Tara Brady

The Kraffts, who first bonded over their love of Mount Etna, remain as committed to the cause of understanding volcanic hazards and triggers as they are to one another. Their story makes for this year’s best documentary to date, and a film that demands to be seen on the largest possible screen.

At its core, however, this is a big-hearted family drama about acceptance and a love story between an older married couple. It falls to the terrific Yeoh to hold all the subplots and occasional comic misfires together.

Playwright Florian Zeller’s third instalment – and second film – in a cycle that includes The Father is a muscular, devastating drama that ought to have featured more prominently in the protracted “awards conversation”.

There are obvious parallels between Rasmussen’s film and such similarly constructed animations as Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir and Keith Maitland’s Tower, although Flee’s rugged lines are never as polished as anything found in either of those films. The sense of catharsis and the heartfelt voiceover, however, offset the roughhewn aesthetics.

In an ideal world, it’ll do Greatest Showman box office business. Mind you, in an ideal world, Dinklage’s forlorn turn would be nominated for an Oscar.

It adds up to a rare film about assimilation that can be equally cherished by both poles of the American political landscape. And everybody in between.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is not quite the equal of the same film-maker’s Oscar contender, Drive My Car. Both films, however, share a deceptively languid pacing and find an aching humanity in middle-class people in crisis.

This is one of those snappy, well-formed Brit-coms that one expects to see reworked as a Full Monty- or Kinky Boots-style Broadway show.

Sudan, Remember Us gives voice to the ordinary revolutionaries it portrays.

At its best, All My Friends shares DNA with both the social dread of Ruben Östlund’s get-togethers and the leylines of Ben Wheatley. Hints of English folk horror — a pitbull tied up near a car, accusing looks at the driven grouse shoot — add to the delicious disquiet. Imagine if Ben Wheatley rebooted Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Mandabi’s playful grammar and arresting camerawork are as exciting and politically charged as anything that emerged from the contemporaneous Nouvelle Vague.

Celeste Cescutti leads a parochial cast that is largely unprofessional, with a fierce performance that bosses and grounds the film’s magic realist themes.

Just Mercy is commendably restrained in its courtroom scenes – there is none of the contempt-baiting wailing and gnashing of teeth that too often characterises legal procedurals.

The cast is fun. And any addition to the Henry Selick canon is a welcome addition indeed. A future Halloween classic.

Another director might have fashioned Basic Instinct from such voyeuristic clay. Park dances with the material. Eschewing sex in favour of simmering sensuality, Decision to Leave coalesces into an intricate ballet between the main characters, Park’s careful choreography and Kim Ji-yong’s acrobatic camerawork.

Amulet has been billed as a feminist revenge horror. It’s a savage one, powered along by the same metaphorical heft that made The Babadook such a sensation.

Parallel Mothers wears its heart on its beautifully styled sleeve. Even the dark excavation at the heart of the enterprise is delivered with wit, warmth and eye-popping colours. It is difficult to think of another filmmaker who could so effortlessly juggle tones and seemingly disparate elements.

The many textures and mysteries don’t always fit together. Indeed, the movie is better when it trades in real-world patriarchal controls and abuses rather than things that go bump in the night. But this remarkable debut feature will keep you hooked until the final reveal.

Mackey, in particular, is a powerhouse. The young star is matched well with O’Connor’s carefully calibrated, appealingly earnest script, which approximates a modern sensibility without striking a false note or straying from Emily’s contemporaneous moors.

The parallel father-and-son storylines may feel a bit too tidy, but Nabulsi’s film is powered along by terrific performances and palpable fury.

The deadpan tone recalls the drollery of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and What We Do in the Shadows. Montpetit channels the teen angst of a young Winona Ryder. The effect reframes this dark comedy as a species-swapped, harder-edged, very French Edward Scissorhands.

Mirrored and paired scenes abound in Cleary’s clever screenplay.

Aisha is a portrait of unassailable dignity in the face of cruel happenstance.

“If you had the chance to talk to someone that died, that you love, would you take it?” asks Christi Angel in this apprehensive documentary portrait of dead-raising digital capitalism.

Beneath the zany antics and pastiche aesthetics – Ken Seng’s cinematography knows all the fly moves – the satire has plenty of bite.

Blue Giant is as improbably close to watching a live performance as animation can get. A swooning big-screen experience.

The pacing can be too stately, but an impressive ensemble working through a surfeit of good ideas compensates for the lack of jump scares.

The convention of jumping between time periods can make the plot a little cluttered but the film’s worth as an educational tool for pre-teen audiences is inarguable.

The idiosyncratic Beasts of the Southern Wild is a tough act to follow, but Wendy’s similarly anthropological approach reinvigorates its overworked source material where others have floundered.

Powered along by youthful exuberance, earthy sex scenes and keen naturalism, Holy Cow is a box-office sensation in France, where it outperformed Anora and The Brutalist. The cinematographer Elio Balezeaux finds winning tableaux in dung, well-used farm equipment and sun-dappled pastures. An auspicious debut for everyone involved.

The wacky mythology is offset with gorgeous hyperreal visuals, as raindrops bounce off umbrellas and puddles. With more than a nod to real world climate change, Weathering With You clings to love in the face of rising oceans and environmental catastrophe.

The Sheep Detectives, a family-friendly whodunit that marries pastoral whimsy with unexpectedly weighty themes, is a rare, woolly beast.

The visuals are as wildly original as the script, which was co-written by Docter, Kemp Powers, and Mike Jones.

At its best, Laura Fairrie’s entertaining film finds parallels between its subject and her many, big-haired heroines, especially Lucky Santangelo, the leading lady of such bestsellers as Dangerous Kiss and Poor Little Bitch Girl.

