Matthew Anderson

Herrera’s exploration of the African diaspora in Bantú Mama does ask questions about identity, family, and the meaning of home which truly resonate.

Proceeding with a linear chronology to the present day, Castro’s Spies does justice to the long trials and many tribulations of its engaging subjects without ever flying too far off the expected route.

A challenging and very well considered inspection of familial disintegration, featuring strong performances, Human Factors is a solid entry in the Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

Rooted in the mundane, but told with an imaginative vision, flair and real composure, The Pink Cloud announces Iuli Gerbase as a new creative talent and filmmaker to watch out for.

Corbine Jr.’s debut is a lean, disconcerting and impressively shot character study. Hovering on a glimmering knife edge, there are flashes of brilliance here.

Constructed with his trademark panache, it is bold, bracing and stylish in both its aesthetics and an outstanding retro soundtrack, but as its parallel leading ladies will discover to their peril, not all that glitters is gold.

As fuzzy and reassuring as a multi-coloured Pringle sweater-vest, The Phantom of the Open is a good, old-fashioned crowd-pleaser.

A film that is chock full of insight, piercing ideas and visual metaphors that unfortunately are never fully realised.

In Abigail’s longing to see beyond the high valley walls with the kind of scope of an atlas gifted to her by Tallie, The World to Come envisages a future reality not yet visible over the horizon, but shown as the slightest glimmer of light.

It doesn’t hit the heights of former collaborations, but there’s a lot to drink in and appreciate here, and Mikkelsen’s all-dancing finale is one of the most exultant, triumphant moments in recent cinema memory.

Whishaw is utterly compelling and committed to this performance, and we watch the slow-motion car crash unfurl with mouths often agape, but Surge needs more depth to really leave a lasting mark.

Amid the allusions and collisions, jump scares and very close calls, the thrills and spills of A Quiet Place Part II are elevated by its strong performances and a director with a keen eye for this intelligent genre piece whose broad appeal makes for another sure-fire hit. Take a deep breath, and enjoy.

The extraordinary amount of footage, which moves from monochrome, to grainy colour, to vibrant turquoises as technology and time march on, is really a wonder to behold. If, wherever you are in the world, there’s the opportunity to see Playing with Sharks on the big screen, then you should, to fully experience this eye-opening, vivid documentary.

Behind the closed doors of this lakeside paradise it is clear that there’s trouble afoot.

Its woozy oddity does linger and the process of falling in and out of love may well feel like drowning. But as we come up for air in closing it must be said that the best is surely yet to come from this excellent leading pair and gifted director after this latest underwater outing.

Given its place and time, Ammonite’s coldness is perhaps apt, but its stiff upper lip may well not do enough to make yours quiver, either.

With a lot of filler and none of the killer questions that are crying out to be asked, The Lost Sons leaves a lot unsaid. Take a step back from the effect of the shocking material, and the by-the-numbers construction of the film makes it too formulaic to leave a lasting impact.

The metaphors of colonial history, the subjugation of women and Aboriginal peoples, vicious social ills and a nation’s hidden guilty past are all alluded to. But their treatment in The Legend of Molly Johnson are not developed to the extent needed to leave the lasting gut punch, and change of consciousness, this admirable project could have achieved.

The Mauritanian is not the film it could, and really should, have been.

There are just too many jumps to make and spaces to fill to fully believe this fantastical obsession.

Trouble lurks around every corner, and the narrative does keep us guessing, but this limits any sincere indictment of the apparently irresolvable us-and-them conflict. An arresting, often edge-of-your-seat action film, then, but not the enduring La Haine-inspired inspection of societal ills that it could have been.

The pacing and lack of incident may detract from the overall emotional investment we have for Horvát’s latest, but in its construction of a murky intrigue, composed visual style and Stork’s exceptional performance, there’s enough to make the journey home to Budapest a worthwhile visit.

Chief in CODA’s achievements are the dynamics of the very close unit at its core. Coming away from the film, there is the sense that this could very well be a real family.

A lacklustre, clichéd and at times wholly unbelievable film.

Though the slow, blurry-edged stupor of Shirley will not be to everyone’s tastes, it cannot be denied that it examines its subject, and a rather tired genre, with feverish, dreamlike fluidity rather than rigid biography. That, and Moss’ enthralling lead performance, are Shirley’s chief accomplishments.

The US-born, Kenyan-raised director’s feature-length debut is told with honesty, determination and grace.

The moral ambiguities and questions of legacy, friendship, family and integrity in Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor are the strongest points of an ambitious, punishing addition to a long line of films to explore the inner workings of the Cosa Nostra.

It’s a valiant call to arms, a beacon of defiance, but one that could have burned more violently than it ultimately does.