Stephen Dalton

The sleepy-paced, elementally simple plot initially requires a degree of patience, but the story ends up gently absorbing.

Long Strange Trip is an affectionate and well-crafted documentary, but it would have benefited from a little more of this emotionally raw material and a little less fawning reverence.

The second English-language feature by Berlin-based Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz (Futuro Beach, Motel Destino, Firebrand) is shallow and lurid and not entirely coherent. Even so, it is loaded with enough visual brio, acrid wit and WTF plot twists to hit the target as a surreal, salacious guilty pleasure.

It looks and feels far more substantial than most indie debuts, confidently bending genre rules with its minimalist dialogue and hallucinatory plot, which owes more to David Lynch or Lars von Trier than to more orthodox horror maestros.

This schlocky horror picture show combines a zesty young cast with an infectious comic energy.

Leap of Faith is an easy, entertaining watch, but it feels like a smaller film than its two predecessors, chiefly because it features just a single long interview with Friedkin rather than a rich chorus of insider insights.

It will not teach you very much about either autism or Metallica, but you will leave the theater smiling.

Like the cumbersome hybrid animal at its heart, this beast is no beauty. But it is a technically impressive and boldly original statement.

The gory carnage is sparingly but vividly staged, the suspense-driven plot twisty enough to tax the brain.

Drones is not exactly subtle, but it is a commendable attempt to dramatize a hot contemporary issue without resorting to clumsy didacticism or obvious political bias.

An inspired comic thriller.

An atmospheric thriller with a noir-ish undertow and strong visual style, Strange But True puts a classy spin on familiar ingredients. The twist-heavy, logic-bending plot will test audience patience in places, but the whole package is handsomely crafted and rich in strong performances.

Hardcore blasts along like a supercharged computer-game shoot-em-up, bursting with sick humor and splatterpunk violence.

However mindless and heartless it may be, Through the Never succeeds as pure sense-swamping spectacle. It is a blow-out banquet for Metallica fans, and a blockbuster rock-and-rollercoaster ride for any heavy metal tourists curious to see this music played at major-league level.

Cam is a suspenseful mind-bender with plenty of timely feminist subtext. It takes viewers down some unexpected rabbit holes and commendably avoids pandering to male-gaze sex-thriller tropes, even if it ultimately fails to deliver on its grippingly weird early promise.

With a scare factor far greater than its modest dimensions initially seem to promise, The Canal is a polished indie psycho-thriller full of macabre twists and nerve-snapping tension.

A charming little tragicomedy which flirts with savage social satire but never fully embraces it.

White Riot is a timely, engaging exercise in social and cultural history, but a wider focus might have given it deeper context and broader marketability.

Sheikh Jackson is a little too somber and straight-faced for its goofy premise, its protagonists often unsympathetic, its tone sometimes corny and melodramatic. But it is also an offbeat charmer that boldly sets up its bizarre conceit and runs with it.

Finely acted and minutely observed, Ilo Ilo certainly has the texture of real life. The performances feel authentic, the emotional shadings agreeably nuanced.

Despite its relatively unusual setting, Crystal Swan is a largely conventional fish-out-of-water story at heart. But it is elevated above the routine by its excellent cast, especially Nassibulina, and plenty of visual flair.

A minor but touchingly human subplot to the financial crash, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is both an affirmation and an indictment of the American Dream.

Gebbe has made a robust and compelling first feature, deftly shot and ably acted, especially by its younger cast members.

After 90 years and more than 50 films, Wajda has earned the right to make stagey period pieces like Afterimage, minor codas to a gloriously symphonic career.

Propelled by a steady heartbeat of low-level dread, McNaughton’s classy comeback is a superior genre movie but also a refreshingly old-school, character-driven nerve-jangler with no need for paranormal monsters or flashy special effects.

Another Round ultimately has little fresh or profound to say about intoxication and addiction, but it is an engaging tribute to friendship, family and bacchanalian hedonism in moderation.

It offers little thematically or stylistically novel that devotees of Japan’s most prolific B-movie maestro will not have seen many times before. Even so, the Tarantino-style rollercoaster ride is as effortlessly enjoyable as ever, accentuating the director's lighter comic leanings over his bloodthirsty side.

Limbo is an appealing little gem overall, with a feel-good message about the kindness of strangers that is glib and simplistic but hard to resist.