4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

When a practical young student helps her manipulative friend, it proves to be a devastating, life-changing experience for both. This Palme d’Or-winner is as taut as a thriller and comes from the director of Beyond The Hills.

Tarantino, Fincher and the Coen brothers were beaten to the top prize at Cannes by a story which blends absurdity and grim reality, as a Romanian student (Laura Vasiliu) seeks a dangerous, illegal termination of her pregnancy. It is the sunset of Ceausescu's regime, so the girl enlists help from a friend (Anamaria Marinca), through whose eyes we navigate what happens next.

Cristian Mungiu's desperately effective Palme d'Or winner is as taut as a thriller, framed in long takes, distanced and austere. There's humour and subversion too, as communism is quietly dismantled, without once being named.