Matthew Anderson

It is hard to fully articulate how, but Gunda is as much a damning meditation on the human condition as it is a glowing, thought-provoking portrayal of a mother’s love for her children, a sow’s love for her piglets.

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.

No matter what your allegiance, or feelings of antagonism toward the man for Fergie time and defeats doled out by championship-winning sides year after year, it’s impossible not to admire his dedication to the game he loves and the town that made him who he is.

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.

An expertly handled plot, interweaving lives, coincidence, past trauma and circumstance, is concerned with far more than mere bloody vengeance. Five years since the delirious oddity that was Men & Chicken, Jensen gets members of the old band back together for a thrilling, poignant film which sees writer-director and cast on top form.

For all its misdirection and confusion, Apples reaches a conclusion of unexpected emotional weight. An intelligent and clear-sighted piece of filmmaking, it is a highly accomplished first directorial outing by Nikou.

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.

Notturno is a snapshot – in a patchwork of disparate vignettes – that captures the effects of trauma inflicted on and hardships lived by the civilian population.

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.

An affectionate labour of love, cathartic yet bitterly honest, Bell and Sng’s films paints the full, unfettered picture.

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.

Humbling, awe-inspiring and frequently head-scratching, like a solar system mobile, Kahn’s film has a bewildering number of moving pieces.

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.

Testament to both the filmmakers and a great woman now seemingly at peace with her long and difficult past, Tina is a documentary well worthy of its star, an untamed, unparalleled force of nature.

Resolute, inquisitive and remarkably at ease on camera for a lad of such tender years, Alan S Kim is a star in the making.

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

Led by a tour de force performance as savage, unpredictable and frightening as the film’s titular ursine, Black Bear stars Aubrey Plaza in stellar form as a writer-director seeking inspiration, in this bamboozling psychological character study.

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.

Though physically confined to a single, overcrowded communal space inside La Maca, Night of the Kings travels well beyond its bars and high walls, soaring far and wide with spirit, invention and imagination.

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.

Overshadowed at the time and since, Summer of Soul brings the Harlem Cultural Festival and a pivotal point in American history into the light.

An impressive, lingering debut from Hall, Passing exists as a fragile, precious, impossible reverie within a snow globe that could shatter at any moment.

Blurring traditional boundaries of documentary with rich, beautiful animation in many shades and colours, the Danish director has a great deal invested in telling this story.

A galling, distressing but enthralling documentary.