Wendy Ide

It’s a crowdpleasing tale of triumph over adversity which hits its raw highs and gritty lows every bit as emphatically as Turner during her famously electric performances.

The story works on two levels, first as a prickly critique of the pressures facing Black creatives. But equally satisfying is its depiction of the abrasive, complicated dynamics in a high-achieving family.

We laugh, partly, from relief at escaping the unimaginable.

A Man Called Otto taps into a seemingly unquenchable audience appetite for stories of cantankerous grumps redeemed by the healing embrace of community.

The film does not serve up its ideas in easily digestible bites. The audience needs to work with a dislocated string of scenes that sometimes highlight absurdity, sometimes violence and frequently say very little at all.

The controversy might be Accepted’s secret weapon, but much of its power comes from an astute choice of central characters.

It’s not an unfamiliar story, but Frank Berry’s delicate drama is immensely moving.

Rauniyar handles the socio-political complexities of life post-conflict with a lightness of touch and flashes of absurdist humour. Much more than a photogenic ethnographic postcard from afar, this is a deceptively complex story of muddled allegiances and proscriptive social rules.

Writer-director Carolina Cavalli (with the considerable contribution of Benedetta Porcaroli in the title role) crafts a refreshingly unconventional and acidic deadpan comic portrait of an offbeat female friendship.

It’s bleak, certainly. But what makes this a distinctively Elliot film is not the relentless misfortune but the flashes of mordant humour to be found alongside Grace’s hoarded knick-knacks, and the care with which the director handles his damaged, cherished social outcasts.

Driven by a powerhouse performance by mesmerising transgender actress Vega, the fifth feature from Sebastián Lelio combines urgent naturalism with occasional flickers of fantasy to impressive, and wrenchingly emotional effect.

This is a film which handles its high concept with confidence, and a winning balance of comedy and emotional punch.

The real star? Johnson’s crisply mischievous screenplay, which crams in so many laughs you almost don’t notice the occasional plot holes.

Meditative in its pacing, painterly in composition, quietly devastating in its low-key drama, the latest film from Xavier Beauvois shares some of the slow-burning potency of his acclaimed study of religious faith, Of Gods And Men.

The latest anime from Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) is a beguilingly sweet-natured little gem. The film balances spiralling flights of fancy with glinting observations on parenting and family dynamics.

It’s an elegant piece of filmmaking, if a little too decorous at times.

Bill Nighy brings a quiet dignity to the role of Mr Williams, an anchor of buttoned-up solidity in an old-fashioned weepie which captures the lush sentimental swirl of the original while also evoking a distinctive sense of backdrop and period.

Carried by a magnetic performance from Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir in a dual role (she plays both Halla and her identical twin sister Asa), Benedikt Erlingsson’s enjoyable follow up to Of Horses And Men is elevated by wryly idiosyncratic flourishes in its execution.

Law manages to be both utterly authentic and glossily untrustworthy.

There’s an element of playfulness here – Hong challenges us to identify the subtle shifts in emphasis and interplay between the two versions of the story. The narrative expands into an intricate game of spot the difference.

Slick, thrilling and saturated with vivid hues and 60s can-do optimism, Le Mans ’66, James Mangold’s follow-up to Logan, is a precision-tooled machine of a movie.

The boundaries between fiction and reality are permeable throughout, with some shots juxtaposing actors against phone camera footage of the real life characters that they portray. For the most part, it works very effectively, although the snippets of real life phone footage are a little distracting, jolting us out of the nervy chokehold of the story.

The approach of director Matthew Dyas, who gives the archive material the appearance of found footage, adds to the mythic romance of Fiennes’s life story.

DaCosta’s film is a macabre morality tale about the best and worst of human nature. It is utterly brutal, and one of the most compelling so far.

Every tired war movie cliche is unearthed in a film that brings nothing new but will no doubt please fans of men in uniform yelling at explosions.

The Dardennes’ typically no-frills approach means that these glimpses of young lives feel unvarnished and honest. There is, however, a degree of predictability to some of the plotting.

It’s a frayed fabric of a story that contains moments of daring artistry and beauty, but doesn’t always knit together into something satisfying and solid.

Perhaps, in its polite and unassuming way, the film advocates not just a new way of looking, but also a new way of living.

It’s frequently an uncomfortable watch and, at points, prompts prickly ethical questions about the potential for the re-traumatisation of documentary subjects. But, perhaps more unexpectedly, this bold and confrontational film is also joyous, playful and in some ways even empowering.

Montages, seesawing Dutch tilts and profligate overuse of lighting gels fail to conceal the fact that the film’s writing doesn’t match the lure of the central idea.

This is an underdog tale straining so hard to be endearing that it’s more likely to pull a muscle than tug a heartstring.

Costa Brava, Lebanon is a terrific feature debut from Mounia Akl which works both as a compelling domestic drama and an elegant political allegory.

Stolevski’s handling of the balance between jostling high spirits and the creeping dread of loss is supremely confident; his storytelling is fresh, authentic and genuinely exciting.

Perhaps more radical than the censor-bating, though, is the fact that My Favourite Cake trains its lens on lonely, ordinary older people – a demographic all too frequently invisible to film-makers the world over. A rare delight.

Fascinating and informative, it’s a ‘must-watch’ for film students and fans alike.

Union is a solid work about an important subject. Yet, while the observational approach gives the picture an urgency and immediacy, it’s a film that might have benefitted from the addition of more contextual background information about Amazon’s labour practices.

