The autumn has arrived and the industry is ready to deploy its heavy artillery in the annual battle for trophies and honours that is the awards season. This year the Olympic Games have had a significant impact in the number and quality of titles exhibited during the summer, therefore a huge pile of works is piled up in the distributors’ shelves waiting to be released and enjoyed by filmgoers around the globe.

Many long awaited films are already occupying our screens, ranging from lavish studio productions (Anna Karenina; Lawless…) to critically acclaimed arthouse fare (The Queen Of Versailles; Berberian Sound Studio…). Venice; Telluride & Toronto have revealed to the world some of the year’s biggest contenders (The Master; Argo & Silver Lining Playbook being the first on taking positions for the Oscar race), meanwhile every country is choosing its national representative (Haneke’s ‘Amour’ (Austria); Mungiu’s ‘Beyond The Hills (Romania); Petzold’s Barbara (Germany) and the crowd-pleasing ‘Untouchable’ (France) are some of the first selected). All together they will be competing to gain public and critical favour.

Trying not to miss a thing on a time that promises non-stop thrills until, hopefully, next spring; every week we’ll be recommending our favourite Top 20 movies as soon as they come to a theatre near you. Reviews of the main ones will follow. OntThis first edition Asghar Farhadi’s predecessor to Oscar winner ‘A Separation’ – also Roberawards 2011 best film winner- “About Elly”, another extraordinary gripping moral tale from the Iranian director, and ‘Tabu’, Miguel Gomes’ poetic tribute to Murnau and one of the most celebrated works of the last Berlinale, sharing the honour of being our first movies of the week.

You can see the whole Top 20 here. Read the rest of this entry »