Tom Huddleston

Vertov’s experimental essay proclaims its ‘complete separation from the language of theatre and literature’ in the opening titles. What follows is cinema in its purest form: movement, sensation, action and visual trickery.

What 12 Years a Slave is really interested in is creating an honest, believable experience: in culture and context, place and people, soil and skin. The result can, at times, be alienating.

This isn’t just the best-looking film of the year, it’s one of the most awe-inspiring achievements in the history of special-effects cinema. So it’s a shame that – as is so often the case with groundbreaking effects movies – the emotional content can’t quite match up to the visual.

Forty years on, Taxi Driver remains almost impossibly perfect: it’s hard to think of another film that creates and sustains such a unique, evocative tone, of dread blended with pity, loathing, savage humour and a scuzzy edge of New York cool.

It’s one of the most insightful films ever made about the British class system.

As befits both its tortuous hand-to-mouth genesis and the devastating conflict it reflects, this is a film of pure sensation, dazzling audiences with light and noise, laying bare the stark horror – and unimaginable thrill – of combat. And therein lies the true heart of darkness: if war is hell and heaven intertwined, where does morality fit in? And, in the final apocalyptic analysis, will any of it matter?

Jennifer Peedom’s film is stunningly photographed (how could it not be?) and brilliantly sly: she gives the tour guides and their rich, self-absorbed charges just enough rope to hang themselves, and they duly oblige. But it’s also a heartfelt tribute to the resilience of a people.

The scene where Sam imparts his wisdom to young buck Bottoms may be the saddest, loveliest moment in 1970s American cinema. And that’s saying something.

A film steeped in psychological realism, its rigorously compact plotting and stark, noir-influenced photography perfectly complementing the mounting sense of clammy, metaphysical dread.

David Lean's wondrous romance, adapted from Noel Coward's story, is one of the most emotionally devastating movies of all time.

As much as any surrealist arthouse flick, Texas Chain Saw feels like a nightmare made real, an inescapable but entirely authentic vision of pure hell.

It may lack the authority-baiting, satire-with-a-purpose edge of Life of Brian, but Holy Grail is the looser, sillier, ultimately funnier film, packed with actual goofy laughs rather than hey-I-get-that cleverness.

Pawlikowski’s film may be bleak and unforgiving, but it’s also richly sympathetic and deeply moving.

It’s Carpenter’s direction that makes Halloween tick, and resulted in it becoming (still, possibly) the most successful indie film ever made.

[A] calm, reflective, gorgeously uneventful slice of nostalgic romance.

This is quite simply one of the saddest movies ever made, a tale of loss, grief and absolute loneliness, an unflinching stare into the darkest moral abyss.

This is the director’s most vivid, most emotional and humane film, and perhaps his best.

Charles Crichton’s direction is subtle but inventive – check out the snaking, near-single-take opening in a Rio cabana – and the performances, writing and plotting are faultless.

This is a story of identity, and the lack of it. And it’s fascinating.

A subversive and psychologically rigorous take on RL Stevenson’s tale of severed souls, ‘Dr Jekyll’ combines gothic horror, aristocratic romance and madcap Freudian psychodrama into a dizzying, exhilirating brew.

A film with a fistful of memorable moments—most of them involving Bridges hurling insults at people—but not a great deal new to say.

There aren't many films we'd describe as perfect, but Robert Zemeckis's oh-so-'80s time travel tale fits the bill.

Eraserhead is a singular work of the imagination, a harrowing, heartbreaking plunge into the darkest recesses of the soul.

It’s Robinson’s mastery of tone that makes Withnail endure

Best of all is Steven Spielberg’s direction: the camera moves like a predatory animal, gliding eerily across the surface of the vast Atlantic, creating sequences of almost unbearable suspense.

We Are the Best! is a joyous celebration of youth, friendship and rebellion, and if there’s a nagging note of regret and bitterness it never manages to undermine the overwhelmingly compassionate tone.

Rarely has a film used London’s landmarks so cannily, and rarely has screen Shakespeare been so sharp and satisfying.

This is arguably the high-water mark of Hollywood’s love affair with the infinitely slippery possibilities of the English language.

De Palma’s grasp on King’s material is never in doubt: this is a truly throat-grabbing horror movie, sporting a handful of pitch-perfect set-pieces, not to mention one of the few examples of effective split-screen.

This isn’t quite tense or funny enough to become the masterpiece some Hawks lovers claim. But it is smart, incisive and often very funny.

It’s a film of stark, superbly judged and beautifully sustained contrasts, the soundtrack hopping confidently from Tammy Wynette to Chopin as Bobby and his waitress girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black) travel from the lusty, sun-baked south to the cerebral, rainswept north to pay final respects to Bobby’s dying father.

As a story about how hard it is to make your own way in the world, Kiki’s Delivery Service is truthful and scalpel-sharp. That it manages all this while remaining consistently funny, optimistic and exciting – even for little ones – is a mark of Miyazaki’s genius.

