Fionnuala Halligan

Kenneth Lonergan’s deeply moving return after the travails of Margaret shows what a rare storyteller he is, measuring out his narrative beats in a world which crackles with life, guiding Casey Affleck’s magnificent performance, instantly recognisable as a career-be

It’s a musical and a piece of time and a feeling that’s a privilege to share.

While attention, fairly, will go to the work’s visual and tonal acuity, Wells’ measured but relentless probing, her careful peeling away of the layers of this intimate piece, mark her out as one of the most promising new voices in British cinema in recent years.

There may be money on the screen, but cash alone can’t guarantee this kind of pulsating, cinematic magic, delivered by a director at the height of his powers, mustering the very best at their craft.

It’s a beautiful, supremely touching performance from Chalamet which gives this surprisingly safe story its moving purity.

It’s only when Baumbach surrenders to the inherent theatricality of what he is creating, that Marriage Story finally takes wing and flies.

As a drama, this is less nourishing than the heritage it pays tribute to. But for Chazelle, the story is just a slight rib around which he builds a modern rhapsody.

Two strong performances root the film. Prabha’s role is to be the anchor to Anu’s flightiness; they modulate their performances well together, but are equally strong apart.

Byrne pops around the stage like a man rejuvenated, or perhaps one who has never aged, without as much as breaking a sweat. How wonderful for it all to be the same as it ever was.

This portrait of the artist as a young film-maker will certainly stand the test of time.

It’s only when Pugh gets her hands on spoiled younger sister Amy and opens up that often-overlooked strand of the work does the film seem to find relevance beyond its pretty fussiness and that warm, wintery – decidedly Christmassy, somewhat pleased-with-itself – glow.

Nickel Boys is about societal evil, certainly, and carries a score which almost bites the skin of the audience as a reminder of that pain, but it is the tenderness at its core that deals the emotional blow.

Jackson’s film is more than a technical tribute: it’s a testament to the bravery and camaraderie of the soldiers, the memory of which has faded like the photographs he brings back to life. In a way, it helps arrest the fear that we are forgetting this futile obliteration of an entire generation.

Co-directors Ainsley Gardener and Briar Grace Smith tell a sprawling story of separation and disposession which feels both intimate in terms of its setting and epic in resonance.

The Souvenir: Part II is a film to savour, visually and sensorily.

This is no superficial recounting of yet another injustice against native people.

Education is everything, and Mangrove, conventional though it may be, is still a radical step on the way to societal self-examination.

Cold War is glorious, sophisticated film-making, shadowed by the spirit of Pawilowski’s Oscar-winning Ida. Lead actress Joanna Kulig is arresting.

Lifting his camera to survey the wide open plains of the past, Scorsese extracts an epic Western from horrible real-life crimes committed against the Native American Osage tribe of, latterly, Oklahoma, delivering something biblical, human, yet deeply inhumane.

It’s confusing and heavy and bears down hard until a third-act swerve throws in colours and movement and spins the viewer out of the theatre in wonder. It won’t be forgotten.

The Quiet Girl is thoughtful, spiritual in its stillness but alive with the hum of the land and the emotions it guards. Editing by the experienced John Murphy finishes the work with a precision that also smoothes this rites of passage story. Certainly, this is a quiet film, but it speaks in high volumes.

Anchored by a funny, foul-mouthed performance from McDormand, McDonagh’s daringly-structured dark comedy is rich and layered and often laugh-out-loud funny but trips over constant tonal shifts.

In terms of filmed stage entertainment, Hamilton is a cut above (literally, as there’s an overhead camera, as well as one from the back of the stage). Hamilton is a technically difficult, fast and extremely complex stage show to perform: this film puts the viewer up close but also backs out when appropriate and makes strong strategic decisions on how to frame and move.

As the story of the mysterious Cordona plays out, the persuasive personalities of the three women both then and now strike a chord.

It’s the right film at the right time, a cathartic moment in which audiences will shed tears for a little machine made of silicon and aluminium, wrapped in tin foil and running on less computing power than our smartphones, yet which will outlive us all – perhaps by billions of years.

