Simran Hans

What could have been a disaster in the hands of a less sensitive film-maker ends up an extraordinary feat of care, collaboration and creativity.

As far as the plot is concerned, almost nothing happens, and yet Andreas Fontana’s sinewy debut teems with unseen threat. He crafts an atmosphere of grubbiness despite all the polished surfaces.

A more conventional director might have chosen to focus on their most famous member, Reed, but Haynes smartly structures the film as a group show, giving space to the women in the ensemble.

Genre convention means it’s a foregone conclusion that this mission is not, in fact, “impossible”, but director Christopher McQuarrie cleverly controls the ticking clock quality that makes these films so much fun.

Inviolata is Italian for “unspoiled”, and the word could apply to its people as much as their straw-gold land.

There’s lots to love here, not least the animation itself, which uses split screens, Ben-Day dots and onomatopoeic text that mimic the tactile experience of reading physical comics – panels, hatching and primary colours intact and ready to leap off the page.

At times, it feels as though we’re watching something we’re not supposed to be seeing, such is the detail of the emotional degradation on show; in this sense, it’s impossible not to read it as something of a nihilistic suicide note.

For a movie about the undead, Japanese director Shin’ichirô Ueda’s horror comedy is certainly lively.

[A] sensitive, frequently harrowing observational documentary.

This one hits its stride somewhere in the middle, bounding confidently towards its hopeless, poetic conclusion.

Though it’s filmed like a romance, the moment feels captured, not staged.

What’s so invigorating is the way she gives each principle equal weighting, discussing her formal decisions, such as Cléo’s editing or the tracking shots that move right to left in 1985’s Vagabond, with the same intensity and enthusiasm as her more existential motivations (she describes her 1965 summer bummer classic Le Bonheur as “a beautiful summer peach with a worm inside”).

The film works as a collage of everyday moments that dovetail seamlessly between the sublime and the banal. Indeed in its most mesmerising scenes, the alchemy of duration and focus elevates these moments to something more profound.

Hall emphasises the moral grey area by shooting in black and white, an ingenious choice that allows her to light Clare as black or white.

No-nonsense beekeper Hatidze Muratova’s face is as weathered and craggy as the cliff face we see her scaling at the start of this gripping, Sundance-winning documentary.

Valadez’s expressionist images give texture to the abstract emotions of rage and pain.

Wilde expertly modulates the giddy highs and bittersweet lows of being a teenager, as demonstrated in the way the film’s house party climax crests and then crashes.

The sense of the watering hole as a haven for lost souls – not to mention the threat of gentrification to civic space – couldn’t be more vérité.

The ensemble cast electrifies Powers’s dialogue, jockeying between black power and integration, activism and commerce, spiritual clarity, pork chops and sex.

The film’s message is a beautiful one: to integrate our real-life vulnerabilities with the persona we project is to become all the more powerful.

Fascinatingly, in this world there are only fascists, making the film’s looming riot police feel like a real and relevant threat.

Crawford is brilliant and bitter as a soon-to-be divorced dad unable to accept his fate.

Talbot’s film is not perfect. A scene set to Joni Mitchell’s Blue makes its point awkwardly, and the narrative, like its characters, is prone to meandering. Yet as a film about place and personal mythology, it’s hugely moving.

Stokes is a fascinating, elusive protagonist – she was a recluse who enjoyed daily martinis and felt a kinship with Steve Jobs. Yet Wolf treats her archive with reverence, rather than writing her off as an eccentric.

The dilemma she presents is ethical: is it fair to ask someone to traumatise (or retraumatise) themselves for the sake of art? Rather boldly, it seems as though Decker is also asking the question of herself.

The film is shrewd on male friendship, suggesting that a lot of men are vulnerable and crave intimacy, but are often too poor at communicating to truly reach for it.

Refreshingly, Farhadi is ambivalent towards his “hero”, and his control over the film’s tone is masterful; what begins as funny and almost farcical, soon shifts into something much sadder and more sobering.

Sci-fi wipe transitions, 70s-style CinemaScope photography, a drone shaped like a UFO, and a cameo from German actor Udo Kier are clever genre flourishes that playfully deliver the film’s anticolonial politics.

Eerie images of a bloodied fingernail and long grass lit by amber floodlights signal Oakley’s sly sense of humour and eye for visual poetry.

Pollard’s decision to eschew traditional talking heads in favour of voiceover interviews allows the archive to take centre stage.

Sukhitashvili’s subtle performance brings interiority to a character who might otherwise be defined entirely by her suffering.

Though it leans on the genre beats of melodrama to occasionally clunky effect in order to mine the audience’s tears, it’s impressive how it metabolises these moments of charged emotion in order to make its wider points.

