WCXX

Under the Skin

Nine years on from Birth, Jonathan Glazer returns with this nightmarish stew of sex and death, loosely based on a science-fiction novel by Michel Faber. Scarlett Johansson stars as a man-eating alien on the prowl in Scotland, seducing her victims like a film noir temptress. Much of the film was shot undercover, and the priceless reactions from many of her would-be dinners are genuine — darts of pure realism that shoot through Glazer's weird, abstracted images.

Screening on Oct 13 & 14

Philomena

Dame Judi Dench is on Bafta-worthy form in this warm, thought-provoking drama about an elderly Irish woman who vows to find her son 50 years after she was forced to give him up for adoption. Stephen Frears's film is based on a true story sniffed out by Martin Sixsmith, the journalist and former spin doctor, and it shines with a rare emotional acuity: feel-good it might be, but every laugh and tear is won with intelligence and wit.

Screening on Oct 16, 17 & 19

12 Years a Slave

Here's an early tip for this year's Best Picture Oscar: a soul-shaking retelling of the story of Solomon Northup, a free-born African American who was abducted and sold into slavery in 1841. Chiwetel Ejiofor won rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival for his star-making performance in the lead role, as did Michael Fassbender as a tyrannical plantation owner. The director is Steve McQueen, whose earlier films, Hunger and Shame, were hardly easy-going, but this is tough cinema in every sense: brutal, strong and built to last.

Screening on Oct 18, 19 & 20

Gravity

Two astronauts, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, are left clinging onto life by the tips of their fingers when a routine mission goes wrong in this masterful 3D space thriller from Alfonso Cuarón, the versatile director of Y Tu Mama Tambien and the third Harry Potter picture. Gravity is one of those rare films that can be as deep or shallow as you need it to be: come for the breath-shortening action sequences and high-wattage Hollywood cast; stay for the pensive meditations on death, birth and rebirth.

Screening on Oct 10 & 11

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers turn their wry gaze on the New York City folk music scene of the early Sixties, and the result is a plaintive comedy of squandered potential: in other words, something perfectly Coen-esque. Oscar Isaac stars as Llewyn, a Bob Dylan-like figure who sleeps on friends' couches while dreaming of his big break, even as his luck seems to drain away by the minute. The dialogue, by turns wise and uproarious, rolls around your head for days afterwards, as does the transcendently catchy soundtrack.

Screening on Oct 15, 17 & 19

Like Father, Like Son

Six years on from a hospital mix-up, an architect discovers that he and his wife have been unwittingly raising someone else's child — and their own boy is living with a family from a less salubrious part of town. This impossibly tender drama from Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda asks searching questions about the importance of nature and nurture, and explores the way children can turn their fathers into men.

Screening on Oct 12, 14 & 15

The Selfish Giant

Clio Barnard's free adaptation of a much-loved Oscar Wilde short story brings a strange and unsettling magic to the fine tradition of the British kitchen sink. Two young Yorkshire boys make the best of their hardscrabble lives by gathering scrap metal for an ogre-like yard owner, who grudgingly repays them with cash and respect. This is a film about our country, both as it is and was in times long past: it might be the most important British picture of the year.

Screening on Oct 14 & 16

A Touch of Sin

Revenge is served cold as an ice bath in the new film from China's Jia Zhangke, which follows four bloody-but-unbroken citizens who decide to push back against the forces grinding them downwards. Corrupt local authorities, bandits on the open road, lecherous customers at a sauna and the high-rolling businessmen that throng to a glittering Pearl River brothel are all in the firing line: Jia's picture is heavily based on tales of real-life vengeance culled from the Chinese media, drawing them together into a sweeping state-of-the-nation epic.

Screening on Oct 11 & 13

Enough Said

The penultimate film made by James Gandolfini before his too-early death in June is a comedy of modern manners from Nicole Holofcener, which somehow manages to feel effortless and sophisticated all at once. Gandolfini plays a middle-aged divorcee who strikes up a relationship with Julia Louis-Dreyfus's chirpy masseuse: unfortunately, her clients include Gandolfini's embittered ex-wife, played by Catherine Keener, who spends her appointments bad-mouthing her new love.

Screening on Oct 12, 13 & 14

Locke

"Tom Hardy drives from Birmingham to Croydon while trying to sort out his love-life on the carphone" might not be the most fascinating plot summary you have ever read, but take it on trust: this lean, low-key thriller from Steven Knight grips you until its final second. Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson and Tom Holland provide some of the voices on the other end of the line, while Hardy excels as a humble, flawed man who has decided to do the right thing, no matter how painful it proves.

Screening on Oct 18, 19 & 20

The 57th London Film Festival runs from today to October 20.