In short, The Velvet Underground is a documentary that meets the Velvet Underground eye-to-eye and enriches it.

An abundance of monologues gives a clear indication as to the stage origins of this Jazz Age-story, but they also add to the fire-and-brimstone feeling accentuated by director George C. Wolfe’s darkly enticing adaptation.

Education is aptly titled as a finale, as it describes the effect of the Small Axe series, but the word ‘open’ also comes to mind.

It’s extraordinary how a work like Nomadland can hold a mirror to society and refract back to the audience the light of their own lives.

An expression of his career-long preoccupations, Jia Zhang-ke’s odyssey through China since the turn of the century has an epic sense within a homespun feel.

Guillermo del Toro channels all the streams that make him unique into The Shape Of Water, pouring his heart, soul and considerable craft into an exquisite creature fable.

The remarkable, magical thing about this film is that, at 85 minutes, it’s so whole. With its fully-formed people and changing places, Little Men is a film a viewer can live in, and think about while they’re there.

All of The Big Sick’s power has gone into its script and performances.

Footage is surprising, and, occasionally heart-breaking; not because of the disabilities onscreen, but because it recalls the idealism of the 1970s, long since gone.

Hansen-Love finds moments of truth in the melange, and Seydoux is transcendent, carrying a sadness inside which proves incredibly moving when the opportunity for love presents itself and she melts into it.

From the very beginning of Athlete A, Cohen and Shenk (Audrie & Daisy and An Inconvenient Sequel) visually confront the audience with the clear physical evidence that their documentary is about abused children and they never let that image fade away.

Amy is a cautionary tale - she was the Janis Joplin of our age, and as it’s the media age, we get to see the full price of fame this time as a fragile talent self-combusts. It’s not a pretty picture.

To say the performances are authentic is clearly stating the point, but the Blackburn family opens up to give an easily intimate portrait of themselves.

This Spanish Garden of Eden hits some perhaps expectedly alluring notes - the ripeness, the colour, the endless days of summer - yet is also a profoundly authentic and moving contemplation of the fragility of family, and, again, childhood.

Lee’s love for this hard land and the boy trapped in it – so fully embodied by young British actor Josh O’Connor – is unexpectedly moving and rich.

This is a film you haven’t seen before from a place you’ll never visit, a first-class example of bravery and reportage melding into an filmed testament. It’s not just that it’s nailbiting. The unease lingers long after viewing, though, for every person associated with it.

Judas is an explosion of pent-up plotting, as if the film industry itself would only have this one chance to make a film about the Panther movement and it all has to be told in one go. Hopefully, this is not to be the case. As this film rises up to an unthinkable conclusion, there is clearly so much more to tell, and, as always, to learn.

Once Upon A Time….in Hollywood is beautifully made. Beyond all the ‘Tarantino-esque’ touches of the action, the banter, the violence, the constant movie references, there’s a real craft at play here.

Choe has taken a slim scenario and used to touch on universal themes and thoughts of escape and second chances in life.

Revelatory, moving, and honest, it is essentially the story of one brave woman’s decision to publicly accuse the rap mogul Russell Simmons of harassment and rape. But it’s also a painful, parsed education on the subject of black women and abuse.

The distinguishing, and perhaps unsurprising element - given McQueen’s strong characterisation in the past – is that each of the film’s many characters comes fully-formed.

It’s a beautifully made film, with an impeccable lead performance from Ryan Gosling as the sober, sensitive astronaut. Yet it’s also a film which takes elegant flight but stalls across its extended closing sequences; a project which, in its probing of Armstrong’s emotional mechanisms, neglects the development of other characters who might have anchored it more securely.

You could call it whimsical. Absurdist. Contrived. Or an unexpectedly unusual concept album that doesn’t quite come off but was worth the effort. And you would be correct every time.

The Children Act is a cerebral piece, for sure, and a disturbing one by the end, but Thompson’s performance brings life to the complex moral questions it attempts to examine.

An almost unbearably-tense, no-holds-barred drive through the nightmare of domestic terrorism, Custody is a can’t-look-away hybrid of gruelling reality and heightened cinematic technique. The mix is jarring, as intended, and this wrenching, heart-stopping film illustrates domestic violence and obsession in a way that makes the fear real.

