Christopher Machell

The Kindergarten Teacher evokes sadness and horror in equal measure, but not always a great deal of understanding.

Albert Serra’s latest is a hazy fever dream of post colonialist politics and ambition that in its final minutes lurches into apocalyptic mania.

Largely uninterested in the humanity of its characters, too often Sigurðsson is content to skewer his subjects without trying to understand them.

A flawed film to be sure, but one with flashes of inspiration, occasionally stunning visuals and a Shakespearean sense of claustrophobia.

Benedetta has its cake and eats it, with gratuitous nudity and violence offered up to the audience as a base feast for the eyes. Yet in this indulgence, Benedetta eschews simplistic moralising in favour of a complex vision of female sexuality that is as problematic as it is compelling.

Pleasure is not a morally proscriptive film and seeks neither to venerate nor condemn pornography, but to depict its hollowing effect on those who make it. The film’s title is not accidental; at a time when porn is freely and ubiquitously available, the price of gratification may be cheap, but there is always a cost to be paid.

A Chiara is arguably Carpignano’s most accomplished work to date, pressing ever further into the interior psychologies of his characters.

Civil War, though imperfect, is a biting, satirical blockbuster that is as much about the alienation of modern media as it is about imagining a second American Civil War.

This is vital filmmaking; Blindspotting is undoubtedly part of a new moment in American cinema and is a fierce, complex satire in it own right.

In its surreal rendering of space and character, Fingers in the Wind offers enough ambition, intelligence and unvarnished authenticity to warrant recommendation.

Elevating silliness to the level of profundity, House doesn’t so much serve its swirling madness to you as it dunks your head into a cauldron full of it.

Among all the violence, body horror and Giger-esque sexuality, Titane’s most surprising quality is its tenderness.

Grander in scope than any of Villeneuve’s work yet, Dune is proper, ambitious blockbuster filmmaking for grown-ups.

Labyrinth of the Turtles is a charming and occasionally moving love letter to the legendary Spanish-Mexican surrealist, and at a spry 80 minutes, doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Though its 60s-inspired, Gilliam-esque animation style is certainly awkward enough to draw the notice of the arthouse and indie crowds, Cryptozoo’s storytelling and themes fail to come up to the complexity of even a middling Pixar effort.

Though the grins, laughter and cheering of the film’s climax is a little too heavy on the sweetness, it’s a harder heart than mine that would fail to be just a little moved by Bunton’s speech about our dependence on one another.

Later remade as The Bird Cage, this first adaptation of Jean Poiret’s play is as moving as it is hilarious in its depiction of moral hypocrisy and familial love.

Structured in parts like a thriller, Sweat is truly most successful as a character study, while its representation of social media gives rise to a nuanced understanding of contemporary anxieties over isolation and intimacy.

Beast is rough around the edges but as a feature debut marks out its director as one of the most intriguing new talents in British filmmaking.

Bad Luck Banging may appear to be deeply cynical of human nature, but in fact its real targets are the flimsy discourses that we build to obscure and justify our baser urges, couched in illusions of history and morality.

Queen & Slim is consciously political – powerfully so – but it is simple human survival that drives the two protagonists.

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.

The screenplay balances the big narrative beats that this kind of broad crowd pleaser demands, along with posing more difficult social questions to which there are no easy answers.

Spaceship Earth deftly captures the sincere wonder and optimism of those who believed in the project. There’s simply no denying the sheer ambition of the damn thing, let alone that they more or less pulled it off.

Conceived, written, shot and released all in the early months of the Covid crisis and taking place entirely on a Zoom call, Host is about as contemporary – and chilling – as it gets.

Precision, energy, and innovation move the components of John Wick, but the synergy that comes from their singular motion transcends mechanistic clockwork into vital, aesthetic flow.

Kline perfectly captures the out-of-jointness of our age, defined by a generation caught by social and economic decline in a state of permanent instability.

This biopic is a well-mounted and handsomely shot study of men obsessed by their work, but never fully hits top gear.