Jonathan Romney

The film imaginatively uses a presumably tight budget to claustrophobic advantage.

Into what might have been an alienating, hard-edged setting, human warmth comes from some relishably muted performances.

Polanski and the supremely genre-savvy Assayas know exactly what they’re doing, and whenever you think you’ve seen it all before, you realise they’re actually doing something else entirely – the film is an expertly navigated maze of misdirection.

It’s a dazzlingly executed, hugely enjoyable act of stylistic homage, but also the poignant story of a dysfunctional marriage and an insightful recreation of a critical and contradiction-ridden period of modern French history.

Rather than a chic bagatelle, this proves an acutely intelligent, finely acted and – despite its cerebral edge - emotionally rich piece.

This is a ruthlessly controlled drama that achieves its powerful effect by holding back when its dramatic content is most intense.

Okja is fun, if sometimes over-egged, as an adventure romp, but flounders in overstatement when it comes to satirical intent.

Liu Jian’s animation Have a Nice Day is at once a bloodthirsty genre thriller; a political statement about China, globalization and capitalism; and a vibrantly witty piece of postmodern pop art.

The film is undoubtedly a tour de force, not least by the two actors, who essentially play several characters - or at least, multiple aspects of the two lovers - and who both audaciously shed inhibitions in a film that is at times as exposing sexually as it is psychologically.

The film’s most considerable achievement, however, is to sustain its drama on a finely poised level of emotional intimacy, while sometimes hitting us with intense imagistic charges, not least the graphic slaughterhouse scenes at the start.

The most enjoyable film yet from a director whose conceptual seriousness has often seemed daunting.

Unimpeachably honest intentions and a solid, laid-back lead performance by star Reda Kateb mean that at least the film won’t be derided as Django Untuned.

Effectively a chamber piece spiked with musings on the difficulty of art, the piece is by nature a little stagey as well as talky.

Baden Baden is an intimate, at times seemingly whimsical narrative that appears to drift almost free-associatively from episode to episode. But it’s unified by a distinctive humour and intelligence, crisp visuals, and Richard’s intensely charismatic presence.

When the film shifts into territory less Hitchcockian than Lynchian – with a touch of Park Chan-wook’s Asian Gothic – the quiet confidence of Kurosawa’s approach has paid off, allowing him to vault into this more intense register. It’s not all just ghoulish fun, though: there’s a serious subtext here involving everyday evil.

Even if The Untamed comes perilously close to sabotaging itself at times, this generic tightrope walk is a ferociously individual, highly intelligent piece and a superb, very affecting cast ensure that the human factor remains dominant, however creepily inhuman things may become at times.

Amalric, these days persuasively settling into scuffed middle-aged roles, is effective as ever, but still maintains an anxious look; while Roy’s sometimes ethereal presence strikes a forceful but delicate note as a woman who is at once facing a mystery and who is at the same time a mystery herself.

Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd.

At once over-repetitive and less surprisingly digressive than some of his other films, The Woman Who Left may not represent Diaz at his absolute peak, but it’s a powerful, thoughtful melodrama that pulls you into its world and delivers a number of irresistible emotional coups.

Frantz is arguably one of the straightest films Ozon has made – in both the dramatic and the sexual senses – but his complex sensibilities and fine-tuned irony are very evident in a mature work that transcends genre pastiche to be intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying.

Larraín’s highly varied visual invention and command of complex structure serve as a reminder of how vitally an imaginative director can skew what otherwise might have emerged in more mainstream colours.

To say that Dominik’s film touches on a raw nerve is an understatement, but the film, dedicated to the memory of Arthur, is revealing both about these musicians’ creative processes, and about questions of mourning, trauma and emotional survival

Co-scripted by Céline Sciamma, director of Water Lilies and Girlhood, Being 17 manifestly benefits from her insight into the problems of young people searching for their social and sexual identities; this, combined with Téchiné’s controlled vision and superb direction of actors, makes the new film a quietly potent proposition.

This debut feature by French director Clément Cogitore has a highly suggestive philosophical agenda, but at the same time functions as a gripping, subtly eerie drama which keeps you guessing even while it maintains its supernatural (or theological) undertow simmering beneath the surface.

Low-key in mood, Daniel Burman’s film adeptly balances character-driven drama, picaresque street humour and quasi-documentary content, depicting a milieu that will feel intriguingly unfamiliar even to viewers who think that cinema has shown them every possible angle of Jewish life.

While the urgency of the message emerges powerfully, the details are often hard to absorb, as Gibney skips from political information to technical specs.

The young cast, from the newbie leads to an army of go-for-it extras, are terrific, and Marillier is something else – ferociously expressive in a performance that’s no-holds-barred on every front.

This is partly a consummate figures-in-a-landscape study, with characters – and their accompanying mules - often merging into the vastness of a varied, but usually profoundly, inhospitable landscape. But the cast makes striking use of non-professionals, and Laxe has an unerring eye for faces that tell a story.