Ian Freer

Silent stunner.

In depicting the Johnson County War of 1892 (immigrants versus cattle barons), Michael Cimino delivers soaring ambition and scale, but always syringed with a deep sense of regret.

The filmmaking is immaculate and the emotional wallop undeniable.

Anomalisa has more heart, soul and pathos than 99.9 per cent of live-action movies. The best hotel-set love story since "Lost In Translation."

A consummate display of populist weepie-making.

Inside Out is audacious as it is silly, as funny as it is imaginative.

Although peppered with colourful, sharply drawn characters, this is Stewart's movie, instantly loveable as a small town dreamer who sacrifices everything for others. His journey to despair and back warms the cockles like little else. Enjoy it in a cinema so you can sob among others.

Audacious, retro, funny and heartfelt, La La Land is the latest great musical for people who don’t like musicals – and will slap a mile-wide smile across the most miserable of faces.

Set in the unpromising world of German business consultancy, Toni Erdmann is a low-key triumph, especially for writer-director Maren Ade and star Sandra Hüller. A weird, thoughtful, affecting treat.

Larger than life, faintly ridiculous, completely cool, Goldfinger is the quintessential James Bond movie.

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is a peach of a picture. At once miniaturist yet epic, it’s an exquisite film that touches on every human emotion – agony, ecstasy, discovery, surprise, togetherness, loneliness – without contrivance or strain.

Arguably Woody's finest, now neurotic intellectuals have a film they can cherish.

The most original film of 2021, Annette is a ride like no other, a spellbinding waltz in a storm. See it for truly hypnotic filmmaking, a clutch of great songs and Adam Driver at his most magnetic.

TÁR is a masterwork. A gripping, grown-up movie superbly orchestrated by Todd Field and perfectly played by a virtuoso, career-best Cate Blanchett. 158 minutes rarely flies by so quickly.

One Fine Morning is Mia Hansen-Løve on tip top form, drawing a fantastic lead performance from a never-better Léa Seydoux. Some flicks need a bearded assassin or ghostface killer to create drama. Hansen-Løve just needs the stuff of real life.

It's one of the most highly-wrought (indeed, overwrought) films ever made, with art direction, editing, sound effects, weird camera angles and lighting orchestrated to fill every frame with hints of the unsettling.

Of course, Scorsese delivers a stunning, gangster flick but The Irishman is so much more, a melancholy eulogy for growing old and losing your humanity. Savour every one of its 209 minutes, you won’t regret it.

So intense you’ll want to scarper but so riveting you can’t leave, Sirāt is an assault on the senses, mind and emotions. If only all movies took swings this bold.

Shot in stunning black-and-white, Mank delivers Hollywood in a multitude of greys. Built on a towering performance by Gary Oldman, it’s smart, sophisticated, by turns thrilling and difficult, and amongst Fincher’s best.

Nomadland is a Springsteen song in movie form, a beautifully rendered tale of what it means to be disenfranchised in America. Life on the road has never been so tenderly captured, politically alive and profoundly moving.

Avoiding the danger zone of mere retread, Kosinski and co deliver all the Top Gun feels and then some: slick visuals, crew camaraderie, thrilling aerial action, a surprising emotional wallop and, in Tom Cruise, a magnetic movie-star performance as comforting as an old leather jacket. Punching the air is mandatory.

Joanna Hogg delivers an object lesson in how to deliver a follow-up: deeper, funnier, more imaginative than its predecessor, The Souvenir Part II is a filmmaker working at the peak of her powers.

The movie that really showed Tom Hanks' promise as a deliverer of great comedy and heart-warming pathos.

For Sama powerfully mixes the personal and the political to thought-provoking, emotional ends. The result is one of the best documentaries of 2019.

With two astonishing child performances, Capernaum is a real heart-breaker. It can make Ken Loach look happy-go-lucky but it’s a gripping, sympathetic cry for the dispossessed.

First Cow is archetypal Kelly Reichardt, slow, small and perfectly formed, elevated by stellar but understated performances from John Magaro and Orion Lee.

Supernova is a tender two-hander that gradually crushes your heart. What it lacks in cinematic width it gains in well-earned emotional depth, courtesy of delicate writing and two subtle but towering performances from Firth and Tucci.

