Wendy Ide

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

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.

While this is a familiar story and backdrop, its tender, empathetic storytelling is elevated by handsome cinematography and heartfelt performances.

Late Fame is a deliciously acidic examination of the thin line between creative aspiration and pretentious poseurdom.

Inspired by Diop’s own experience of attending the trial of a woman accused of murdering her baby, it’s a meditative exploration of a complicated connection between the woman in the dock and the one who bears witness.

It’s a tough watch – at the start, she suggests that we “close our eyes and take a deep breath if we need to” – but a brave and important one.

The film’s messaging on female empowerment and living authentically might border on the trite. The means of delivering that message, however, does at least feel genuinely fresh and new.

It’s a rambunctious adventure, certainly. But it’s also a film that argues for tolerance and LGBTQ+ acceptance.

Chalamet’s Dylan sucks so fervently on his cigarettes it’s as though he’s breathing in the genius of the musical heroes who came before him. But while he radiates insouciant charisma and channels the once-in-a-lifetime talent, he reveals next to nothing about Dylan as a person. This is not necessarily a failure in Chalamet’s acting. It’s a deliberate choice – the film is called A Complete Unknown, after all, and it’s a manifesto as much as a title.

The fourth fiction feature from Kleber Mendonça Filho is a sweat-saturated riot of a movie: a dual-timeline thriller powered by the kind of anarchic, erratic energy that you would expect to find at the end of a two day bender.

It is, at times, harrowing. The film doesn’t shy away from grief at its rawest, fear at its most paralysing.

It’s the movie equivalent of a fairground ride with all the bolts loosened and the safety booklet blazed long ago when someone ran out of Rizlas.

It does, though, capture chillingly the terrible, self-perpetuating momentum of war. A war that, in this case, has reached the point at which people no longer know what they are fighting for, only that they are fighting.

There’s an unexpected elegance to this window into unimaginable evil.

Layla is less about making peace with the past than it is about staying true to the present.

Tigers is a rare and refreshing entry into the sports movie genre. Rather than follow the well-worn narrative trajectory of struggle followed by success, the picture looks instead at the considerable cost of excellence.

It springs restlessly between ideas and, while it doesn’t quite cohere into a neat central thesis, the film did leave me with both the means and the inclination to do some further thinking on the subject.

It’s a genuinely exciting piece of storytelling, a propulsive real-life quest for truth driven by ingenious tech-geeks and the disarming force of Navalny’s personality.

It’s this aspect – the real warmth, the way the camera becomes almost incidental in the encounters between documentarian and subject – which gives this film its satisfying emotional depth.

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.

It’s fair to say that in this singular piece of filmmaking, with its dense deep-dive into arcane legend and mythology, selling out is certainly not on the cards for Masaaki Yuasa right now.

While Luca might lack some of the dizzying inventiveness that marks out top-tier Pixar, it’s packed to the gills with charm.

The meditative experience is heightened by Wenders’s innovative use of sound: indistinct whispers flutter like bats through the cavernous spaces.

The beauty of Wham!, a key part of the appeal of the band, came from the perception that they were a self-contained unit, a guaranteed good time seemingly impervious to negativity. And for a while, that was true.

A must watch.

Powerful and enraging.

With its all too timely themes of bullying, corrupt leaders and the demonisation of difference, this is a movie that promises a froth of pink and green escapism but delivers considerably more in the way of depth and darkness.

Wonka is an effervescent pleasure – an endlessly, intricately charming treasure trove of a movie. And overall, Timothée Chalamet’s fresh-faced take on the central character – bringing a puckish innocence and spry, light-footed energy to one of the most famously jaded misanthropes in children’s literature – works rather well.

There’s a seam of pitch black gallows humour running through the picture, and moments of absurdist hilarity. But mostly, it’s an impassioned and forthright condemnation of the regime and of the men who do its bidding.

There is a bruising authenticity to the picture that comes, in no small part, from a lengthy and meticulous casting process.

Crisply British and deliciously no-nonsense, Kennedy is a wonderfully bracing character for Elizabeth Carroll’s deft documentary.

It’s about overcoming trauma; it confronts and interrogates the role of some African peoples – the Dahomey included – in the enslavement of others. It’s also a thunderously cinematic good time: see it on the biggest screen you can find.

With its looming, angular and alienating architecture, and thoroughly considered technological and ethical future landscape, this is a phenomenal and inventive piece of world-building from Prague-based director Robert Hloz.

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.

This Albert Hughes-directed adventure is visually stunning.

There is much to admire for those who chime with the languid rhythms and language of loaded sidelong glances.

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.

