Wendy Ide

Just as Ripley is the female action hero against whom all others are judged, so the alien itself, brilliantly conceived by HR Giger and, equally brilliantly, concealed by Scott and kept in shadow for much of the film, is one of the most terrifying monsters in cinema history.

This extraordinary documentary weighs the bleak details – and they are, at times, almost unbearably grim – against moments of lyrical beauty and even humour. It’s a remarkable achievement.

The writing is sharp throughout: Manning Walker has an acute ear for teen vernacular and a sly sense of humour. But some of the film’s most powerful moments are wordless, playing out in tight shots of Mckenna Bruce’s face.

It’s not just Nicholson’s performance that makes this film a masterpiece; it’s the fact that Forman was able to prevent that performance from capsizing the whole enterprise.

A psychological thriller, it’s all the more tense for Green’s smart understatement of the genre elements.

Informative, exhaustively researched, but never dry or didactic, this is a phenomenal achievement by Grimonprez, who holds his own country to account for its shameful role in this sorry tale.

The impact all but knocks the breath from your body.

It’s chilling and brilliant.

A film which doesn’t sugar-coat the ache of bereavement, the futility of war or the manifold failures of mankind, but which manages to balance the darkness with sparks of hope, humour and humanity.

The stark beauty of Florian Ballhaus’s black-and-white cinematography and painterly framing can’t conceal the ugliness that unfolds as the death toll mounts and Herold starts to believe his own grotesque creation.

A masterpiece.

There’s a fearlessness to Murphy’s film-making, a slightly wayward, maverick spirit. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

The film is acutely perceptive on the effect of a bereavement on other people.

So measured is the pacing, so sinuous the timeline, so understated the subtle ache of the performances that you don’t immediately realise that Wang Xiaoshuai’s exquisite three-hour drama has been performing the emotional equivalent of open-heart surgery on the audience since pretty much the first scene.

The latest from Andrew Haigh is an exquisitely melancholy fantasy-infused meditation on loss and isolation. A luxuriantly sad and skin-tinglingly sensual gay romance, it is propelled by a killer combination of 80s queer pop and a pair of devastating performances from Scott and Mescal.

It’s a supremely accomplished work.

It’s one of the most exquisitely realised films of the year.

A supremely accomplished debut feature from writer-director Georgia Oakley, Blue Jean captures a specific moment in British history with almost uncanny accuracy.

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.

Sunday’s Illness doesn’t put a foot wrong.

The film’s narrow visual focus – much of the drama plays out in the face of police officer Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) – accentuates the crackling cleverness of a screenplay that allows us to unravel a mystery in real time.

It’s an alchemic combination, this continuing collaboration between Lanthimos and Stone . . . together they unleash in each other an extra level of uninhibited artistic daring that, one suspects, must be rooted in an uncommon degree of mutual trust.

Visually glorious, frequently very funny and genuinely profound, this is a picture which cries out to be seen on the big screen.

There’s something about the folkloric quality of Rohrwacher’s films, their embrace of a kind of earth magic, that prompts people to describe them as fairytales. But this is perhaps misleading. La Chimera is no twinkly escapist fantasy, it’s a film full of grit, thorns and greed.

Chalamet, with his restless, impatient physicality and a face as sensual and sculpted as a fallen angel from a Caravaggio painting, is quite simply astonishing.

A meditation on memory, identity, grief and loss, with the narrative device of a global pandemic thrown in for good measure: Apples might initially sound like a tough sell. But this hugely accomplished, satisfyingly textured first feature is really something special.

It’s not surprising to learn that its writer and director, Lauren Hadaway, who based this film on her own experiences on a college rowing team, has a background in sound editing.

Thrillingly inventive, satisfyingly textured and infused with warmth and humanity, this is a triumph.

While not as showy as Sam Mendes’s sweeping, single-shot takes in 1917, this is remarkable, if harrowing, film-making. Moments of striking beauty – sunlight carved into exultant rays by skeletal winter trees – are almost as shocking and disquieting as the scenes of suffering.

Salles never over-labours the film’s emotional beats, relying instead on Torres’ magnificent, intricately layered performance to drive the picture.

