Keke Palmer portrays an eleven-year-old girl who triumphs in a spelling bee in her breakthrough role. The focus on her interpersonal and professional connections allows the movie to make more general remarks about competitiveness, community, and the influence of the organisations and systems that both uphold and destroy us.
The feature film debut of Charlie Kaufman is a masterwork of art inside art. The conflict between truth and fancy that drives Phillip Seymour Hoffman's protagonist is equally revelatory. He sees his own life developing and disintegrating while he makes theatre.
High art and very private sensuality are where Black Swan lives and thrives. Swan Lake's melodrama is well-placed; the ballet, with its struggle of physical strength and flailing of the body, is undoubtedly the main character of the picture.
The power of The Blair Witch Project is in its ability to make viewers suspend their disbelief regarding what is genuine and what is not. Adding the viewer's bewilderment makes this spine-tingling ghost story captivating and transforms the panting on camera into something frightening.
Bugsy is a 1990s gangster origin story with all the sparkly thrills you'd expect from a Hollywood movie, but it's grounded by performances that give you a full understanding of how a villain develops.
This dark, reflective comedy from the 1970s by Mel Brooks urges the audience to question if they can tell the difference between evil purpose and foolish action.
Shame's main character's sex addiction conduct and the affected, troubled slope he approaches others with juxtapose his sister, whose sincerity he appreciates and who pays him visits.
Interviewing serial murderer Cletus Kasady, who becomes the symbiote Carnage and escapes jail following a botched execution, in an effort to revive his career, Eddie Brock.
A young woman with psychic abilities and a sharp mind utilises both to deal with her unkind, distant family and rescue her nice instructor from their cruel headmistress.