Live and Become

Philip French: ... deals boldly, yet sensitively, with issues crucial to our times

How to find a way out of Africa

Film of the week: Radu Mihaileanu's tale of an Ethiopian boy seeking survival by pretending to be Jewish is brave and full of suspense, says Philip French.

A remake too far

Other films: As Steve Martin sinks to a new nadir, thank heavens for Renoir and Bergman, says Philip French.

Train of thought

Film of the week: Ken Loach's well-observed railway collaboration with Ermanno Olmi and Abbas Kiarostami revives the long-neglected art of the portmanteau movie, says Philip French.

Gorgeous, George

London film festival: George Clooney's vivid portrayal of TV journalists in the McCarthy era provides a fine end to the festival, writes Jason Solomons.

Istanbul Tales

Andrew Pulver: A parcel of interlinked stories set in the city of the title ... the quality is patchy, and the musical score digs you in the ribs at times. But it's always watchable

Wild Side

Andrew Pulver: A moody, sensitively observed study of a French transsexual's return to her family home that's largely undermined by leaden pace and a general air of inconsequentiality

Dark passage

François Truffaut's Shoot the Pianist (1960)

Public Enemy

Peter Bradshaw: This very bizarre cop thriller from Korean director Woo-Suk Kang intrigued, baffled and finally defeated me

Le Corbeau

Peter Bradshaw: This clever, dyspeptic whodunnit from 1943 by Henri-Georges Clouzot, re-released as part of the BFI's retrospective season, brilliantly captures a spirit of paranoid pettiness and self-loathing.

Historias Minimas

Peter Bradshaw: "Minimas" is right. It's like a very, very sexed-down version of Amores Perros

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Peter Bradshaw: Stunning in its power, uncompromising in its severity and seriousness, Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent masterpiece from 1928 all but scorches a hole in the screen