These young women have already witnessed enough horror to last a lifetime, and in this unforgiving society their lot seems unlikely to improve. A grim but necessary watch.

It doesn’t all work: The pace can feel a little slow, and there are points where Park tries to have his tasty feminist cake and eat it too. But mostly, this is smart, sumptuous and wonderfully indulgent.

Kore-eda’s insight is so unflinching, his affection for his characters so intimate and sure, that not a moment here feels wasted.

This is a provocative, intelligent movie for those with a strong emotional constitution.

The supporting cast is flawless, with a special mention owed to Brad Dourif as poor, doomed Billy Bibbit. But the script lacks the woozy, otherworldly subtlety of Kesey’s book, relying instead on pop psychology and finger-pointing: once again, it turns out women are to blame for pretty much everything.

Graced with a throbbing orchestral score from Philip Glass and John Bailey’s luminous photography, this is appropriately monumental filmmaking.

From the slam-bang direction to the relentless pace to the not-a-word-wasted dialogue and even the driving synth score, everything else about The Terminator just works.

William Friedkin’s full-throttle adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel works because it fuses the extreme and the everyday.

An enormously satisfying film: carefully observed and consistently compelling, it feels like an instant American classic, if a minor one.

The LEGO Movie is sheer joy: the script is witty, the satire surprisingly pointed and the animation tactile and imaginative.

It’s impossible adequately to describe the haunting intensity of It Follows: this is a film that makes a virtue of silence, that lives in the shadowy spaces between the splattery kill scenes that punctuate your average stalk-and-slasher.

For all its humanistic warmth and undoubted charm, Short Term 12 just never quite rings true.

The overall impression is one of unbridled enthusiasm on the part of the film’s makers, both for its predecessors and for the brave new universe Abrams and his crew are exploring.

Unique and intoxicating, an art movie that grips like a thriller.

Certain Women moves, as all Reichardt’s films do, at a languid pace, and a handful of characters – notably Williams’s – could have been a little more developed. But it's hard to recall a movie with such a precise, immersive sense of place, and the very specific mood that comes with it.

The word "personal" is bandied around a lot in film reviews, but it’s hard to think of a work that better fits the description than avant-garde icon Chantal Akerman’s intimate swansong No Home Movie.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s at fault here: the performances are flawless – Carell fully justifies his unlikely casting, while Ruffalo is as dependable as ever – and the script is astute, intimate and at times shocking. But there’s just no real life in the film.

Bowie’s performance is riveting, drawing on his history of mime to play a man who is almost, but not quite, one of us.

If Del Toro is pitching for an audience of 12-year-old boys (and we do mean boys: this is old-school macho), he’s done a bang-up job. Still, there are times when Pacific Rim could be the work of any jobbing Hollywood director – the warmth and idiosyncracy that characterises Del Toro’s finest work, from Pan’s Labyrinth to Hellboy 2, is absent.

Overall this is a stupendously entertaining movie, crammed with delights.

Overall this is an absolute pleasure. There are times when Waititi’s script borders on genius.

It’s disappointing when Starred Up begins to lapse into soapy cliché.

This is a tighter, smarter film than either Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, and buried beneath all the blue-goo aliens and terrible punning is a heartfelt meditation on the perils and pleasures of nostalgia.

As an insight into the way families cope with adversity this is both razor-sharp and completely heartbreaking.

Abrahamson has pulled off something quietly remarkable: a study of morality which never feels like a treatise, a bracingly realistic film about teenagers which never becomes patronising and a gripping melodrama which swerves sentiment. He may also have unearthed a genuine star.

A startling examination of how artistic principles translate into real-world actions, and a moving portrait of a genuinely, unexpectedly brave man.

Berberian Sound Studio is like nothing before – and whether or not it ‘works’ seems almost irrelevant. In this era of cookie-cutter cinema, Strickland’s deeply personal moral and stylistic vision deserves the highest praise.

Eddie the Eagle may suffice for a brainless Friday night, but an honest account would have been a lot more memorable.

This is a forceful, initially uplifting, ultimately sobering illustration of how much protest matters, how far those in power will go to stifle it, and how ugly and criminal those efforts look in hindsight.

A title like that needs balls of brass to back it up. Luckily, this fiery college comedy from feature-debuting writer-director Justin Simien, loosely inspired by a series of scandalous black-face parties at all-white fraternities, is full of punchy intelligence and barely concealed anger.

Lifeforce is a near-impossible film to review, at once indescribably awful and hugely, brilliantly entertaining.

It may lack its predecessor’s lofty ambitions, but once the bullets, spears and hairy fists start flying you’ll be too wrapped up to care.

There’s only so many times an audience will fall for the same manipulative editing tricks. Still, with fine performances and a rich sense of place, this is a promising start.

