Fionnuala Halligan

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

Its sly irony is muffled by a convoluted, fatally tedious plot.

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.

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.

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.

The spirit king of the Greek Weird Wave has produced a profoundly puzzling, dizzyingly disturbing and dark-hearted set of loosely-connected stories which manage to be discordantly amusing and strangely exhilarating – a cinematic salt-rub.

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

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.

It’s a film with considerable heart and, in Nighy and Ward, the Tinker Bell sparkle of the true film-star.

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.

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

It’s seductive, fragmented, involving.

It’s just so hard to buy into Spaceman.

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

Zimbalist’s film is all about the highs: at no point will it dig deep. There is zero sense of perspective past the obvious.

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.

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

The funniest thing to come out of Belfast since [fill in the blank if you can], Kneecap is a riot which strains let’s-form-a-band film tropes (they’re the ‘shit Beatles’ via The Commitments), stirs in some Monty Python, sucks up the Young Offenders in all its shell-suited glory and blows it out at audiences in a blast of two-fingered audaciity.

Making his debut, writer-director Josh Margolin combines acuity and playfulness in a funny action-drama whose spirit animal is Mission: Impossible.

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.

Rogue One’s Edwards delivers a film which is reliably visually inventive even when the familiarity of the narrative can make it feel oddly stale.

It is a nicely-packaged, technically-proficient production that stands out due to its timing, certainly, but also for the power and personality of the female comedians interviewed by the directors.

Between the highs-and-lows of razzle-dazzle couture there a substantial film here, and a frank portrait of a damaged, evasive man trying to come to terms with what he has done.

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 is a unique story, told in a distinct way.

Fennell is in that kind of blow-it-all-up mode, and the result is a spikily entertaining, narratively rackety ride led by a formidable Barry Keoghan in devil-may-care mode.

Their marriage was unequal, and so is the film, but Maestro is honest about the larger-than-life flaws of its central character, and Cooper is impressive in the role.

The man himself and the machine tend to become confused in a swirl of dark glasses and wet raincoats in a production-perfect Italy of the late 1950s.