Phoenix Recommends: Films

New Release: PERFECT 10 (15)

“An intimate portrait, particularly in its big moments” – Screen Daily. 14-year-old Leigh (newcomer Frankie Box) lives with her neglectful father. A talented gymnast, she’s training hard for her first competition despite her lack of confidence and little money to pay for her fees. When an older half-brother appears at her house one night, Leigh’s lonely existence is altered as she starts to receive the attention she craves. Rental revenue is split 50/50 between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch.

Available to stream from 7 August

New release: Clemency (15)

★★★★★ – The Upcoming. Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave) gives a career-best performance in this devastating prison drama from writer-director Chinonye Chukwu, which won the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance Festival. After years of carrying out death row executions, a prison warden begins to question the morality of capital punishment. Rental revenue is shared 50/50 between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch.

Available to stream now

New release: The Traitor (UNRATED)

“★★★★ – blood-spattered Mafia movie takes The Godfather head on” – Telegraph. In the early 1980s, an all-out war rages between Sicilian mafia bosses over the heroin trade. Tommaso Buscetta, a made man, flees to hide out in Brazil. Back home, scores are being settled and tragedy befalls Buscetta’s family. Knowing he may be next, Buscetta makes a decision that will change everything: to betray the eternal vow he made to the Cosa Nostra. Rental revenue is split 50/50 between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch.

Available to stream now

New release: Alice (15)

Josephine Mackerras’ debut feature picked up the Grand Jury and Female First awards at the 2019 South by Southwest Film festival. After discovering that her husband’s addiction to escorts has left their family penniless, Alice finds herself drawn into the world of high-end prostitution as a means of caring for herself and her child. Rental revenue is split between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch. Enter discount code Phoenix1 to receive 10% off your rental.

Available to stream now

New release: Family Romance, LLC (unrated)

“★★★★ – Herzog’s fakery-filled docudrama sparks genuine joy” – Telegraph. A real-life Tokyo company’s rent-a-family service is the inspiration for Werner Herzog’s new Japanese drama, in which a man is hired to impersonate the missing father of a young girl. The Oscar-nominated auteur mixes fact and fiction in this sensitive exploration of loss, loneliness, and the emotional value of fabricated happiness. Rental revenue is split 50/50 between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch.

Available to stream now

New release: A White, White Day (15)

★★★★★ – “Dreamlike and intense, the film inexorably draws you in” – Little White Lies. In a remote Icelandic town, widower and off-duty police chief Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) begins to suspect a local man of having had an affair with his late wife. Gradually his obsession for uncovering the truth endangers himself and those he loves. We’ll receive 25% of the net sales, so you’ll be supporting Phoenix as you watch.

Available to stream now

New release: Joan of Arc (15)

Director Bruno Dumont boldly cast 10-year-old Lise Leplat Prudhomme as Joan in this retelling of the young French heroine’s life. 1429, and France is at war with England. Believing she has been chosen by God, young Joan leads the French King’s army and lifts the Siege of Orléans, enabling him to be crowned as Charles VII. But she is captured and charged with heresy. Rental revenue is split 50/50 between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch.

Available to stream now

New release: Carmine Street Guitars (12A)

★★★★ – Guardian. At the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village sits Rick Kelly’s Carmine Street Guitars – a sacred destination for some of the world’s most famous musicians. Ron Mann’s glorious behind-the-scenes documentary celebrates this NY institution and those local business-owners who dedicate their time and craft to the community. Rental revenue is split 50/50 between Phoenix and the film’s distributor, so you support us as you watch.

Available to stream now

NEW RELEASE: PAPICHA (UNRATED)

★★★★ – The Upcoming. Underground clubs thud to the beat of dance music as men and women, dressed to the nines, slip through checkpoints to party the night away. Meanwhile tensions mount between armed police forces and anti-government guerillas. This is Algiers in the 1990s, and what fashion student Nedjma – ‘Papicha’ to her friends – doesn’t know, is that her life is about to change forever. We’ll receive 25% of the net sales, so you’ll be supporting Phoenix as you watch.