It’s a powerful, profoundly uncomfortable watch.

The picture also doubles as a fascinating psychological study of fanaticism, with Poots’s expressive performance unpeeling the layers beneath Dugdale’s fervent belief in her cause.

It’s a quietly profound film, one that encourages appreciation of the world through exultant widescreen landscape shots, macro close-ups and textured field recordings of skittering bugs and crunching ice. It also preaches acceptance of the inevitable cycles of nature – cycles that we, as humans, should learn to embrace rather than fight against.

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

Subtle it’s not, but it’s maliciously entertaining. It turns out that revenge on the ultra-wealthy is a dish best seared over a naked flame.

As the story progresses, Bell’s decision to share the focus and to examine her relationship with her mother makes more sense, bringing an intimacy and tenderness to the rock documentary format.

It’s a teasing exploration of the cost of freedom and of the dualities of life.

A celebration of scientific excellence and an account of a discovery which has ramifications for natural environments the world over, The Serengeti Rules makes for compelling viewing.

The family scenes, all jostling banter and suffocating love, are terrific.

With its VHS bargain-bin aesthetic, this is scuzzily enjoyable stuff.

[An] agile, cerebral film.

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

Subdued in tone and stoic in its approach to the dangers that can decimate an entire community, Identifying Features is admirable in its restraint, and all the more powerful because of it.

This open-sore autobiography feels like the missing piece in the puzzle of this frequently brilliant, invariably self-jeopardising actor.

Shot with a documentary-style naturalism and propulsive restlessness that mirrors Olga’s ferocious drive, this is a terrific, timely feature debut.

Captured by a camera that frequently rattles against the sides of the hurtling ambulance, the Ochoas’ night-time escapades are electrifying and urgent, doused in strobing emergency lights and powered by adrenaline.

Bring Them Down is an impressive first feature from Christopher Andrews.

It’s bleak at times, but there is a defiantly celebratory aspect to the film, which finds hope in the solidarity of Black women and dignity in Gia’s quiet stoicism.

The combination of a committed central performance from the increasingly gaunt and haunted Bacon, and a jarring, tortured score, makes for an enjoyably nasty brush with the smiling face of evil.

Dog Man, the half-dog, half-cop protagonist of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants spin-off book series, is a gloriously funny creation.

Like Maryam’s approach to local politics, the film is well-meaning but occasionally naive.

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

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

For the most part, the film is a towering achievement. Not surprisingly, given Nolan’s preference for shooting on Imax 70mm film, the picture has a depth of detail you could drown in.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig may not be his most elegant picture – it has pacing issues and a laboured final act – but it is without doubt Rasoulof’s most important film to date.

There are moments when Dune: Part Two feels uncomfortably timely.

Smart, cynical and at times devilishly funny, the film delivers a crackle of disruptive static to the demonic possession genre.

While Fancy Dance has a tendency to labour its points a little too emphatically, Gladstone and Deroy-Olson are both phenomenal; their connection, played out in shared glances and urgent wordless messages, is palpable, persuasive and vital.

It’s terrific: nail-chewing, edge-of-the-seat stuff.

There’s a sparky authenticity to the performances , bolstered by the fact that Carpignano cast a real-life family in the central roles.

While this picture lacks the guileless immediacy of the child’s-eye view of her first two films, Romeria demonstrates once again that Simon has a rare gift for capturing the unpredictable, mercurial beast that is the family.

What makes this amiably amusing Danish comedy work is the fact that it takes its hapless protagonist almost as seriously as he takes himself.

Beauty And The Dogs is a forthright and accomplished film which deals with its controversial subject matter without flinching. Tautly plotted, it has a pace and tension which mitigates the exhausting spectacle of watching a vulnerable young woman getting bullied and browbeaten by a selection of utterly horrible men.

Barney Douglas’s doc about tennis maverick John McEnroe belongs to that rare handful of portraits that should find an audience far beyond just fans of the game itself. In this, it has a kinship with Asif Kapadia’s films Senna and Diego Maradona.

Whis is a teen comedy with a refreshingly forthright approach to everything from puberty to the status of 13th-century women as chattels to be bartered.

Demoustier dangles doubts, but also raises questions about the difference between judgment and justice. The score acts as our guide through the story: neat, self-possessed string arrangements occasionally fray into something jagged, raw-edged and nervy.

This adaptation of A.F. Harrold’s 2014 children’s book is an appealing, emotionally engaging fantasy; the art direction is intricate and exquisite.

Some talk eloquently, some glare at the camera with cagey mistrust. But the point of this worthwhile and frequently fascinating project is that all have the opportunity to be heard.

