Peter Bradshaw

Graduation is an intricate, deeply intelligent film, and a bleak picture of a state of national depression in Romania, where the 90s generation hoped they would have a chance to start again. There are superb performances from Titien and Dragus.

With great style and technical bravura, the film takes us on a fairground ride, running on rails right up to the final question.

Well, Caine and Jackson and their ineffable class give this film some real grit: it’s a wonderful last hurrah for Jackson and there is something moving and even awe-inspiring in seeing these two British icons together.

It is a movie which teeters perpetually on the verge of hallucination, with hideous images and horrible moments looming suddenly through the fog; its movement is largely inward and downward, into a swamp of suppressed abuse memories which are never entirely pieced together or understood – even as the sickeningly violent action continues.

It is a film with a sledgehammer punch.

The film is unafraid of emotion, unafraid of plunging into basic human ideas: the need for trust, and the search for love.

It’s not clear if it’s funny or tragic, if it’s reality TV or reality itself. But Boys State is as exciting and moving as Steve James’s high school basketball epic Hoop Dreams was a generation ago, with its emotional rawness, its guileless patriotism and capacity for hurt and wonder.

Nadia is shown always surrounded by crowds, almost crushed by them. But her utter loneliness is heartbreaking.

It is a movie packed with wonderful vehemence and rapture: it has a yearning to do justice to this existential adventure and to the head-spinning experience of looking back on Earth from another planet.

Getting the extraordinary physical specimen of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the lead was a stroke of genius and a stroke of fortune. Each of his pecs is the size of a bull’s flank. It is a tremendous black-comic performance and, without Schwarzenegger, the movie is of course unthinkable.

A Simple Life is a tear-jerker, but thoughtful and intelligent, with an anti-sentimental dimension.

The Last Jedi gives you an explosive sugar rush of spectacle. It’s a film that buzzes with belief in itself and its own mythic universe – a euphoric certainty that I think no other movie franchise has. And there is no provisional hesitation or energy dip of the sort that might have been expected between episodes seven and nine.

The Children Act is concerned with love, intimacy and moral responsibility and it is refreshing to see a movie which sets itself standards of this sort. But there is also something a little too neat in the way all these things are wrapped up. Emma Thompson’s performance, so elegant and vulnerable, carries the picture.

DiCaprio’s performance is excellent; his Romeo is transformed and astonished by the real thing; he has play-acted at love until now, and he hasn’t realised how vulnerable it would make him. Danes looks more mature than he does (though in fact six years younger) and she is such a smart, stylish player, even at this age. The Luhrmann R+J is a tonic and a delight.

It has a claim to be the last movie with the authentic spirit of the Ealing comedies; although with a longer perspective we can also see how it’s also indirectly influenced by producer David Puttnam in its high-minded spirit of Anglo-American amity.

The Exorcist is diabolically inspired: it’s still capable of making you jump and yelp.

This is an absorbing story, acted with superlative delicacy and maturity by Chastain and Sarsgaard.

It is elegantly shot and very well acted. A definite frisson.

Fallen Leaves is another of Kaurismäki’s beguiling and delightful cinephile comedies, featuring foot-tapping rock’n’roll. It’s romantic and sweet-natured, in a deadpan style that in no way undermines or ironises the emotions involved and with some sharp things to say about contemporary politics.

The most distinctive things about the film are possibly Caron's personae-montage at the beginning, which showcases her virtuoso dance moves, and the final fantasy sequence, which resolves (a little hurriedly) the emotional obstacles to their love. An exotically contrived romance.

Trainspotting is supercharged with sulphurous humour and brutal recklessness.

The excellence of Katherine Ross as Mrs Robinson’s daughter, Elaine, is often overlooked. A hugely pleasurable film.

Paul Greengrass and his cinematographer Barry Ackroyd have created an intestinally powerful and magnificent memorial to the passengers of that doomed flight. It is the film of the year. I needed to lie down in a darkened room afterwards. So will you.

A disappointing excursion into movie history.

Miss Kiet’s Children is a lovely film.

The transgressive threat approaches and recedes like thunder, leaving us with a study in loneliness.

Although no amount of revisionist gallantry can conceal how terrible Yoko Ono’s vocals are, this has a historical fascination as they were Lennon’s only full-length concert performances after the Beatles’ split.

What a thoroughly wonderful sophomore feature from the British director Ben Sharrock – witty, poignant, marvellously composed and shot, moving and even weirdly gripping.