Simon Crook

Beneath Garrel’s unassuming, subdued style lies a deceptively powerful study of fidelity, lensed in stark, moody monochrome and featuring a compelling screen debut from Louise Chevillotte.

Delivering knockout action and political punch, this blazing siren of a B movie imagines America at civil war with vicious force. Sequel, please.

A gruelling, nightmarish, ferociously vivid riot epic that recreates one of the darkest chapters in American history. Unflinching, unmissable and terrifyingly pertinent.

Serra’s sad, stately, haunting addition to the slow-cinema genre doubles up as both an intimate study of the Sun King’s death and a requiem for Europe’s fading arthouse scene.

In a year of Bad Moms, Bad Santas and Bad Neighbours, this is, essentially, Bad Employees: another irresponsible-adults comedy, another great cast, and another erratic script. Catch it for McKinnon.

A lean, mean scare-machine, and a surprise contender for horror of the year. Seek it out. Then, for God’s sake, buy a bedside lamp.

Merrily gruesome black comedy.

The sheer terror of Meru Peak, the mountain-climber’s ultimate nemesis, is confronted in a vertiginous, breath-stealing video diary. Book a back seat at the big screen, and don’t look down.

Director Hui shows a different side to Hong Kong cinema in a tender drama that's illuminated by the marvellous Ip.

If it all ends in cornball reconciliation, the dumb, fuzzy smile it leaves suggests it’s well earned.

There's more than a nod to King Hu's Touch Of Zen as Zhangke unleashes a four-fisted chunk of ultraviolent fury. Tarantino would approve.

You don't watch it, you survive it. A battering experience, and the hardest Brit horror in years.

Grand in scope, the best thing here is still Sir Ben Kingsley's central performance; the film will always deserve to be seen for this alone.

An indecently entertaining trashfest.

The plywood acting’s pretty funny, as is the coy sex; what amazes is the beautifully lurid, near-fetishistic set design.

Hughes has made funnier (Ferris Bueller) and better (Pretty In Pink), but this is the only one you could get away with calling iconic. Good and bad, it's still the definitive '80s teen movie - and, to paraphrase Simple Minds - don't you forget about it.