Christopher Machell

On the Record is at once a heartbreaking account of the survival of a group of courageous women, an analysis of the structural and cultural intersections between racism and misogyny, and an indictment of an industry happy to ignore and condone sexual violence.

Its emotional structure, reconstructing Katia and Maurice’s marriage and their shared passion for exploding mountains, feels far more intuitive and lyrical than its linear narrative structure might suggest. In this, Fire of Love is more portraiture than storytelling.

Genre film or not, Davis’ depiction of profound grief is tremendously effective, elicited by McQueen’s audacious direction.

We all know how this story ends, but in this fable of astronomic ambition it’s about the journey, not the destination.

Balloon never uses its characters as proxies for political discussion; Tseden’s concern is firmly with his characters as human beings. His method is rooted in realism, favouring intimate, often handheld camera work whose immediacy is juxtaposed against often stunningly beautiful compositions and dreamlike landscapes.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets’ vérité style belies a quasi-staged reality that challenges the distinction between fiction and documentary, studying the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world.

What lets the film down somewhat is an issue that has dogged much of the studio’s recent middling efforts, namely an inert narrative and a wishy-washy message that ultimately doesn’t have the courage of its own convictions.

Telling the story of women bound by oppression, Lingui, The Sacred Bonds is an astonishing film of female resistance and survival.

The Cave is a raw, urgent film about one of the great humanitarian crimes of our times, made all the starker for the utter lack of a global response.

Prayers for the Stolen is fundamentally an account of powerlessness, of the insidious ways that forces act invisibly, immeasurably, and often horrifically on those with the least ability to resist them.

The film’s final shot of Little Edie dancing alone on the filthy floorboards of her rotten hallway is as poignant an image as can be imagined. Simultaneously humorous, pathetic, and triumphant, it is the unconscious statement of a person railing against the world, lost in the maze of her own past and the uncertainty of her future, at once hopelessly deluded and consciously defiant.

Free Solo goes some way to explaining just why someone would want to do such a thing, but is ultimately more captivated by the vicarious thrill of watching Honnold do his thing.

Saint Maud is the dive into obsession, isolation and urban deprivation that you need right now.

Dear Comrades! works well as an historical drama, a political satire and even a cold-war thriller. It’s brilliance, however, lies in its study of the profound cognitive dissonance that comes of all totalitarian systems.

Machoian has crafted an intense, moving and bleak portrait of a disintegrating marriage and fractured masculinity.

German director Christian Petzold’s latest is a tense, emotionally fraught drama, layered with smouldering internal conflict that by its incendiary close invariably catches alight.

The Argentinian director’s follow-up to 2019’s Lux Æterna is a typically difficult watch, subjecting us to the grinding indignities of old age, but it also a deeply moving study of lifelong love and loyalty to the bitter end.

Suffice to say, There Is No Evil is a deeply felt study of the effects of state violence on the individual. While the cost of resistance is high, the price of compliance may well be greater.

Foregoing breadth in favour of depth, War is at its core a character study disguised as a science fiction epic.

At 150 minutes, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? could easily have been shorter and still achieved its intended emotional and aesthetic effects. But a river isn’t less pleasant for meandering before it reaches the ocean: if this is how it has to happen before we lose the thread of Lisa and Giorgi’s lives in the flow of others, then so be it.

Just as Andersson reveals profound truths about human existence in miniature, so does Being A Human Person discover something of Andersson’s whole in revealing him, synecdoche-like, in part.

Chaplin built his reputation of finding the poignant humour in poverty, and many screwball comedies of the sound era invariably touched on the Depression, none more so than Gregory La Cava’s 1936 My Man Godfrey.

Challengers is, in the end, a fantastically well constructed film with a star-making performance at its centre. Not quite a masterpiece, Guadagnino holds back from fully embracing the potential of his film’s eroticism and style, but Challengers is nevertheless a worthy contender.

Pig offers something strangely tender and even sometimes lyrical, wrapped up in the trappings of a noirish thriller that is as much a satire on the meaning of value and social status as it is a straightforward revenge film.

Sound of Metal is an astonishing accomplishment for both its long-nascent director and its British star, Riz Ahmed, for whom his turn as heavy metal drummer Ruben represents a career-best performance.c

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is not only his best recent film, but also one of the most vital of the year.

In a way, Michael is an audience surrogate, informing our own understanding of her; his – and the film’s – refusal to pin Stokes down as either a genius or crank (as if they are binary) speaks to her own project’s attempt to capture the totality of a thing and the noble futility in such an endeavour.

What is most satisfying about the film is its full and non-ironic commitment to a ludicrously operatic masculinity. There is surely no other way to end such a piece than the way it does.