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 Settlers shows promise: it’s the work of a daring director intent on developing a distinctive and original voice.

Like Kore-eda’s 2008 family drama Still Walking, this is a film which is interested in the architecture, both emotional and physical, of the family home.

It helps that Gordon is a dream of a subject: funny, frank and eminently likable, she challenges preconceptions and prejudices about fatness with wit and grace.

The film’s observational approach means that little context is provided for the techniques used here, or for the lives and circumstances of the daily visitors. But the warm, non-judgmental embrace of Philibert’s approach is profoundly affecting.

Even if The Iron Claw doesn’t quite match the bracing originality of the other two films, it still cements Durkin’s status as one of the most consistently impressive American directors of his generation.

It’s all very meta and self-referential; screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers hoover up memorable lines from past movies and serve them with a flourish and an exaggerated wink to the audience. It’s also a good deal of fun.

This is not just a visual treat, it’s a rewarding and unexpectedly engrossing piece of female-led storytelling.

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.

Better Man is a notable step up for Gracey. The synthetic, rather soulless panache of The Greatest Showman demonstrated his skills as a slick visual stylist, but here he directs from the heart, tapping into the rawness and vulnerability beneath the CGI monkey suit.

Strong performances across the board and a propulsive sense of mounting desperation makes for a compelling piece of storytelling.

The debut feature from actress Lisa Brühlmann, Blue My Mind brings a surreal spin to the coming of age story, and is an effective showcase for a striking cast of young performers.

What The Whaler Boy lacks in story complexity and character depth, it more than makes up in its bone-deep immersion in Lyoshka’s world.

It Is In Us All demonstrates a sure directorial hand when it comes to evoking a sense of place and community, but falters slightly in the writing and the characterisation – for all Jarvis’s intriguingly complex work, the increasingly nihilistic character he plays remains something of a conundrum throughout.

The latest film from Chris Renaud (Despicable Me) and his team is a madcap caper full of densely-packed sight gags, dizzying action set pieces and a healthy side-helping of Renaud trademark silliness.

The Phantom Of The Open is an amiable little picture which might be dramatically as flat as Mark Rylance’s vowels but still packs a considerable helping of crowd-pleasing charm into its cap and golfing slacks.

The message of selflessness, generosity and loyalty is by-the-numbers stuff, but embellish it with moss, pinecones and twigs, and it takes on a certain magic.

What’s most interesting, although it gets slightly buried under a few too many almost identical musical performances, is the film’s account of the fractious symbiosis of the guru-disciple relationship.

It’s a work of undeniable historical significance.

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 is no shortage of drama to feed House Of Z.

Sama’s film captures the quicksilver sparks of an artistic moment – the point at which a loose bohemian community collectively finds its voice and forces the mainstream to take notice.

Ice Mother handles the lives of its older protagonists with sensitivity and admirable candour.

Sporadically very funny, always entertaining, tonally, it’s a blend of The League of Gentlemen and Deliverance, but with beatboxing rather than banjos, and considerably more drug use.

Bellocchio’s motives for making the film are in part to make sense of the events, in part, one suspects, to exorcise a lingering sense of survivor’s guilt. Yet for all the laudable intentions, Camillo still gets slightly lost in the rambling anecdotes, padding and extraneous details.

The approach is scrupulously even-handed. The film is just as interested in mild-mannered Sue’s journey as it is in Daniel’s coming of age. The screenplay, adapted by Lisa Owens (Bird’s wife) from an award winning graphic novel by Joff Winterhart, is wryly low key, with a keen eye for the subtle stabs and small daily humiliations that gradually mount.

In its unassuming way, the film is a celebration of creativity and of emotional connections forged through art. But Nagi Notes is unassertive in its themes and, at times, gentle almost to a fault.

This comic melodrama wrings every last drop of drama from the set up.

There’s an oddball intrigue and a dry absurdist humour to this journey which largely transcends the uneven pacing

A brisk and efficient thriller ... This combination of moral quandary and ticking clock peril makes for a bracing, if occasionally didactic, political drama.

Rolf de Heer’s wordless allegorical drama explores its themes in savage, boundless landscapes; in stark images of hate and violence; and in disease and blood.

It’s undeniably powerful stuff, but a more straightforward piece of storytelling, lacking the slippery, shape-shifting quality of his debut.

Ali’s anger and frustration is the engine which gives this heartfelt drama its energy; Bessa’s terrific performance, a thunderous scowl masking his rising anguish, is a considerable asset.

Although at times a little overwrought in tone, and at others emphatically sentimental, the film doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to condemning a society which punishes its poor.

