Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has made a career crafting perceptive and cerebral examinations of his native country. From his 2006 debut 12:08 to Bucharest to The Treasure, they were cerebral films that powerfully embodied the Romanian New Wave. 

There’s a lot of plucky British charm to Military Wives, from Peter Cattaneo, the director who won the nation's heart with his debut film The Full Monty over two decades ago.

What’s the appeal of cinema? It can transport us to fantasy lands, or open our eyes to new perspectives. But one aspect that’s less discussed is how it brings people together. Going to the cinema is a social stimulus, a shared experience that sparks discussions and forges friendships.

The Cakemaker is Ofir Raul Graizer’s debut feature, and the film must somehow reflect the parabola of the Israeli-born director's life: it’s set between Berlin and Jerusalem, the two cities apparently closest to him, and one of its main subjects – alongside weightier themes such as grief and loss – is food, especially the r

Oh how British indies love a road trip. Trekking across the rugged landscape, meeting a colourful cast of characters, realising it’s not the destination but the journey. It takes something special to stand out from the pack. The Runaways, debut feature from Richard Heap, has that something special.

Marketed as a couples-friendly romance, Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey into Night made a massive $37 million on its opening day in China but was subsequently denounced by irate viewers who felt they’d been conned into watching a neo-noir pastiche that bafflingly morphs into a journey into the hero’s unconscious mind. Films comprised of reality, dreams, fantasies, and memories are not for everyone.

The acclaim of being the first to represent the mid-1980s AIDS pandemic in cultural form was a plaudit that none of those concerned would ever have wished for. With New York as its epicentre, and almost nothing known about the disease that was hitting at the heart of the city’s gay community, such early attempts were tentative, the boundaries between personal and political still rough.

Blue periods can lead to golden streaks. Such is almost the case with Honey Boy, which Shia LaBeouf wrote during a court-ordered stay in a rehab clinic for the treatment of PTSD symptoms. Based on LaBeouf’s upbringing and childhood acting years, the film focuses on the troubled relationship between Otis (Noah Jupe) and his dad James (Shia LaBeouf), switching occasionally to a young adult Otis (Lucas Hedges) undergoing rehabilitation.

Fred Schepisi’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) was the Australian New Wave film that most rigorously confronted the cataclysmic effect of British and Irish colonisation on the country’s Aboriginal people.

The English-language drama Holiday, Danish filmmaker Isabella Eklöf’s feature debut, is an anthropological study of the corrosive effects of absolute male power and calcified misogyny.