Five to see at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Scotsman's film critic picks his highlights at this year's EIFF

Alec Secareanu and Josh O'Conn

God’s Own Country

(21 and 22 June)

Already described as “the British Brokeback Mountain”, this year’s opening night film will hopefully transcend such reductive labelling with its tale of a repressed Yorkshire sheep farmer (Josh O’Connor) whose isolated life is transformed when he falls for a Romanian migrant worker (Alec Secareanu).

Sweet Virginia

(23 and 25 June)

Jon Bernthal plays against type in this tense thriller about an ex-rodeo rider (Bernthal) whose life intersects with a ruthless hitman (Christopher Abbott) who refuses to get out of town until he’s paid for the job he’s been hired to do. Green Room’s Imogen Poots is the cash-strapped femme fatale who sets everything in motion.

Song to Song

(25 and 28 June)

Reviews for Terrence Malick’s latest have been all over the place, but whether this is another wispy indulgence or transcendent masterpiece, the big screen is the place to experience it. Ryan Gosling and Natalie Portman allegedly star.

My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea (28 and 29 June)

Graphic novelist-turned-director Dash Shaw’s animated high school satire of re-imagines adolescence as a disaster movie. Think Charlie Brown meets The Poseidon Adventure, with a hint of Freaks & Geeks. Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham and Susan Sarandon (as a heroic lunch lady) lead the voice cast.

Oliver Stone presents: Wall Street (2 July)

The mighty Oliver Stone will be in town for this anniversary screening of the quintessential high finance movie. Michael Douglas bagged an Oscar playing the lunch-skipping, “greed is good” espousing Gordon Gekko and Stone was so in tune with the times the film originally came out just weeks after Black Monday.