I have just spent a very enjoyable five days at the London Film Festival, where I saw fifteen films (and slotted in a piece of theatre too).

The overall standard of the films was very high, and I would happily recommend ten of them, however, as one expects when seeing so much, there were one or two duds as well.

I will post the full reviews of what I saw when the films get their UK releases, however here is a whistlestop tour of what you should be looking out for and what you should take great pains to avoid:

For me the film of the festival, deserving a 5* rating was:

& Sons, by Argentinian director Pablo Trapero, performed in English with Bill Nighy leading a terrific ensemble cast.

There were seven films worthy of 4* ratings (listed here in the order in which I saw them):

It was just an Accident – Jafar Panahi’s Palm d’Or winner, somehow blending almost slapstick humour with a devastating indictment of state-sponsored torture in Iran;

No Other Choice – Park Chan Wook’s hilarious satire on the world of employment, set in the paper industry, as I was for the last 23 years;

Orphan – László Nemes’ heartrending story of a Hungarian child’s search for his father, from the end of the second world war to the late 1950s;

Rental Family – Hikari’s rich and heartwarming tale of the need to find real connections in an increasingly commoditised world;

Nouvelle Vague – Richard Linklater’s homage to the French new wave, and in particular to Jean-Luc Godard;

The Stranger – François Ozon’s adaptation of Albert Camus’s classic novel L’Étranger.

La Grazia – A return to form for Paulo Sorrentino, united with Toni Servillo, who plays a president in the final months of his tenure.

Not quite as good as these, but certainly worth a look, were two films worth 3 ½ * – that is cheating, I know, but 3 didn’t seem quite enough!

Blue Moon – Richard Linklater’s portrait of one day (in fact one evening) in the life of Lorenz Hart, following the termination of his musical partnership with Richard Rogers;

Father Mother Sister Brother – Jim Jarmusch’s take on family relationships, consisting of three short films under one umbrella title.

And finally, the five that disappointed me, the first four worth just 2*:

Silent Friend – Ildikó Enyedi’s story of a tree(!);

The Souffleur – Gastón Solnicki’s story of a hotel;

The Fence – Clare Denis’s adaptation of a stage play by Bernard-Marie Koltès;

Lady – Samuel Abraham’s mockumentary about the growing irrelevance of the upper classes;

And finally, with 1 (begrudged) *:

After the Hunt – Luca Guadagnino overly-complex campus drama – the worst film of the week, and now out at the cinema, so I will post a full review in the next few days.

So London is done for another year – though many of these powerful films will stay in my mind for quite some time to come.