Available to stream now

NEW RELEASE: MAKE UP (15)

“★★★★ – startlingly original” – Empire. Claire Oakley’s magnificent debut is a stylish psychological drama of jealousy and obsession. Visiting her boyfriend at the out-of-season Cornish caravan park where he works, quiet teenager Ruth (Molly Windsor) finds lipstick on his mirror and a strand of red hair on his T-shirt. Refusing to confront him, Ruth tries to find the mysterious red-haired girl. But her hunt threatens to destroy her relationship. You can watch Curzon’s Living Room Q&A with director Claire Oakley now.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

LAST AND FIRST MEN (UNRATED)

Two billion years ahead of us, a future race of humans finds itself on the verge of extinction. Almost all that’s left in the world are lone and surreal monuments, beaming their message into the wilderness… Based on Olaf Stapledon’s cult science fiction novel, Last and First Men is the first and only feature-length film directed by acclaimed composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario, Arrival).

Available on BFI Player

ESSENTIAL CINEMA: GUMNAAM (15)

Raja Nawathe’s classic mid-60s Indian suspense thriller is a hugely enjoyable adaptation of Agatha Christie’s mystery And Then There Were None. Seven people win an all-expenses-paid foreign holiday, but are instead dropped in a remote area by plane. They come across a mansion where a butler has been waiting for them, and find that they have been brought there to deliver justice for a crime in which they were all involved.

Available on MUBI

CINEMA BIZARRE: UPGRADE (15)

Director of last year’s gripping The Invisible Man and recently announced as the director of Wolfman with Ryan Gosling, Leigh Whannell’s brilliant high-concept violent sci-fi returns to Netflix. Logan Marshall-Green gives a criminally-underpraised performance as a man who is paralysed in a vicious attack, and whose only hope for revenge comes in the form of an experimental computer chip implant.

Available on Netflix from 7 August

KNIVES OUT (12A)

★★★★ – Guardian. A hugely popular film at Phoenix on release, Rian Johnson’s deliciously enjoyable murder mystery is now on Amazon Prime. When patriarch and renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead, debonair detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, free from the permanent frown of James Bond and clearly  having the time of his life) is called in to solve the case.

Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video

SHELL (15)

“★★★★ – a hushed and haunting coming-of-age drama” – Guardian. Teenager Shell (Chloe Pirrie) is growing up on a remote Highland service station, with only her father for company. As she stands on the brink of womanhood, her desperate loneliness tips into overbearing affection for her dad. Writer-director Scott Graham’s debut feature is a beautiful, sensitive portrait of a young woman struggling to balance childish affection and adult emotion.

Available on BFI Player

PIN CUSHION (15)

“★★★★ – Scanlan gives us one of the best performances of her career” – Guardian. Mother Lyn (Joanna Scanlan) and daughter Iona (Lily Newmark) are excited to be starting afresh in a new town, but trouble comes along when Iona becomes best friends with the local mean girls, and Lyn struggles to connect – retreating into a fantasy world to escape from their toxic surroundings. Debut director Deborah Haywood’s dark tale is an unflinching portrayal of the realities and effects of bullying.

Available to rent on BFI Player

CATCH ME DADDY (15)

“★★★★ – harrowing and powerful” – Observer. Laila (BIFA award winner Sameena Jabeen Ahmed) is in hiding after her relationship with local boy Aaron offends the strict religious sensibilities of her extended Pakistani family. When her father hires local hoods to assist in the search, the couple are forced to take flight once again, facing a long, dark night as they’re pursued through the backwaters of Yorkshire.

