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Thomas Clay’s unflinching story of teen drugs and violence scandalised the British film industry 20 years ago, but is arguably ripe for rehabilitation

Three stage actresses starring in Aristophanes’ classic play Lysistrata start to draw parallels with their own lives in Mai Zetterling’s feminist comedy.

Albert Serra’s hypnotic Palme d'Or-nominated drama about the greed and hypocrisy of colonial power in Tahiti.

Tatiana Huezo’s poetic documentary captures a holistic view of the rhythms of life in a remote Mexican village.

Three expectant mothers on a maternity ward recall their personal and sexual experiences in Mai Zetterling’s bold, subversive debut.

In Mai Zetterling’s scathing rebuke of European entitlement, a man returns to his childhood home and confronts his repressed memories and desire.

Stranded in a surreal winter landscape, a drunken applejack salesman must become North America's greatest fur trapper in Mike Cheslik’s gloriously anarchic slapstick comedy.

Unfolding against the stunning backdrop of a remote Italian mountain village, Maura Delpero’s film is a hauntingly beautiful period tale of family life gradually torn apart.

The importance of human connection lies at the heart of this powerful, nuanced portrait of a young Portuguese warehouse employee in Scotland.

Francois Ozon’s sly and seductive account of teenage girl’s dalliance with high-class prostitution.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cannes prize-winning directorial debut offers a unique take on the classic vampire story.

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

Ken Loach’s powerful, Palme d’Or-winning invective against welfare injustice captured the mood of modern Britain and became his biggest box office success.

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

The joint winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, EO is a strangely wonderful tale where the dark and light of humanity is laid bare.

Not all is as it seems in Hirokazu Koreeda’s powerful drama told from shifting perspectives.

Queer sisterhood and collective power lie at the heart of this arresting Brazilian debut, in which a promising volleyball player faces an unwanted pregnancy.

A fiercely independent woman’s tranquillity is disturbed by an unexpected affair, in this wry, tender and understated drama from Georgia.

The allure of the serial killer is explored in this deeply unsettling and unforgettable exploration of the impact of extreme violence.

Radu Jude’s follow-up to the Golden Bear-winning Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a pin-sharp, caustically funny critique of workplace culture and oppression.

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.

Victor Kossakovsky’s film essay looks at the way we have constructed our built world through a series of breathtaking sequences.

Heart-pounding Danish drama about a mother’s desperate attempts to unmask her daughter’s attacker on board a cruise ship.

After his mother wakes from a coma, a man goes to great lengths to pretend East Germany still exists in this wonderfully bittersweet tragicomedy.

Mathieu Kassovitz’s landmark mid-90s drama throws a cinematic Molotov cocktail at structural racism, police brutality and media manipulation.

Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a career-best performance as a kindergarten teacher who finds herself in an ethical quagmire after discovering the poetic talents of a precocious student.

Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren star in one of the most controversial films in cinema history, presented here in an entirely new cut compiled from the original rushes.

French writer-director Robin Campillo offers a searching exploration of memory and politics, in this boldly conceived story of boyhood in 1970s Madagascar.

A twelve-year-old boy befriends a mysterious girl with a dark secret, in Tomas Alfredson’s grownup tale of childhood vampirism.

Francois Ozon’s sly and seductive account of teenage girl’s dalliance with high-class prostitution.

Claire Denis' fully formed debut offers a child’s-eye-view of racial and sexual tension that bubbles with unspoken desires.

A philosophy professor and an artist reach a crisis point in their marriage, in Kathleen Collins’ groundbreaking masterpiece.

The lives of two Oglala Lakota boys interlock in this coming-of-age drama set against the backdrop of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.

Chantal Akerman's magnificent epic of experimental cinema offering a feminist perspective on recurrent events of everyday life.

Steven Soderbergh’s audacious debut, starring James Spader and Andie Macdowell, is an intimate exploration of sexual desire, and a landmark of 90’s American independent filmmaking.

Wes Anderson's rarely screened debut ditches the kitsch in favour of surprisingly subtle comedy, in this tale of a criminally inept gang led by Owen Wilson.

Eric Rohmer's final collaboration with the great cinematographer Néstor Almendros follows a holidaying teenager as she begins to navigate the adult world.

Accompanied by his faithful assistant Mills (Jesse Eisenberg), self-proclaimed genius K. Roth Binew (Mike O’Connell) decides to go out in style following a terminal prognosis – staging a living wake.

Barbie creators Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach hit their stride with this critical smash about an awkward girl and her complex passions.

Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch star as a pair of social outcasts struggling to make sense of the world around them, in this sublime love story based on the work of underground artist Daniel Clowes.

Catherine Deneuve and Benoît Poelvoorde head the cast in Jaco Van Dormael’s wildly inventive comedy, in which God’s daughter decides to rewrite the rules.