What Welcome to Leith does very well is dig deep and expose Cobb – and by extension the entire American neo-Nazi movement – as weak, confused and desperate, using a dying ideology as a way to feel less alone in the world.

The result is a film that starts with a bang and ends with a shrug, but keeps us entertained throughout.

Writer-director Pablo Fendrik takes the whole thing terribly seriously, punctuating the action with ponderous slo-mo and laughably pompous discussions about Bernal’s spirit jaguar.

Focusing on the personalities rather than the historical context, directors Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville illustrate how both men’s lives were changed by the debates, and how neither could let it go even decades later. The result is perhaps better suited to TV than the big screen, but it’s a timely, thoughtful piece of work.

For this slick, beautifully paced documentary, director Marc Singer was given unprecedented access to everything from police tapes to trial recordings to Dunn’s own private phone conversations, and the result is a uniquely compelling real-life legal thriller.

It’s a dour, at times glacial film that perhaps takes itself just a little too seriously, but it’s also grimly convincing and, in a remarkable final scene, shockingly effective.

Overall, Logan is something rather special: a moving and mournful story of life at the end of the line, and the perfect blockbuster for these embittered times.

The ever-present air of madcap, goofball insanity carries it through. A seriously guilty pleasure.

A film that never feels remotely real, content to wallow in dead-rock-star mythology and tedious druggie indulgences.

Overall this is giddy, ridiculous fun, a witty, wacky and wonderfully generous sugary gift of a film.

There's a gripping, dark, truly monstrous film lurking in here somewhere, but Bayona seems hell-bent on keeping it at bay.

But while she's thoroughly committed to serving both the rom and the com (the film is genuinely sweet, and at times very funny) Scherfig somehow never falls into any of the obvious traps.

There are few surprises in Creepy. With the exception of a bleak, pointed ending, it all plays out as you’d expect. That’s not necessarily a criticism – it’s fun to watch the pieces click into place, and the film is never less than slick, well-acted and nice looking.

There’s nothing wildly original here, but it’s carried off with charm and wit, and two very enjoyable central performances.

Cameraman and director Michael Heineman has created a riveting story of how, with awful inevitability, power always corrupts.

This is a brisk, well-oiled thriller with blistering performances and a crackling, memorable script.

Director Athina Rachel Tsangari keeps things brisk, maintaining an almost nature-doc distance from her subjects. Her affection for them is plain, but that doesn’t mean she lets them off the hook.

The plot is impossibly dense and the characters – perhaps appropriately – feel like little more than cyphers, but for sheer mind-expanding sci-fi strangeness this is hard to beat.

It’s a more self-consciously artful film than its predecessor, an admirable spectacle rather than an entrancing human story. But as a work of pure, imaginative cinema, it comes close to genius.

Into the Inferno may be relatively minor Herzog — it’s sweet and rambling rather than laser-bolt intense like "Fitzcarraldo" or "Grizzly Man." But it is enormously satisfying, filled with wisdom, insight and molten lava.

In the plus column there’s a small handful of decent gags, a clutch of welcome cameos (Eddie Izzard, notably) and at 85 minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome. There’s also a fairly solid moral about free will and personal desire. But nothing else here really clicks.

There are plenty of movies which seem to have been made by madmen. Possession may be the only film in existence which is itself mad: unpredictable, horrific, its moments of terrifying lucidity only serving to highlight the staggering derangement at its core. Extreme but essential viewing.

The claustrophobic setting and semi-improvised tone might suggest something closer to sitcom than cinema (had Jarmusch seen Porridge?), but Robby Müller’s stately monochrome photography single-handedly lifts it into the realm of Proper Art. It’s a sad and beautiful world indeed.

This is a woman who has been through hell and come out kicking, and the result is as much a celebration of her life as it is a documentary.

Scorsese never digs too deeply under the skin of these reprehensible playboy douchebags, and there are times where the swooping photography, smash-and-grab editing and toe-tapping soundtrack conspire to almost – almost – make us like them. But when the film’s cylinders are firing, it’s impossible not to be dragged along.

The Landlord succeeds thanks to terrific performances, political nous, flawless photography from Gordon Willis, a handful of sublimely witty moments and an overall sense of rebellious fun.

This is a deeply silly, extremely noisy and sometimes impenetrable action movie that’s drowning in CGI, wild overacting and mullets. And it’s enormously entertaining.

This intimate documentary about the leftfield American filmmaker David Lynch is insightful and absorbing.

As a procedural study, Night Moves is undeniably effective: The buildup is slow, painstaking and intense, the fallout inevitable but still shocking...But the soul is somehow missing.

What a stupendously entertaining ride it is. Director and former stuntman Chad Stahelski is back in the director’s chair, and he knows his craft inside out: every punch lands hard, every gunshot roars like thunder.

A valuable document.

At once an investigation, a polemic and, in its final sequences, a tribute to human endurance. A remarkable film.