What’s certain is that Sound Of Falling, the striking second feature from German director Mascha Schilinski, is a work of thrilling ambition realised by an assured directorial vision.

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.

There’s not a frame of this rich, kaleidoscopically detailed animation that isn’t dazzling.

Rothwell uses the language of cinema – macro lens closeups, distortion, off-kilter framing and an evocative blend of sound design and score – to convey the autistic experience of the world.

The genius of Todd Field’s superb Tár comes from the way the film-making echoes the treacherously seductive and mercurial nature of its central character.

The latest from the Safdie brothers is a cracking follow up to Good Time: a jangling panic attack of a movie and a timely reminder that, when he puts his mind to it, Adam Sandler can be one of the finest actors currently working.

The fierce intelligence of Fiennes’s work is magnified by Berger’s elegant direction.

The poignancy and low-key desperation of the situation in which the men find themselves is balanced by the film’s warmth and gentle humour. In a market crowded with migrant stories, this is something special.

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

An exemplary sequel, the film retains the innocence and beguiling lack of cynicism of the first film, but moves on to explore other motifs

It’s a marvel of a movie, with something of the humanist poetry of Satyajit Ray or Edward Yang. And it’s all the more remarkable given that this is Kapadia’s first fiction feature (her 2021 debut film, the documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, also picked up a prize in Cannes). What a talent.

The latest from Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen is a terrific psychological thriller and a brooding, muscular piece of filmmaking which makes the most of both the Galician backdrop and the imposing physicality of Menochet and, as his nemesis Xan, the remarkable Luis Zahera.

From the intimate restraint of the early scenes, Delpero’s direction becomes more fractured and abrasive. It’s a remarkable work.

Whether or not there’s a factual basis to the story, it’s undeniably an absolute blast.

What is particularly striking, however, uniting most critics so far, is how elegantly the film flows; there is a curious, intuitive logic weaving together these randomly chosen scenes and clips. It’s an outstanding achievement.

It captures the wary, precarious nature of a community that relies financially on the same forces – the rampaging drug cartels – that also terrorise it. Huezo taps into the intense vibration between young female friends who treasure each other above all else.

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

One of the most beautiful of all Stanley Kubrick’s films, originally released in 1975, this slyly savage tale of social climbing in the 18th century is also arguably his funniest.

Most essential is the central performance: Zengel’s oscillating wild joys and storming furies are painful to watch. A moment when she howls for her mother (always tantalisingly out of reach) brought me to tears.

There’s such tenderness to the storytelling, such empathy and emotional depth, that it broadens the film’s potential audience from kids, who will respond to the cute characters and gentle wit, to adolescents and adults, who will recognise the angst and awkwardness of trying to function alone once again.

Perhaps the most impressive element is the way that the picture so deftly juggles its tonal shifts. Rocks is as mercurial and complex as any moody teenager can be, veering from hilarity to misery and back again in seconds.

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

This superbly acted thriller – Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne both shine – is every bit as textured and knotty as [Lindholm's] previous work.

What’s more unexpected is just how much Russian documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky is able to reveal despite, and often because of, the stringent restrictions imposed upon him.

While the crime spree may be inept, Park’s filmmaking is as elegant as ever, in a wildly enjoyable picture that balances psychological tension against giddily hilarious comic set pieces.

April is a formidable, defiantly esoteric work. It demands considerable investment from the audience, but does repay it.

Like its dappled forested backdrop, the film is a thing of pensive beauty rather than volatile drama.

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

While it could be described as being more of a filmed play than a piece of cinema, it’s also a riveting, raw work which, in its stripped-back simplicity, magnifies the power of tucker green’s fiercely compelling writing.

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.

The film works on multiple levels. It’s an indictment of colonial brute force; a critique of masculine entitlement, an observation of the uneasy coexistence between tradition and modernity. But mostly, it’s a rich, engrossing and distinctive approach to African storytelling.

The rarefied world of haute cuisine is not exactly a hard target to satirise, but this deliciously savage comedy from director Mark Mylod makes every bitter mouthful count.

The latest animation from Chris Williams, his first for Netflix, is a rambunctious triumph; an old-fashioned ripping yarn which pays tribute to generations of monster movies past, showcasing some genuinely dazzling animation while also delivering an unexpectedly sophisticated message.

