Ikiru

Critic and broadcaster Rhianna Dhillon selects her pick of the films that will help you make a change for 2026.

Bruno Ganz is extraordinary as Adolf Hitler, living out his final days during the fall of Berlin in Oliver Hirschbiegel's acclaimed drama.

Todd Solondz’s casting of eight different actors of varying ages, genders and races to play the lead role of Aviva, makes for a truly original film.

Blending documentary and fiction, Alfréd Radok's remarkable film chronicling the Terezin ghetto was one of the first films to address the Holocaust.

Two Nigerian migrants dare to imagine a vibrant future outside of their confinement at a British immigration removal centre.

Audrey Tautou plays the shy waitress whose altruism leads to love, in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's BAFTA-winning hit romance.

Banned in Spain, condemned by the Vatican and celebrated at Cannes, Buñuel’s satire about an aspiring nun takes a stinging crack at society.

Adam Driver excels in this effortlessly charming tale of a bus driver poet in New Jersey, filmed with typically groovy elan by Jim Jarmusch.

The late, great Harry Dean Stanton's finest role came as the near-mute Travis, on a journey across America to reunite his family, in Wim Wenders' moving tale of loss and redemption.

Edward Lovelace explores the power of communication and community with this rapturous portrait of a young deaf Kurdish boy.

Six-year-old Cléo spends a final summer with her beloved nanny Gloria, in this profoundly moving story of chosen family, duty and innocence lost.

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

Critic and broadcaster Rhianna Dhillon selects her pick of the films that will help you make a change for 2026.

Credited with bringing Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences, Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough tells the story of a murder in the woods from four differing perspectives.

Part gangster film, part melodrama and part social critique, Akira Kurosawa's first critical success follows the troubled friendship between a disillusioned doctor and a young yakuza.

Kurosawa’s assured debut film about a young man’s spiritual journey through the study and practice of judo.

Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai movie - a story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress - was famously a key inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars.

The first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.

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

Adapted from Noh and Kabuki theatre, Kurosawa’s classic tale of deception sees a lord and his bodyguard disguise themselves as monks to bypass an enemy roadblock.

Credited with bringing Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences, Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough tells the story of a murder in the woods from four differing perspectives.

Part gangster film, part melodrama and part social critique, Akira Kurosawa's first critical success follows the troubled friendship between a disillusioned doctor and a young yakuza.

In Akira Kurosawa's comedy, a ronin runs rings around nine young samurai while cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government.

Toshiro Mifune delivers an outstanding performance as a paranoid man striving to move his family to Brazil to escape the nuclear holocaust which he fears is imminent.

Akira Kurosawa’s procedural crime masterpiece follows an industrialist who faces an agonising choice.

Frederick Wiseman’s gastronomic dream of a film captures daily life in one of the world’s most prestigious restaurants.

Frederick Wiseman’s unflinching debut shows life inside an institution for the criminally insane, voted one of the greatest documentaries of all time.

A compassionate portrait of students at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, directed by Frederick Wiseman.

An immersive journey into the New York Public Library with great documentarian Frederick Wiseman.

Frederick Wiseman’s remarkable glimpse into the Kafkaesque nature of New York’s welfare system.

A fascinating portrait of the comings and goings, and the people involved in maintaining Manhattan’s iconic green space.