A made-for-TV movie that proved so remarkable it received a theatrical release (first in Europe, then 10 years later in the US), Spielberg's calling card is as distinctive a piece of visual storytelling as you're ever likely to see.

There are inconsistencies — why does a brand new house have the standard creaking door? — but the pace is so compelling that it is impossible to carp.

A striking debut from a blistering talent. What it lacks in narrative oomph it makes up for in beautiful imagery, natural performances and a worldview all its own.

A typically taciturn turn from Neeson is surrounded by a colourful cast, gallows humour and complete disrespect for cinematic stereotypes. A little bloated, maybe, but deserves kudos for joining the road not Taken.

Schrader’s best in yonks, a powerful meditation on faith’s place in the modern world. Hawke, as a kind of Travis Bickle in a dog collar, gives one of the performances of the year.

An affectionate bloody valentine to both romcoms and horror, Heart Eyes is a like a Hinge date from hell. Smart, funny, intense; swipe right.

Uneven in places, Pin Cushion nonetheless offers a moving meditation on what it feels like to be different, elevated by great work from Joanna Scanlan and newcomer Lily Newmark.

One Cut Of The Dead is a true original, a fresh take on the zombie apocalypse drama and much more besides.

Sensitively made, thought-provoking and ultimately moving, The Reason I Jump provides telling insights into the neurodiverse worldview. The result is a powerful documentary that presents life through fresh eyes.

The bizarre intersection between Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov makes for a thematically fat, ambiguous, absorbing psycho-sexual drama. It’s not for the impatient, but it’s so precise and delicate, you won’t notice the gear-changes.

Combining both the universality and specificity of Springsteen’s music, Blinded By The Light is an exuberant anthem to the importance of music, the need to be seen and the hope of new possibilities.

If it’s not top-drawer QT, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is at once an engaging buddy comedy, an intoxicating fact and fiction mash-up, gorgeous filmmaking and a valentine to the movies that delivers geek nirvana.

Finding laughs in the current global political quagmire is a tough ask. But Long Shot manages to spin a winning mixture of warm-hearted fantasy and comedic edge. And Rogen and Theron shine.

Marie Antoinette is gorgeous, giddy, gilded filmmaking.

Part mystery, part black comedy, part metaphor for loss, Patrick is a nakedly true original. It also has the best caravan fight since Kill Bill Vol. 2.

A pressure cooker of a period picture, Brooklyn 45 is a smart take on the spooky séance staple, a film where the scariest spectres are the ghosts of the past rather than any pixel-packed phantoms.

Closer to the gentle humanism of Paterson than Jarmusch’s cooler, ironic output, Father Mother Sister Brother is a small-scale and singular treat.

Young Ahmed might be major filmmakers in a minor mode, but it is still a riveting, beautifully made character study that provokes compassion and controversy in equal measures.

Song Without A Name is a true original, at once rooted in a raw emotional reality but told with the striking beauty of a dream. Writer-director Melina León is definitely one to watch.

Perhaps the most ironic title of 2021, Hope isn’t filmmaking to set the pulses racing. Instead it’s a quiet, nuanced study of how a couple who have drifted apart deal with the direst of circumstances, perfectly played by Andrea Bræin Hovig and Stellan Skarsgård.

Despite the generic title, Only You is an emotional treat, lit up by stellar charisma from Laia Costa and Josh O’Connor. And debutante Harry Wootliff is a filmmaker to watch.

Kravitz expertly flits between tension, horror, black comedy and social satire, sometimes delivering all four simultaneously. It’s a film about the abuses of power, the dangers of being a woman in a man’s world and the importance of female solidarity, but is never didactic, just gripping.

A sanitised version of Spielberg’s film, let alone Walker’s novel. But bravura musical sequences and a top-notch cast ensure smiles and tears come the end credits.

A film as much about its form as content, Madeline’s Madeline is a difficult-to-watch but heady mixture of raw emotion, big ideas and cinematic fireworks. If for no other reason, see it now to be on the ground floor at the unveiling of a new star: Helena Howard.

