Tara Brady

Marder, who co-wrote the script with his brother Abraham, sets out quite a stall with a drama that’s as visceral and hard-hitting as its protagonist’s drum solos.

Just as Youri fashions outsider art – or survivalist dreams – from his doomed banlieue, Liatard and Trouilh craft an imaginative debut feature from the rubble.

Völker’s sensitive film brings together these two wounded families to sit down for tea. It’s a fascinating encounter defined by guilt and unspeakable hurt. There is no sense of absolution or cathartic breakthrough. There is only imperfect reckoning.

Late Night with the Devil is at its best when it colours within the lines of the found-footage genre.

The most anxious Jewish comedy since the Coen brothers visited Jobian trauma on Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man stars Carol Kane as an adult bat-mitzvah student. This alone would justify the admission price, but there’s more.

Working from a blackly comic script by Austin Kolodney, Van Sant fashions a shouty standoff in the tradition of Network and Dog Day Afternoon.

O’Connor, who caused a stir with his breakthrough turn in God’s Own Country, and Catalan actor Costa, share an easy and natural chemistry. They don’t blaze up the screen: they simmer and charm.

Whishaw’s performance is a theatrical masterclass in controlled ramble; Hall’s is the art of listening, with responses that range from concern to a slightly cocked head. Their chemistry enlivens the most throwaway anecdote.

Cultural crises are seldom so entertaining.

Dave Davis’s petrified protagonist is nothing short of star-making.

Dickinson plays a small role as Mike’s antagonistic friend, but everything rests on Dillane’s powerhouse turn and the writer-director’s compassionate, daring script.

If you have ever experienced acute anxiety, panic attacks or any other nervous disorder, then watching Anne at 13,000 Ft – presumably through your fingers – will bring a sense of representation and horror in equal measure.

Every scene, every ride and every development feels dangerous and combustible.

The Card Counter – executive produced by Martin Scorsese – revisits Schrader’s twin preoccupations with despair and salvation, powered along by tart political urgency, a magnetic central performance from Isaac, and no little style.

Writer-director Josh Margolin, making his feature debut, based the eponymous character on his grandmother. The script, accordingly, is never patronising.

The unlikely friendship between Michael and Kensuke is the heart of a film that touches lightly on environmental themes, loss and history.

Jalmari Helander, who previously scored an international hit with his Santa-themed horror, Rare Exports, mines every gory set piece for squeals of delight and revulsion. Styled as a midnight movie, Sisu makes terrific use of limited military hardware and a forbidding Lapland landscape.

Niasari, who writes and produces as well as directing, racks up the tension to match his psychopathy in this sure-footed debut feature.

Forming a Greek chorus, the films are only as disjointed as their context: the obliteration of normal life and the stubborn, miraculous act of carrying on.

McCarthy’s directorial precision is complemented by wit and an imaginative backstory that deserves an expanded universe.

Life in The Villages intersects with the suburbia of Blue Velvet and, in common with that dark dramatic underbelly, there’s a compelling soap opera bubbling under the sterile surface.

Still, this is an intriguing psychological thriller and a carefully calibrated study of maternal mourning, powered by perceived class differences and harsh maternal judgment.

The filmmaker’s technique generally counterpoints any caveats and script imperfections. The ensemble cast is starry and strong. The segue from the end of the second World War into the cold war is marked by a spectacular explosion sequence. “Brilliance makes up for a lot,” Murphy’s Oppenheimer tells us. It sure does.

In his impressive feature-length debut, the Irish documentarian Gar O’Rourke offers an immersive and mesmerising portrait of life in a still recognisably Soviet institution.

Dupieux, as ever, writes, directs, shoots, and orchestrates the madness. This isn’t as conceptually neat as Deerskin nor as playfully intertextual as Rubber, but it’s consistently fun.

The third part in a loose, geographically defined trilogy, as sensitively penned by Loach collaborator Paul Laverty, The Old Oak is a gentler film than the stark austerity painted by I, Daniel Blake or the chilling dissection of the gig economy in Sorry We Missed You. The film is, however, astute in its depiction of a disenfranchised community, ravaged by vulture property speculators and post-industrialisation.

It shouldn’t work, but it’s infectious fun for all of its not inconsiderable run time. The eccentric format double-jobs as a Sparks primer for the novice, and as a greatest hits package for the hardcore fan.

Much of the project’s power is derived from Anthony Hopkins’s Oscar-winning central performance.