The brisk rhythms and energy of the storytelling ensure that the pace rarely flags, and that every frame of this film about the business of death is bursting with life.

It’s simply executed but undeniably powerful in its lean, stripped back elegance.

Hull’s wisdom, and the agility of his insights as he struggles to make sense of his condition, form the basis of this elegant, evocative and deeply affecting documentary.

This is storytelling which is as enigmatic as it is compelling. Not surprisingly, the use of music throughout is superb.

Djukic’s coming of age drama is heady with intertwined sensual and religious symbolism; the first rate score and sound design teases out the tangled, conflicting impulses towards Catholic devotion and erotic abandon.

Soderbergh’s film is rich with such small but perfectly judged flourishes, and it is this depth of character development, together with the crackling chemistry between McKellen and his co-star Michaela Coel, that makes this odd-couple art world tale so charmingly raffish.

It’s a gloriously punk spin on the historical documentary genre, channeling the humour and rebellious spirit of a people who have been part of “eight or nine different countries” during the 20th century, who have spoken multiple languages, but who have managed to maintain their own distinct identity nonetheless.

Filmmaker Julia Jackman’s droll fantasy feminist fable is a true original.

It’s hard to imagine the courage which went into the making of this highly personal documentary. ... With its unflinching candour about both the nature of the abuse and the effect that it had on its victims, the film is a difficult and upsetting watch.

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.

Wildly uneven, sporadically brilliant, occasionally unbearable, Alex Ross Perry’s sprawling portrait of a self-destructive rock star is carried by a performance by Elisabeth Moss which is turned all the way up to eleven, and beyond.

The combination of knock out performances, in particular from newcomer Eden Dambrine as Léo, and direction of uncommon sensitivity from Dhont makes for a picture which is intimate in scope but which packs a considerable emotional wallop.

A political thriller charged with anger and sexual tension, this is as timely as it is bracingly entertaining.

With this seductive, serpentine neo-noir, Park Chan-wook raises the bar on the 2022 Cannes competition programme and reasserts his position as a peerless visual stylist. But there’s nothing superficial or superfluous about his style here: it’s all in the service of the film’s mercurial and at times disorientating blend of crime and passion.

It’s a blast. Last Night In Soho is the kind of good time which isn’t over until someone’s either crying or bleeding. And oh, how we’ve all missed those nights!

The child’s eye view of a seismic time of political upheaval is not an entirely new storytelling approach, but Davies breathes fresh life into the device.

This remarkably assured debut ... uses the medium of cinema to its fullest extent, both visually and aurally.

It’s to the credit of Isabelle Huppert, who excels in the role of philosophy teacher Nathalie, and to the deft handling by Hansen-Løve that the film wears its wealth of ideas so lightly.

A wildly entertaining, modern-day screwball comedy ... Baker continually ups the ante on the picture’s unruly humour and propulsive pacing.

What becomes clear from the film, which vividly details the cultural backdrop as well as Goldin’s work, is that fear has never been part of Goldin’s vocabulary, either creatively or personally.

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.

Notwithstanding the bleak trajectory down which any film about blood feuds must spiral, this is an engrossing narco-thriller which deftly balances the storytelling tradition of the Wayuu with the genre conventions of the crime movie and the western .

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

It’s striking how much can be conveyed with such economy: a few deft line depict diving terns, a gently turning water wheel. There’s a wild, unruly quality to the drawing at times of emotional trauma.

Films about dementia don’t tend to figure on audience’s good time viewing lists, but Familiar Touch is rather special – it shows the ravages of the disease but maintains the dignity of the sufferer.

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 is a fascinating, free-spirited tribute to two men whose lifelong connection to the earth is only rivalled by their bond to each other.

There’s a combination of humane sensitivity and intellectual agility at play in this story.

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

Remarkable access and nerves of steel (on the part of both the subjects and of filmmaker Hogir Hirori) makes for a riveting documentary which is as tense as it is revealing.

The striking feature film debut from Andreas Fontana brings a prickly thriller sensibility to the closed world of high finance and a piquancy to the phrase ‘dirty money’.

