David Jenkins

The entries into this wicked compendium are more interesting due to their differences rather than their similarities, suggesting that all types of people have their lives ruined by some variety of existential conundrum. And that is something that creates a sprawling lattice of deep human connectivity.

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.

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.

In ambition, achievement and Jenkin’s future as an image-maker of esoteric esteem, this is a big step up from Bait.

It’s a strange and beguiling film, and I’m just going to lay down my cards and say that, on the back of her all-in collaborations with Lars von Trier and Claire Denis, Goth’s presence makes any movie a must-see.

One thing to emphasise is that this is a very funny film, yet the humour doesn’t ever come from jokes or contrived set-ups. It’s more a sense of looming realisation that this caper – explained and justified over a single pint in a pub – is even more flawed that we ever might have imagined.

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.

It’s a chilling and expertly constructed work which goes on to suggest that our finicky anxieties will end up getting the best for us.

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.

It’s a film which sets up a lot of easy targets, but shifts its aim at the last second to take on – and bullseye – a whole lot of hard ones.

Tseden directs with a low-slung commitment to a dramatically heightened form of social realism, and this deceptively simple story ends up speaking volumes about how love, sex, marriage and parenting sit at a paradoxical remove from the dictates of the state, and the parochial attitudes of the older generation.

The film avoids polemic and instead presents itself as informed and inquisitive blueprint for the ways in which we discuss anti-colonialist action.

Despite some pacing issues and the fact it leans a little to heavily on extended visual longeurs, this is a fine second feature from Mortensen.

This tale of a tough loner forced to test his mettle certainly has political resonance beyond its intimate telling here.

A fiery, confrontational missive from one of the finest dramatic writers in the business.

The film takes great pains to give both sides of the debate an equal platform, but it’s clear what side is the one of rational common sense, empathy and creativity.

Driver is very good in the lead, pulling back some of the favour lost on his futzed stereotypical take on an Italian in House of Gucci. But it’s Cruz who adds the real nitro to this film.

The chemistry between Dolan and Macdonald is pure Withnail and I, with Amiss presented as a tragic chatterbox whose splenetic rants are peppered with moments of droll poetry.

It’s an unhurried story, one which drinks in the details of existential ennui suffered by kids who are supremely aware of the fact that they’ll probably have to take a bullet very soon. The question that remains is which direction will it come from.

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.

It passes the test that all these films must undergo with flying colours: yes, it makes you want to watch those incredible movies.

It’s a compelling and immersive drama which attains a contemporary relevance without ever really trying too hard.

Harari’s film is a practical, simple and saddening document of everyday madness.

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.

It’s a supremely compelling tale leavened by its wry humour and a subtle commentary on the essential emptiness of American life.

Sometimes the filmmaking doesn’t quite do enough to elicit the requisite intensity from some key conversations, but it certainly lands its most important punch, which arrives at the devastating climax.

It’s perhaps one or two increments too obscure, too puzzling and too unwilling to give anything away that it seems to end mid-sentence, without any traditional closure. Yet it’s still a bold work that puts great faith in its cast to play along with this game of chilling insouciance.

It’s a rare bird indeed in that it’s a work of art that actively practices what it preaches, a celebration of unfettered creativity and farsightedness that offers a volcanic fusion of hand-crafted neo-classicism while running through a script of toe-tapping word-jazz that merrily dances between the raindrops of logic and coherence.