The momentum really builds in the third act, but the film’s quieter moments of contemplation are its most striking.

There are two special moments in the film.

Alternately hilarious and spine-tingling, it recalls David Lynch’s Twin Peaks in its serious, penetrating sense of doom.

The film retains a warm sense of humour about technology’s grip on society.

The film is understated rather than mawkish.

[A] tender observational documentary.

Malick links the lonely labour of working the land with the thanklessness of sainthood, asking questions about devotion, tradition and individual acts of resistance. Mileage (and the film is three hours) will likely depend on your tolerance for the director’s signature poetic style.

Rubika Shah’s smart, spirited feature debut is a whistle-stop tour of a DIY uprising.

[A] warm, funny and enjoyably rude debut.

The film is a goldmine of small but perfectly formed parts.

[A] remarkable documentary.

[A] wonky, charming satire.

Perhaps too reliant on the structure of the original article, which tells the events in flashback, the film wraps up a little hastily. Brilliantly, though, the editing is teasing rather than explicit; Scafaria offers just enough of the girls and their bodies to get pulses racing without exploiting them or their story.

On relationships, July remains as perceptive as ever.

Ostrochovský’s camera emphasises the constricting architecture of both church and state, with its black and white morality and a claustrophobic central courtyard, frequently portrayed via stiff, judgmental God’s-eye shots.

The final battle is giddily cathartic, but the catharsis arises from prioritising character development over plot and spectacle. This, I imagine, will be the Avengers’ legacy.

The gravitational pull of sex, death and the void is palpable.

Sudanese film-maker Amjad Abu Alala’s radiant drama dares to wonder if death could inspire courage rather than fear.

Favier is smart on the mechanics of abuse, and the sobering inevitability of her heroine’s downhill skid.

Eye-popping is one way to describe the prolific Japanese director’s 103rd film, a cheerfully pulpy Tokyo-set noir.

What’s interesting and unexpected is the film’s subtle acknowledgement of culturally specific generational trauma and displacement.

There are three sides to every story in Ekwa Msangi’s vivid and carefully observed feature debut, and so she cleverly splits the film into thirds, replaying the action but changing the vantage point with each chapter.

Rafeea, a non-professional actor and Syrian refugee, is the film’s secret weapon. At times, the tragedy unfolding on screen feels borderline unwatchable, but his strange, fascinating, eerily adult face offers a litany of minute expressions. There is a wisdom, a soulfulness, and an icy, angry candour that feels lived rather than performed.

There’s just enough magic and mystery to tease out a supernatural reading of the film, though Petzold encourages viewers to find pleasure in puzzling out his femme fatale for themselves.

Rosi’s broader critique of violence is implied through footage of a play performed by patients in a psychiatric hospital, and of a children’s art therapy class. He is more interested in the reverberations of conflict than the source, focusing on those who have suffered its effects directly.

This intimate observational documentary explores poverty in Sicily from two different vantage points, drawing poetic connections between lives that don’t appear to touch.

If writing is a democratic art and social leveller, Marcello indicts the celebrity author as a sellout, steamrolling their way to success.

There is an incandescence and a buoyancy to the animation that elevates the formula.

Kasbe makes the most of his extraordinary access by presenting the film vérité style, preferring to immerse the audience in his characters’ lives to better make the case for each of their choices.

This Kelly is motivated by an oedipal complex and wears dresses to distract his opponents; The Babadook’s Essie Davis is equal parts fearsome and magnetic as his enterprising sex worker mother. More enjoyable still are the film’s corrupt policemen; the louche, stockinged, pipe-smoking Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult) and virile cartoon villain Sergeant O’Neil (Charlie Hunnam).

This thoughtful documentary about Arthur Ashe, the first African American man to win Wimbledon in 1975, understands that representation is only one step towards equality.

Like Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk and Todd Haynes’s Carol, Ashe takes the form of the 50s melodrama and recentres it on characters the genre has tended to ignore. This isn’t as politically restless as those films – it’s less interested in subverting the “woman’s picture” than establishing itself as one.

Perhaps wisely, Ryan White’s slick documentary chooses not to mine the bizarre scene for comic potential. Instead, he spins the arrest of Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong – economic migrants from Indonesia and Vietnam respectively – into a parable about political corruption.

To evaluate it solely on the basis of representation is to do it a disservice and to further narrow the parameters of how we’re allowed to talk about movies that feature “diverse” actors.

Von Horn understands the gap between Sylwia’s authenticity online – mediated through the safety of a screen – and the intimacy her followers feel entitled to in real life.