This is a film which fizzes with originality, one which works both as a pacey thriller and a playfully surreal intellectual exercise.

While Kahn offers no overt criticism, it’s hard not to question the sustainability of an art market that has evolved into a kind of prestige car park for vast quantities of money.

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.

It’s a richly detailed mosaic of a movie which pays as much attention to emotional authenticity – a dull ache of grief which is the aftermath of the First World War and a smouldering yearning between the two lovers – as it does to the story itself.

Like much of her digital work in the twentieth century, Varda’s approach here is a kind of expansive introspection; it’s a film which looks both inwards and outwards at the same time. And like Varda herself, it pulls off the combination of a trundling, amiable pace with a biting intellectual acuity.

Kala Azar is something rather special. It’s foetid and atmospheric, a feral scavenger of a film which sniffs around its themes before sinking its teeth into the meat of a beasts’ eye view of the breakdown of civilisation.

Ultimately what makes this an unusually rewarding picture about motherhood is the fact that it shatters the binary distinction between the good mother and the bad one.

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

What’s perhaps unexpected, in a film that has the look of a brooding fable by Carl Theodore Dreyer, is how funny it is at times.

This French and English-language drama is a film about taking ownership over the end of life; about dying personally and, if necessary, selfishly.

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

This female-led triptych of stories, with its deft, empathetic camerawork and intimate, intricately crafted character sketches, is a minor masterpiece in its own right.

It’s a heightened caricature, certainly, but there are uncomfortable truths underpinning the surreal excesses.

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.

Savage’s success at getting under the skin of the kind of cancerous depression which gnaws away at the soul means that this is not always the easiest watch. There are no audience-appeasing neat happy endings, just raw emotional wounds and aching compromises. But, despite a low key approach, this is a compelling, sometimes wrenching drama.

Writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is a furiously visceral force behind the camera. His knuckleduster direction goes beyond mere muscularity and takes on the daunting persuasive power of a mob enforcer; his storytelling is both thrilling and utterly terrifying.

The slow creep of the camera mirrors the incremental build in pressure; this is the kind of tension that feels like a tightening chokehold on the audience.

Both the film and its cast of charismatic, dreadlocked old-timers are loaded with an easy charm that is as heady as anything that gets smoked during the course of the recording sessions.

This arresting first feature blends sci-fi and fantasy to create a worldview which is at once savagely grotesque and alarmingly familiar.

Goth is riotously entertaining throughout, but two specific scenes, in both of which the camera rests solely on her face for an extended shot, capture the full force of her unnerving talent.

It is a film which celebrates empowerment and the exhilarating release of finding a voice and being heard.

Ron’s Gone Wrong transcends the familiarity of the story (there’s a thematic an overlap with Big Hero 6 and How To Train Your Dragon, to name just two) with deft writing, appealing animation and a big heart crammed into a small malfunctioning robot.

One of the main strengths of Chadha’s approach is the way she weaves the historical detail into the richly textured story with such a light touch.

It’s an accomplished, ambitious work which has a Herzogian fascination with vast, unforgiving landscapes, hubris and madness.

This is a picture with first-rate fight choreography to match the quality of the martial arts talent involved.

The film is a bracingly confrontational commentary on the direction the country is taking in the Bolsonaro era. Propulsive storytelling doesn’t come at the expense of the vividly sketched personality of the community.

The latest film from the acclaimed writer-director Pema Tseden casts a typically wry eye over the collision between modernity and tradition in 1980s Tibet.

The audience brings to this film a set of expectations born from a lifetime of watching romantic fiction. That Monday skewers them so pointedly and thoroughly is what makes it such an entertainingly subversive spin on the genre.

Like a big old glass of pub wine, it might not be particularly complex or sophisticated but, my goodness, it hits the spot.

What makes this particular adaptation, co-written by Bravo and Jeremy O Harris, sing is the fact that, while it winks at Twitter with a smattering of emojis, it’s the legitimacy of Zola’s voice, rather than the means of its dissemination, which is prioritised.

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.

An investment on the part of the audience is required, to focus in on the characters and to follow the dialogue. It’s not quite as dry as it sounds. There is a subtle humour in this singular approach, but like the dialogue and the drama (such that it is), it is sidelined.

