Allan Hunter

Maintaining his fondness for long, contemplative shots, Weerasethakul creates a deceptively serene sense of storytelling, with gentle grace notes of wry humour.

Lady Bird is often screamingly funny but it also has a generous spirit, embracing characters with all their flaws and foibles, virtues and defects.

Our Time Machine is very carefully balanced between the personal and the professional. An elegant, focused piece of storytelling finds the space to explore the family history revealing the way in which these lives are inextricably linked with the history of China itself.

This is not a venture into wire-work and acrobatics but a contemplative, often ravishing-looking, immersion in the complex politics, power struggles and personalities of the Tang Dynasty as seen through the moral dilemmas facing an enigmatic trained assassin.

High Life offers an uncompromising mind-bender of a deep space journey through destructive desire, faith, trust and the instincts for good and bad that make us merely human.

The lynchpin of the whole enterprise is a terrific star turn from Dev Patel, who has never been better. The energy and physicality of his performance is a constant delight; a tangle of arms and legs, he plays the knockabout farce with the timing and agility of a Chaplin.

This is a remarkable debut feature; provocative, absorbing and mysterious. There are no easy answers to the big existential questions, just a desire to seek them out with a kind heart and good intentions. In the end you just have to have faith.

Cameraperson is about process and aesthetics, images and rules but it is also about empathy and ethical dilemmas.

Ramsay elevates the material way beyond the conventional by sheer filmmaking craft.

There is a spare, focused storytelling here that creates room to breathe.

Midi Z’s control of mood, pace and performance builds an engrossing drama that works on the intimate level of a moving human tragedy whilst also providing an insight into the much bigger picture of the problems and heartaches facing the people of Burma.

Christopher Martin’s documentary adaptation of Conroy’s book is a powerful, humbling salute to a breed of fearless figures willing to risk their lives as they bear witness to history’s unfolding horrors.

O’Shea finds hope in how much Ireland has changed in recent years. Yet her film powerfully documents what happened within living memory, the trauma still experienced by those who survived it and the inspiration from an often invisible resistance who helped to bring about change.

Expertly paced, Glory builds to a cleverly staged off-camera climax that perfectly caps everything that has gone before.

Director Mark Grieco grabs our attention by going beyond the obvious. Exploring the consequences of well-intentioned actions and providing a sense of the much bigger picture transforms A River Below into an unexpectedly compelling proposition.

This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection offers a vivid, beautifully crafted reflection on identity, community and the tension between respecting age-old traditions and accepting the seemingly unstoppable march of progress.

Seeds is a sweet, meditative elegy for a way of life that is fast disappearing.

Never appearing to judge any situation, Kingdon confidently allows the images to tell a fascinating, universal story of inequality and class division, revealing a country that feels more like a capitalist society than anyone’s idea of a Communist state.

An intense romance notable for the craft of the filmmaking and Diop’s original approach to complex issues of love, loss and the forces for change that can rise from the ashes of tragedy.

Filmmaker Lina Soualem’s sentimental journey with her actress mother Hiam Abbass becomes a powerful celebration of lives marked by separation, exile and erasure.

The combination of exuberant energy, wise-cracking humour and warmhearted emotion makes for a captivating crowdpleaser.

Mackey convinces us that there are so many more colours to Emily than the ones she is allowed to display. Her thoughtful, understated performance matches a film that teases out the flesh-and-blood emotions from the stuff of gothic romance.

What makes Hold Your Fire so timely and disturbing is also how much remains the same.

Moore’s performance means that we are with Gloria every step of the way, sharing in the little victories and the jolting setbacks.

Tavernier is a life-long cinema fan and every frame of this three hour documentary is a reflection of his passion, infectious enthusiasm and generous spirit.

There are no human characters in Flow and no dialogue beyond barks and squawks but the sense of peril is compelling, the visuals are impressive and the emotional spell it casts is captivating.

Alex Schaad’s spiky, good-looking debut feature takes a clever concept and develops it into a witty, provocative exploration of identity, gender fluidity, sexuality and the pursuit of happiness.

The story of a couple finding their best life in the rural Ireland of the 1980s is beautifully realised and quietly beguiling.