Available on BFI Player

New Release: Coincoin and the Extra Humans (unrated)

“Dumont’s irresistible sequel to ‘P’tit Quinquin’ splatters rural French bigotry” – The Arts Desk. Following 2014’s P’tit Quinquin, Bruno Dumont’s new comedy picks up the tale of the now teenage Quinquin – renamed CoinCoin – and his friend Fatso. When a mysterious substance is found near town and the locals begin to behave oddly, it’s up to wacky Captain Van Der Weyden and his assistant to investigate.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

Parasite: black and white edition (15)

“★★★★★ – A spectacular epic and tightly wound chamber piece, chicly sophisticated, brutal as a hammer” – Financial Times. After its extraordinary, history-making success at the Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTAs, Bong Joon Ho’s brilliant Palme d’Or-winner returns in a special black-and-white edition. The transfer was done by the director himself, and offers the georgous, lustrous contrasts of monochrome.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

Essential Cinema: Ida (12A)

“★★★★★ – compelling” – Guardian. Winner of the 2015 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Pawel Pawlikowski’s drama is essential viewing. Poland 1962, and Ida, a novice nun about to take her vows, learns of her last living relative and her Jewish heritage. Reunited with her previously unknown aunt, the pair begin to uncover their past, leaving Ida with a choice between her heritage and the religion that saved her from the Holocaust.

Available FREE on All4 until 27 Aug

Premature (15)

“A small but stirring coming-of-ager” – Hollywood Reporter. Set amongst the skyscrapers of New York, this refreshing love story features an incredible debut performance from Zora Howard. Temperatures rise in Harlem as seventeen-year-old Ayanna (Howard) prepares to leave for a college writing programme. But when she meets the mysterious Isaiah, her entire world is turned upside down as she battles the rigorous terrain of young love.

Available to rent on BFI Player

Maurice (15)

“★★★★★ – a candid, lucid, passionate film” – Guardian. Released in 1987, James Ivory’s exquisite adaptation of EM Forster’s novel is a moving portrait of repression, love and acceptance. In the years before the first world War, Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) meet at Cambridge University, and fall in love. But when a friend is convicted of indecency, the two men panic and attempt to put aside their feelings.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

Twelve Monkeys (15)

★★★★★ – Empire. Terry Gilliam’s time-travel thriller feels a little too close for comfort in the current climate! Convict James Cole (a knockout Bruce Willis) is sent back in time from the year 2035 to find the cause of a virus which has wiped out most of the planet’s population. But he mistakenly arrives in 1990 instead of 1996, and is locked in an asylum where he meets a fellow inmate who may have a part to play in the epidemic.

Available FREE on BBC iPlayer

Cold War (15)

“★★★★ – A glorious throwback, rekindling the glory days of New Wave Cinema” – Telegraph. Our second Pawlikowski film this week is a gorgeous monochrome, jazz-infused romantic tragedy. Forced to play into the Soviet propaganda machine, composer Wiktor and singer Zula dream of escaping to the West. As the years march on, the pair watch the world changing around them while falling deeply, obsessively and destructively in love.

Available FREE on All4 until 28 Aug

Two Days, One Night (15)

★★★★★ – Time Out. Belgium’s Dardenne brothers direct this punchy and socially aware film which saw Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) receive her second Best Actress Oscar nomination. When Liège factory worker Sandra (Cotillard) discovers her colleagues have opted for a €1,000 bonus in exchange for her dismissal, she just has the weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses in order for her to keep her job.

Available FREE on BBC iPlayer

NEW RELEASE: Come as you are (15)

★★★★ – Empire. Richard Wong’s winning comedy-drama is a remake of 2011 Belgian movie Hasta La Vista, and is based on the real-life exploits of Asta Philpot. With the help of a hired carer, three young men with disabilities flee their overbearing parents for a road trip to visit a Montreal brothel, eager to lose their virginity and embrace independence.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

NEW RELEASE: And The Birds Rained Down (unrated)

