‘The Last King of Scotland’

Towering central performance by Forest Whitaker captures the unhinged charm and tyrannical threat of Idi Amin, corrupt president of Uganda throughout the 1970s.

A recent medical graduate, the last thing Nic Garrigan (James McAvoy) wants to do is follow in his father’s footsteps with a safe practice in rural Scotland. Volunteering to work in a missionary clinic in Uganda, an unexpected encounter with Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) on the presidential campaign results in a very different direction for the idealist. On Amin’s election victory, Garrigan is summoned to be the president’s personal physician. Bestowed with gifts and favours, he refuses to accept the accusations of violence and corruption levelled at Amin, until his links with the president’s youngest wife Kay (Kerry Washington) puts him in personal danger.

Volatile and at times unquestionably thrilling, The Last King of Scotland is an episodic sweep of recent Ugandan history as Garrigan learns to tread on egg shells around his benefactor. Capturing the exuberance of a country renewed by Amin’s election through by fear at the film’s end, it never quite reaches the same plateau as the fearless Whitaker.

Winner of Oscar for best actor in 2007

Rating: 62%

Director: Kevin Macdonald (The Mauritanian, One Day in September)

Writer: Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), Jeremy Brock (Here I Live Now, Mrs Brown)

Main cast: Forest Whitaker (The Butler, Respect), James McAvoy (Split, Atonement), Kerry Washington (Django Unchained, TV’s Little Fires Everywhere)

’Joyeux Noël’

A visceral moment in the trenches of World War I as individual opposing British, French and German units lay down their arms on Christmas Eve, 1914 to celebrate together.

Joyeux Noël is a fictionalised account of true events and centred around the Delsaux farm occupied by the German 93rd Infantry under the command of Leutnant Horstmayer (Daniel Brühl). Less than 100 metres away are the French 26th and the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Music brings the nationalities together as night falls on 24 December 1914. As the bagpipes play, a catholic Mass, lead by stretcher bearer and priest Father Palmer (Gary Lewis), is held in no man’s land: tenor Private Nikolaus Sprink (Benno Fürmann) and his wife Anna Sørensen (Diane Kruger), both members of the Berlin State Opera, sing to the troops. Horstmayer is able to find out information about the wife and new born child of the French commanding officer, Le lieutenant Audebert (Guillaume Canet), caught behind enemy lines.

Moving and uplifting with its deep sense of humanity, Joyeux Noël is, admittedly, a neatly packaged emotive tearjerker with its bittersweet consequences. It’s the art of uncomplicated storytelling that wins out.

Nominated for best foreign language film Oscar in 2006.

Rating: 71%

Director: Christian Carion (My Son, Driving Madeleine)

Writer: Christian Carion (My Son, Driving Madeleine)

Main cast: Guillaume Canet (Tell No One, My Son), Daniel Brühl (Rush, All Quiet on the Western Front), Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot, The Keeper)

‘Land and Freedom’

Political idealism comes into contact with practical reality as a young unemployed Communist leaves his home in Liverpool to volunteer in the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.

With few prospects, David Carr (Ian Hart) makes the decision to travel to Spain and join the international Militia, the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), fighting in the rural towns and villages outside Barcelona in support of wider global socialism. But increasingly isolated by other Spanish ant-fascist groups, disension sets in. Injured during the training of new recruits, Carr travels to Barcelona where he joins in the struggle in the city – only to find socialist groups pitted against each other. He returns to the ranks of the POUM – and Blanca (Rosana Pastor) in particular.

An archetypal Ken Loach feature in its gritty portrayal of working class (and under-class) struggles, Land and Freedom is a rare foray into global issues. Spain in 1936 and its ciivl war was complex, with Loach perfectly capturing the the validity of difference within the context of the shifting sands of the war. The camaraderie, the fear, the political divisions, the disappointments, the disillusion are all writ large as Loach explores the complexities of the struggle with this deeply humane narrative.

Rating: 71%

Director: Ken Loach (I Daniel Blake, The Angels’ Share)

Writer: Jim Allen (Hidden Agenda, Raining Stones)

Main cast: Ian Hart (Enemy of the State, Mary Queen of Scots), Rosana Pastor (The Conspiracy, Mad Love), Icíar Bollaín (El techo del mundo, Rage)

‘We Have a Pope’ (Habemus Papam)

A rank outsider is elected by the Conclave as the new Pope. Taken unawares, the cardinal struggles to believe in himself with such responsibility.

