David Parkinson

It feels more like a ciné dissertation designed to showcase Zvyagintsev’s appreciation of the medium than an original piece of cinema.

A fascinating life is reduced to a series of skittishly edited and visually stylised vignettes that do scant justice to Marie Curie's scientific achievements and Karolina Gruszka's laudably intense performance.

A fascinating topic is attenuated by conservative storytelling and sketchy characterisation. Nevertheless, the sense of place is as assured as the vigilant performances, while the defusing sequences are genuinely suspenseful.

Telling an unfamiliar tale in a highly predictable manner, this is a laudable, but lightweight tribute to golf's founding fathers.

Despite a wonderfully witty voiceover and the bullish playing of a willing ensemble, this bawdy romp consistently stumbles over its more contrived excesses.

It's more than a little precious, but it's also sincere, touching and astute in its insights into social geography and human nature.

With its bestial themes, conceptual humour and cartoonish thespians, this consciously arch farce will intrigue some and infuriate others.

Unflinching in its depiction of rural reality, this may be a dour drama, but it has been made with sincerity and an exceptional sense of place.

This intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality.

Although replete with creepy shocks, this lacks the narrative finesse to match the committed performances and slick visuals.

With the camera placement being as meticulous as the use of Handel on the soundtrack, this impeccably played saga deservedly earned Mungiu a share of the Best Director prize at Cannes.

Atmospheric and engrossing, this meticulous recreation of time and place acquires an unsettling contemporary relevance through its analysis of the mindset of a mass murderer with a death wish.

Played with committed ferocity by the excellent Oh and Heche, this riotous state-of-the-nation satire may lack subtlety, but it has the courage of its socko convictions and certainly packs a punch.

The plot pieces might slot into place with a resounding clang, but what it lacks in finesse, this brutal actioner more than makes up for in bullish bravura and technical slickness.

Impeccably played by Rebecca Hall, this is a thoughtful reflection on life’s casual cruelties and how little attitudes towards women have changed since Watergate.

Rising to the challenge of doing something new(ish) with an overworked sub-genre, this may not be particularly scary or funny. But it belies its modest budget to splatter to knowing effect.

Persuasively played by fine leads and a well-cast ensemble, this thoughtful treatise captures provincial life and the medical mindset with authenticity and tact.

Ruinously prioritising chic over content, this is intellectually and stylistically shallow when it should have been dynamic and compelling.

Ruinously prioritising chic over content, this is intellectually and stylistically shallow when it should have been dynamic and compelling.

Vibrantly recreating a seminal period in Jodorowsky's personal and artistic development, this bullishly played saga has enough quirky detail, audacious incident and visual panache to sweep the storyline through its less persuasive phases.

Filled with striking and scarringly disconcerting images of vandalised nature, satanic mills and redundant modernity, this is a mournful tribute to a maligned migrant workforce and a sobering reminder that nothing comes cheap.

A touch twee at times, but the use of classic and original animation is admirable, while Owen emerges as the king of sidekicks.

Impossible to appreciate in a single sitting, this masterly piece of polemical filmmaking is as intoxicating as it is intriguing.

Played with restraint and individuality by a fine ensemble, this is a moving but provocative study of belief, duty, compassion and acceptance.

A gripping if occasionally overwrought drama radiated by a standout turn from Seydoux.

Taut, tense and teasing, this fascinating exercise in screen storytelling keeps viewers guessing whether the prime suspect might just be a victim.

Ostensibly, a lovingly made study of homemade cooking and old-fashioned values, this beautifully played drama also contains a mordant denunciation of the lack of compassion that shapes Japanese attitudes to social stigma.

Unflinching in its eschewal of objectivity, this provides a unique perspective on a notorious case, while correcting some of the impressions about urban black youth the media cravenly peddled in its aftermath.