Phoenix

A Serious Man

Always the cruel gods of their movies, the brothers now turn to religious desperation—a perfect match—and, obliquely, to their own Jewish boyhood in late-’60s suburban Minneapolis....

Ajami

Arabs, Christians and Jews live side by side in the Israeli city of Jaffa, where the urgent political realities underlie the individual dilemmas in this taut ensemble drama. Tribal feuds within the...

The Beaches of Agnès

In the manner of her wonderful The Gleaners and I (2000), filmmaker Varda muses on her life, her work and the people she’s met, who include Alexander Calder, Gérard...

Defamation

Yoav Shamir is Israeli; he’s never experienced anti-Semitism so he sets out to understand it, following Israeli kids on a trip...

The End of the Line

A number of doom-laden docs have already highlighted the effect our lifestyles are having on the planet. Well, here’s another one to cheer us up. The film has a simple message: modern technology...

Man on Wire

The Twin Towers loom in the clouds, as if dreamt up by French daredevil Philippe Petit, who, in 1974, illegally danced between them on a tightrope. Filled with jaw-dropping footage of NYC...

The Letter for the King

Holland’s answer to JK Rowling is behind this coming-of-age quest, which has many features now familiar to teens weaned on Harry, Eragon and the like: the wise old figure with lank grey hair, the...

The White Ribbon

Reviewed at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival

For quite some time at the beginning of Michael Haneke