Ben Nicholson

An understated but spectacularly mounted drama.

It’s a coming-of-age tale without summer sun that feels all the more formative because of it.

As with much of Miyazaki’s own output, the film offers a winning heroine and a joyful dip into Japanese folklore, even if it does not stand up against the studios most celebrated works.

The result is a formally loose, but dizzyingly dense and morally forthright examination of national attitudes and the myopia of nostalgia told through ranging meta-constructs and highfalutin debate.

A vital and timely missive to a new generation that is as sobering as it is uplifting, all built around a performance of astounding accomplishment.

Where Tan describes the process of making Shirkers as an exorcism (presumably of Georges), the final product is more akin to a séance, a communion with a lost soul keen to still be heard from beyond the veil.

All of the film is handled in such a way: from the beautiful monochrome photography that only extends the disconnection Olga feels with the world, to the understated and haunting performances, particularly Olszanska's.

It's a sparse and ravishing meditation on faith.

Bold in ambition and delicate in execution, it will break your heart and then piece it back together.

Johnson is pushing the audience to see these images as a dialogue between herself and these subjects, both in the frame of her representation of them and their impact on her.

It's a film swimming in symbolism, transgressive eroticism and perplexing details that will infuriate some audiences but for others will add to its irresistible allure.

Evolution more often chimes aesthetically with a European arthouse drama, but that is only until it voyages into more fantastical territory. Then this haunting and esoteric work manages to seduce and repulse in uncanny harmony.

While it hardly pushes the envelope in terms of developing Marvel's homogenous narrative conveyor-belt, it does do so in other areas, suggesting that the MCU can see beyond the confines of its first two phases.

Greene seeks a deeper truth amidst the fragments of arch drama and investigatory reportage; artifice and reality bleed into one another with ease, the transitions smoothed by Sean Price Williams' photography.

Diaz's From What Is Before is an enthralling, thought-provoking, elegant and tragic wonder.

Its specific frame of reference sees it build to a bleak and powerful conclusion, if one devoid of much hope.

It is Hall for which this film will be sought out and remembered, and she elicits such a great deal of empathy as to make the inevitable climax all the more gut-wrenching.

Certain Women is a deft masterclass in humane open-ended observation, crafting subtle portraits of three Montana women overlooked and hardy in their own individual ways.

Comedy is used to undercut the most horribly tragic of moments...given the sadness all the more pathos and offering glimpses of hope in a narrative resistant to catharsis.

The resulting film is an exemplar of fine balance, managing to be both a humane character study and issue-driven polemic, looking at the ongoing personal and social repercussions and contextualising the events.

Notes on Blindness raises fascinating questions about our reliance on visual memory aids and the amount to which we truly experience the world around us.

Weiner may now regret allowing such intimate things to be filmed - indeed he has publicly said that he won't be watching the film - but Kriegman and co-director Steinberg have crafted a hugely lively and compelling portrait.

Wedding Doll may be a small film, but it's deftly executed and built on two remarkable leading performances.

The slow burn lead-up may not be to all tastes, but if you can tune in to its broadcast frequency Midnight Special will shine its light on you too.

As this is only inspired by the real events, there are perhaps one too many threads neatly tied into a bow, but all of them work in concert with the main event.

The languorous pacing - particularly in the middle section - may lessen the impact on audiences somewhat, and the two-hour runtime seems a little much, but this is important, harrowing and deeply heartfelt lament that deserves to be seen and most definitely heard.

It's a banana flambé with extra rum that brazenly throws together folksy storytelling, arch soap opera melodrama and a typically eccentric cast into a golden Hollywood crack at the American Dream.

This is a brilliantly contained and sublimely ridiculous send-up of competitive male egos from a refreshing female perspective.

The Force Awakens barrels back into Lucas' 'lived-in' universe with inextinguishable energy and boundless joie de vivre.

The individual tales meanings are obscured by wavering tone and formal gymnastics.

Arabian Nights may frustrate and enervate, but with hindsight these blemishes fade into a gleaming collage.

Gomes has created something truly unique and remarkable; a rally cry against the powers that have choked the fire out of his country and a love song to those he sees rekindling the flame. Its constituent parts may not be perfect, but what a stunning whole.

Brilliant and moving stuff; another hit for Abrahamson.

The deft and highly emotive handling of his condition and the wider ramifications of his story make The Dark Horse a lot more than merely the against-the-odds chess story that it may initially appear to be.

The Dance of Reality is a rich and expressive new offering from a man who has always tried to sculpt something resembling cinematic poetry, whatever that might look like.

Clearly modelled on a familiar western narrative, Pablo Fendrik's The Burning (2014) both embraces and playfully inverts the tropes that define its genre classification.