It’d be easy to mistake the director’s deadpan observation for mocking, but the space he holds for the darker aspects of his characters’ individual stories helps to puncture any cultivated cutesyness.

Writer-director Jeremy Hersh tackles the intersection of race, sexuality, class and disability with rare nuance in this wry indie drama, which observes sharply the trappings of millennial entitlement and liberal hypocrisy.

Hadjithomas and Joreige thoughtfully explore trauma while remaining joyful, animating Maia’s photos, which fizz, crackle and dance to life on screen.

Basholli understands that healing is possible, even if closure isn’t.

Laxe has a masterly command of rhythm and pacing. The action feels unhurried, despite the film’s tight running time, and there is a spaciousness to the world-building; attentive sound design and 16mm photography capture Galicia’s damp, green allure.

Ruffalo optioned the rights to Nathaniel Rich’s original article and has an executive producer credit on the film; clearly, he has a stake in the material. The actor is excellent as reluctant hero Bilott, muting his natural charisma to create a character who is both taciturn and generous, determined but socially ill at ease.

It’s a bouncy, grin-inducing romp through Caribbean takeaways, designer boutiques stacked with Moschino streetwear and one ill-advised trip south of the river.

Genuine jump scares are bolstered by the film’s spooky sound design, as well as terrific performances from Dirisu and Mosaku, whose terror is palpable.

Subverting the original text’s point of view allows Whannell to privilege his female protagonist while continuing to explore the novel’s theme of untrammelled power.

Malaysian-born writer-director Yen Tan shoots stylishly in black and white 16mm, each frame a tasteful photograph. What’s most skilful, though, is the way he succeeds in complicating archetypes.

The use of the notoriously media-shy Margiela’s warm, serious spoken voice helps to create intimacy, even though we never see his face.

The jokes are brutal and very funny, with Benjamin the butt of most of them.

Variously gorgeous, ethereal, artful and tacky, both Anne’s film and Gonzalez’s are sustained by a throbbing sexual energy, aided by French electronic act M83’s twinkling, club‑inspired score.

Dominican Republic film-maker Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias’s gorgeous, restlessly creative hybrid fiction combines ethnographic documentary with improvised drama to explore a clash of two religious identities.

Simon’s fly-on-the-wall mode is a distancing tool, but shouldn’t be confused with ambivalence. Exposing the mechanics of decision-making is an implicit reproof of increasing conservatism, both of La Fémis itself and the film-makers they are producing.

What differentiates Sendijarević’s film, however, is the hot-blooded current of feminine lust that runs through it. Zorić’s Alma stomps, pouts and scowls her way through the film, aware of her sexual power and unafraid to use it to her advantage.

It shouldn’t work yet it does, underscoring the tragedy of corrupted innocence, constricting codes of masculinity and the aftermath of trauma.

Stewart is low key and likable, creating real emotional stakes and strategically using her signature shoulders-down shuffle. A pity, then, that she and Davis don’t quite have the romcom chemistry needed to secure the film’s place in the Christmas movie canon.

It might be staged, but it has a scrappy, fly-on-the-wall feel.

Jóhannsson teases the possibility of a monster, but waits to reveal his hand. When he does, there’s more than a touch of gallows humour. I laughed out loud at his audacity, and had nightmares later.

The film’s bluesy woodwind score has a teasing, goading quality that feels tinged with melancholy; the spectre of Aids hovers around the film’s edges.

Gelbakhiani is commanding in his first acting role, metabolising heartbreak and moving with an irrepressible prowling sensuality.

Dujardin plays it ingeniously straight, embarking on a violent rampage set to French lounge music.

There is an elegant, even-handed character study buried within Clint Eastwood’s crisp procedural.

The fuzzy plotting is balanced by Hall’s brilliantly controlled performance as the caustic, sceptical Beth, whose grief has pushed her to the knife edge of sanity.

The film feels more like an elbow in the ribs than a slap on the wrist, revelling in the miscommunications between Susan the Sasquatch’s literal-minded monkey brain.

It’s still a small, silly movie and there’s nothing particularly novel or even of the moment about its technosceptic stance on machines, but as a genre exercise, it’s a fun ride.

Fashion is fleeting, style remains, said Vreeland, and indeed the film attempts to apply her mantra, more interested in consecrating Talley as a man of taste and influence than it is probing for gossip or weakness.

Though the references are familiar, it’s a fresh direction for the macho franchise.

So often, historical films are stale and mired in misery, but Harriet has a rare buoyancy.

The result is goofily charming and a rare, age-appropriate children’s film in which the adults are silly and the kids, especially the girls, are smart.