Strong central performances from Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote, as three generations of women from one family, contribute to a sense of claustrophobic unease; a tone which is unnecessarily bludgeoned home by the over-excitable sound design.

A sufficiently motivated woman is a fearsome and unstoppable force: the central premise for this gleefully pulpy WWII horror puts a dash of feminist fury into a schlocky B movie set-up.

The unexpectedly out-there quality of the third act reveal is a surprise which will work best on an unprepared audience.

A solid, persuasively-acted account of the real-life mission to bring a Nazi war criminal to justice.

This initially subdued, superbly acted story of an unlikely connection takes a savage and unsettling tonal swerve in the final act. The latest from Paul Andrew Williams will not be for everyone, but it is a chokingly tense commentary on the precarious nature of community.

Though perhaps low on insights, this is an evocative portrait of a brief, intense window of hedonism, self discovery and Olympic levels of self-indulgence experienced by young people on the cusp of adulthood.

The use of animation is sometimes a little crude, but the homespun aesthetic works well with the quirky nature of the story which unfolds.

Boy From Heaven is an ambitiously complex story of religious espionage.

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.

The cumulative stress of the pandemic is everywhere, as pervasive and ubiquitous as the omicron variant. Beth’s lonely home-working set-up; the eerie quiet in the predawn hours; the brittle desperation in the callers’ voices; the sheer volume of cries for help: it all captures the sense of teetering on the brink, the uncertainty, the unfamiliar anxieties of the first lockdown.

A workmanlike and sometimes clumsy screenplay is not enough to extinguish the spark from this real-life fairytale romance, which delivers both a heartfelt emotional story and a grim lesson in 20th-century British foreign policy.

What the film depicts is at times creepy and unsettling, but it lifts the lid on an aspect of the virtual world which may be unfamiliar to audiences in the west.

The combination of a first-rate cast, a rippling, frequently witty score and a highly-strung, madcap plot — which itself wouldn’t be out of place in a comic opera — makes for a quirky, offbeat spin on the relationship drama.

The smouldering animosity of an impoverished small town towards two outsiders, combined with the contained tension as a precarious alibi collapses, one chance event at a time, means that the film should resonate with audiences looking for effective genre material.

There’s an undertow of melancholy certainly, but also a light, buoyant quality to a film that cherishes its moments of humour and absurdity.

It’s a technically accomplished work. The score is nervy pulsing and electronic, adding to the propulsion and tension of the storytelling.

Inside is set up as a psychological thriller/escape movie, but evolves into something rather more intriguing: a philosophical interrogation of the value of art to a dying man.

The choice of characters is strong enough to ensure a broad and insightful overview of the subject, which is explored in considerably more depth than might have been expected from a film which is packed to the gills with high-strength weed.

This is a devilishly handsome old-school tale of treachery and intrigue that zips through its nearly three hours in a blur of swordplay, glorious costumes and prosthetic rubber facial disguises.

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.

Stylistically bold and youthful in approach, if sometimes a little uneven, it’s a picture packed full of ideas and fizzing energy.

This is a solid, watchable drama that, while perhaps lacking some of the directorial flair of Heal The Living, evocatively tallies the costs of living on the wrong side of social and sexual conventions in the 1950s and 60s.

Boldly synthetic in its approach, in everything from colour palette to performance style, this film won’t be for everyone. And the fact that it defies easy categorisation might present a marketing challenge. But for those who engage with it, this oddly off-kilter piece of storytelling should exert a pull every bit as mesmerising as any genetically modified mood-enhancing shrub.

Unshowy camerawork and an understated score both place the emphasis on the largely impressive and naturalistic performances.

While its ideas might fail to fully coalesce, the film is unnervingly beautiful; an immersive and mesmeric aural and visual experience.

This is a story of survival, but it is by no means typical of the genre – instead it is sensory, tactile; a film that taps into an atavistic, instinctual primal quality that characterises new motherhood.

The feature debut from music promo and commercials director Jaron Albertin is, as you would expect, a stylistically assured piece of work. But this tale of a father with mental health issues who finds himself suddenly responsible for a son he has never met is also unexpectedly restrained dramatically.

A winning, if whimsical, account of an ordinary woman achieving the extraordinary.

It can feel a little scattershot at times, but the film illuminates the considerable cost of dissent, both then and now. It’s at its best, however, when it gives Choy free-rein to speak her mind.

Rather than bring anything new to the genre, director Ben Younger settles for adding a distinctive bracing energy to the somewhat timeworn tropes.