An unemployed actor is drawn into a world of voyeurism, seduction, mystery and murder, in Brian De Palma's playful and satirical homage to Hitchcock.

Tom Tykwer’s breathtaking time-loop thriller, with a terrific Franka Potente as the titular runner attempting to save her boyfriend.

Laure Calamy stars in this devious, involving French thriller by Sébastien Marnier, playing an outsider tangled in a web of upper-class family malice.

Kristen Stewart reunites with Olivier Assayas to play an A-List celebrity's personal shopper, who keeps receiving strange text messages from an unknown source.

A unit of British paratroopers in Afghanistan become caught in a minefield, unable to move or help their injured colleagues, in this unbearably tense thriller.

Nominated for two Oscars (Best Actress – Melissa Leo - and Best Original Screenplay) Frozen River is a riveting thriller that raises questions about the borders we construct, between countries, communities and each other.

Victor Kossakovsky’s film essay looks at the way we have constructed our built world through a series of breathtaking sequences.

Engrossing tribute to London’s legendary Scala cinema, aptly subtitled.

A dying landscape is healed against all odds, going on to thrive in astonishing ways, in this hopeful story of ecological regeneration.

The on and off-screen character of Toshiro Mifune, Japan’s first international movie star, is explored in this illuminating documentary exploring the life and legacy of this mercurial icon.

A beautifully textured study revealing the rich and troubled private life of the writer behind Carol.

The incredible story of a band you may never have heard of but whose sound has influenced generations with their irresistible rhythms and message of peace.

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.

Siblings find passion and peril online and in the real world, in this visually electric French drama.

Director Claire Denis gives a wry account of an artist’s search for love, in this witty black comedy starring Juliette Binoche.

Jean-Jacques Beineix’s story of a volatile, highly sexual relationship was one of the most successful French films of the 1980s.

French writer-director Robin Campillo offers a searching exploration of memory and politics, in this boldly conceived story of boyhood in 1970s Madagascar.

Mathieu Kassovitz’s landmark mid-90s drama throws a cinematic Molotov cocktail at structural racism, police brutality and media manipulation.

David Thewlis stuns as the motormouth predator of Mike Leigh's divisive masterpiece.

Sight and Sound's 2019 film of the year is the compelling, semi-autobiographical drama from acclaimed writer-director Joanna Hogg.

Billie Piper stars in her own directorial debut, a no-holds-barred, Fleabag-esque anti-romcom about a modern woman’s struggles in work and love.

A coming-of-age tale about a father-son relationship that might just be out of this world.

Dark and sinister forces invade a couple’s home in this wildly eerie British folk horror, with unflinching performances from Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark.

Simmering tensions between locals and newcomers in a modern-day Cornish fishing village reach boiling point in this hugely acclaimed British independent film.

A professor takes drastic action to silence a barking dog in this superb debut feature from Bong Joon-ho, the Oscar-winning director of Parasite.

A recently married couple find their lives turning upside down as a result of the husband’s nocturnal behaviour.

A pair of detectives clash trying to solve the brutal murder of two women, in Bong Joon-ho’s masterful blend of true crime and dark social satire.

Park’s wilfully grotesque fable about an abductee trying to fathom the mysteries of his past.

A hitman becomes the target in this ultra-stylish neo noir from Kim Jee-woon.

Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker) channels Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, to create a sumptuous twisty psychological thriller full of erotic intrigue.

Farmers hire a band of samurai to defend them against marauding bandits in Kurosawa’s influential epic, a touchstone for action movies ever since.

François Truffaut’s hugely popular classic depicts one of cinema’s most captivating love triangles

Eric Rohmer's masterpiece about a woman chasing romance and adventure during a long, hot summer.

Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.

Sight and Sound's 2019 film of the year is the compelling, semi-autobiographical drama from acclaimed writer-director Joanna Hogg.

This influential Dracula adaptation contains some of the most famous images of expressionist film, and remains shocking and stylish after 100 years.

Adam Elliot’s Oscar-nominated tale of separated twins in 1970s Australia is a funny and moving stop-motion triumph.

Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia's unsettling drama-documentary delivers a powerful commentary on the state of the world today… and tomorrow.

Adam Sandler is a beleaguered businessman who finds romance with a mysterious woman, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s award-winning offbeat comedy.

The troubled lives of four desperate people unfold over the course of a single day, in this melancholy masterpiece about the human condition.

Haunting Irish folk-horror, from the writer of The Blood on Satan’s Claw, about an introverted farm girl suspected of witchcraft.

Jennifer Jason Leigh stars in the controversial drama about the underbelly of 1950s Brooklyn, from the pen of Hubert Selby Jr (Requiem for a Dream).