Patrick Gamble

Truly one of the most emotionally devastating films to have ever graced the big screen, Au Hasard Balthazar is an exemplary example of Bresson’s art that transcends its symbolic reverie to Christianity to become an eloquent prayer for the potential power of cinema to truly move us.

Capturing the agony and ecstasy of young love, Call Me by Your Name is a major addition to the queer cinema canon - a deeply felt movie that's bittersweet, tender and true.

Hard to Be a God is a cinematic behemoth, an unshakable monochrome nightmare of squelching bodily discharges that inhabits a world so noxious you can almost smell the pungent deterioration of humanity as it spews forth from the screen.

Endlessly thought-provoking, the disturbing nature of this quite incredible work cultivates a long-lasting sense of unease in the viewer and achieves what all good documentaries aim to do – it remains firmly lodged in you mind and refuses to loose its terrible grip.

Three Colours: White brings Kieślowski back to his Polish roots and explores issues of equality through nationality and the fragile dynamic of marriage.

An exceptional film anchored by love and set alight with the unpredictability of mental health, this is a must for Cassavetes fans and newcomers alike.

A fluent, confident and deeply felt work by an astute chronicler of life, Things to Come considers the fragility of ideas when exposed to the eroding force of time in beautifully humane fashion.

At just over three-hours, So Long, My Son is an emotionally wrenching film that’s epic in scope but intimate in feeling.

Like delving into a cold cave of human emotion, Three Colours: Blue is the jewel in the crown of Kieślowski’s trilogy – a fascinating examination of freedom, sorrow and identity, and perhaps one of the most necessary films of contemporary French cinema.

Poetic realism for a digital age, Tangerine also shares a lot of qualities with the cinema of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. There's no cheap manipulation here and Baker's characters never come across as victims.

Powerfully conveying a longing for escape from ordinary life, Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still is a strangely alluring, four-hour portrait of the disillusionment and hollow sense of emptiness experienced by those living in a society marked by violent individualism.

A low-key yet complex family drama, My Happy Family is a quietly devastating portrait of what it means to be a woman in a man's world.

A deeply felt personal journey, the film shifts seamlessly from unflinching realism to a poetic expression of masculinity in crisis; crossing back-and-forth across the blurred boundary that separates art and reportage to create a totally unforgettable film about the bond between people and place.

Girlhood's non-patronising and credible representation of class, race and gender is a rare and perceptive illustration of the intricacies of social inequality.

An empathetic depiction of two marginalised ways of life; God's Own Country is a deeply felt romance that harnesses the primal relationship between people and place.

It's Coogler's confrontational depiction of police brutality and his attempts to represent the society he aims to inspire and inform that makes Fruitvale Station such essential viewing.

As with all of Farhadi's films there's a frailty behind his characters, with their insecurities and moral dilemmas bubbling to the surface as the director slowly raises the temperature in this pressure cooker of domestic strife. Nervous editing and sinuous cinematography also give the impression that Farhadi is choreographing his stars rather than directing them.

Using comedy to chase away the despair of modern life, The Other Side of Hope is a thoroughly satisfying and distinctively lovable film.

Snowpiercer evolves steadily, growing richer with every step and slowly feeding us morsels of information - enriching this ludicrous premise with enough magic and wonder to suspend our disbelief entirely.

Tsai's Stray Dogs is a masterpiece of social-realism, a distinctive and beguiling study of society's displaced and marginalised that plays to the beat of its own drum and refuses to conform to cinema's own commodification.

The Forbidden Room (2015) is Maddin's aesthetic nearing critical mass, a whimsical, genre-spanning opus that demonstrates the totality of his enigmatic style.

Ixcanul may struggle to tackle the larger issue it posits but well represents the lives and rituals of the marginalised community it seeks to give a voice.

A formally dazzling, half-comic portrait of a community struggling against the tides of change.

While the film's mischievous narrative manipulation will inevitably irk some viewers, this beautifully rendered opportunity to view the world through the eyes of those who can no longer see is a smart and moving portrayal of living with an ocular condition.

Petzold struggles to keep hold of the reigns, wielding the effects of melodrama with little to no precision or psychological acuity, and leaving the essential romance at the heart of the story to be rendered almost entirely unbelievable.

Quillévéré has created a poignant exploration not just of death, but of life, love and fragility.

A display of dazzling and disorientating technique, this interior tale of a young girl’s mental disintegration is like falling through a hall of mirrors, with each performance reflecting and refracting a portion of Madeline’s personality as fantasy and reality become impossible to separate.

It's how the film handles grief and alienation which makes Marina's story so compelling.