Father of My Children

The life of a legendary figure in the French movie industry has inspired a convincing picture about the addictive and heartbreaking business of film-making, writes Philip French

The Father of My Children

An outstanding, undemonstrative family drama about depression. By Peter Bradshaw

Ran: a storming Japanese Lear, spiced with Lady Macbeth

Reel history: With spectacular battle scenes and a creepy villainess, Akira Kurosawa's 1985 epic is a riproaring retelling of Shakespeare's tragedy in 16th-century Japan

Xiaolu Guo: ‘I don’t think English society cares about the Chinese at all’

Film-maker and author Xiaolu Guo's Locarno-winning feature, She, A Chinese, was shot and funded in London. But, the young director tells Geoffrey Macnab, the young director remains sceptical about whether there's really room in the market for east Asian or subtitled films

She, a Chinese

This picaresque tale of a girl's journey from a remote Chinese village to a strange new life in Britain has some perceptive moments, writes Philip French

She, a Chinese

Xiaolu Guo's adaptation of her own novel is an insightful treatment of China's place in the global village, writes Peter Bradshaw

The Headless Woman

The Argentinian moviemaker Lucrecia Martel's story of a hit-and-run is intriguing, but more alienating than moving, writes Philip French

The Headless Woman

Disturbing and deeply mysterious, this tale of ghosts and guilt is nothing short of a masterpiece, says Peter Bradshaw

Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin / Winter in Wartime

Philip French on two European accounts of the second world war

Winter in Wartime

A teenage boy helps battle the Nazis in wartime Holland in a watchable, if earnest, adventure yarn, writes Andrew Pulver

Takeshis’

This self-referential comedy from "Beat" Takeshi Kitano is a tiresome, self-indulgent mess, writes Xan Brooks

Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin

The plight of German women after the Red Army's capture of Berlin in the second world war is described in a subtle, sympathetic film, writes Xan Brooks

Memoirs shed new light on La Dolce Vita era of drugs, sex and debauchery

The character played by Marcello Mastroianni in Federico Fellini's classic film was partly based on a gossip columnist now writing his own account of Rome's scandalous 1950s

The Island

Philip French on a visually ravishing, mentally numbing movie set in wartime Russia

Late Autumn

This masterpiece from Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu is as subtle and exquisite as anything he ever made, writes Peter Bradshaw