Film on Friday: Mayfield

Early 1900 Sicilians emigrate to New York. Succeeds in portraying the huge shock of a sudden move between two worlds. A film delicately balanced between the chronicle of a mass diaspora and the personal fate of a small family. The film's style confirms Crialese as a figure of great promise in Italian cinema.

Jindabyne is a small town which was relocated to higher ground decades ago to escape rising waters. Four male friends on a fishing trip discover a murdered aboriginal woman's body in the river. The narrative unravels with slow tension. "Jindabyne addresses a gulf between articulate women and moody silent males, between the whites and the patronised aborigines and between scared humanity and the vast frightening landscape of Australia itself. This is the sort of film to see and talk about endlessly over dinner afterwards. It's real cinematic nourishment" Peter Bradshaw

"Poetic, infinitely moving semi-autobiographical diptych about growing-up in working-class Liverpool in the 40s and 50s." Philip French. "Long, stately shots combine with impassioned performances to create a visual tour-de-force unmatched elsewhere in British Cinema." The Guardian.

"Extraordinary images from one of the most arduous shoots at 4,700 metres above sea-level. A film that has more visceral intensity than most docu-drama. Based on the real-life Tibetan volunteer corps which aimed to protect the chinu antelope from extinction in the mid-1990s. The film is essentially a carefully composed melodrama, albeit without the usual emotional excesses. The result is a film that's all muscle and no flab." Tony Rayns Sight and Sound.

The title of Altman's last film comes from Garrison Keiller's weekly live radio variety show (threatened with closure), an affectionate pastiche of old time radio. "This is one of Altman's trademark all-star ensemble pieces, full of his equally trademark overlapping dialogue, his camera floating amiably in seemingly improvised style from group to group....There are unmistakable hints that he sensed this was probably his last film." Philip Kemp Sight and Sound. "It is intriguing, beautifully observed, deceptively inconsequential and extremely funny.....It's a lovely and loving film." Philip French.

No film in recent memory is as fixed on the process of storytelling as the remarkable Ten Canoes which tells an aboriginal tale in the Ganalbingu dialect featuring naked inhabitants of the Northern Territory. "Ultimately the effect of these stories within stories is to vividly communicate a theme of transmission: as long as a story is being passed on, as long as it growing and being revived by new tellers, it is not a thing of the past but part of a living heritage....subtle and intricate textures are also explored." Sight and Sound.

In some ways a traditional battleground spectacular, but it also denounces the way in which a generation of African recruits to the cause of Free France in WWII was exploited by the nation and never rewarded. The confrontations between the lead characters and the authorities are subtle with a description of mutual incomprehension between the old France and Islam.

A classic historical drama, with cross-dressing Greta Garbo at her best and a striking performance from silent-era survivor, John Gilbert. Garbo in her ideal role as the 17th century Swedish ruler who, brought up to think and dress as a man, discovers her womanhood through love. A historical spectacle handled with panache.