FOUR STARS The first chapters of Les Misérables but there's no singing when a man imprisoned for kindness finds purpose when finally released from gaol. PERIOD DRAMA FRANCE French #JEANVALJEAN Starring Grégory Gadebois, Bernard Campan If LES MISÉRABLES is the grand, table-groaning banquet of French literature, then JEAN VALJEAN is the entree; thoughtfully plated and undeniably tasteful. Director Éric Besnard zeroes in on the opening stretch of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, st

FOUR AND A HALF STARS A young man in colonial Algeria is a stranger to everyone who knows him. DRAMA FRANCE French #THESTRANGER Starring Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder With THE STRANGER, director Francois Ozon doesn’t simply revisit Albert Camus’s famously cool slab of existentialism, he turns into something pared back, distilled, faintly accusatory. The result is a film of icy assurance and unnerving beauty, one that feels philosophically aligned. The broad strokes will be

FOUR STARS A young girl calls from a car, trapped in Gaza. She's surrounded by dead bodies, gunfire can be heard in the background. The Red Crescent is working to save her. DRAMA TUNISIA Arabic #HINDRAJAB Starring Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees There’s a moment, early on in THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB where you realise the film has no intention of letting you look away. Not through spectacle, not through manipulation, but through something far more confronting: restraint. What unfol

FOUR STARS In the crowd at a desert rave, a father is looking for his missing daughter. DRAMA SPAIN Spanish #SIRAT Starring Sergi López, Bruno Núñez Arjona In some rock strewn corner of a Moroccan desert, a rave is taking place. A father hauls his young son through the crowd, chasing rumours of a missing daughter he hopes to find. When rumours that a war has started in the ‘real world’, he falls in with a ragged convoy as they drift from one dust-blown gathering to the next.

FOUR AND A HALF STARS A former prison warden is spotted by a man he had once brutally interrogated. The man rounds up others who also seek revenge. DRAMA IRAN Persian #ITWASJUSTANACCIDENT Starring Vahid Mobasseri, Miriam Afshari Jafar Panahi’s IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT is a morally searching thriller that demonstrates, yet again, how little this filmmaker needs in order to say something profound. Stripped of excess and driven by tension rather than plot mechanics, the film unf

FOUR STARS When a career man loses his job after decades of loyalty, he devises an alarming plan to get his job, any job, back. DRAMA KOREA Korean #NOOTHERCHOICE Starring Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin You know you’re well into awards season when every other film you watch hits the 2 hour 30 mark, and so it is with Park Chan-wook’s challenging NO OTHER CHOICE. Part social satire, part comedy horror, part devastating drama, it’s all parts Park from the exquisite visuals to the off