Fionnuala Halligan

Jones is a marvel, really, all the more so now that time has refined and enhanced her unflagging lust for life. Fiennes delivers a documentary which captures that spirit in a way that’s cinematic and rousing.

National Bird shows that there is indeed a horrible reckoning, but it mostly comes from within. This is a personal film about guilt.

Cinematic essays take many forms: few are as fragile and contemplative as Porcelain War.

To a certain extent, Alam, which marks Khoury’s feature debut after a well-regarded career in shorts (in particular, Maradona’s Legs) follows some clear conventions, but there’s enough that is still raw and urgent at the film’s soul to make it stand out.

Jonze’s film (his first full-length feature since 2013’s Her) sits in an awkward gap between live performance and event cinema.

Newcomer Hall strikes a real presence. She’s posed a lot, it’s true – against the sun, the rust-coloured sheets of Diddi’s bedroom, the doggedly brown bar in which she works – but she’s as bright as the light of summer in Iceland, and her character seems just as likely to survive this problematic present.

A small-scale, covert glimpse of the lives led behind the headlines.

Motel Destino may not make a profound impact, but it does make an impact nonetheless.

Its running time may make it more digestible than some of Weerasethakul’s more ambitious pieces, although it straddles the line between full-feature and his short films and experimental work quite beautifully.

Wright crafts a hyper-elaborate set-up and delicate drip-feed of information which make spoilers an equal crime, but The Stranger is more of a felt experience than a traditional policier; it’s all about the hunt, not the crime.

Michell’s film is as defiantly traditional as the wallpaper which decorates the Bunton’s house.

Magaro, never allowed to explain his character, does a terrific job with internalised anguish, keeping it in check so it’s a presence in the car but not one which prevents him demonstrating his love for his kids, over and over again, in whatever way he can.

Arcevedo is certainly as preoccupied with image as he is content and it is perhaps the individual frames and tableaux which linger on past this resolutely-downbeat, emblematic story.

Strenuously heartfelt, Tick,Tick…Boom! belts it out like a pro, but increasingly feels as if it’s raising the volume to an emptying room.

The team effort of the story flows into and becomes a part of the team effort onscreen, and the fight continues.

All This Panic has a refreshingly light touch. These girls can make heavy weather of routine situations yet shoulder enormous responsibilities with grace and good humour.

Robinson is a precise, empathetic and informed speaker and a righteous man who, in sisters Emily and Sarah Kunstler’s documentary, is every teacher you might have ever wished for as a student, but who deserves a larger stage.

Sad, proud, loud, funny, energetic and affecting, Kiki the documentary reflects accurately the spirit of kiki, the scene.

It fields such a disorientating mix of styles and symbols and tonal swerves (Rupert Everett going full fruit, for example), that it’s quite a surprise that Colbert has managed to weave a structured story throughout She Will. But she has.

Soft and sweet, Kirsten Tan’s bright and airy debut is also quietly eloquent, speaking of a loss and regret.

What emerges is the story of an extremely close and profoundly charming boyhood friendship – but one where the junior partner couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put the genie of his extraordinary talent back in the bottle once his pal had coaxed it out of him.

It’s so doggedly faithful to the show, so emphatically orchestrated and so powered by Cynthia Erivo’s exceptional performance, that resistance to its 169 minutes of theme park magic becomes futile. This is a film that leaves nothing in the wings — except for an entire second act, and a sequel which has already been shot.

Long and detailed and frequently terrifying, Alex Gibney’s documentary about a 1994 massacre in a pub in Northern Ireland is investigative journalism at its rigorous best.

Childhood is a mystery we endlessly come back to and a place the Leydens have never fully left; Ní Chianáin gives the viewer an intimate view of it in this unusual little story.

Wind River can be thrilling and it owns the ability to surprise and shock throughout.

Whether it’s a self-portrait, a series of sketches, an artist who is continuously working over a painful loss, Honore’s film betrays mixed emotions that may never be resolved as he carries the losses of that time with him forever.

Lucy And Desi benefits greatly from a raft of archival footage ... Repeated montages and a schmaltzy score can lessen their effect, but Poehler has strong sense of the couple’s contribution to the entertainment industry, and nobody watching her documentary will emerge anything less than convinced of how outstanding that was.

A thoughtful and fascinating piece, it’s a game of two halves, however, with Lindeen making heavy work of modern-day footage which tends to drag on the dynamism of the past.