From Pteranodon's dive-fishing to Raptors pack-hunting, Jurassic World is in its element when it's using its assets, and though they can't recreate that awe of twenty-two years ago, this is finally a sequel worthy of the title.

A highly original and utterly enthralling film that touches on staggeringly expansive themes - more typically expected in the work of master auteur and persistent award-winner Terrence Malick, than from animations.

Nothing is too much, and whilst there is the danger that some will find the unremitting havoc tiresome, Miller's endless innovation keeps things fresh despite the surrounding wasteland.

With Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon doesn't merely hit it out of the park, he Hulk-smashes it.

Above all else John Wick is a lean, mean revenger to go with its ice-cold protagonist. It's not perfect, but you'll be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable action movie this year.

Not only is The Voices uproariously funny throughout, but it's actually far cleverer than one might expect.

The dark recesses of a diseased mind may make the headline, but it is the indictment of far more widespread infection that rings out and is striking in its prescience.

Rife with the director's trademark stylistic preferences, this is a blast of an idiosyncratic comedy full of brilliant deadpan performances that offer a wickedly funny and poignant conclusion to the fable.

Although A Most Violent Year may hit fever pitch when Abel engages in a nerve-wracking chase of a stolen tanker, it's in the murky uncertainties and frosty climate that it endures and excels.

It’s meditative, beautiful, utterly fascinating, and one of the year’s finest documentary achievements.

Not only does Li'l Quinquin's procedural strand evoke countless laughs both macabre - the body that incites the story is found chopped up inside a cow - and slapstick, but also provides the context the exploration of deeper themes.

Gere does a fantastic job of embodying this broken man... It's an incredibly moving performance that lends Time Out of Mind emotional weight and anchors this contemplation of a man adrift in a world that doesn't appear to care.

It's a singular and deeply resonant work that finds a mesmerising poetry amidst the chiaroscuro rubble of post-colonial Portugal.

Interstellar may not be perfect, but tent-pole filmmaking with such ambition and grandeur is always worth celebrating.

Force Majeure is a gripping and deftly observed drama that adds caustic condemnation through its embracing of humour.

Quieter moments do punctuate the tension - though the mood never sheds the lingering stench of impending death - and the characters are allowed time to breathe and inject a little colour to their long-standing relationships.

Baumbach is never likely to make a film that doesn't engage with interesting issue, but on this occasion he's made something smart and relevant that really brings the funny, arguably making this his most widely appealing film to date.

The Duke of Burgundy lingers long in the mind and cements its director's much-deserved place as one of the most exhilarating currently at work.

Slaboshpitsky's The Tribe is gripping, tour de force cinema from its opening jab, and from there it continually forces you against the ropes before delivering a knockout punch with a gut-wrenching conclusion destined to leave audiences stunned.

Stevens is excellent both as the cordial house guest and the brooding time- bomb ever present beneath his earnest veneer.

This undeniably silly, but raucously entertaining, off-the-wall transhumanist actioner is an absolute riot.

Guardians of the Galaxy is undoubtedly a flashy space opera, but if you are on board with that, it's a resounding success that takes a seat at Marvel's top table and suggests there could still be life after The Avengers.

Fortunately, Boyhood concludes on a note of such unbridled optimism, Linklater is defying you to leave the auditorium without a grin on your face. Indeed, few will after experiencing this astonishing cinematic treasure.

Despite being one of his most ostentatious films to date, the setting, plot, performances and authorial tone on display marry together seamlessly to simultaneously heighten and smooth his trademark style.

While it is serious, Hogg also manages to insert some oddball humour and a little hopeful levity into the proceedings. The fractures provide the absolutely riveting subject matter, but Exhibition shows the potential for healing and confirms its director's place at the forefront of intriguing British filmmakers.

22 Jump Street is hugely successful in retaining - and in many instances, improving upon - the qualities of it predecessor and pitching some jokes that will still have people chuckling for days afterwards.

The ultimate message may be a little fuzzy, but Mundruczó has crafted a incredibly cinematic canine parable that remains gripping and inventive from its nose to its tail.

Intolerance may not be perfect, but with such gargantuan spectacle and timeless mastery of form on show, it is nigh on impossible not to be swept up by this centruy-spanning extravanganza and its medium-shaping impact.

Underground is bravura filmmaking at its most entrancing and its labyrinthine political context only serves to heighten its fascinating appeal.

So many thematic and tonal elements of Weerasethakul's later, more celebrated films, are evident in Mysterious Object at Noon that it would be easy to consider as a formative exercise alone, but even as he began to explore these fertile soils, he was creating a work of captivating and arresting beauty.

Grant is absolutely superb as the impassive Geoff.