There are thematic parallels with everything from The Lego Movie to The Matrix, but key to its appeal is an unabashed sweetness and goofy enthusiasm that proves irresistible.

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.

There are episodes of muscular, tautly directed action but the overall tone is brooding melancholy, all of it accompanied by a fretful, moaning wind and an eerie score.

Not surprisingly given Kuras’s background as a cinematographer, Lee is largely visually driven.

[An] impressive and wrenchingly sad documentary.

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.

It’s tender, thoughtful film-making from Finnish director Mikko Mäkelä, exploring the bond between two men separated by generations but joined by literature and love.

This slow-burning drama, which won one of the top prizes at Sundance earlier this year, elegantly balances a spark of hope against a slowly rising tide of dread.

It’s a fascinating story that starts as an affable, strange-but-true tall tale but ends in a decidedly minor key.

Firecracker chemistry between the two leads makes this doomed Romeo and Juliet romance all the more tragically persuasive. Mavela’s kittenish little girl voice is utterly beguiling; Marwan’s adolescent swagger doesn’t quite conceal the sweet boy beneath.

Matt and Mara is one of those films in which very little concrete happens, but the tingling possibility that something might makes it compelling.

A haunting allegorical tale, Aniara warns of humanity hurtling in the wrong direction and realising too late that there is no turning back.

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.

Control director Anton Corbijn’s first documentary, Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis), is a fascinating and suitably maverick snapshot of a richly creative moment in music history, told through a couple of disreputable hippies who designed some of the most iconic album covers of all time.

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.

Essential viewing.

This feature debut from the Sydney-based writer and director Samuel Van Grinsven may tackle familiar material – gay coming-of-age stories are hardly uncommon – but it does so with a lustre and style that marks Van Grinsven out as a name to watch. Perhaps even more notable is Leach, a silky, feline presence who owns every moment that he’s on screen.

Demoustier so supercharges her performance with charisma, she almost seems to sparkle.

Despite some pacing issues and a slightly repetitive second act, this is a polished production which establishes writer/director Aleksei Mizgirev as a talent to watch

There’s a languid kind of magic to Koberidze’s approach, which, with its enchanting score, digressive montages and sparse dialogue, has roots in silent cinema but also feels refreshingly and genuinely original.

The storytelling is so deft and slick, it almost feels scripted at times. But there are certain elements that you can’t dictate in advance, like the almost spiritual connection that grows between Nikola and the gangly, damaged bird that he rescues from the dump, and which, in turn, reaffirms Nikola’s bond with the land.

When the film is this much fun, who cares if Grant recycles some of the greatest hits from his gag repertoire?

Although perhaps on the enigmatic end of the Hong spectrum, The Woman Who Ran touches rewardingly on themes such as relationship dynamics and gender roles. The delicacy of the predominantly female-driven storytelling is unassuming but beguiling. And Hong goes so far as to skewer his own tendency to indulge monologuing windbag male characters in previous films.

While Mickey 17 isn’t in the same elevated league as Parasite, it’s a lot of fun.

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

This is immensely enjoyable stuff.

The performances, so thickly layered with charm and artifice that it’s hard to know what and who is real and what isn’t, are first-rate. It’s a pacy and enjoyable movie.

It is a fairly familiar crime thriller setup, yet this playful, effortlessly engrossing picture from Rodrigo Moreno takes a series of deliciously confounding turns.

By encouraging a merry chaos of overlapping personalities and performances – restructuring the timeline into a multilayered playground where the child and adult stories interact – and subtly foregrounding existing themes of female fulfilment and the economics of creativity, Gerwig creates something that is true to its roots and bracingly current.

Nyoni’s Zambia-set film, using the Bemba language and English, deftly juggles humour with pathos, domestic drama with surreal fantasy flourishes. It’s dizzyingly creative and rather special.

It’s a testament to Macdonald’s performance (and later, to Khan’s charm) that we share her passion for puzzling.

This is a stylish and satisfying prequel that elegantly integrates Sam’s poet’s sensibility into the storytelling.

Muylaert handles an atmosphere charged with intensely conflicting expectations with a light touch, and sparks of humour.