At the death of the Pope, the Roman Catholic Conclave meet in the Vatican to elect a replacement. Cardinal Gregori (Renato Scarpa) is a clear favourite with the world media. But following extended voting, it’s neck and neck in a three horse race. A compromise is reached with outsider Michel Piccoli elected. With the world awaiting the announcement, il papa takes to his rooms and then slips away, reflecting on the position and his own capabilities.

An engaging, dialogue-based narrative of a single soul in crisis wandering the streets of Rome whilst his colleagues, unaware he has left the building, along with the rest of the world bide their time waiting.

Rating: 69%

Director: Nanni Moretti (Mia madre, The Son’s Room)

Writer: Nanni Moretti (Mia Madre, The Son’s Room), Francesco Piccolo (Human Capital, The Traitor), Federica Pontremoli (A Magnificent Haunting, The Caiman)

Main cast: Michel Piccoli (Belle de jour, Une étrange affaire), Nanni Moretti (Mia madre, The Son’s Room), Renato Scarpa (Don’t Look Now, Mia madre)

‘The Kid with a Bike'( Le gamin au vélo)

A quiet, compassionate rites-of-passage narrative as 12 year-old Cyril is abandoned by his single parent father.

Left at a boys’ home, Cyril (Thomas Doret) refuses to accept his father has moved on. He’s desperate for his parent’s love but also wants the return of his bike. In skipping school and travelling to the now empty former shared home, Cyril comes into contact with the kind-hearted Samantha (Cécile de France), the local hairdresser. Agreeing to help the boy find his dad at weekends, Samantha is drawn into supporting the emotional turmoil that is Cyril as he navigates the rejection by his father (Jérémie Renier) and falls in with the wrong crowd.

The quiet dignity of the every day is a trademark in the films of the Dardenne brothers resulting in a simplicity of narrative that is deceptively complex and volatile.

Rating: 81%

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Two Days One Night, The Child), Luc Dardenne (Two Days One Night, The Child)

Writer: Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Two Days One Night, The Child), Luc Dardenne (Two Days One Night, The Child)

Main cast: Thomas Doret (Renoir, The Unknown Girl), Cécile de France (The French Dispatch, The Spanish Apartment), Jérémie Renier (In Bruges, November)

‘Boogie Nights’

Business in the 1970s sex industry is booming as a young no-hoper but with personal assets determines to become successful as a porn star.

Kicked out of home, school drop-out Eddie Homes (Mark Wahlberg) finds his way into the porn film industry when successful producer Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) discovers the well-endowed teenager. Re-named Dirk Diggler, he rises to fame as he and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) form a successful on screen partnership. But a strutting ego and drug addiction see his fame to be short-lived.

Intertwined narratives of Horner’s ‘family’ including actress Amber (Julianne Moore) fighting to win custody of her child and camera operator Little Bill’s (William H. Macy) troublesome marriage create a compendium of frank and compelling vignettes around Homes’ rise and fall. In only his second film, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson explores themes recurrent in future films of flawed, self-destructive yet likeable characters who are on the margins of their time and place.

Nominated for 3 Oscars in 1998 – supporting actor (Reynolds), supporting actress (Moore), original script

Rating: 69%

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Licorice Pizza)

Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Licorice Pizza)

Main cast: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed, The Fighter), Julianne Moore (Still Alice, Maps to the Stars), Burt Reynolds (Deliverance, Smokey & the Bandit)

‘EO’

A visceral allegorical social commentary as EO, a donkey freed as a performing circus animal, travels from place to place witnessing and experiencing love, innocence and cruelty.

A film of few words, EO is removed from the circus and its owners by the Polish authorities. A peripatetic life evolves for the gentle donkey as, having been sold to a horse stable to work, he finds ways of moving on, wandering the countryside. From the gentleness of a petting farm to violence at a small town football match, from time in the forest to being tied up at a motorway truck stop, EO’s movements are juxtaposed with imagery of the animal world with and without human interaction.

