alien and The Thing, Sea Fever uses the unchartered depths...
★★★★★ Can violence be contained through ritual? Does sanctioning violence in specific contexts purge the need for its spontaneous outburst? In his seventh feature, Indian director Lijo Jose Pellissery explores the nature of savagery in this singular, heaving howl of...
★★☆☆☆ Errol Morris tackles his most disturbing and slippery subject to date, Steve Bannon, in new documentary American Dharma. Morris paints a frighteningly apocalyptic figure, but in depicting Bannon as the kind of subject Satanic king-maker that he clearly admires,...
★★★★☆ Gloria (Julianne Moore) is in her fifties, divorced and lives alone. A mysterious cat keeps finding its way into her apartment and the guy upstairs seems permanently in the throes of a nervous breakdown. When Gloria meets Arnold (John...
★★★☆☆ When French war reporter Gabriel (Roman Kolinka) is released from being held hostage by ISIS, he insists that he’s fine, refusing help from his hospital-appointed counsellor. But when his relationship with his girlfriend breaks down, it’s clear that Gabriel...
★★★☆☆ In August 2000, the Russian submarine Kursk suffered two devastating explosions during a test firing of torpedoes. Many of the crew were killed in the explosions, but as the wrecked sub sank to the seabed, twenty-three of the crew...
★★★★☆ Turkish director Ali Vatansever returns with his second feature, Saf, a social drama that examines the human cost of urban renewal. Out-of-work Kamir (Erol Afsin) seems perpetually on the brink of destitution. His faultless insistence on doing the right...
★★★☆☆ In a cinematic landscape saturated with superhero mega-blockbusters from Marvel, Fox and Warner Bros., writer-directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein take their cue from the X-Men series’ themes of oppression to deliver Freaks – a small-scale, intriguing superhero indie with a...
★★★☆☆ In the near future, Lao Zhang (Jack Kao) stalks and murders three people, including an elderly, hospitalised man and his ex-wife, before killing himself. The question at the heart of Ho Di Wing’s Cities of Last Things is what...
★★★★☆ Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro begins as it means to go on. A lawyer-baiting disclaimer informs us that the film is not based on real events (even when it is), that any similarity to real people is purely unintentional (even when it isn’t),...
★★★★☆ As Olavi (Heikki Nousiainen) approaches retirement, he reflects on his career as an antiques dealer. With little to show for it and no inheritance to leave his semi-estranged daughter Lea (Pirjo Lonka) and teenage grandson Otto (Amos Brotherus), he...
★★★☆☆ With the saturation of the zombie as modern cinema’s de facto monster, it’s difficult to imagine in what new direction the shuffling dead can possibly amble. Yet, with the imperfect but fascinating Endzeit, director Carolina Hellsgård ultimately guides her...
As the Toronto International Film Festival gears up for its 2018 edition (6-16 September), awards contenders, experimental filmmakers and indie hopefuls come together for a 10-day extravaganza of some of the world’s best cinema. This year’s festival opens with Netflix’s Outlaw...
As the 2017 Toronto Film Festival closes, we take a look at our top picks from the festival. Despite already premiering in Venice, Darren Aronofsky’s unhinged Mother! created the most buzz on the ground, garnering rave reviews from festival-goers and...