The Latasters rarely put a foot wrong - from their static opening shot in the town of Hapert to the final frames of Miss Kiet in her classroom, this is a beautifully-judged piece.

It’s clear that waters need to be calmed or someone will be hurt, but The Librarians also shows that won’t happen unless people stand up and take action. So it’s a call to arms, then. But, be warned: a horror story too.

With a terse 85-minute running time, The Guilty illustrates Möller’s confidence with the craft of film-making.

It may not know where to end, and it makes a surprising late-in-the-game play for sentimentality where it has previously been bracingly crisp about hot topics including abortion and post-natal depression, but it’s mostly a wry plea for tolerance when the world is most disposed to hear it.

It’s seductive, fragmented, involving.

King’s debut makes attempts to widen out the stage play, but there’s no denying the fact that this is an exchange of ideas as opposed to a narrative, or that dialogue is often pitched as monologue. What ideas, though, and what a night.

Care and respect is evident. Camerawork is beautiful, but in the service of the piece, not beauty itself. Sound design is enveloping, and together they convey worlds of light and water, of the humming from electricity that can travel for miles and of a range of emotions from anxiety to shame that run deeper and more vividly than it seems we can possibly understand.

Much of this film has never been seen before, and it is a true treasure trove. It feels, like Bowie’s career, though, incomplete, and certainly the period between his later-in-life marriage to Iman and death after the final, unsettling Blackstar recordings is vague and reliant on what the director/producer/editor calls ‘musical mash-ups’ which he designed and edited to have a trancey, hypnotic effect.

The pace, the jokes – never over-stressed – the score and even the sight-gags (such as Gromit reading Virginia Woof) all combine to produce a film which is delightfully light on its paws.

Those who can’t understand the tangled battle zones or tragic recent history of Iraq may take some comfort from Nowhere To Hide’s revelation that ordinary citizens of that country don’t understand any of it either.

This genial comedy/noir is a genuine crowdpleaser – funny, sexy, clever and confident in building a low-key humour which hits the target over and over again.

It’s engrossing every inch of the way, with casualties, infighting, character flaws, war mongering, and some delicious grandstanding from Harrelson.

The questing duo has trusted ‘GTA’ and its trigger-happy denizens: they just need to trust the audience a little bit more that this new world can be enjoyed without the same old beats.

Two unrelentingly fascinating performances from Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm, and an exquisite black-and-while aesthetic which moves from leering vaudeville to something filthier and shameful, command attention.

A Quiet Place is the rare example of a creature feature which uses special effects sparingly (and possibly due to budgetary restrictions) in order to amplify the drama onscreen, not solely provide it. It employs the full register of sound, and the lack of any noise, as a dramatic player, informing all the action to the point where Krasinski’s film becomes a startlingly sensory experience.

With fresh access to her personal, self-serving and -aggrandising archives, Veiel lets Riefenstahl speak unedited: she puts a lot of issues to rest through her own lies, evasions and unrelentingly difficult personality.

It seems to encapsulate a generation’s dreams and disappointments, torments and triumphs. Even if it takes place on the other side of the world, it’s still a story we all know when we see it.

Lee is firing off rounds in all directions here. Some land, some distract, some feel like overkill. For cineastes, it’s a provocative redrawing of the canon; Coming Home or The Deerhunter, and even Stone’s so-called “definitive” work including Platoon now seem only part of the picture.

So lush with gorgeous detail it’s like a piece of highly-textured haute couture, there’s also a sharp social message behind the elaborate seams.

Bold and brave, like its protagonist, Pamfir gorges on its imagery, with the final visual marker sending shivers down the spine.

This gripping, muscular piece is markedly immediate - like its subject, who lives for the moment, in the constant shadow of his own death.

The Northman is often bloody smart entertainment, although, essentially, it is also the good time that doesn’t realise that the fun has stopped.

All Will Be Well is undoubtedly an old-fashioned drama, but it is no less effective for that classic structure.