In common with the director’s most-admired films – including the Academy Award winner A Separation – this new film seamlessly marries genre kicks and social injustice.

As ever, Mustaine is unmistakably himself. The tunes are good, too. Godspeed, Megadeth.

By relocating a Parisian crime to the French Alps, Moll and his cinematographer Patrick Ghiringhelli visibly stifle Yohan’s frustrated inquiries. The comings and goings among the gruff, macho unit are not particularly interesting. But The Night of the 12th, which was nominated for 10 César Awards, winning in six categories, including best picture, is otherwise absorbing.

An ambivalent, accusatory depiction of intercountry adoption, Return to Seoul mines South Korea’s controversial adoption history to craft a smart if maddening character study.

An appropriately monstrous hit with audiences at London’s Sundance and Dublin’s Horrorthon festivals, this is not quite a fairy tale, but it comes close enough to cast a spell.

Themes of imperialism and exploitation add background textures to three muscular performances and a mysterious cinematic adventure.

Taking cues from the gameplay, this compelling psyche-out is deceptively simple.

From the moment My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade blasts across the opening credits, this is the unexpectedly moving, nostalgia-soundtracked class reunion that you’ll enjoy despite yourself.

What an auspicious debut for Kline and what a fine showcase for all other parties.

Ery Claver, who co-wrote the screenplay with the director, provides arresting Steadicam as well as popping colours as cinematographer. In keeping with the film’s novel premise, this is like nothing you’ve seen anywhere else. Aline Frazão’s crashing, jazzy score adds a start to the ghosts in the machine.

Haarla and Borisov demonstrate impeccable timing and expertly tiny movements as they warm up to one another. It’s something like love but without either sex or romance. And it’s a joy to behold.

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady cemented their reputation for tender portraits of young people blossoming away from home with their earlier films The Boys of Baraka, Detropia and the Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp. With Folktales, the veteran documentary duo return to familiar thematic terrain with renewed compassion.

The gunplay of the final act isn’t as much fun as the properly creepy build-up. No matter. This self-aware German-Hollywood coproduction atones with plenty of Teutonsploitation humour.

Directors Danny Clinch, Taryn Gould, and Colleen Hennessy have sifted through hundreds of hours of footage to fashion something that allows for a sense of the person behind the rock casualty. To this end, they do a splendid job.

The Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt roasts conventional heroines and female beauty standards in this gruesome, hilarious reworking of Cinderella.

My Father’s Shadow, which was coproduced by Element Pictures, is not a conventional political drama. Instead it quietly marries personal and national histories, offering a deceptively sprawling portrait of Lagos, a family and the fragile, frantic ways people try to hold on against tyranny.

Poitras’s biopic of Goldin is powered along by righteous fury: an engaging portrait of both the artist and her activism.

Hawke and Thames respectively give two big performances to enact a compelling cat-and-mouse game, in a film wherein even the supporting characters are richly drawn.

The compassionate directors of The Mission wisely let the young women do the talking. Seven credited cinematographers are there to capture every compelling moment.

The winner of the Ecumenical Jury Award at the 2022 Cannes Festival finds warmth and empathy in the unlikeliest and most unethical places.

A fascinating and invaluable document for all of its considerable run time, State Funeral is an occasion worthy of the title.

This is a nervy study of how poverty wears people down, eroded by uncertainty and the grinding effort to stay afloat.

An elegantly structured film composed of clever, delicate movements, every aspect of Georgia Oakley’s debut feature – from Izabella Curry’s editing to Kirsty Halliday’s period costuming – is as restrained as Rosy McEwen’s excellent performance.

The performances, carefully calibrated characters, and the unexpected detours in the conversation ensure that the film remains an absorbing piece of cinema, one that locks the viewer in with these angry, bereaved people and their increasingly difficult confrontation.

It’s impossible to recreate the electricity of a live performance but with a musical as beloved as Hamilton, one can hear the audience swoon as Christopher Jackson’s George Washington appears, or when Daveed Diggs’s Thomas Jefferson struts onto the stage.

Kendrick proves herself a formidable talent on both sides of the camera. The timeline can be choppy, but this is as considered as it is chilling.

The film is not as taut as Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s similarly themed 2015 thriller, The Lesson, but its freewheeling authenticity gives it charm and momentum.

The quietly convincing leads Elías and Bigliardi occupy very different points on the deadpan spectrum. The denouement isn’t entirely satisfactory, but with a journey this epic, who cares about the destination?

The lively narration and rollicking pace make for favourable comparisons to Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The Bangalore backdrop and Indian social relations bring something unique to this frequently imitated (and seldom rivalled) crime movie template. Paolo Carnera’s camera has fun with dark corners and sickly neon. Adiga’s dark humour keeps abreast of the political commentary in a film that powers through its source material at breakneck speed.

A swaggering, unapologetic appearance by Yair Netanyahu, the premier’s son and presumed successor, signals a continuation of the family’s legacy.

My Old Ass sensitively and sweetly negotiates coming-of-age themes, first love, wistful summer recollections and wise-cracking dialogue.

Tung, an occasional actor who has won seven Hong Kong Golden Horse awards for his choreography, brings poignancy and authenticity to the thrills and spills.

At 72 minutes, Playground falls shy of feature length, yet it atones with a sickening sense of dread and pinpoint emotional accuracy. The performances that Wandel coaxes out of her young cast are remarkable and often painful to behold.

There are technical blips. Occasionally, the 3D character animation and frame-rate stutter in the margins. But the film’s approximation of temporal confines never leaves the viewer feeling stuck in a moment.

Pitched somewhere between folk horror, ecological revenge and scathing class critique, The Feast is at its best during the elegantly atmospheric, nervy first hour, as cinematographer Bjørn Ståle Bratberg picks out ominous details.