Matthew Anderson

Its lasting resonance and wider humanitarian message is diluted by a second half that drags it down.

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.

Its spontaneity and uncertain evolution are both gripping and slightly terrifying given that what becomes a quest for truth could just as likely see its subjects killed or imprisoned as set free.

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.

The pacing of Meyers' film sometimes drags a little but like a slow-moving training heading for the end of the line we can see the danger ahead and are powerless to prevent it. This frustration, and a gripping central performance, make My Friend Dahmer a film you can't pull your eyes away from.

It will keep you guessing, thoroughly entertained and engaged for the best part of three hours.

Though it may not stray too far off a well-beaten track, Marley Morrison’s feature debut Sweetheart is a sure-fire crowd pleaser that showcases a young filmmaker and cast with real promise.

The superb editing of news footage, the home video recording of the King beating and a dizzying amount of imagery from the heart of darkness during the riots throws us into the unfolding disturbances with minute-by-minute immediacy.

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.

Riccobono neither condemns nor sympathises, maintaining a commendable neutrality, as his subjects frank testimony paves the way to jail cells.

A United Kingdom is a solid, competently made and gorgeously photographed film, but its exploration of complex issues - race, gender, politics and affairs of state - feels rather safe throughout, their full impact and import somewhat dialled back.

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.

It's a gem of a film to be cherished by one and all.

Fares' film doesn't ever quite hit the same high-octane levels as its petrol head subjects but it is nevertheless a very unusual and encouraging representation of social change, defiance and self-determination.

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

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 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.

A documentary that poses more questions that it answers can intrigue and beguile but there are vast areas in We Are X left crying out for further exploration.

Provocative, despicably playful, and consistently punishing, stitched into the skin of the writer-director’s latest film are a multitude of issues relating to Covid-19 and the anxieties of lockdown, the fragility of our environment, the brutality and arrogance of mankind, and our inability to recognise or truly understand the power of the natural world, or indeed ourselves.

[Miles Teller] does dogged, unerring determination very well and makes Younger's film an engaging rollercoaster ride.

A lacklustre, clichéd and at times wholly unbelievable film.

The pacing is methodical but breakthroughs in the case and anxious moments where all is feared lost generate real tension.

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.

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.

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

The Violators bravely paints a vicious circle without pulling any punches and shows real promise in a new female British filmmaker.

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

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.