The filmmakers switch the focus from the suspense of an uncertain outcome to the central friendship between the two women, a friendship that Diana tends to inadvertently torpedo. This allows both actresses to bring a depth and texture that sustains the picture through the extended swimming sequences.

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.

Much of Catch The Fair One’s lean authenticity comes from the film’s star (and real-life boxer) Kali Reis, who also gets a story credit on this picture. It’s a propulsive watch but, in common with many of the missing-person stories which inspired it, finds more dead-ends than answers.

The second film from Natalia Meta is a slippery thing to pin down. Like the ragged mental state of its main character, it unravels as it goes on. But it is also never less than stridently entertaining, in part thanks to a brittle central performance from Erica Rivas.

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

The unexpected humour and sheer ballsiness of Redmon and Sabin’s quest make for an entertaining ride which is only slightly undermined by the overuse of clumsily crowbarred movie references.

The film’s slight scattershot structure actually works in its favour, keeping the pace at a full-tilt sprint, the energy sparking and the story moving whenever there’s a risk of it tipping into the realms of the overwrought.

Despicable Me 4 may not reinvent the wheel (even if it does soup up a wheelchair with monster-truck-sized tyres at one point). What it does deliver is a brisk, fan-friendly romp which may be a little thin on actual plot but is stuffed to the gills with jokes.

The latest from Drake Doremus is a candid, very watchable account of a messy period in a woman’s life.

Denis Côté’s eerie fantasy drama juxtaposes the mundane and the parochial with the supernatural, to sometimes disquieting effect.

Love Life is handsomely mounted and perceptively observed, with Kimura in particular delivering a persuasively complex performance.

The film’s authenticity comes not so much from the parties and celebration, and certainly not from the documentary device, but from the emotional connection between Kaz and Zoe; the way he leans slightly towards her as he translates the words of a traditional love song, the brief loaded pause when their eyes lock.

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

The film might not be doing anything revolutionary with the gay coming of age story, but it is heartfelt and honest. And at times, unexpectedly hot.

The force of Cruz’s charisma — she’s like a cross between Sophia Loren and a solar flare — is more than enough to justify spending time with the family.

Although Mother And Son loses some of its energy as it unfolds, it is still a sensitive and complex examination of the shifting tensions in a migrant family.

Driven by strong performances, this is, however, a more conventional piece than other recent pictures which explored crises of faith.

There is a compassion in this filmmaking that is markedly lacking in America’s attitude towards the people it pushes to its outer fringes.

There’s a fine line between giving a voice to the victims of honour killings and putting words into the mouths of people who are no longer able to speak for themselves. The slightly contentious issue with A Regular Woman is how closely allied it is with the real case of Hatun Aynur Sürücü. There is no distance afforded by a layer of fictionalisation and, ultimately, it’s impossible to know how closely the voice of the character in the film matches that of the young woman who lost her life.

On Becoming A Guinea Fowl is a formally daring picture that blends fantasy, stylised drama and elements of black comedy to explore the societal pressures that rewrite the truth.

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

The tonal shift in the sequel compared to the original means that, although there are plenty of moments of savage humour, the highs are just not quite so high any more. There’s a melancholy maturity, however, which is satisfying in its own way.

The film’s main asset is Apte, a gifted physical comedian who puts the dead into deadpan, and loads every gesture with an aggressive, almost demented slap-stick infused humour.

There’s a savage, sometimes surreal wit to this anarchic tale of violence and revenge; it’s an eye catching first feature from actress Mirrah Foulkes, and an intriguingly eccentric addition to an already offbeat CV for Wasikowska.

Plotwise, the film is a little ragged, particularly in the third act, but star Eddie Peng is impressive.

It’s a robustly entertaining romp.

The third act action is propulsive and stylishly executed, and the film’s conclusion has a bittersweet poignancy. And while Arco’s journey is not an unexpected one, the film’s optimistic endpoint brings a welcome note of hope.

The film crackles with energy every time Erradi opens her mouth to sing.

While the picture doesn’t quite maintain its vigorous energy through to the very end, it is still a satisfyingly knotty exploration of the bi-cultural experience.

Deliberately scattershot and naïve, this engaging, absurdist collage, shot entirely on VHS tape, smuggles a serious message beneath its 80s poodle-permed public access television pastiche.

The humour is low key, repeatedly mining the juxtaposition of the supernatural and the banal; a likeable performance from Maeve Higgins is the picture’s driving force.

The pivotal scenes may be fictionalised, but the prickling, precarious threat is clammily authentic and inspired by the experiences of the film’s writer, director and star, Ana Asensio, as an undocumented Spanish immigrant eking out an existence in New York.