Powered by a surging, impatient energy and a bracing undercurrent of spite, Ramin Bahrani’s version of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker prize-winning novel is one of the more successful literary adaptations of recent years.

The child’s perspective on the story means that the film is unquestioning when it comes to the sources of the psychic powers, neatly sidestepping the need for exposition. In a child’s mind, magic is real, black magic painfully so.

Schrader’s sensitive, unshowy approach to the directing choices is a smart decision; this is a film that is respectful of and in service to the stories of the women.

It’s dazzling, baffling and staggeringly ambitious.

Fans will eat it up (with relish and fries); older kids will adore the oddball humour. And even cinemagoers who have never seen an episode of the TV series (me, for example) are likely to find much to amuse them, provided they have a tolerance for extreme silliness.

It is, it has to be said, something of a stretch to believe that this regal woman would be drawn to a dullard such as Ernest, but Gladstone and DiCaprio manage to convince us that this is more than a partnership of expediency – it’s a marriage of real love.

A beguiling, if slightly convoluted, fantasy.

A fair bit of historical scene-setting at the beginning means that the picture takes a while to hit its stride. But once it does, there is much to enjoy in this big, brawling ruck of an action movie.

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.

The words are so piercing and acute that we hardly need the stirring score that swirls in the background.

While the film defies neat genre classification, it has elements of physical horror – like a mating between the mind of David Cronenberg and something that crawled out of a compost heap.

The Eternal Memory is a restrained, respectful piece of film-making that takes its lead from its two subjects. It’s wrenchingly sad, but also a testament to the love that endures, even as Augusto increasingly struggles to recognise his wife.

Rock’s wildest years – both the man and the music – swirl together into a psychedelic maelstrom of pills, pictures and brilliantly creative swearing.

Not only is it an affectionate and personal film – the subject, Elsa Dorfman, is a long-standing friend and Morris’s emotional investment in her story is evident in every frame. It’s also far more informal in approach than his normal forthright technique.

For all his shame, and the shuttered windows and disconnected webcams that block out the world outside, there’s a magnetism to Charlie and his big, overburdened heart which draws others – and us, as an audience – to him.

Coppola evokes the aching loneliness and isolation experienced by women who simultaneously have everything and nothing.

I can think of few other films that get into the skin of new motherhood, with its formless terrors and fierce, furious primal love, as inventively and effectively as this one.

Shot on film, using vintage equipment, the picture has a scrappy, tactile quality, its ghostly black-and-white images scratched and scorched. Meanwhile, Neil Hannon’s smartly used score envisages a chilling authoritarian future for pop music.

It’s this – the wry humour provided by the long-suffering Bonnie; the lovely lived-in quality of the friendship – rather than the lengthy swimming sequences and a few slightly unwieldy flashbacks that gives the film its crowd-pleasing appeal.

It’s an absolute joy.

Ultimately, one of the key pleasures of the picture is its uncertainty – the niggling doubts that remain, and the sense that a crucial piece of the puzzle is tantalisingly out of reach.

The restrained, austere filmmaking of the latest picture from Wayne Wang belies the emotional depth of this sober picture.

Küppenheim is terrific, her precision and restraint in the role drawing us into the story.

Surface similarities to Groundhog Day are relegated to background noise, thanks to the crisp writing and the nihilistic bite of the humour.

Classic rock needle drops and showy, snaking, single-shot action sequences – both GOTG trademarks – abound in a picture that balances a slightly overstuffed storyline with mischief, humour and the biggest of hearts.

It’s a terrific little film that combines the earthy humour and honesty of a Shane Meadows movie with an unexpected expressionistic section – flooded with colour – that channels the boys’ joyful dancefloor abandon.

At a time when the press is routinely denigrated, an account of investigative journalism as a force for good makes for inspiring viewing.

An impressively nuanced portrait of the three-way relationship between a man, a woman and his disease.

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.

It’s a bold, arresting debut from writer-director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, who balances muscular, crime-thriller tropes against moments of striking, unsettling beauty, tension and urgency against knottily complex character development. Highly recommended.