A kind of Ken Loach does Shirley Valentine, The Escape is not a comfortable watch. But it is a rewarding one, thanks to Dominic Savage’s forensic investigation of a disintegrating marriage and career-best work by Gemma Arterton.

Noah Baumbach’s great run continues. Sharp, fast and witty, it’s old school screwball comedy with a cool modern twist. And Greta Gerwig is a bona fide genius.

A landmark film book gets its just deserts. The cleverly curated clips are stunning and the analysis thought-provoking in this richly rewarding piece.

Anchored by another great turn from Matt Damon, The Martian mixes smarts, laughs, weird character bits and tension on a huge canvas. The result is Scott’s most purely enjoyable film for ages.

The Eight Hundred bites off more that it can chew but it consistently serves up gripping filmmaking on the biggest canvas.

Paul Andrew Williams and Neil Maskell breathe new life into a familiar one-man-army scenario. Unrelenting, no-nonsense and hard-as-nails — just like its eponymous anti-hero.

An urgent rebuke to a country losing its conscience, The Report is rigorous but riveting. And Adam Driver — once again — emerges as one of the most watchable actors working today.

A rare animated film without a shred of sentimentality but bucket-loads of heart and soul. “Stories remain in our hearts all our lives,” Parvana’s father tells her. The Breadwinner is testament to that.

It is perhaps not top-notch Haneke but Happy End is an intermittently gripping film about loveless people in a joyless world. They could all do a lot worse than go on holiday with the characters from Paddington 2.

A modest, taut nailbiter. It lets itself down in the final third, but for the most part Oxygen leaves you gasping for air. And Mélanie Laurent, in practically every frame, is terrific.

It might lack the edge of Godard’s own movies but this courses with love for cinema, creativity, youth, Paris and ’60s cool. Film history is rarely this charming.

An intimate, if unanalytical, portrait of one of movies greatest talents, told in her own words and through an adroitly assembled use of fantastic home movie footage. It’s also probably your only chance to see a Hollywood icon win a sack race.

Filmworker is an absorbing, important portrait of both a genius at work and the man behind the scenes who made the magic possible, whatever the cost to himself.

It comes on like an Unsolved Disappearance Movie but American Woman morphs into something more interesting, a portrait of a woman gradually finding her place in the world. And Sienna Miller is stellar.

Don’t confuse it with Russell Crowe staring out of a window. After a patient build-up, Les Misérables becomes a Molotov cocktail of a movie, tense, explosive and urgent. A powerful fiction debut from documentarian Ladj Ly.

With its moody heroine, sex and reliance on talk it would be easy/stupid to dismiss Let The Sunshine In as oh so French, but Claire Denis’ most conventionally entertaining film is a delight. And it’s yet another reminder Juliette Binoche is an international treasure who should be cherished.

Get Duked channels both Trainspotting and Deliverance to create a scattershot shotgun-blast of gags, gore and bedlam. Winningly performed by its young cast, it’s a (laminated) calling card for director Ninian Doff.

Mike Cheslik’s Hundreds Of Beavers is that rare thing in the current film landscape: a genuine cult classic.

Part political drama, part history lesson, part gripping spy thriller, Coup 53 gives what has been relegated to a small footnote in Iran’s story the big, expansive, dramatic treatment it deserves.

Roger Moore’s third outing as Bond is undoubtedly his best.

Never reaching the heights of Malick’s ’70s heyday (what does?), Song To Song represents some kind of return to form following Knight Of Cups. It won’t convert the unconvinced, but it is beautiful, melancholic, audacious and well-played, a refinement rather than reinvention of a singular filmmaker.

Even if it hits well-worn beats, Come As You Are still shines a light on the oft-ignored sexual wants and needs of the disabled community, with humour, empathy and poignancy.

Don’t Look Up takes the pulse of contemporary life and finds it crazy, scary and, most of all, funny. It doesn’t all land but enough does to make it a sharp, bold, star-studded treat.

A smart riposte to the ’hood drama stereotype. Dope is funny, stylish and mostly exuberant fun.

Small-scale and slow, The Kindergarten Teacher works best as a showcase for the brilliance of Maggie Gyllenhaal. Adding another complex character to her resume, it’s another reminder she is among the best actors working today.

