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.