Features and reviews
Discover the latest from the BFI, the UK’s lead organisation for film, television and the moving image.
Charlatan diagnoses fear and malady in post-war Czechoslavakia
Agnieszka Holland directs a stately, trenchant biopic of gay herbalist Jan Mikolášek, tormented for his nonconformism by the Czech communist state.
By Carmen Gray
Zana explores a Kosovan town obsessed with a woman’s fertility
By Lisa Mullen
Cowboys rides all guns blazing into its transgender childhood story
By Alex Davidson
Antebellum is an unpleasantly brutal depiction of anti-Black racism
By Leila Latif
Apples is a memorably deadpan take on the will to forget
By Anton Bitel
Atlantis imagines mere glints of hope in a post-traumatic Ukraine
By Jessica Kiang
The Flight Attendant is pandemic escapism at its finest
By Kate Stables
Violation twists the rape-revenge subgenre into anti-fantasy
By Katherine McLaughlin
Labyrinth of Cinema summons peace through frenetic cinephilia
By Tony Rayns
Identifying Features shines a light on Mexico’s disappeared as a mother searches for the truth
By Anjana Janardhan
Exterminate All the Brutes tracks the march of genocide
By Paul Tickell
Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation shows two great American writers as friends and rivals
By Ela Bittencourt
X&Y tests the intersections of art and gender
By Tara Judah
Between the Lines: the 90s British policier that trumps Line of Duty
By Robert Hanks
Nomadland finds beauty on the rugged, ruthless open road
By Beatrice Loayza
Black Bear shoots a slippery meta-movie of on-set manipulation
By Katherine McLaughlin
Spring Blossom shows an age-gap romance in full bloom
By Laura Jacobs
Homeward sends a father and son on a Crimean pilgrimage
By Philip Kemp
Sisters with Transistors tells a forgotten history of female electronic composers
By Hannah McGill
Red Moon Tide resurrects the myths of Galicia’s shipwrecked shoreline
By Jordan Cronk
True Mothers is a sympathetic and heart-wrenching adoption drama
By Nikki Baughan
Man in Room 301 is a Nordic drama that sees a simmering family feud boil over
By Philip Kemp
Valley of Souls is a Colombian fisherman’s journey into the heart of paramilitary darkness
By Demetrios Matheou
Promising Young Woman is a right-on-time school of shocks
By Kate Stables
Los conductos is a swirling, cryptic journey into a hellish Medellín night
By Jonathan Romney
Henry Glassie: Field Work finds humanity in folk art
By Trevor Johnston
IWOW: I Walk on Water is a sprawling, frustrating New York City symphony
By Alex Ramon
Aalto adopts an intimate approach to the great Finnish architect
By Chris Hall
Martyr is a portrait of male physicality, both playful and restful
By Ben Walters