“A rich, moving film” – nowtoronto.com. Based on Jocelyne Saucier’s award-winning novel, acclaimed Canadian director Louise Archambault’s (Familia, Gabrielle) meditative drama weaves together the stories of three ageing hermits who have gone ‘off grid’ to live by a lake in a remote Quebec forest. But sudden events and new arrivals shatter their peaceful existence.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

New Release: In Her Hands (unrated)

The classic underdog story gets a musical treatment in this new French drama starring Kristin Scott Thomas. A troubled young musician is scouted by the director of the national conservatoire when he’s heard playing the piano in a Paris station. After a brush with the law, he’s given the chance to avoid prison by entering a major music competition, and is enrolled with master tutor ‘The Countess’ (Scott Thomas).

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

New Release: Litigante (12A)

“★★★★ – tender tale of private lives and public scandal” – Guardian. Writer-director Franco Lolli presents a beautiful portrait of modern life in this affecting Colombian drama. Single mother Silvia has her hands full, balancing a stressful job with her responsibilities as a parent and a carer for her mother who has cancer. But things get even tougher when she discovers her boss has been involved in corporate corruption, and a public scandal erupts.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

Lynn + Lucy (unrated)

“★★★★★ – a devastating tale of friends disunited” – Observer. The debut feature from acclaimed Leicester-born shorts director Fyzal Boulifa is an intense tale of a lifelong friendship tested to its limits. Friends since their schooldays, young mothers Lynn and Lucy now live opposite each other on an estate in Essex. The pair’s bond is put to the test when tragedy strikes, and they find themselves on opposing sides. Magnificent performances from the two leads make this unmissable.

Available on BFI Player

Essential Cinema: 8 1/2 (15)

“★★★★★ – Exerts an irresistible pull” – Guardian. Winning him his third Oscar, Federico Fellini’s hallucinatory 1963 masterpiece is regarded by many as the most iconic movie about filmmaking. Film director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) wrestles with his dreams and memories as he struggles to find inspiration for his next project. Blending visions with reality, his artistic crisis deepens as his life unravels around him.

Available now on MUBI

Rams (15)

★★★★ – Guardian. Director Grímur Hákonarson’s black comedy-drama was a big hit with Phoenix audiences when we screened it on its release in 2015. In a remote Icelandic farming valley, two estranged brothers who haven’t spoken to one another in 40 years are forced to put aside their family feud and come together in order to save what’s dearest to them – their sheep.

Available FREE on All4 until 11 August

The Day After I'm Gone (unrated)

★★★★ – The Arts Desk. Israeli director Nimrod Eldar’s magnificent debut feature presents a subtle portrait of a grieving father and his teenage daughter. After his daughter attempts suicide, a 50-year-old veterinarian in Tel Aviv is forced to re-examine their relationship. Together they embark on a desert journey to visit her mother’s family – a process of discovery and acceptance.

Available on MUBI now

X+Y (12A)

★★★★ – Evening Standard. Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water) and Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) star in this poignant and subtly funny British drama. A teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome finds new confidence and new friendships when he lands a prime spot on the British squad at the International Mathematics Olympiad.

Available on BBC iPlayer until 9 August

New Release: One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (PG)

Nominated for the Best Canadian Feature Film at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Zacharias Kunuk’s return to the director’s chair is a mesmerising drama, drawn from the historic reality of the attempted forced relocation of Canada’s Inuit indigenous people. Baffin Island, 1961. Noah and his nomadic band live as their ancestors have done for millennia, until a white government employee arrives at the camp to convince them to move to a new settlement.

Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema

Essential Cinema: Daughters of the Dust (12A)

★★★★★ – Guardian. South Carolina, 1902. Three generations of woman from the same family grapple with the decision to migrate north, leaving behind the Gullah culture they inherited from their West African slave ancestors. An avowed influence on Beyoncé’s album Lemonade, Julie Dash’s masterpiece broke new ground in its representation of black women on screen, and is a luminous, vital portrait of black life.

Available to rent on BFI Player

God's Own Country (15)