The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

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

An ungainly cockney chauffeur navigates the seedy streets of London, gradually falling for the elegant and mysterious prostitute who is his passenger.

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

Alan Parker’s elliptical, ethereal adaptation of the acclaimed, ‘unfilmable’ novel by William Wharton, about a boy who dreams of flying.

Anora director Sean Baker's visionary portrait of life in America’s underbelly, featuring an Oscar-nominated turn from Willem Dafoe.

A salesman becomes obsessed by an icy prostitute against the backdrop of a hellish Paris, in this arthouse erotica from Walerian Borowczyk (The Beast)

A moving, sumptuous tale of two sisters cruelly separated by family and fate in 1950s Rio.

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

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.

With a blazing star performance from Hanna Schygulla in the title role, this was the greatest critical and commercial success of Fassbinder’s career.

Jeanne Moreau plays a jaded brothel madam caught up in the violent sexual awakening of Brad Davis' naïve young sailor.

Fassbinder’s international breakthrough, this unconventional love story combines lucid social analysis with devastating emotional power.

With a blazing star performance from Hanna Schygulla in the title role, this was the greatest critical and commercial success of Fassbinder’s career.

An ungainly cockney chauffeur navigates the seedy streets of London, gradually falling for the elegant and mysterious prostitute who is his passenger.

Reviled upon its release, now reclaimed as a cult classic - one can only submit to the trash-tastic delights of Paul Verhoeven's erotic disasterpiece.

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

Alan Parker’s elliptical, ethereal adaptation of the acclaimed, ‘unfilmable’ novel by William Wharton, about a boy who dreams of flying.

Anora director Sean Baker's visionary portrait of life in America’s underbelly, featuring an Oscar-nominated turn from Willem Dafoe.

A salesman becomes obsessed by an icy prostitute against the backdrop of a hellish Paris, in this arthouse erotica from Walerian Borowczyk (The Beast)