Amber Wilkinson

A distant lightning storm indicates nature is a force to be reckoned with but in Walker-Silverman’s films the energy of empathetic human nature is shown to be just as powerful.

Marczak’s film becomes not just a document of a hunt but a psychological portrait of loss and a family’s attempts to come to terms with that.

The script holds plenty of satire and laugh out loud moments, but Wilson and Huston keep it supple enough to bend protectively around the central love story, while allowing the morality tale element to still have bite.

Allen-Miller achieves the Holy Grail of all great rom-coms in making us desperate to see the pair get together for good, while simultaneously not wanting this first flush of romance to end.

McBaine and Moss offer a celebration of the young women attendees alongside a consideration of the everyday sexism many encounter.

While Will and Harper’s friendship gives the film its strongly beating heart, the casual reactions of strangers often also prove to be moving.

Chernov brings home the sense of violent stalemate so that, even when Andriivka seems within reach, peace still feels a long way off.

The ending is simultaneously satisfying and slyly subversive, allowing an unravelling of ideas that should lead audiences to think about what they have watched.

Throughout the film, three things stand out: the love between Rushdie and Griffiths; the resilience they had in the face of his catastrophic injuries; and the author’s humanistic attitude and sly sense of humour, which have categorically survived intact.

While not seeking to paint all Russians as ‘victims’ and explicitly acknowledging the situation is far worse for Ukranians, Talankin’s footage comes as a reminder of children as the innocent victims of war.

Unkovski’s film may be singing from a familiar hymn sheet, but he makes that part of its charm.

Instead of treating the star’s life chronologically, they move between a consideration of his career and his spinal injury advocacy work in the wake of the devastating 1995 horse-riding accident that left him paralysed from the neck down. The result has the engaging feel of a dialogue between the pre- and post-accident Reeve and his family as his views and his life shifted as a consequence.

Forbes has a delicate but unsentimental approach, which gives her film the same infectious energy that blesses and curses Cameron. The end result feels good without feeling superficial.

Frida is not just a broad brush affair; the artist is noticeably present.

This is an impressively clear-eyed and deeply moving portrait.

Letting yourself be loved is not exactly an original message, but here it’s the comedy that counts and Schlesinger is generous with her script, giving even minor characters their fair share of jokes.

Hadi has an eye for detail, echoes and lyrical touches.

All the micro-motivations and manipulations of life are present, from the desire to be loved and look after others to the urge to tear down a carefully constructed emotional wall.

Sierra’s film not only stands as a love letter to peaceful protest but also to intelligent law enforcement that took the opportunity to de-escalate and resolve the situation without violence. Whether audiences agree that it has ’changed the narrative’ or not, it is a powerful testimony to a community’s ability to take control of their part of the story and give it a happy ending.

Non-professional Sangare is magnetic throughout, whether on the saddle or an interview hot seat.

While Holofcener doesn’t ultimately dispute that it’s nice to be nice, she does suggest that it’s worth remembering constant positivity has its own negatives.

It’s not just the structure of the film that is clever, Sweeney varies his joke delivery, so that there is a mix of one-liners and more slow-burn humour alongside a raft of sight gags.

[Teng] certainly succeeds in creating an impassioned triple profile of the men who are, if anything, increasingly determined to make a difference for the civilians and medics of Gaza, while viscerally bringing home the extent of the brutal tragedy on the ground.

Johnson and co-writer Mark Heyman may be exploring familiar territory but they do so with a warmth, subtlety and honesty that marks it out.

Offering an eye-opening insider perspective that comes as a reminder of what conviction politics looks like when it is maintained even under extreme pressure, as well as being a celebration of feminism, Prime Minister holds appeal for audiences well beyond New Zealand’s shores.

Characters longing for connection but simultaneously fearing it provides a strong framework on which Rachel Lambert builds an unpredictable relationship drama that feels both profound and fragile.

[An] absorbing and eye-opening, if somewhat dense, documentary.

[Boden and Fleck] marry splashes of dry humour to gallons of blood, and feature every musical genre from punk to hip-hop while connecting the stories to a strange green glow in the sky. If the end result never quite achieves the style and bite of the likes of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, it is still a lot of fun.