Wendy Ide

And Shahrzad, a huge star from the 1960s and 70s who was banished after the revolution, is present as a voice rather than a face in the film, but is no less significant for the fact that she is not seen by the camera.

The magnetic Scicluna is a Maltese fisherman in real life, and part of a cast predominantly made up of non-professional actors. His performance is impressively complex.

Peng’s performance is physically rather than verbally expressive – he has barely more lines of dialogue than the dog – but Lang’s arc of redemption is explored with heart and humour.

The overriding impression, once the adrenaline has drained away, is of futility, waste and pointless destruction.

I’m not convinced that the picture carries quite the philosophical weight that it thinks it does. Still, it’s an undeniably gorgeous place to lose yourself for a while.

Moore’s subtle, empathetic work elevates what could be dismissed as a small-scale, even banal story.

The wordless earth magic of the storytelling won’t be for everyone, but the film casts a beguiling spell.

Koberidze invites us to reshape and reappraise our perspective on what constitutes beauty. It’s a bold decision and, coupled with the endurance-testing pacing and running time, one which will make the film something of a marketing challenge beyond the die-hard Koberidze fan base. And yet there is something alluring here – it’s a meditative and elusive picture that conveys a spiritual beauty as much as an aesthetic one.

Despite a sterling effort from Thompson, neither the comedy nor the character arcs are fully satisfying.

The Taste of Things defies expectations. There is something refreshingly unconventional about its depiction of the tender, well-worn love between Eugénie and Dodin.

Enys Men is an enigmatic proposition, concerned with atmosphere rather than with story.

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 not the kind of film that nails the audience to its seats; rather, it’s a quiet, observational piece of storytelling that pieces together the budding relationships between the labourers.

The Humans struggles to escape its theatrical origins.

In Oscar Isaac’s enigmatic blackjack player “William Tell”, with his wary hooded eyes and closed book countenance, the film has a broodingly commanding central performance. It’s a pity, then, that much of its promise is squandered by sloppiness, both in the writing and elsewhere.

While it might not break new ground, there is no denying the potency of the film’s empathetic anguish and fury.

There are moments – Mimmi biting back her emotions as Emma dances for her alone at night – that tingle with discovery and promise.

Although it’s a wisp of a thing, it delivers rich rewards. Mirrors No. 3 (which takes its title from the third movement of a Ravel piano suite) is an elegant demonstration of what can be achieved with limited ingredients in the hands of an inventive creative team and a first-rate cast.

Wang’s film has a grass roots, on-the-ground urgency: nervy, paranoid camerawork gives a sense of the realities of life on the sharp edge of activism.

It’s not a showy piece of filmmaking, but it is one which earns its emotional authenticity with a perceptive eye for detail and a sure directorial hand guiding the cast of non-actors.

It’s a (virtual) life-affirming approach that is certainly affecting, but can feel a little disingenuous.

It asks pertinent questions about loneliness and a world in which algorithms can know us better than our human partners ever will.

Sweeping and novelistic in scope, the film, adapted from an Italian bestseller by Paolo Cognetti, combines the earthy, rooted grit of Jack London with the vivid emotional landscapes of Elena Ferrante.

There’s a sparseness and stillness to Max Walker-Silverman’s storytelling that is filled by Dickey’s terrific, lived-in performance and the brief spark of connection between two lonely people.

It’s one of the most bracingly effective chillers of the year.

It’s a distinctive work, both visually – the stark black and white photography accentuates the uncanny, almost lunar pockmarks on this scarred terrain – and in terms of its intriguingly detached outback noir storytelling.

The Substance not only offers a female perspective on women’s bodies, but also argues that things only start to get properly messy once fertility is a dim memory.

There’s something about the macabre sensuality and mossy, crepuscular gloom of this retelling of the vampire legend that leaves a mark on the audience. It’s not so much a viewing experience as a kind of haunting.