David Jenkins

As with the titular Ravel piece, this is a work that is mellifluous, melodious and mysterious in equal measure. A Sphinx-like Beer, once again, seems to connect with her director on a level which transcends the purely professional, and through her economic yet forceful use of body language and expression, she makes certain that the film adheres perfectly to Petzold’s immaculate calculations.

What’s surprising about the film is how hopeful it is, zeroing in on human creativity and resilience during the worst of times rather than wallowing in abject misery.

The film is ambling, gentle and doesn’t strain too hard to force a point, but allows you to appreciate the multifarious nature of life in a city where the spectre of destruction lurks ominously in the clouds.

Sirât is a truly staggering and major film, one that has to be seen to be believed – a masterful gambit of affectionate character and community building that mutates into a work that deals with the primal instincts of human survival and the idea that we create our own gods through the things that we chose to worship.

It’s Fastvold who somehow makes all these elements coalesce with such brio and eccentricity, expanding the possibilities of filmed biography while also making a film that manages to land direct hits to the head, the heart and the gut.

With its vibrant use of colour, expressive character design and flights of expressionist fancy, Little Amélie offers a lyrical vision of early-years development and so much more.

The direction by Davies Jr is top-notch, not just in how he is able to capture the fine nuances of the actors on camera, but also in how they are immersed in the chaotic mêlée of Lagos at this powder-keg moment.

Raimi uses Send Help as an opportunity to flex his patented formal dynamism, and while the camera is a little more sedate than the elasticised excesses of films like Evil Dead II or the underrated Darkman, he’s still a master of of using movement and framing to create emphasis and draw us closer to the characters and their heightened emotions.

With lots of appealing wildlife and landscape photography to keep things lively, there’s much to cherish in this charming little film.

Fiume o morte! explores the dangerous, empowering nature of fascism, and how certain forms of aggression would seem fair game under a régime that rules by such inhumane edict.

In Hamnet, art is presented as a two-way whisper, as a codeword for connectivity and as a way to unlock doors to the future, and living.

It’s a tender and warm film about missed connections and ships that, for whatever reason, end up passing in the night.

It’s a love story for our time and for all time.

It’s a beautifully written and executed work, one of Panahi’s most formally straightforward yet powerful, gripping and generous.

While there’s a sense that the thesis here lacks originality, there are enough audiovisual flights of fancy to keep the cheeky intellectual jiggery-pokery ticking along nicely.

Fonzi doesn’t sugarcoat this tale, nor does she attempt to make it feel entirely like a piece of activist filmmaking that’s entirely serving a political cause (even if, in many aspects, it is). Yet through her canny pacing and shot choices, she elevates this material far above what might have been expected of it.

Even to a viewer who’s not particularly taken by their idiosyncratic and knowingly difficult sound, it’s a pleasure to be in the company of two people who are so proficient at articulating their inner feelings.

Even if it does eventually crumble to pieces, it’s a really strong thriller for the large majority of its runtime.

The film offers no explicit commentary or context, but instead allows the images to speak for themselves.

The film certainly is rare in actually offering an authentic depiction of social media and its noxious capabilities, even if its insistence on proving there’s no righteous moral that can’t be swiftly liquidated does become a little tiresome by the home stretch.

The Bad Guys 2 wipes the floor with the original which, in hindsight, looks like a scrappy work in progress.

With his rumi­na­tive lat­est, The Shrouds, Cro­nen­berg once more makes a play for the heart­strings in what must be one of the most naked­ly mov­ing and rev­e­la­to­ry films with­in his canon.

It’s a film which man­ages to have its daft thrills and con­vinc­ing­ly piv­ot to wist­ful philo­soph­i­cal intro­spec­tion, and while there are cer­tain­ly some rough edges and unex­plored plot avenues, it prob­a­bly counts as one of Boyle’s strongest works this cen­tu­ry.

It’s refreshing that Rivers and Williams have an understanding that, just because the camera is pointing at you, it doesn’t mean you need to narrate your actions and speak to the audience down the lens.

Beyond the archness and cynicism, there are some profound, self-reflective insights about what it means to make moving images in the 21st century.

It goes without saying, but the film dazzles with its trompe-l’oeil-like worldbuilding, which inhabits the fairy tale reality of Anderson’s mind without ever giving over to the wayward indulgence of dream logic.

There’s a sense that the makers of Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning are biting a thumb at the naysayers and playing the hits one more time, albeit with a little bit more focus on the previous feature installments.

It’s not a film that does anything particularly new, in the dutifully linear way it tells the story to the ultra-functional shooting style. Yet its satisfaction comes from its careful release of information, it’s ambience of encroaching dread and the subtle psychological twists that push Julie ever closer to that euphoric breaking point.