It’s a savagely funny showcase for Cage at his very best. But the picture sours somewhat in a third act that departs from crisp character study to target cancel culture, losing some of its biting humour in the process.

Writer-director Evan Morgan’s deft screenplay balances a taut crime story against a textured character study.

Although the sparse dialogue and gradual build requires an investment on the part of the audience, this is an accomplished work.

This is not cinema that leaves you feeling good about things. Nor does it tread a familiar path. But I’m Thinking of Ending Things is one of the most daringly unexpected films of the year, a sinewy, unsettling psychological horror, saturated with a squirming dream logic that tips over into the domain of nightmares.

A collision is inevitable, but even so, the film’s climax is unexpectedly devastating.

Foy is terrific in a film which balances bruising candour about mental health issues against arresting wildlife photography and a fervent appreciation of the natural world.

Fascinating, confounding and continually surprising.

It’s a gentle piece of Arabic-language storytelling, one that softly, slowly enfolds the audience rather than propels them on a journey.

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.

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 delicate gem of a film, with a powerhouse turn from Franky.

While the film’s conclusion is perhaps a little heavy-handed, the delivery of the message – of women’s reproductive rights and agency over their lives and bodies – is an emphatic slam dunk.

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.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s generous documentary is a fitting tribute to the late, great author.

The lip-smacking, acid drops of malice in the latest film from Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) makes this unexpectedly cruel comedy as intoxicating as the mid-afternoon martinis swilled by the two central characters.

Deft editing and unexpectedly affecting music choices make for an engaging portrait of the kind of impassioned and dedicated politician who seems in short supply right now.

Although there’s certainly a lot going on on screen, our attention is focused on Bening’s central performance.

Hardy is terrific, his face crowded with conflicting emotions that Luke doesn’t have the words to express.

Arthouse audiences will be intrigued to discover how Sciamma has channelled the fluid energy of her contemporary work into the more constrained environment of a costume drama. It won’t hurt that this is a strikingly handsome production which will be admired on a technical level.

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 power of Sebastian Meise’s subdued prison drama comes not from big, brash moments but from subtle details. Sound design that hints at the aching emptiness outside the frame and beyond the walls.

This gritty social realist character study is spiked with striking and unexpected detours.

It plays out at the tipping point at which living with loneliness starts to feel easier than tackling the daunting prospect of conversation with a stranger.

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

Temple has always used archive material playfully; here, it’s particularly riotous, like a chaotic patchwork quilt tacked together by one of Shane’s drunk aunties.

While the 2022 expedition doesn’t match the nail-biting life-or-death stakes of the original venture, it’s compellingly captured through the eyes of a likable cast of eccentric world experts.

The story is told entirely on a computer screen, through skype, social media and editing programs. And despite the restrictions of this device, the film crackles with tension.

One of the aspects that makes this an unexpectedly satisfying piece of storytelling (aside from the obvious improvements in the joke quality) is the way that the film digs into the structure of Autobot society.

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.

As a portrait of friendship, viewed through the compound eye of a mutant insect, it is multidimensional and rather moving.

The friendship that grows between the two is a splinter of hope in an otherwise increasingly bleak situation.

Smart writing and an unflinching relish when it comes to the scenes of violence make for a deftly handled genre piece.

Bird finds beauty and wonder in every frame (one that Arnold has slyly shaped to evoke the format and curved corners of a smartphone screen, echoing the way Bailey captures private moments of visual poetry). The film celebrates rather than judges its erratic and occasionally challenging characters It’s the closest Andrea Arnold has come to a feelgood flick.

The latest feature from the Bristol-based animation studio is an absolute delight.

Lindon creates a portrait of first love which is fresh, honest and engaging.

This is a compulsively watchable drama which taps into some genuinely intriguing themes. A twisted and tangled final act makes heavy weather of some of its reveals, but Binoche is terrific throughout.

An invigoratingly savage Nordic western, The Promised Land is earthy, enjoyable stuff: an expansive, sweeping epic with hope in its heart and dirt under its nails.

The latest picture from Melanie Laurent is a strikingly beautiful production which delves deep into the ugliness at the roots of psychiatric medicine.

There are charismatic figures fronting the movement, but the real power comes from each of the many shared, sad stories from women whose lives were affected by the law.