Sicario is an ambush, a low-slung film about a dirty drugs war with Mexico which challenges and engages in equal measure. It moves with grim tenacity, confounding expectations until its very final sequence.

While the running time can weigh heavily on some of the sub-plots, the overall effect is as strong as Hui intended and the title underlines the bitter irony of the history involved.

Crowds will be pleased, tears will be shed and audiences should rally to the passion and drama onscreen. The stakes are high in Step.

With rigour and clarity of purpose, actor/director Fran Kranz holds the audience in his hands, probing at the unthinkable and daring to keep the faith.

Arrivals becomes an unexpectedly moving rumination on life’s bigger questions by its end. While it looks to other worlds, its main pleasure turns out to be the most intimate of questions.

Where some see coincidence, Wardle finds a true-life conspiracy, and pursues it all the way to conclusion after gripping conclusion.

Riders Of Justice is salty, violent, transgressive, button-pushing, non-PC and laugh-out-loud funny at times – and when you’re not gasping or laughing, it’s only to wonder at the mind which pulled all of this together.

No fiction could hope to match the strangeness and sadness of the truth here.

Loveling relies on the charm of its chaotic central family (an overweight son who insists on carrying a giant tuba around with him, for example) and the warmth of Teles to seduce and dazzle audiences into submission.

Nowhere Special is a tender story of a life which is ending and another which is beginning.

A courtroom drama with a committed, awards-worthy performance from Ricardo Darin, this tense, lengthy, frequently funny film stands with the best of the genre, but with added resonance.

Editing is clearly complex given the variable footage, but each emergency call and every character is successfully individualised and identifiable, and several arcs snap into the overall narrative drive.

It takes its narrative cue from the Bon Secours mother-and-baby home in Tuam, County Galway in which “significant” numbers of dead children have been discovered. Even though this is placed within a potentially-exploitative genre framework, it is still handled with sensitivity and sympathy by this latest female director to flesh out horror tropes.

The Eternal Daughter is at its most poignant when it plunges into the personal – in Swinton’s retreating mother and faltering daughter, you can sense the director’s power growing as she continues to acknowledge herself.

For all that it dances on familiar ground, Firecrackers ends on a pleasingly opaque note. It’s attractively shot by Catherine Lutes, and smartly cast with unknowns, making it more than just a calling card for its young writer/director. There’s much to take note of here foom Mozaffari and her all-female crew.

It’s a halfway house between reality and the desires and dreams and disappointments of a 40 year-old woman, and should be appreciated as such by Francophone audiences everywhere.

The shame this film provokes – or should provoke – in collective society will make it difficult and distressing viewing. And there’s no beauty to show here, despite former cinematographer Kelly’s accomplished work. There’s always love, though. If only there was more to go around.

The Lost Leonardo is one of those rare documentaries in which almost everyone involved volunteers their loose-lipped testimony, seemingly unconcerned as to the dubious light in which it may place them, and Koefoed turns it in at a snappy 96 minutes with all the bells and whistles of a doc crowd-pleaser.

The dialogue in Mank is fabulously fast, hard and quippy throughout, a real tribute to the man himself. If sometimes all that detail obscures the bigger picture, Mank is still a treat; for those looking for more, we always have Citizen Kane to fall back on, after all.

There’s a great deal of charm and humour to Paik’s work, and to this film, but it’s anchored by his perceptiveness and ability to contemplate weighty themes – and, yes, to anticipate the future.

Technically, The Goldman Case is a film to admire for all it achieves in such a structured format – emotionally, too, despite the fact the case is very particular, there is so much to engage.

Copa 71 may have a packaged air to it, but the story speaks – loudly – for itself.

Hitchcock Truffaut is of undeniable appeal to those with even a passing interest in the history of cinema. There’s nothing rarified about the air the project breathes, either – this features passionate people who have made their own iconic cinema talking about two giants of our film age with an enthusiasm which is infectious.

Full of committed performances, particularly from Elba and the impressive young actor Abraham Attah, Beasts Of No Nation is a project of considerable integrity which makes for a consistently-engrossing, if over-long, viewing experience.

Shaun exists simply to entertain children and he fulfils his brief.