Director Zhang Yimou returns to theaters this weekend with Cliff Walkers, an espionage thriller set in 1930s China. It's a change of tone for the director of Shadow, House Of Flying Daggers and Hero, who also helmed Matt Damon-starrer The Great Wall in 2016. Based on a script by Quan Yongxian, Cliff Walkers opens in…

After breaking all-time box office records in Japan late last year, the anime adaptation Demon Slayer – Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train hits North American cinemas on Friday via Aniplex of America and Funimation. Based on the Shonen Jump manga and Ufotable/Aniplex 2019 anime TV series, it picks up where the…

An 83-year-old man goes undercover in a nursing home in The Mole Agent, Chilean director Maite Alberdi's Oscar hopeful that's been shortlisted for both International Feature and Documentary. While it's filmed and scored in the style of a playful spy movie, it's most remarkable in its quieter moments, as the true heart…

Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin co-directed the sports documentary Undefeated in 2011, and their Berlin Film Festival Special Gala, Tina, could have shared the same title. While this is set in the world of music, its emphasis is on the resilience, survival and comeback of its subject, singer Tina Turner. Featuring a…

A teacher comes under fire for a sex tape in Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, the Berlin Film Festival competition entry from Romanian writer-director Radu Jude (Aferim!). We first meet Emi (Katia Pascariu) when she is engaged in graphic sex with her husband, who's filming an amateur video. She's wearing a feline eye…

Director Tony Stone delves into the world of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski in Ted K, premiering in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival. More of a mood piece than a biopic, it stars an understated Sharlto Copley as the former math professor, who's living off grid in the Montana mountains, fostering a burgeoning…

The Pygmalion myth gets a gender flip in I'm Your Man, the Berlin Film Festival competition entry from Germany's Maria Schrader. Maren Eggert stars as Alma, a single anthropologist who agrees to live with a humanoid robot for three weeks as part of a trial testing period. Thomas (Dan Stevens) has been designed as…

Horror is woven into political drama in La Llorona, the riveting Golden Globe Foreign Language Film nominee and shortlisted International Feature Oscar contender from Guatemala's Jayro Bustamante. An elderly wealthy man hears ghostly noises in the night. He is revealed to be former army general Enrique Monteverde…

A prisoner becomes a storyteller in Night Of The Kings, Ivory Coast's vivid International Feature Oscar shortlist selection written and directed by Philippe Lacôte (Run). Newcomer Bakary Koné stars as a pickpocket who arrives at La MACA, a notorious prison in the Ivorian forest. The guards barely have control, and the…

When documentary maker Alexander Nanau started filming a team of investigative journalists in the aftermath of a tragic fire, no one knew the staggering level of corruption they would uncover. The blaze at Bucharest's Colectiv club in 2015 left 27 dead and 180 injured. When more burn victims began dying in hospitals…

Next time someone asks what's good on Netflix, you might want to point them to this winner that's been lurking there since January 2020. A victor at the Golden Horse Awards and now shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar, A Sun is a bold, involving tale of crime, punishment, tragedy and healing — all…

A mother abducts her own children in Charter, a riveting watch from writer-director Amanda Kernell (Sami Blood). Norwegian actress Ane Dahl Torp puts in a powerhouse turn as Alice, the desperate, impetuous divorcée who decides to take her daughter and son to Tenerife amid a bitter custody battle. The courts seem set…