Pater (2011) *

Strange French film. Totally baffling.

Un Monstre a Paris (2011) *

A rather boring animated feature about a giant bug terrorizing Paris.

Toutes nos envies (2011) **

Marie Gillain plays a dying judge who tries to help a heavily indebted woman.

Polisse (2011) ***

My Little Princess (2011) ***

La Guerre est declaree (2011) ***

Les Femmes du 6ieme etage (2011) ***

L'Exercice de l'Etat (2011) ***

Ces amours-la (2011) ***

Angele et Tony (2011) ***

After Fall Winter (2011) ***

Jeanne captive (2011) ***

Les Lyonnais (2011) *

La Source des femmes (2011) **

Presumé coupable (2011) *

A horrifying miscarriage of justice. Based on a true story. There are many very strong moments, but the film fails to present a coherent emotional vision. As results, it's an uneven mix of the gripping and the unwatchable.

Omar m'a tuer (2011) *

17 filles (2011) *

French drama about an epidemy of pregnancies among teenage girls.

La Vie meilleure (2011) *

Depressing French drama about some very bad business decisions leading to a life of misery and despair.

La Conquête (2011) **

Political drama about Nicholas Sarkozy's presidential campaign. The film presents him in a highly sympathetic light, but also suggests that he was all style and little substance. And so, ultimately, is the film.

Intouchables (2011) **

Popular French comedy about a black ghetto kid helping a rich white paraplegic cope with life.

Elle ne pleure pas elle chante (2011) ***

Une Pure affaire (2011) *

A lawyer finds a bag full of cocaine and becomes a drug dealer. "Breaking Bad", French-style.

The Skin I Live In (2011) ***

Eternal Ashes (2011) ***

Las Acacias (2011) **

A road trip from Paraguay to Buenos Aires.

Caged (2011) ***

Bullhead (2011) ***

Above Us Only Sky (2011) ***

Pina (2011) **

Innovative choreography.

Footnote (2011) **

Mlyn i krzyz (2011) ***

Miss Bala (2011) ***

She Monkeys (2011) ***

The Slut (2011) ***

Ticket To Paradise (2011) ***

Tilt (2011) ***

Truth Of Lie (2011) ***

Underwater Love (2011) ***

Uwiklanie (2011) ***

Zhila-byla odna baba (2011) ***

Nessuno mi puo giudicare (2011) **

Hollywood-style Italian comedy about a spoiled rich woman who finds herself destitute after her husband's death and has to pay his debts by becoming a prostitute. An uneasy mixture of cynical sophistication and saccharine sentimentality, more successful as a crowd-pleaser than a lucid exploration of Italian hypocrisy, machismo and sexist double standards. And despite its subject matter, it has no nudity at all. If this was English-speaking Hollywood movie, it would have been a huge international hit, in United States, in Italy and everywhere else. But because it's in Italian, it will only be a huge hit in Italy, and then Hollywood will buy the rights and re-make it as a racy rom-com starring Jennifer Garner and Owen Wilson.

Transit Cities (2011) *

Jordanian drama about a prodigal daughter returning home.

Amnesty (2011) *

La Bellezza del somaro (2011) *

Typical Italian comedy set in a country house in Toscany, full of cheating husbands, neurotic wives, spoiled children, big snakes, donkeys and pointless references to Sylvio Berlusconi.

The Roadside House (2011) *

Russian drama about a man who befriends the wife of a man he injured in a road accident.

Terraferma (2011) **

Italian drama about the refugee crisis.

Elles (2011) ***

Excellent film about a journalist (Juliette Binoche) researching an article about prostitution in Paris. 

Le Havre (2011) **

Another weird comedy from Aki Kaurismaki.

Et maintenant on va où? (2011) **

Lebanese drama about religious conflicts between Muslims and Christians in a remote little village. An uneasy mix of the serious and the comic.

Crazy-ism (2011) *

A Japanese "Reservoir Dogs", only nowhere near as good.

Fish And Chips (2011) *

A BBC (British-Born Cypriot) returns to Cyprus.

Loverboy (2011) ***

Little Surfer Girl (2011) ***

Febre do Rato (2011) ***

Cracks In The Shell (2011) ***

Corpo celeste (2011) ***

Che bella giornata (2011) **

Hollywood-style Italian comedy about an incompetent guard seduced by a beautiful Muslim terrorist.

Five Square Meters (2011) *

Boring Spanish drama about real estate.

The Graveyard Keeper's Daughter (2011) *

Estonian drama about a young girl, her father and her alcoholic mother.

Innocence (2011) *

Czech drama about a doctor falsely accused of seducing a 14-year-old patient, but guilty of equally serious sexual transgressions. Daring subject, conventional treatment.

Body (2011) *

Turkish drama about a porn actress trying to rebuilt her life. While the subject matter is daring, the treatment is ultra-conservative and moralistic, reflecting the pro-Islamist direction of the Turkish society circa 2011. Probably meant as an allegory about Turkey and the evolution of its society.

Adventure (2011) *

A story of adultery in Horthy's Hungary.