Marina de Van’s deeply personal debut about a young woman's addiction to self-mutilation stretches the body horror genre in new ways.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The messiness of sex, the mysteries of birth and the moving spectacle of devoted parenting in the face of impending oblivion.

A ferocious dystopian nightmare, this was the first film directed by a Black British woman to receive a UK theatrical release.

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

All We Imagine as Light director Payal Kapadia’s bold and distinctive feature debut explores the political climate of contemporary India.

Florence Pugh's first film teams her with Maisie Williams as teenage friends at a school cursed by mystery sickness.

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

Joanna Hogg's enthralling ghost story, featuring an astonishing performance by her regular collaborator Tilda Swinton.

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

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

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.

Teenage romance simmers in a strict Himalayan boarding school in this sublime coming-of-age tale. Winner of a 2024 Sundance audience award

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

A poignant birthday party exposes a series of family tensions in Lila Avilés’ outstanding follow-up to The Chambermaid.

A housewife-turned-cop is sucked into a high-profile case that has polarised the local community in this taut, north India-set thriller.

Gripping account of repressed sexual desire in a masculine environment, with British newcomer Harris Dickinson as a virulently macho Brooklyn teen.

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.

Saoirse Ronan gives a bracing performance as a young recovering alcoholic returning home to Orkney in this moving adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s memoir.

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

Clio Barnard's film about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar mixes reconstruction, interviews (performed by actors) and scenes from the plays.

Three-time Oscar-nominee Agnieszka Holland returns with a powerful, timely and unflinching exploration of the current migrant crisis.

BAFTA winner and coming-of-age story starring newcomer Katie Jarvis as disaffected teen Mia and Michael Fassbender in one of his earliest film roles.

You may never look at film the same way again after watching this illuminating journey, which deconstructs the male gaze in cinema.

From Cécile Ducrocq comes a bold, provocative drama starring an electric Laure Calamy as a single mother and sex worker in a desperate situation.

Céline Sciamma’s BAFTA-nominated film about the tentative love between a painter and her subject in 18th-century France.

Carine Adler’s sexy and dark debut, starring Samantha Morton in her first major feature film role.

Sacha Polak and Vicky Knight reunite for this daring drama about love, family and forgiveness, loosely inspired by Knight’s life.

Andrea Arnold’s highly acclaimed film, winner of top prizes at Cannes and the BFI London Film Festival, is a haunting drama about a woman confronting past demons.

Jessica Hausner’s cool, witty and unsettling sci-fi starring Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw.

A lesbian couple arouse the interest of their new neighbour in this erotic tale of voyeurism, power dressing and fantasy.

A doctor in rural Georgia faces scrutiny after a baby dies during childbirth in this affecting and atmospheric abortion drama.

Sally El Hosaini's feature debut tells of the love and disenchantment of two British-Egyptian brothers as gangs, drugs and sexuality come between them.

Anna Friel and Michelle Williams star as two troubled girls whose tumultuous friendship takes many twists and turns.

A teenage Björk stars in this Brothers Grimm adaptation, which finds witchcraft thriving in the wilds of medieval Iceland.

Riotous urban comedy adapted from the hit Royal Court play, about a Peckham teen affronted by the arrival of his long-lost Nigerian sibling.

Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone are members of a criminal gang that tears itself apart after a heist goes wrong, in Antonia Bird’s stylish thriller.

Ayoka Chenzira’s vital coming-of-age comedy about three Black women living in Brooklyn learning to embrace life and exercise their agency.

Shockingly explicit, Catherine Breillat’s critically acclaimed Romance is one of the most controversial films of modern cinema.

The passengers on an interstellar space-liner are thrown into turmoil when their mission goes off course, in this compassionate and thought-provoking sci-fi drama.

Jane Campion’s feminist erotic thriller starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo adds a frisson of dangerous sex to a murder investigation.

Two self-confessed hedonists wreak wanton havoc in Věra Chytilová's visually spectacular neo-dadaist farce.

A director struggles to film a difficult sex scene with two actors who hate each other, in Catherine Breillat's exploration of intimacy coordination.

A frustrated stage mother exploits her star daughter’s coma for her own artistic gains, in this wickedly dark Australian comedy.

Hettie MacDonald’s 1996 comedy tells the story of two classmates and neighbours who fall in love over one summer in South East London.

Kitty Green's #MeToo drama is a sobering take on life as a film company assistant.

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.

Věra Chytilová's dark, post-communist comedy. After a veterinary surgeon is sexually assaulted by two men, she uses her particular expertise in castraton to exact her revenge…