Matthew Anderson

Full to the brim with sharp wit, emotional sincerity and overflowing with love, Supernova sees the star power of Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci align.

Beneath the veneer of fake tan, rippling muscles and feigned ecstasy lies a striking amount of heart, soul and sincerity of emotion.

With his first big screen endeavour, Patrick, Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants has crafted as unusual an exploration of grief and loss as you are ever likely to see.

Thompson's strikingly assured and unflinching debut pumps new life into a well-trodden genre.

Phyllida Lloyd’s strong third feature, Herself, is as much an indictment of the grinding bureaucracy failing to house and protect women abused at the hands of their partners, as it is the men who inflict such despicable physical and psychological trauma.

Sharrock’s resistance to easy answers or an easy way out is in-keeping with a tale in which the arbitrary flick of a pen, a stamp on a letter, can change someone’s life irrevocably – and yet may never come.

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.

Kaufman’s latest work, a creeping, deeply unsettling, cerebral horror of sorts, is a further addition to his challenging, thought-provoking brand of filmmaking which gets under your skin, and stays there.

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.

Following the freewheeling day to day life of dogs living on the streets of Istanbul, the initial novelty and intrigue of this extraordinary documentary broadens further to a profound meditation on how mankind treats our so-called best friends, and one another.

The First Wave stands as an honest, hard-hitting and compassionate reminder of loving thy neighbour wherever and whoever they may be.

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

Their Finest by no means reinvents the wheel but in the hands of Scherfig - who previously directed An Education - it looks wonderful, has enough substance to back up its gleaming charm and is a very enjoyable period piece that wears its heart and intentions firmly on its well starched sleeve.

With wit, grace and a sincere affection for the town of his birth, the writer-director explores the people and stories that populated his childhood.

Told with tenderness and honesty, Cicada is a treatment of trauma that does not judge or preach or take sides, but, in building to its breathless crescendo, goes to show just how much courage it takes to confront the past in order to look to the future.

Finding Dory is as entertaining, soul enriching and bittersweet as any Pixar production to date.

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.

First-time writer-director Blerta Basholli’s feature is an expertly crafted, compassionate testament to the perseverance and defiance of its courageous female collective.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a true delight.

It is told with characteristic precision, compassion and determination by its prolific director.

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.

There's something deeply unsettling about the unstoppable, magma-like flow of Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno.

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

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.

The Girl on the Train engages more than it rivets and brings goosebumps to skin more than chilling to the bone.

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

There is something reassuring and enjoyable to the familiarity of such a joyous, uplifting and uproariously funny affair and it must be said that the vocal talents of those on show is quite remarkable

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.