Eight-year-old Zachary has, so far, enjoyed life as his father's favourite son, as the possessor of a gift for healing and as younger sibling to a tearaway, a jock and a bookworm, but this relatively idyllic childhood in Québec is cast under the shadow of his dad's suspicions when he is discovered wearing a dress. Seven years on it's 1975 and Zac is in thrall to Ziggy Stardust and his cousin's boyfriend, a confusing situation for him, made more complicated by a history of trying to satisfy his d find out more...

Martin McGartland was an unemployed Republican fence, a petty crime that led to the IRA kneecapping of his partner. Picked up by the police he soon found himself operating as both an informer for his Special Branch handler, Fergus, with whom he developed a close relationship, and at tremendous risk, infiltrating and moving up within the ranks of the Provos while routinely betraying their activities; the title coming from the 50 murders that it is believed Martin directly prevented. 'Fifty Dead M find out more...

When wealthy John du Pont invites Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz to move to his estate and help form a wrestling team for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Mark sees a way to step out of the shadow of his charismatic and revered find out more...

Dickens classic novel is updated and shifted to modern America in this admirable adaptation by Mexican director Cuaron. Seen through the eyes of the grown-up Finn (Ethan Hawke), the story kicks off in 1970s Florida, with the orphan fatefully bumping into an escaped convict (Robert De Niro), and meeting the love of his life Estella (Paltrow), niece of batty old Anne Bancroft. Ten years later, the now successful Finn inhabits the elite New York art world, aided by his mystery benefactor, and conti find out more...

Bobby Sands was the IRA member who led the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike as part of a campaign to achieve the status of political prisoners and not that of criminals. The first section of film deals with daily prison life, the 'dirty' protest and the violence, the second is a long discussion on the meaning of life with a sympathetic priest and the third depicts the last weeks and death of a man voluntarily dying of starvation. find out more...

When "I Think We're Alone Now" made 16-year-old Tiffany an overnight sensation in 1987, her future looked bright. Then her career pretty much stalled. Not that Jeff, 53, or Kelly, 34, care: the former believes Tiffany is his saviour, the latter that they are destined to be together. Both are clearly stalkers, but neither realises it: Jeff because he has Asperger's, intersex Kelly because he/she is deluded and desperate. Sad, and somewhat disturbing viewing, this remains a compelling piece of wor find out more...

Another superlative cinematic tour de force from the Coen brothers. A Vietnam Vet stumbles across the bloody remnants of a shoot out, pockets some booty and disappears pursued by Javier Bardem's relentless, dead eyed assassin. An ageing, disillusioned sheriff, the excellent Tommy Lee Jones, whose small town rural values have been eroded by the inexorable rise in brutal drug-crime related violence is the reluctant, but dogged, cop in pursuit of both hitman and thief. What follows is a battle of w find out more...

A wonderful tale of a girl's passage from childhood to adulthood, a time that coincided with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and his replacement by the tyranny of a fundamentalist theocracy. find out more...

It's 1980s East Germany and our anti-hero, an accomplished surveillance officer, is ordered to spy on a successful and outwardly loyal playwright and his actress girlfriend, but the motive is not entirely political, involving the lust for the girl of a political commissar and the career prospects of his immediate superior. The Stasi officer is dragged into the Kafkaesque web created by this moral duplicity in this compelling and twisting tale. First class. find out more...

Gogol is a very strange name and somewhat of an embarrassment, as are his parents with their strange sub-continental ways, to a first generation Bengali American, but it is a name that will have relevance to his struggle to forge a personal identity. This charming film spans over three decades from the first fumbles of a successful arranged middle-class Calcutta marriage, through pain and gain, to a slow integration into an American immigrant identity. Not quite an epic, but a heart-warming tale find out more...