Xan Brooks

It's not that Paperback Hero is a duff film, exactly. Just a little flimsy, a trifle slight, a mite schematic. The story turns dog-eared midway through. [03 Sep 1999, p.19]

While it would have been good to have Nash’at properly cross-examine these men, his film’s careful approach pays handsome dividends. Hollywoodate teases back a corner of the curtain to reveal a Taliban regime stitched awkwardly over the bones of US occupation. It shows us the soldiers pining for the caves where they once hid, and mourning the glorious death that has somehow been snatched from their grasp.

What a lovely, rousing, finally moving film this is.

Joe also stands as a reminder of what a terrific actor Cage can be when he is able to harness and channel his wilder impulses.

It's a professional old-school espionage outing, intricate as clockwork and acted with relish by the ever-watchable Hoffman. But it remains an oddly anonymous enterprise from this talented and distinctive director.

The World to Come is a ravishingly beautiful love story set in 1850s America, with painterly visuals that nod to the work of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent.

[Clint Eastwood's] gripping, incurious film gives the impression of having not so much been directed as dictated. It stares so fixedly down the rifle sight that it is finally guilty of tunnel vision.

Funny Pages spins a hilarious tale from the fringes of the underground comics scene, powered by a wonderfully sour performance by Daniel Zolghadri as Robert, a teenage cartoonist who strikes out on his own.

Energetic and heartfelt, tipping towards tragedy, Sun Children crawls through the mud and emerges all the stronger. The quest is a red herring; the real treasure is the film.

Amalric's handling is cool, studied and perhaps a little self-conscious. But he does a good job of showing how adultery is a noose that tightens at the throat even before an actual crime is committed - at which point the film grows altogether less interesting.

Time is of the essence; Eastwood’s 94 years old. He’s not prepared to be cross-examined or sidetracked by pesky minor details.

Tarik Saleh’s political saga turns progressively knottier and more claustrophobic, almost to a fault. But it’s also horribly tense, richly textured and showcases a terrific supporting performance from Fares as the tale’s shadowy Thomas Cromwell figure.

I can state without hesitation that this is a monumental piece of work and one I’m deeply glad to have seen. I can also say that I hope to never cross its path again.

It’s a tense, tight fairground ride of a film.

While I confess that I found Ema to be a notch down on his best work, it’s still hugely distinctive and daring and may well be a grower.

The restored footage is an intriguing relic – an offcut, raw copy. There’s something pleasingly voyeuristic about the experience of being allowed behind the velvet rope to watch these blusterers hold forth, although I expect their charms may be limited to die-hard devotees.

The film is fun, broad and exuberant, like a primetime Marxist sitcom, although it does feel indebted to a number of recent, better films around the same theme.

It’s not The Exorcist, Sorcerer or The French Connection. But it makes for a worthy late addition to the great director’s armada.

The Perfect Candidate is a simple story, told without frills or even much in the way of nuance. But it’s socked through with great power, conviction and an underlying hope for a better world.

What the film-maker has built for us here is the cinematic equivalent of an Anderson shelter: basic, sturdy and unfussy. It’s there if we need it and have nowhere else to go.

It’s a lovely, mordant, tender affair; a lush September song in duet, performed with aplomb by Swinton and Moore as they stroll the secondhand bookstores or lounge by the pool they can’t be bothered to swim in.

It’s pitiless and pitch-perfect, an existential tour-de-force with shades of Camus’s The Outsider.

Hallelujah is one for the fans, thorough and informative, like a set of cinematic liner notes, largely content to marvel at the majesty of its subject and the vibrant afterlife of his work.

Old Henry is a determinedly low-aiming affair.

Follow the film-maker. Let him lead you by the nose. Lanthimos knows exactly where he's going.

Oh Lucy!’s plot feels overthought. The tone see-saws wildly. What prevents it collapsing are the warm, heartfelt performances, together with Hirayanagi’s obvious affection for her chief protagonist.

Sit in the front – and don't peer too hard – and Chicken With Plums casts an undeniable spell. It is bold, exotic and distinctive, particularly during the animated angel of death sequence.

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon offers street-food for the senses, served with lashings of hot sauce. It’s hardly nutritious but it tastes fine in the moment, wolfed down on the run.