John Bleasdale

This is not just a biopic, or a bunch of worthies singing the praises of the King of Rock and Roll and hoping thereby to get a dribble of the blue suede limelight. Rather, it is a thought experiment, an argument, an essay in the true sense of that word, which is truly revealing.

This Is Congo is an angry film, yet one which is never blinded by its anger. McCabe offers no solutions – the UN Peacekeeping Force are rounded on at one point by furious locals – and no grounds for optimism. Yet even in its attempts to understand and to communicate that understanding, there is a defiance against the easy fallback of despair.

There’s nary a memorable shot in the whole film. As for Ehrenreich’s performance, it’s honestly difficult to tell how good he is. Remarkably for a film called Solo, with so many characters each one nibbling at the scenes, he hardly has room to shine.

Deladonchamps and Lacoste make for engaging leads and there is warmth and humour here too.

A quietly devastating portrayal of family and theft in contemporary Japan.

Yomeddine is an accomplished appeal for empathy and an entertaining journey of discovery.

Everything seems designed to disturb or perhaps infuriate the viewer.

Border is a piece of modern gothic, a far out midnight movie which delivers on the WTF-ery while maintaining a surprisingly big and generous heart.

Mitchell’s third film feels like a script that was locked in a drawer after numerous rejections but now can be brought out and pushed through with clout earned from the success of It Follows.

This is the refined work of an artist at the peak of his powers, and, dare we say it, a masterpiece.

After all is said and done, ‘The House that Lars Built’ is an impressive construction for an obnoxious purpose. In fact, the best criticism comes from Talking Heads and their song Psycho Killer: “You’re talking a lot but you’re not really saying anything.”

Cosmatos’ Mandy matches Cage grimace for grimace and achieves, at times, a transcendent midnight madness.

Panahi keeps everything as softly spoken as his own onscreen presence and yet some of those quiet observations are devastating.

Ash Is Purest White is a fascinating chapter in Jia’s ongoing chronicle of ordinary lives affected by unprecedented change in China.

It might be that the actor Dano baulks at taking the scissors to any of the performances of his fellow thespians, or that screenwriters Dano and Zoe Kazan are too faithful to Richard Ford’s source novel but this results in a deadening of effect that renders the melancholy monotonous.

Sweet Country is a hoarsely angry film, a powerful denunciation of the racism and violence on which modern Australia was eventually founded.

Other than a sinking feeling, there’s not much else The Chamber is going to give you.

It's triumph is its determined optimism, even if it admits that is probably a fantasy. It's a tale of the fallen who, like Moonee's favourite tree, keeps on growing regardless.

As with Kaufman's own stunts, it's difficult to know what to take seriously.

Blade Runner 2049 is not a perfect film. The pace occasionally puts the plod in the procedural and some story elements are introduced only to drift away to the land of possible sequels. But Villeneuve has created a genuinely thoughtful piece of sci-fi which escapes the gravitational pull of its inspiration to become something - to paraphrase Dr. Eldon Tyrrell - more Blade Runner than Blade Runner.

There's a lot that's wonderful about Andrei Konchalovsky's Holocaust drama Paradise and yet there's something fundamentally wrong with the film.

The Leisure Seeker is dry-eyed even at its most moving and a celebration of love even as it reaches its end.

It is difficult to work out what to dislike most about Victoria and Abdul: the literal foot-licking or the cliché-ridden plot, but the greatest shame is the waste of a genuinely fascinating piece of history and a world-class Judi Dench performance.

It's as if Wiseman has taken his cue from the old style librarians and has wanted to give a portrait of a community but without the inevitable noise that goes with it, issuing one long "shhhhhhhhh".

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a multi-layered piece with such swathes of great dialogue that it will no doubt reward - if not demand - multiple viewings. It's also another item of evidence pointing toward a filmmaker getting into his stride.

With its epic scale and global reach, Human Flow is a powerful testament to a shameful crime against humanity.

Yes, it is pretentious. But pretension is also about ambition and this is cinema that is willing to kick out the lights.

Clooney only shows flashes of comic moxy, and everything is drowned in a now tiresome fetishizing of the 1950s aesthetic, with gizmos and supermarkets, office furniture and hairdos glossily remade.