There’s a wistful quality to the storytelling which softens some of the sharper edges of tragedy and hardship in this undeniably affecting picture.

Bergman Island has a languid, meandering pace and a plot that is governed by chance encounters and discoveries.

Like its magnetic central character, the entertaining latest from Luis Ortega is fascinating: a playful, shape-shifting, questioning journey that refuses to be neatly pinned down.

One of the discoveries of the year so far.

The teasing, tricky structure adds intrigue to a fairly rudimentary horror premise and the cinematography – actor Giovanni Ribisi steps behind the camera as the DOP – is suitably strident, with reds and yellows screaming from the screen.

For all its decorous restraint, this is emotionally potent storytelling.

Not everything in this Leone-inspired Latino western hits its target, but the picture has a venomous bite, and a smart, slippery final scene that turns the lens back on to the act of film-making, questioning cinema’s role in (mis)shaping the way we view history.

It’s as cosy as Mr Rogers’ trademark zip-up cardigan, but the sweetness of this film about the beloved US children’s television personality is tempered by the inventive eccentricity of its approach.

It’s an enjoyably grisly good time – a film that puts both power tools and Pomeranians to gleefully suspenseful use.

The rather on-the-nose storytelling grows increasingly complex and interesting the further that the protagonist ventures into morally ambiguous territory.

What the film does brilliantly is compose a symphony of social awkwardness, with Anne as its virtuoso focus.

Rarely does a music documentary so vividly evoke both the artistic approach and the tricky personality of its subject.

Deftly written, directed with a light hand and acted with honesty and heart, the picture captures moments of acute sadness without ever sinking into sentimentality.

A combination of tender details – the way Guo carefully picks the fibres from his girlfriend’s skin after a gruelling shift at the factory – and a strikingly surreal approach to a scene in which Lianqing prostitutes herself for the first time makes this unflinching picture a notable addition to the ever-swelling list of films that deal with migration.

The feature debut from Swedish writer/director Isabella Eklöf is an uncompromisingly tough and unforgiving study of social standing and market forces.

The film crafts a framework of superstition and ritual, onto which is hung a vividly realised, if somewhat enigmatic portrait of a child’s life.

It’s a comedy, certainly, but one that leans into the discomfort of the polar differences between the couple.

This highly accomplished first feature from Eva Trobisch finds nuance and complexity in a subject which tends to lend itself to extreme depictions; it’s an arresting and candid portrait of a woman whose weakness is her refusal to see herself as a victim.

It’s not an easy watch, certainly – I cried more or less solidly through the last 30 minutes – but it’s an important one.

Despite high quality performances from Close and Pryce, the film leaves us with question marks over the credibility of the central scenario.

Has value as a cultural document as well as a riotously entertaining film.

While the symbolism can land a little heavily at times, Bessa’s fiercely committed performance and the palpable anger in the storytelling are the picture’s driving force.

Plante’s measured pacing and cool, dispassionate storytelling burrow into the skin of the character. It’s not a comfortable place in which to spend time.

The entertaining blend of quirky absurdism and behavioural neuroscience echoes Baumane’s approach to her family’s history of depression in her previous film. It’s a successful and distinctive formula, albeit one which falters slightly at the film’s uncertain conclusion.

While the film is largely content to tread a safe path, it does at least feel full-hearted in its appreciation of the way music can connect lost souls and enrich lives.

Weighty themes are handled with a refreshing lightness of touch.

This is film-making as role-playing, which has immersed itself, method-style, in a past era and aesthetic, which wears its luminous black-and-white cinematography like a costume.

The 0-60 acceleration of disaster and melodrama is a little disconcerting, as is the tendency to self-sabotage demonstrated by Ava and her mother. But there’s a jagged emotional authenticity scored into the film like initials carved into a desk.

Architecton is a gorgeously photographed poetic reverie on the subject of stone and concrete, permanence and profligate waste.

This very enjoyable film explores his extensive body of work, much of it daringly ahead of its time; it was Paik who, long before the concept of the internet had taken root, first broached the idea of an electronic superhighway.

The suffering, fear and humiliation that they experience is balanced by moments of warmth and an artist’s magpie eye for unexpected glimpses of beauty. It’s a remarkable achievement.

It’s a highly personal documentary: in addition to focusing on the mountains, Guzmán revisits his childhood home, now derelict, and explores his own archive footage of the 1973 coup d’état that prompted his relocation to France.

Central to the spirit of the film is Seydou, a gangly string bean with a smile that warms the screen; a teenager who is still enough of a child to believe that manhood means never being afraid. It’s a gorgeous, sensitive performance from Sarr.

As an account of a notable moment in French legal history, it’s undeniably compelling stuff.

The funniest of his films to date, it’s a fully realised, immaculately tailored creation which conceals a slow-burning sense of mischief under its deliberate oddness and ornately deadpan dialogue.

Ultimately, Dumb Money may not be as revealing about the financial markets as it is about the rallying power of the internet.

Aurora’s Sunrise is notable not so much for its use of animation, which is effective but not especially creative or technically groundbreaking, but for the dramatic sweep of Aurora’s incredible tale.

A crowd-pleasing, if slightly formulaic, documentary in the vein of Spellbound.

Immersive, disorienting, frightening: this experimental documentary takes its form from the landscape it explores.