Berlinale Film Festival 2018 – all our coverage

The best of Berlinale 2018 – the awards and our critics’ picks

The Berlin Film Festival jury’s top prize choice was a distinct(ive) surprise, but 2018 included a breadth of finds to write home about, to judge by this straw poll of our correspondents.
Tuesday 27 February 2018

Berlinale 2018 midway round-up: how do you follow Isle of Dogs?

Some duds in (and out of) the competition are par for the course at the Berlin Film Festival, but there have been surprises both deft and outré – and some excellent candidates for the acting prizes, writes Nick James.
Tuesday 20 February 2018

The Rare Event review: metaphysical gymnastics with Bens Rivers and Russell

16mm vagabonds Ben Rivers and Ben Russell get dialectical with digital artist Peter Burr, a round-table gathering of cultural bluestockings and a green-screen leotard, notes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Thursday 8 March 2018

Hard Paint (Tinta Bruta) review: dark days and neon nights on Porto Alegre’s wild side

A potential LGBTQ breakout hit, Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s second feature is an empathetic, erotic portrait of a young queer Brazilian leading a double life, writes Paul O’Callaghan.
Sunday 4 March 2018

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. review: troubles of a pop tiger

Steve Loveridge’s documentary portrait of (and with) the sharp-edged British rapper M.I.A. takes a good look at the underpinnings of her stardom – if not so much at her creativity itself, says Simran Hans.
Tuesday 27 February 2018

Museum first look: Gael García Bernal steals time in a dazzling true-life heist fantasy

Alonso Ruizpalacios’s delightfully fresh dramatisation of Mexico’s most scandalous museum heist (and then some) is as unorthodox as the young conspirators it depicts, says Ella Kemp.
Tuesday 27 February 2018

Victory Day review: Sergei Loznitsa eyes history’s motley parade

The prolific Ukrainian director’s latest crowd canvas studies a corner of Berlin that is forever Red – the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park – with his usual canny abstraction, says Michael Pattison.
Tuesday 27 February 2018

Touch Me Not first look: Adina Pintilie’s Golden Bear winner explores hard-won sexual self-determination

A brave experiment in opening the screen to less sexually cocksure voices, Pintilie’s unflinching portrait of differently marginalised characters learning to find comfort in their own skin is at its best when at its most direct, says Paul O’Callaghan.
Monday 26 February 2018

Mug review: disfigurement and prejudice in a Polish ‘fairytale for adults’

Małgorzata Szumowska’s latest not only dodges melodrama but also finds ample room for comedy and satirical barbs in its indictment of an insular Polish community, writes Geoff Andrew.
Monday 26 February 2018

Grass review: Hong Sangsoo explores the art of (writing about) conversation

The prolific Korean’s breezy mid-length ‘hangout movie’ brings comedy and astute observation to a series of overheard exchanges, writes Simran Hans.
Monday 26 February 2018

My Brother’s Name Is Robert and He Is an Idiot review: a philosophical film that’s worth your time

There are several shades of Terrence Malick in Philip Gröning’s leisurely film about twins playing dangerous games, but that’s far from the only reason to watch, writes Geoff Andrew.
Saturday 24 February 2018

An Elephant Sitting Still review: a shattering, soul-searching Chinese one-off

Hu Bo’s film about people folding under economic pressure is an intimate and empathetic portrait of human suffering, with performances of astounding sensitivity, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Saturday 24 February 2018

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot review: Gus Van Sant charts John Callahan’s winding road to redemption

Joaquin Phoenix plays the quadriplegic cartoonist in Van Sant’s fragmented, frank account of addiction and recovery, which zigzags between the dark, ribald and corny, writes Simran Hans.
Saturday 24 February 2018

Shock Waves – Diary of My Mind review: Ursula Meier’s true-crime drama picks at the knot of art and violence

There’s no cheap sentiment or easy answers as Ursula Meier scrutinises real-life Swiss parenticidal diarist Benjamin Feller through the eyes of the teacher who ‘inspired’ him, writes Patrick Gamble.
Friday 23 February 2018

U – July 22 (Utøya 22. juli) review: Norwegian kills for thrills?

Erik Poppe’s hyperrealist one-take dramatisation of Anders Breivik’s summer camp massacre offers little sign of moral perspective, says Ian Mantgani.
Friday 23 February 2018

Dovlatov first look: a talented artist’s frustrations in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union

Milan Marić brings a commanding wit to his portrayal of writer Sergei Dovlatov in the new dense and formally rigorous film from Alexei German, Jr, writes Michael Pattison.
Thursday 22 February 2018

Unsane first look: an experiment in paranoia

Steven Soderbergh emerges from his self-imposed retirement with an iPhone-shot psychological horror for the post-Weinstein age, starring Claire Foy as a woman driven to the brink by a stalker, writes Nick James.
Wednesday 21 February 2018

The Green Fog first look: Guy Maddin’s giddy San Francisco remake

The Manitoba maestro has conjured a surreal, sharp city symphony out of thousands of film clips and the spine of his beloved Vertigo, writes Geoff Andrew.
Wednesday 21 February 2018

Transit first look: Europe’s past is now in Christian Petzold’s purgatorial palimpsest

The German director’s follow-up to Phoenix shadows a runaway from the Third Reich in modern-day Marseille to conflate the continent’s moral failings past and present, says Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Tuesday 20 February 2018

The Happy Prince review: Rupert Everett’s dark Wilde

Veteran Oscar Wilde impersonator Rupert Everett returns to the fray as writer and director too with a fervent if blearily kaleidoscopic portrait of the artist as a spent force, writes Michael Leader.
Monday 19 February 2018

The Bookshop review: a muffled look at little England’s tactful tyrannies

A late-1950s Norfolk sea town sets its face against the winds of change ushered in by Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy’s book lovers in Isabel Coixet’s too-snug adaptation of Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel, finds Michael Leader.
Monday 19 February 2018

Eva review: Benoît Jacquot’s moral mystery layers pretence upon pretence

Isabelle Huppert’s prostitute beguiles Gaspard Ulliel’s gigolo-turned-literary imposter in a smart Francophone adaptation of James Hadley Chase’s novel of multiple dealings, says Geoff Andrew.
Monday 19 February 2018

Infinite Football review: the new rules of the game

Corneliu Porumboiu’s portrait of his eccentric childhood friend with big dreams of reinventing soccer is hilarious, heartbreaking and pleasingly subtle, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Friday 16 February 2018

Isle of Dogs first look: Wes Anderson’s charming canine fable

A starry cast, deadpan humour and deft nods to Japanese cinema make this animated film an unusually delightful dystopia, writes Nick James.
Friday 16 February 2018

Madeline’s Madeline first look: an unusually bold teen movie that bridges trauma and art

Josephine Decker pauses only to grapple with her own working methods in this thrilling, formally daring drama about an emotionally fraught teenage girl, writes Paul O’Callaghan.
Thursday 15 February 2018