It’s a grimly efficient character study of a flawed and damaged man who is intent on visiting harm to those he perceives as wrongdoers, and an indictment of the system that protects him. Bleak, but grubbily effective.

While the first two acts are more engaging and accessible than the third – the picture does get a little bogged down in its effects and ideas – there’s no question that this is an imaginative and original debut from director Jake Wachtel.

A fascinating, sometimes frightening film which, like its subjects, is perhaps a little too ambitious for its own good.

Levan Koguashvili evocatively captures the unpredictable crackle of tensions and the tacit loyalties between the men; all sweat and beer and maudlin machismo, although the atmosphere of the picture is rather more compelling than its somewhat workmanlike plot.

In its unassuming, intuitive way, the film is rather beguiling, if a little gauzy and elusive at times.

It’s the kind of horror which eschews jump scares in favour of a more subtle, gauzy sense of unease, a slow-burning discomfort that creeps up on the audience like a half-seen shadow. It’s not exactly terrifying, but there’s an oppressive sense of menace which is magnified by the high-quality performances from the two young stars, and by the nervily watchful camerawork.

It’s a slow burner which gambles that the incremental build of tension will keep the audience involved, even as the stoically inexpressive central character holds them at arm’s length. It’s a gamble that pays off

The picture draws parallels between China and the US when it comes to botched and skewed deployment of information.

This striking drama vividly captures the sense of uncertainty of transient lives, but loses power in a final act which gets somewhat mired in hallucinatory dream logic.

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.

A striking first feature steeped in allegory, dust and despair, The Penultimate brings a blend of absurdity and theatricality to a stylised tale of humanity unravelling.

While it may struggle to satisfy diehard Orwell purists, the film still takes a political stance and delivers an emphatic message celebrating equality and the power of the collective – albeit one which permits us a little more hope than was present in Orwell’s 1945 novella.

Hewson, gifted with a wealth of elaborately profane dialogue, is a force of nature.

Nimbly edited and directed with brio, this portrait of the legendary Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin represents a sure-footed leap for director Matthew Heineman from documentary to factually-based drama.

Grief and tragedy naturally co-exist with gentle comedy; and Adalsteins leans into both the eccentricity and philosophical density of the source material, with the village itself serving as a somewhat enigmatic narrator.

The measured pacing and an overly generous running time might work against the picture, but for the most part, it’s a rich, rewarding and fully fleshed-out drama.

The scenes that Chastain and Elba share are enormously enjoyable. There’s a crackling, almost screwball quality to their rapid-fire banter. You rather wish they had more screen time together. But there’s a lot of backstory to explore and many fools to be parted from their money.

Key to the film’s appeal is the way that the friendship between the four girls, Dina, Lola, Daisy (Lisa Barnett), and Mari (Eden Grace Redfield), is persuasively brought to life.

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.

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.

While it is not quite in the same league as any of the films that clearly influenced it, The Sheep Detectives is an appealingly offbeat children’s film, showcasing Balda’s knack for visual humour while also sheep-dipping into unexpectedly weighty themes.

Sluggish pacing slightly undermines the film’s main assets — the strong performances from Kelli Garner as Mary and a suitably ravaged-looking Nick Stahl as Eli.

J.A. Bayona’s adaptation of this much-filmed story is elevated by bracingly muscular action sequences. It manages to sustain a degree of tension despite an overlong running time and the fact that the outcome of the incident is unlikely to be a surprise to anyone.

This pleasing, if perplexing, feature debut from Qiu Sheng takes an agile and experimental approach to structure, as two story strands glance off each other, and occasionally intersect.

This is not a film which minimises the pain of depression or the impulse to end it all. Bruises, both physical and mental, are on show throughout. It’s an approach which might come at the expense of some of the humour – the comedy evokes bittersweet grimaces rather than belly laughs – but does make for a satisfying study of male friendship.

This sparse, atmospheric fable grows markedly in power in the second half, as Banel’s passion takes on an edge of violence and insanity.

Filling in the details of a life that touched many others is not the point of this film. Rather, the picture approaches her as a catalyst who unlocked something in the people she encountered: the emotions that pour onto the pages of letters, the creativity and inspiration that nourish Torrini’s musical project.

The brilliantly sustained mood and matter-of-fact absurdity of Valdimar Jóhannsson’s impressive debut is slightly let down by a pay-off which doesn’t entirely land. Still, the majority of the picture is strong enough to satisfy audiences with a taste for folk horror oddities, even if the ending isn’t quite as punchy as one might have anticipated.

More concerned with creating a slowburn of discomfort than with deploying jumpscares, it is driven by first-rate performances from Bracken and, in particular, rising star Doupe.