Anchored by a superb Gemma Arterton, Their Finest is a funny, winning, beautifully acted ode to working women and cinema.

Ray & Liz is undoubtedly a difficult watch, a searing portrait of a family that has come apart at the seams. But, creating an astute sense of atmosphere and detail that come together to make meaning, Richard Billingham marks himself out as a filmmaker to watch.

Jia’s grip slackens slightly at the end but, especially in its middle section, Ash Is Purest White is engrossing, surprising and affecting, held together by a towering performance from Tao – her gaze alone should carry a licence to kill.

Styx is a gripping sea adventure that mixes thrills and spills with thoughtfulness and compassion. The MVP here is Wolff, who superbly etches emotional disintegration alongside amazing physical prowess.

This is Steve McQueen’s most accessible film to date, without diluting any of his power. Mixing epic sweep with textured detail, despite an episodic second half it will make even the stiffest upper lip quiver.

Deyn is a revelation in a difficult but rewarding take on Scottish rural life. The most English of directors has done a Scottish classic proud.

Beautifully played — especially by Wang Jingchun — So Long, My Son is sprawling, audacious, sometimes bewildering, ultimately moving. It tests your patience but it’s worth it.

Scorsese is the Bob Dylan of cinema – poetic, truthful, idiosyncratic – and Rolling Thunder, despite some longueurs, is an important document of a major artist – by a major artist.

Belfast is exactly the kind of film that wins an audience award at a festival — highly entertaining and beautifully done without ever being innovative or challenging, finding the universal in the specific, the upbeat in dire circumstances. Slight but winning.

Claire Oakley has created a vivid sensory experience out of limited means. Make Up is anything but cosmetic — it gets right under the skin.

Anchored by great performances from Liam Neeson and especially Lesley Manville, Ordinary Love is alive to the feelings and moments other hospital dramas overlook. Its accumulation of details form a shattering whole.

Director Bong’s on song for his dark debut. A little rough around the edges, Barking Dogs Never Bite still delivers the blackest comedy lightened by some thrilling filmmaking, a clear calling card for Parasite. Caninophiles beware.

Place your faith in Saint Maud. Original, unsettling and surprisingly moving, it’s a strong calling card for filmmaker Rose Glass and actor Morfydd Clark.

It’s a potentially mid-’90s B-movie premise, but director Patrick Vollrath and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt keep it taut, tense and classy. Just a shame it doesn’t stick the landing.

A beautifully argued parable about the need to go where life takes you, Darius Marder’s debut thrives on the soul of Riz Ahmed and the bold creativity of sound designer Nicholas Becker. Together they make Sound Of Metal sing.

1666 mostly operates in a different register than 1994 and 1978, but is no less entertaining. It rounds off an ambitious triptych chock-full of horror-history allusions, strong world-building, sharp scares, palatable gore, lively filmmaking and a likeable set of characters. Other scary-movie franchises take note.

If nothing else, Radical Dreamer is a never-ending stream of great anecdotes.

The timelines fuzzy (it’s difficult to discern when she actually left movies behind) and other personal details are scant, but what shines through is the obvious affection between interviewer and subject. It’s a rapport that engenders an engrossing, conversational tribute to a mostly unsung great.

It’s a visceral experience; part survivalist drama, part slash-and-stalk thriller, filled with intensity and dread, all amplified by wild editing strategies (flash cuts, jump cuts, abrupt cuts to black) and strobe effects to stoke up the atmosphere.

Subject acknowledges sensitivities are shifting but also pointedly makes clear, for the damaged souls here, they didn’t change quick enough.

It might be a minor work from a major filmmaker but François Ozon’s remix of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic has its pleasures, chiefly strong performances across the board, especially from Isabelle Adjani and the immense Denis Ménochet, embodying the German maverick without ever descending into impersonation.

Like Talk To Her, it doesn’t completely satisfy when it comes time to resolve its intrigue. But, as with their debut, the Philippou brothers show a real skill for creating believable teen characters, Barratt and Wong create a tender, affecting chemistry that make the chills all the more affecting.