Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Writer Nadia M Oliva tracks the development of the melodrama genre and how it plays out across film, TV and online.

A homeless addict (Denis Lavant) and a young painter (Juliette Binoche) with failing eyesight forge a bond on the streets of Paris.

Buried passions boil over in a buttoned-up postwar Britain in Terence Davies acclaimed adaptation of Rattigan's play, starring Rachel Weisz.

Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or-winner, about an octogenarian couple trying to cope when a stroke leaves the wife partly paralysed and speechless.

A cash-strapped student becomes an escort exposing the stark realities of economic exploitation in this uncompromising gritty French drama.

Life begins at 70 for Mahin, who decides to shake her life up in this charming, quietly subversive tale from Iran.

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning portrait of three women is a transcendent tale of love and sisterhood.

A troubled young sheep farmer falls for a hired hand in this stunning debut from Francis Lee.

Bullied for her sexuality, Dublin schoolgirl Lily turns to her gay best friend for support in this vibrant coming-out, coming-of-age drama.

Akerman’s debut feature, with its 10-minute lesbian sex scene, revealed its maker to be a radical and uncompromising force in cinema.

Co-written with Céline Sciamma, Noémie Merlant’s bold film follows three friends as they dispose of the body of an abuser they’ve accidentally killed.

A young London-based writer begins a double life as a sex worker to research his debut novel, in this gripping psychological drama.

Hilarious, uplifting tale of an Irish son juggling four very different mothers over one chaotic weekend in Dublin.

Co-written with Céline Sciamma, Noémie Merlant’s bold film follows three friends as they dispose of the body of an abuser they’ve accidentally killed.

Annette Bening stars as a mum enlisting two friends (Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning) to help her son navigate adolescence in Mike Mills’s comedy-drama.

Steve Coogan and John C Reilly give delightful performances as Laurel & Hardy - comedy’s most famous double act - as they enter their twilight years.

The debut feature from actor Harris Dickinson sees a homeless addict get a shot at recovery and redemption.

Orson Welles stars in this labyrinthine mythological fantasy set in a baroque mansion, from the director of Daughters of Darkness.

A newlywed couple is entangled by the spellbinding aura of a vampire in Harry Kümel’s seductive horror.

Breathtakingly inventive and ambitious historical epic about a young Danish priest travelling to a remote Icelandic outpost to establish a church.