Aside from the mother-daughter relationship angle, this splashy, showy assassin picture doesn’t really cover any new ground. But the lack of imagination elsewhere is offset by some impressively slick tailoring – Boksoon really does dress to kill – and extravagantly athletic fight sequences.

The first feature film from cinematographer Ellen Kuras is a satisfyingly textured portrait of a remarkable and unusual woman, who had an almost Zelig-like gift for bearing witness to key moments in history.

A deftly handled cautionary tale, there is a compulsive, creeping horror to this portrait of a man losing all self-respect. That said, it is frequently a tough watch.

It’s a fairly conventional, risk-averse piece of filmmaking, but the film’s gentle, meandering story works its way to a conclusion which plays out in a minor key, suggesting that certain cycles are hard to break and that even a seemingly idyllic life comes at a cost.

The barrier between the real and the fictional encounters is increasingly permeable, as is the line between social norms and unacceptable behaviour, in this freewheeling, spontaneous voyage into the unknown.

The laughs are split between deft sight gags and set pieces, and goofy word play.

This decision to seek out the sun rather than just the clouds, to focus on resilience and healing won’t be for everyone, nor will it represent the experience of all victims of terrorism.

A few mid-section pacing issues not withstanding, this is a satisfyingly gritty addition to Iran’s tradition of humanist cinema.

Although conventional in its approach, the film is a forceful reckoning of a broken legal system.

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

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.

For all the impressive qualities of the picture, it does feel as though there is a rigid upper-age limit for its audience.

Buckley, as always, is terrific, bringing the picture more emotional potency than it perhaps warrants.

It’s possibly the most Russian thing ever created, and it’s most certainly not a soothing viewing experience. But there’s something grimly fascinating about it nonetheless.

It may be big, brawling and somewhat inelegant in approach, but this Gerard Butler vehicle is an aviation fuel-powered good time.

The picture, a big-budget spectacle guided by the sure hand of action director Seung-wan Ryu (Crying Fist), is at its most effective when the hurtling camera is strafed by bullets. It’s less successful when the headlong pace falters to allow the screenplay to hammer home its message of collaboration and tolerance.

It’s perfectly watchable but a film with this puttering pace is never going to get the blood racing.

The descent into melodrama in the final act increases the tension but, in relying on some unexpected actions by several characters, also damages the film’s credibility.

It’s all fairly predictable. Anyone who has seen more than a couple of serial killer movies will have no problem assembling a list of possible masked murderers. But Josh Ruben’s film goes above and beyond when it comes to squelchy, visceral gore.

Provocative and challenging, if not the most subtle piece of political commentary, the film certainly cements Kaouther Ben Hania as a name to watch in Arab cinema.

Anderson’s backdrop, a kind of steroidally enhanced Frenchness reminiscent of films such as Belleville Rendez-Vous and Amélie, is rather lovely, if ultimately as far removed from reality as is the film’s romanticised view of journalism.

This perky computer-animated adventure leans a little heavily on its meta self-aware storytelling devices (expect numerous fourth-wall-smashing to camera asides), but it’s a fun, if slightly macabre option for family audiences.

Sara Forestier is likable enough as the somewhat hapless Sophie, who dreams of working as an artist but whose main preoccupation is finding a man.

While the bracingly bleak climax will come as a surprise to pretty much nobody, it still comes with an efficiently grisly pay off.

It’s a droll, perceptive and shamelessly sentimental look at generational tensions.

Rather than a slick, high-concept fantasy action picture in the vein of Everything Everywhere All at Once, here is a B-movie throwback with its roots in the pulpy creature features of the 1950s. Viewed from this perspective, the shonky special effects are just part of the fun.

The force of Fuhrman’s performance – as she demonstrated in last year’s The Novice, she can be a remarkable and unsettling presence in front of a camera – goes a considerable way towards reclaiming the role of the malevolent mini psychopath Esther. Even more impressive is Julia Stiles, a supremely talented yet underused actor who dominates this film from a gloriously unexpected midpoint twist onwards.

It’s a handsome film, but a conventional one, rather missing the opportunity of allowing Salomon’s thrilling uninhibited style to inform the film’s aesthetic.

Billy’s inane babbling gets a little wearing, but the action sequences, featuring dragon-based mayhem, cyclopes and an army of formidable hell unicorns hopped up on candy, are pacy and fun.

Flashbacks to Mariam’s technicolour youth in 1969 Karachi are gorgeously realised, and the design department (in particular wardrobe) gets to revel in an eye-popping kaleidoscope of primary hues.

