Christopher Machell

The footage of Leclerc ascending sheer, near-featureless sheets of rock is so defiant of physics that it is easy to forget just how mind-bogglingly dangerous it is.

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

Paris, 13th District is a paean to the freedoms, the heartaches and the confusion of singledom.

There is a wealth of real humanity underneath The Truffle Hunters‘ polished surface; in key moments, the film’s high aesthetics fade away to reveal unvarnished, understated pathos.

Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency is a sombre, layered study of the human cost of capital punishment. One of this era’s most powerful actors, Alfre Woodard, leads with one of her best, most understated performances yet.

Broomfield’s triumph is in reimagining Biggie and Tupac’s murders out of their mythology and into a new context in which they are emblematic of a social malaise characterised by toxic masculinity, misogyny, racism, and police corruption.

Olga’s final sequences suggest a hope for the future, but there is an underlying irony to the superficially-peaceful imagery, rendered horribly prophetic in the current moment.

More than a casual swipe at modern social trends, Rotting in the Sun exposes a kind of cruelty, alienation, and social stratification that is only as modern as the technology through which it expresses itself.

Perischetti, Ramsey and Rothman’s picture is an irresistible treat throughout, an unadulterated confection crafted with wit, vivacity and heart.

Happening is a naturalistic, heart-breaking and relentless account of the multiple traumas and injustices that cascade when women are denied their basic bodily autonomy.

In its depiction of a part of Europe struggling to keep up with neoliberalism, R.M.N. exposes the dark mirror of liberal, globalised western European metropolitanism.

John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film is a stately and moving depiction of the man’s capacity for dignity and improvement.

Sharing its name with a 1950 Joan Crawford film, The Damned Don’t Cry has thematic resonance with its namesake as a study of women’s vulnerability in a patriarchal society and the criminalising of marginalised lives.

In seeking to understand both abuser and abused, Slalom offers a truly nuanced picture of abuse without sacrificing indictment.

Shiva Baby is ostensibly a comedy yet has all the tension of a thriller. At its most emotionally fraught, it uses the visual and aural grammar of horror cinema.

The Defiant Ones combines Stanley Kramer’s trademark liberal politics with a picaresque adventure that is deftly entertaining, tense and heartfelt.

With Sorkin's signature whip-crack dialogue driving an astonishingly assured directorial debut, Molly's Game is an exhilarating, superbly crafted crime drama.

Never has the banality of the plight of refugees been laid out so plainly as in this heartbreaking, Kafkaesque documentary.

Fundamentally, On the Rocks understands that the rich complexity of long-term relationships – both paternal and spousal – can never truly be captured, only gestured towards. The result, on screen, is deeply warm, funny and comforting, and among Coppola’s finest work.

For most of his career, Paik was dismissed by critics and struggled financially, but as director Kim amply demonstrates, his work has had tremendous influence on both fine art and popular culture. Moon Is the Oldest TV is at once a celebration of that work and testament to its incalculable value.

The Lost Leonardo is about obsession, ego, power and greed. For almost all of the film’s characters, Salvator Mundi represents nothing more than opportunity.

A Jarmusch joint through and through, The Dead Don’t Die is as charming, affected and perplexing as we’ve come to expect from the long-time darling of US indie cinema.

Drily narrated by Udo Kier, Hitler’s Hollywood is not a film about the rise of Nazism, nor even a linear history of the era’s cinema. Rather, it seeks to capture its spirit, interrogate its aesthetics and finally, to try to understand the insidious power of its propaganda.

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.

Second Spring is a film about endurance and acceptance, tackling its subject matter with quiet poise where a lesser film might have fallen to mawkish sentiment.

The film uses the Troubles and Brexit to frame its understanding of the past and the present. Brady suggests a liminal psychological space – much like the liminal political space that Brexit created – through which Lauren and Kelly’s traumas move and, perhaps, can be understood.

Calm with Horses’ driving concern – the corrosive nature of violence on the self – is rendered in brutal, empathic precision, while the recovery of its protagonist’s humanity as it teeters on the cliff edge is simply heartbreaking.

Despite sharing the stylistic trappings of so many 1980s urban comedies – Three Men and a Baby, Big, Crocodile Dundee – Tootsie transcends its generic conventions with a wonderfully nuanced turn from Hoffman, a terrific supporting cast that includes Bill Murray and Jessica Lange, and a screenplay that is as sensitive as it is funny. Tootsie’s finely balanced writing is one of the film’s greatest strengths, being consistently funny without ever turning the central premise into a gag.