Using a combination of verité and poetic reconstructions, Fiore paints a sobering portrait of a bright, personable kid whose destiny is preordained.

This terrific, unexpectedly moving documentary portrait captures the man at work.

Lady is a vivid, bracingly energetic examination of sisterhood and female bonds in an unequal society.

It’s a film that requires considerable investment from the audience, and one that rations its rewards even to those who fully commit to the experience. Still, Schanelec’s approach draws the audience in, even as it holds them at arm’s length; she is uncommonly fond of wide shots. It’s an oddly fascinating endeavour.

As this terrific and very moving documentary shows, the society, fuelled by bickering, biscuits and cinephilia, is a lifeline for its members, who weather bereavements, loneliness and fiercely argued creative differences within its peeling walls. Lovely stuff.

An elegant, absorbing piece of storytelling.

Borrowing a punky, handmade aesthetic from the famous monthly programme posters, the film collates wildly entertaining interviews with former staff and punters.

This is tense, essential film-making that argues for the importance of serious, balanced journalism in today’s world of factional infotainment, while also showing the cost to those who stand against the tide.

Levy, who also wrote the screenplay and stars in the picture, has made a satisfyingly adult, bittersweet drama which argues that even a seemingly gilded life can be painfully messy.

Richly detailed and superbly acted across the board, the film cast a scathing eye over the rigid social constraints that ensnare anyone who fails to conform.

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.

This is film-making that really tests the elasticity of its story strands, but it largely manages to keep the audience from teetering into disbelief. For the most part, that’s thanks to persuasively solid characters and casting.

It gives heart-in-the-mouth insights into the realities of war reporting, and is a testament to the value – and the price – of great journalism.

There’s a disconnect between her inventive, impressionistic artistic output – Audrey’s actual work is interspersed throughout the picture – and the film’s flat, rather matter-of-fact look.

[An] affectionate, frequently amusing documentary portrait.

While there are moments in which the film’s generous running time starts to take its toll, Bayona’s smart decision to make this a tale of both the survivors and victims brings a nervy uncertainty to the story, even if we all know broadly how it ends.

A chaotic, unpredictable portrait of a chaotic, unpredictable individual, The Worst Person In The World is a spirited and thrillingly uninhibited piece of filmmaking from Joachim Trier.

This is abrasive, confrontational film-making, with a machine-gun assault of ideas and influences.

Lawrence is phenomenal, giving the kind of wary, reined-in performance that made such a compelling impression in her breakthrough film, Winter’s Bone. And the always excellent Henry gradually strips back a character who at first seems wholly at ease with life to reveal layers of suppressed guilt and pain.

A celebration of human endeavour, and of a rare moment of global unity.

Under the party whoops and confetti cannons there’s a deceptively complex and layered portrait of female solidarity in the face of ingrained sexism, racism and general male shittiness.

A heart-pounding heist movie and a bantering conversation between real life and fiction, the debut drama by documentary director Bart Layton (The Imposter) is a great deal sharper – and more slickly executed – than the lunkheaded criminal debacle on which it is based.

This impressive first feature from Indian director Shuchi Talati burrows into the skin of its high-achieving, ambitious central character.

Most intriguing is Strong’s slippery portrayal of Cohn – a man full of sharp edges and wide, swinging contradictions.

There’s a sense of genuinely creative mischief in some of the group’s satanic stunts, as well as a deft understanding of the workings of state legislature.

The film’s approach skirts around the actual science of the Kraffts’ work, but it does explore the psychology of a shared passion, of a couple who melted their boots together on smoking lava flows and danced by the craters in a confetti of volcanic bombs.

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.

Despite the fact that we all know the outcome, and that it’s the third film in as many years to tell the story, Ron Howard’s account of the drama is compulsively watchable and breathlessly tense.

Wells’s bracingly spiky writing vividly draws both the characters and the connections between them.

It’s a wisp of a thing, clocking in at barely over an hour. But the agile poetry and formal playfulness of Mati Diop’s exquisite hybrid documentary belies the weight and wealth of ideas within.

This impressive Israeli feature debut from Ruthy Pribar stars a mesmerising Shira Haas.

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.