And while the story of the film lacks some of the sinuous inventiveness of its predecessor [Your Name], it shares the striking animation style, romantic sensibility and a similar poppy score.

It’s affecting enough, with both Harris and Stevenson capturing the wrenching, protracted grief of not knowing, but I found myself wishing that the film had maintained a sense of mystery rather than dumping a chunk of inelegant exposition at the end.

A terrific Penélope Cruz makes up for the lack of colour with her enjoyably strident turn as Ferrari’s permanently furious wife, Laura.

There’s a feverish wildness to Corrin’s performance, while O’Connell unleashes the full force of his considerable charisma.

Milocco’s performance manages to walk a thin line between credibility and delusion, a line which is less successfully negotiated by other aspects of the film.

It’s silkily enigmatic and unpredictable, and certainly unlike anything else you will see this year.

With Bird Box: Barcelona, as with any film of this outlandish ilk, suspension of disbelief and an appreciation of propulsively destructive action sequences is key. Just don’t expect too many fresh ideas.

This is filmmaking which echoes Cohen’s music style – it’s contemplative, searching and stripped back, but it can also be somewhat navel gazing, ponderous and very slow.

The picture comes armed to the teeth with slick action sequences . . . and genuinely funny lines. It’s just a pity that both the action and the dialogue are occasionally obscured by the frenzied editing.

It doesn’t all work; the flashbacks are unwieldy and the pacing falters in the second half. It’s also rather coy in addressing some of the more damning elements in recent Catholic history. But there’s something disarming about a scene of papal bonding over beer and footy.

This sequel is so derivative of its predecessor, it’s practically a remake.

An impenetrable plot doesn’t entirely hold together, but the film is worth a look for fans of wigged-out sci-fi, gorgeous framing and lush, orchestral, Bernard Herrmann-inspired soundtracks.

Typically delicate and as gentle as a balm, the film’s well-intentioned earnestness will not endear it to the more cynical end of the audience spectrum. But fans of Kawase’s small scale personal dramas will respond to the film’s wistful tone, as well as the plaintive prettiness of the photography.

What keeps it from top-tier animation status is that, while the relentless killer drone army usually hits its targets, the jokes don’t always connect.

Given the emotive subject matter, the film chooses to keep the potential mothers at arm’s length as characters, losing tear-jerking opportunities as a consequence.

Kramer’s vision is distinctive: playful and jarringly lurid. Give Me Pity! is a one-off – and that’s probably a good thing.

This gentle comedy trades heavily on Tsai Chin’s deliciously abrasive central performance, but stumbles when it comes to the execution of the action sequences

Southcombe deftly threads together the two stories with echoes in the dialogue and in the location.

It’s not uninvolving. The picture takes its own sweet time getting going, but a satisfying momentum builds through the multiple, interlinked storylines.

It’s impossible to endure all this – the film is sporadically funny but it’s also emotionally arid, mannered, and overlong – without making a link between the power plays on screen and Lanthimos’s approach as a film-maker.

Although it may not bring revelations, there’s an informality and intimacy to this portrait that is unexpectedly pleasing.

The early potency of this macabre fairytale becomes increasingly diluted however, as the film progresses and the story broadens.

Nightbitch would have worked better if it had been pushed further in either direction – as an intimate interrogation, or as a full-bore bestial freakout. This uneasy middle ground feels like a missed opportunity.

The shared experience between the filmmaker and the subject of the film allows for a character study of depth and intimacy. However, the story itself – a slightly soapy ‘romance against the odds’ narrative – presents few surprises.

It’s predictable but glossily watchable. The main redeeming feature is the crackling charisma of Emily Blunt, in the central role of a down-on-her-luck single mum turned pharma marketing genius.

Mescal and Ronan are captivating: her watchful, raw-nerved longing; his stinging sense of betrayal. It almost eases us past an overwrought final twist. Almost, but not quite.

Gore addicts will be sated – the prosthetics and makeup are robustly grisly – but the story feels rather too glib and predictable to be fully satisfying.

Ayushmann Khurrana, playing the good cop who can’t bring himself to look away to preserve “society’s balance”, combines soulful Bollywood heartthrob charisma with an arrestingly intense performance.

It’s a film that cries out to be seen in the cinema. Disney’s decision to bypass a theatrical release in favour of streaming does a disservice to both the film and its audience.

The film’s actual pay off – the truth exhumed from this tainted earth – is ultimately not quite as satisfying as the picture’s elegantly constructed mood.

A gentle, unassuming picture, it does have a satisfying, feelgood trajectory and empathetic central performance from Marie Leuenberger.