Matt Glasby

Extraordinary in form, ‘ordinary’ in content, Boyhood is ambitious, intimate and unforgettable. It might just be the apex of Linklater’s life’s work.

What emerges is as riveting as it is revelatory.

A film to make your blood run cold, Nemes’ first-person account of life, and death, in a concentration camp contains horrors you can’t – and shouldn’t – unsee.

A horror film that will haunt your waking hours for weeks. Every frame of It Follows is stamped with nameless dread.

Running from entertaining to tense as hell, Layton’s docu-drama heist flick grapples with something that most capers can’t even begin to compute: consequences.

Dastmalchian shines as Delroy, mugging to the studio audience as things spiral out of control, all the while rubbing his hands that he has managed to create the TV event of the decade. And along the way, the filmmakers pull off some rather nasty surprises.

Wiser, sadder but very much alive and kicking, T2 is a film that knows you can’t compete with the ghosts of the past. But at least you can dance with them.

Intelligent, original and committed, it’s also a little meandering. But Records cuts a strikingly amoral figure, and the sight of Christopher Lloyd intoning poetry over dying embers reminds us what a wonderful actor he is.

The best sci-fi trilogy you’ve never seen amalgamated into one organic whole. Surprising, exciting and, at times, strangely beautiful.

Too slow for the mainstream, perhaps, this presents a disgusted worldview thats painstakingly plausible, however much we may wish differently.

Cool as you like one second, camp as Christmas the next, this entertainingly overpumped action-horror will have genre fans (and their mums) grinning from ear to ear.

Sheridan directs as well as writes for the first time, and delivers a superb thriller with a powerful chill that gets in your bones. Smart, tense and soulful.

A modest, moving film, Rosewater goes to show that quiet outrage can speak as loud as any atrocity.

A brutal army thriller that feels like the truth, thanks to take-no-prisoners storytelling and a tell-no-lies performance from Jack O’Connell.

Bloom’s an extraordinary character, expertly played, and we gradually move from admiring her chutzpah to genuinely caring what happens to her.

Original, engrossing and extremely confrontational, The Tribe treads the dark path between misery porn and masterpiece.

Cleverly making the most of the quiet-LOUD-quiet-LOUD dynamics of most horror films, the sound is the real star.

Like Tonya on the ice, this vicious black comedy is lean, mean and hard to take your eyes off.

A moving morality tale set in a world rarely seen in western cinema, Metro Manila is an underdog drama that feels as authentic as it is original.

The result is so far-fetchedly entertaining it feels like a fantasist’s fevered imaginings. Which, in a way, it is.

Gently joyous, from soup to nuts. Take your grandparents and they’ll enjoy it as much as you.

Exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure – a decent approximation of how the characters feel – Mommy puts us through every setting on the emotional wringer.

Submit to Corbet’s vision and you’ll find something original and unsettling.

Ends up an impressive addiction drama. Stay with it and it’ll stay with you.

Slasher smarts with guts and heart. Town is no Scream but it’s still one of the most entertaining, enterprising remakes in recent memory.

Benson and Moorhead’s sophisticated sci-fi/horror features minimal SFX but more ideas than a TED talk. Uncanny, and uncannily good.

Wingard and Barrett’s surprise – and surprisingly strong – sequel earns its scares. An effective follow-up to a film that can’t be matched.

Entertaining, engrossing and at times genuinely unnerving, Bruckner’s bad trip is one for horror fans to relish.