An episodic narrative from director Jerzy Skolimowski, EO is in equal measure odd, playful, cute in its judgement of how the human world treats its animals both domestic and wild.

Nominated for best foreign language film Oscar in 2023.

Rating: 72%

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski (Moonlighting, 11 Minutes)

Writer: Jerzy Skolimowski (Moonlighting, 11 Minutes), Ewa Piaskowska (Essential Killing, The Palace)

Main cast: Sandra Drzymalska (Sole, Kazdy ma swoje lato), Lorenzo Zurzolo (Under the Amalfi Suń, Una famiglia perfetta), Isabelle Huppert (Elle, 8 Women)

‘Saint Omer’

A mix of real life court transcipts and fictional characterisation, Saint Omer is a powerful and gripping drama exploring race, class and motherhood.

Reading of the upcoming trial of a young Senegalese woman charged with abandoning her baby on a beach to die, novelist and lecturer Rama (Kayije Kagame), herself pregnant, determines to attend court. Her thesis on Medea and the motivations for the murder of her own children provides the background for the decision. Travelling out of Paris, Rama, already fearful of her own insecurities and failings as a potential mother, struggles with the unnaturally calm and seemingly resigned Laurence (Guslagie Malanda).

A wholly engrossing, nuanced feature from documentary filmmaker Alice Diop, part courtroom drama, part self reflection, Saint Omer verges on the observational and non-judgemental as witnesses provide answers to the events leading up to Laurence’s decision to abandon her child on the beach.

Rating: 82%

Director: Alice Diop (We, La permanence)

Writer: Alice Diop (We, La mort de Danton)

Main cast: Kayije Kagame (Night Shift), Guslagie Malanda (My Friend Victoria, The Beast), Valérie Dréville (My American Uncle, Elles)

‘The Dreamers’

A sensual ménage à trois as an American student moves to 1968 Paris where, amid rising social tensions, he meets and falls in love with twins Theo and Isabelle.

A love for art house cinema sees Matthew (Michael Pitt) cross paths with the ubercool twins. A daring twosome, they instigate an intense friendship with Matthew moving into the large, rambling family apartment as their bohemian parents leave Paris for the summer. Cinema, obsession, revolution and youth underscore the more personal sexual revolution contained within the four walls as riots rage outside and Matthew struggles with his emotions towards Isabelle (Eva Green). The incestuous relationship between brother (Louis Garrel) and sister add frisson to the already highly charged scenario.

With its smouldering eroticism and director Bernardo Bertolucci’s interweaving of 1940s film clips to add to the emotions and actions of the threesome, The Dreamers is a seductive portrayal of sexual awakening unfolding in the City of Love.

Rating: 78%

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor, The Conformist)

Writer: Gilbert Adair (Love and Death on Long Island, Klimt) – adapted from hs own novel

Main cast: Michael Pitt (Seven Psychopaths, Hedwig & the Angry Inch), Louis Garrel (Saint Laurent, A Faithful Man), Eva Green (Casino Royale, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children)

’The Edge of Heaven’ (Auf der anderen Seite)

Intertwined narratives and personalities as the lives of Turks and Germans are drawn together by circumstance.

Complex yet controlled, director Fatih Akin explores the commonalities and gaps between cultures and individuals. A lonely old man (Tuncel Kurtiz) forges a link with Yeter, a sex worker (Nursel Köse). Her death results in the old man’s scholarly son (Baki Davrak) travelling to Istanbul in search of Yeter’s adult daughter Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay). But, a political activist, Ayten has fled Turkey and travelled to Bremen in search of her mother.

As the stories and characters overlap so past and present are reconciled. It doesn’t always work – the Ayten/Lotte relationship is overly strident and and not wholly convincing. But overall, gentle, intimate and intricate, The Edge of Heaven is ultimately the story of the ties that bind, the love between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons – but also a love for home.

Rating: 63%

Director: Fatih Akin (Soul Kitchen, In the Fade)

Writer: Fatih Akin (Soul Kitchen, In the Fade)

Main cast: Baki Davrak (Crimean, Our Grand Despair), Tuncel Kurtiz (The Herd, Jailbreak), Nurgül Yesilçay (Coming Soon, Adam & the Devil)