Norah
With the odds (and the law) stacked against them, a teenager and a teacher in creatively stunted Saudi Arabia find meaning and friendship through art.
Normal
A father–daughter dramedy with a distinctive flavour, this tale of dispiriting social services and living with disability is a true crowdpleaser.
Nothing but Shadows
A superstitious widow confronts her mortality after human remains are discovered at her neighbour’s house.
Pepe
The strange, tragic tale of the ‘cocaine hippo’ once owned by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar – narrated by the ghost of the beast himself.
Pigsy
A lazy, self-absorbed porker becomes an unlikely hero in this wild and wondrous sci-fi riff on the Chinese classic Journey to the West.
Reinas
In this winner of the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus Grand Prix, a man fights his worst impulses to be a better father to his two emigrating daughters.
Remains of the Hot Day
The Berlinale’s Silver Bear Jury Prize (Short Film) winner is a shrine to fading memories from the director’s own childhood.
The Return of Godzilla
Marking 30 years since the kaiju burst onto the world stage, this film plays as a direct sequel to the 1954 original, kicking off a brand-new series.
Rhythm
The movement of a train arriving at Tehran’s central station is edited in sync with a maestro percussionist’s mesmerising use of the zarb.
The Rye Horn
The 2024 winner of San Sebastián’s Golden Shell is an earthy tribute to motherhood and female power against overwhelming odds.
Santosh
Premiering in Cannes Un Certain Regard, this scathing, subversively feminist take on the police procedural puts modern-day India under scrutiny.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Modern and traditional values clash in acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s daring family drama, which won two prizes at Cannes.
Shambhala
The first Nepalese film to screen in competition at Berlin follows the physical and spiritual Himalayan journey of a woman on a truth-seeking mission.
She Loved Blossoms More
Three brothers attempt to lure their mum back from the dead in this bizarre and strangely beautiful nightmare tale.
She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones
Receiving the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus Special Mention, this playful coming-of-age story follows the intertwined lives of two Chinese students.
Simon of the Mountain
In this Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize winner, an enigmatic young man yearns to belong with his disabled besties – but he’s not quite like them.
A Simple Event
Made clandestinely with little money and a skeleton crew, Sohrab Shahid Saless’s 1973 debut feature is a quietly, mysteriously simmering masterpiece.
Slow Shift
Monkeys overrun the remains of an ancient civilisation in this rich reflection on myth and reality.
Some Rain Must Fall
This Berlinale award-winning domestic noir is the arresting first feature from Melbourne-trained Short Film Palme d’Or winner Qiu Yang.
The Sparrow in the Chimney
Tensions explode in a family’s country home in the Zürcher brothers’ follow-up to their acclaimed The Girl and the Spider.
The Story of Souleymane
Winner of the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, this nerve-shredding portrait follows a Guinean delivery rider zipping across Paris in hopes of attaining legal residency.
The Stranger and the Fog
In Bahram Beyzaie’s dazzling 1974 film, a mysterious stranger arrives in a coastal village on a drifting boat and falls for a local woman.
Sujo
A young boy orphaned by the cartel is up against inheriting a life of crime in this coming-of-age story from an award-winning Mexican filmmaking duo.
Suspended Time
Personal Shopper director Olivier Assayas proves it is possible to make a beautiful lockdown-set film in this bittersweet, intimate comedy.
Sweet Dreams
The desperate absurdities of colonisation are laid bare in this satire of a Dutch family’s fallout following the death of their wealthy patriarch.
Taiwan With a Twist
Two XR works – one portraying the trap of greener pastures, the other framing the body as landscape – present novel takes on the here-and-now.
Tall Shadows of the Wind
This symbolic tale of villagers terrorised by a scarecrow they themselves have planted is based on a story by co-screenwriter Houshang Golshiri.
Toll
To pay for the conversion therapy she believes her gay son needs, a well-intentioned tollbooth operator turns to crime in this crafty drama.
Tranquility in the Presence of Others
Nasser Taghavi’s poignant, tough-minded 1969 adaptation of a story by Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi.
The Tree's Home
A striking allegory on the maternal instinct to sacrifice reminiscent of classic fairytales.
Un rêve plus long que la nuit
A debauched, exuberant French art fairytale stuns all over again in a luscious new 4K restoration.
An Unfinished Film
When an unfinished film, reborn, is stuck in stasis again, its creators meditate on how their lives have been transformed by the pandemic.
Universal Language
This zany transformation of Canada’s beigest city into the site of a classic Iranian film won Cannes Directors’ Fortnight’s first ever Audience Award.
Viet and Nam
Two coal miners in love face their country’s buried trauma and reckon with their risky futures in this hypnotic Vietnamese queer romance.
The Village Next to Paradise
Hope and familial bonds thrive in dangerous conditions in this groundbreaking feature – the first ever Somali film to screen at Cannes.
Who by Fire
Egos clash in this tense coming-of-age tale set in an isolated cabin in the Canadian wilderness, which won the Berlinale Generation 14plus Grand Prix.
Who Do I Belong To
In this evocative and ethereal mystery, a soothsaying matriarch wrestles with the darkness when her jihadist son returns from Syria.
Winners
Using football as her vehicle, Soleen Yusef references her own refugee tale through the poignant journey of an 11-year-old’s new life in Germany.
You Burn Me
This phantasmagoric experimental drama puts Ancient Greek poet Sappho in conversation with the nymph Britomartis.