Brief Encounter

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

Turkish Palme d’Or-winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns with an icy portrait of a teacher whose life unravels following an accusation of inappropriate behaviour.

Barry Jenkins follows his Oscar®-winning Moonlight with an audacious, distinctive and assured adaptation of James Baldwin’s account of love, injustice and racism in America.

Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd have created a moving romance between an Essex mechanic and a South Asian drag queen.

Sharp and sexy comedy that offers a fresh take on desire and fidelity in the 21st century.

Rose Glass’s gripping and gory follow-up to Saint Maud finds a lesbian couple drawn into a web of violence in 1980s small-town New Mexico.

Carol Reed's timeless classic, one of the greatest British films, lavishly marries a perfect script, an unforgettable theme tune and the star power of Orson Welles.

In his first substantial feature-film role away from the involvement of his Monty Python cohorts, Michael Palin stars as a 19th-century missionary tasked with setting up a mission for fallen prostitutes.

Richard Donner directs this unlikely romance between a 38-year-old writer of erotic novels (Charles Bronson) and a 16-year-old schoolgirl (Susan George). After marrying and absconding to Scotland, the pair finds it hard to adjust to life together.

An epic romance set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago is one of cinema’s great love stories.

The first of David Lean’s two Dickens adaptations is one of the finest British literary interpretations and one of the most acclaimed of all British films.

Arguably the essential Dickens adaptation, David Lean’s evocative portrayal of Victorian London in sooty black and white features Alec Guinness as a memorably sinister Fagin.

This powerful documentary from a Palestinian-Israeli collective might be one of the most important films of this year.

Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy delivers a stunning performance as a coal merchant who discovers horrific secrets about his local convent.

Shujun Wei's slow-burn noir draws us inexorably into its mysterious psychological journey.

Ian McKellen is in delicious form as London's most vicious critic, who strikes a Faustian pact with a struggling actor (Gemma Arterton).

Justin Edgar's pioneering feature comedy about a neurotic filmmaker enlisted to make a film with a class of wheelchair-users.

What if unrequited love spanned the centuries? Alice Lowe's time-jumping fantasy rom-com is a colourful, darkly funny treat.