Powerfully conveying a longing for escape from ordinary life, Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still is a strangely alluring, four-hour portrait of the disillusionment and hollow sense of emptiness experienced by those living in a society marked by violent individualism.

Across the Spider-Verse’s hymn to emotional storytelling is a much-needed salve to the dreary primacy of cycles and lore: more importantly, full of colour, life and drama, it is a near-unassailable good time.

Heavenly Creatures is a rare film that can be watched and re-watched, revealing more and more layers of subtext and meaning with each viewing. This is no simple tale of murder – this is a tale of obsession, friendship, imagination, gender politics, family and much, much more, and is almost certainly Jackson’s finest film to date.

Longinotto's film shines a light on Brenda and her colleagues' important contribution to changing both the legal system's attitude to prostitution, and to the empowerment of women, who are shown that if they want to change their lives, there is someone there who can help them achieve it.

This is a confident dramatic voice emerging and it will be interesting to see what comes next.

Sachs' extraordinarily humane knack for emotional restraint echoes throughout Little Men. And it is all the more profound for it.

It’s meditative, beautiful, utterly fascinating, and one of the year’s finest documentary achievements.

From its first moments, The Red Turtle is a captivating ultra-sensory experience; sounds are crisp and images are hand-drawn perfection.

A low-key yet complex family drama, My Happy Family is a quietly devastating portrait of what it means to be a woman in a man's world.

Zvyagintsev is masterfully compiling a cinematic record of suffering, and the indifference surrounding and facilitating it, which will live on.

Just as we learn to grudgingly like Lizzie, we also see the value in her work as it slowly comes together, emerging from the kiln with new colours and finally being displayed among her family and friends.

As much a repudiation of auteur theory as a tribute to the imperfect process of creation, One Cut of the Dead is a thrilling reminder that of the beautiful, vital lie that is cinema.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first in the series from Hollywood's own golden idols George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, is still the strongest by far and remains a thoroughly rousing and nostalgic delight to return to.

Irony has a wearying effect after a while, ultimately leading to a flattening of the ethical landscape so that by the end of it we can’t help but feel they’re all as bad as each other.

Maidan is a stunning piece of political cinema and a documentary of quietly moving power and beauty.

Drunk on the visual majesty of Rome, just as Fellini once was, this is arthouse cinema at its most effortlessly entrancing, with life and art blending into one magnificent whole.

A work of astonishing aesthetic beauty, made up of static compositions and use of chiaroscuro that recalls the Dutch masters.

Happening is a naturalistic, heart-breaking and relentless account of the multiple traumas and injustices that cascade when women are denied their basic bodily autonomy.

The Wild Pear Tree isn’t a showy or boldly radical work, this is still Ceylan’s brand of poetic landscapes and intimate dramas, but it does represent an intriguing artistic progression, so any claims of ‘more of the same’ are redundant.

In the way it seamlessly flits between events separated by large stretches of time, Davies seems to have miraculously captured the essence of memory itself in its elliptical, dreamlike quality.

Benefiting from the matter-of-fact, unerring defiance exhibited by the group, Heineman is unflinching in representing the brutality perpetrated by ISIS as well as their own very savvy use of the media as a tool for recruitment and influence.

Grant is absolutely superb as the impassive Geoff.

Hawke's performance is his most mature to date, a masterpiece of a man who cannot work himself out and yet is compelled to try.

The script is well-paced and packed with twists and turns that offers little in the way of respites to the beautiful mayhem. The characters, too, are wonderfully realised through the performances from the entire cast, each making a big impression no matter how long they're on screen.

Rarely seen but frequently referenced in film studies lecture rooms, Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) is a twisted tale of the rise and fall of Kirk Douglas’ ruthless Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields and one of the greatest ‘movies about movies’ to ever come out of Hollywood.

Sabaya does not shy away from the horrendous circumstances it finds, exhibiting bitterly raw emotion, fear and heartbreak very frankly.

With One Fine Morning, celebrated French director Mia Hansen-Løve presents complementary accounts of infatuation, love, and loss in a nuanced, moving study of the ways that love can sustain and consume us.

It doesn’t quite click, is too weird, leads to a lurch from one cinematic style to the other and fails to gel as a satisfying whole. Yet the director’s imaginative intention is apparent in the first shot.

A jolting cinematic experience, Wake in Fright bites like a dingo and kicks like a mule.

Perhaps given the ostensibly bookish subject matter, Waking Life has seldom been acknowledged as a legitimate innovator of the medium.

The First Wave stands as an honest, hard-hitting and compassionate reminder of loving thy neighbour wherever and whoever they may be.

This is a rich and complex take on guilt and anger.

Peele's blistering debut is a timely and powerful satire of modern prejudice as much as it is a taut, gripping exercise in horror cinema.

Whereas Senna had that one moment of horrible impact, this latest tale is the story of one long car crash.

Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s depiction of their native country is compelling, one that weaves its magic to leave a rather impressionably wonderous film.

Throughout, each of Ilo Ilo's performers give wonderfully naturalistic turns, providing the entire film with a heartening authenticity.

To the Ends of the Earth is a light, airy and fun journey with flashes of poetry.

Ash Is Purest White’s is an epic spanning decades and vast geography that ultimately gives way to the intimate and personal.

Although not quite the bounty of its title, The Treasure rewards the patient viewer with a quietly enchanting drama.

A harrowing but necessary insight into what the first Allied troops met as they stumbled upon the nightmare of the Holocaust.

The Rider speaks to a natural urge in humanity to aspire for more than we already have. Quietly breathtaking, although not flawless, Zhao is a true rising star with the skills evident to join the likes of Denis as a master filmmaker.

Rendering the passage of time as a painful yet serene experience, Varda by Agnès comprehends what it means to be a human with a natural flair for creative output.

This is a story about Kayla but really it is everyone’s story, impossible to recognise when you are in the midst of it but comforting to know that, even back then, you were never really alone.

Girlhood's non-patronising and credible representation of class, race and gender is a rare and perceptive illustration of the intricacies of social inequality.

It's a film swimming in symbolism, transgressive eroticism and perplexing details that will infuriate some audiences but for others will add to its irresistible allure.

It’s a sweet, small story that deals comfortably in big emotions when required, whilst also taking time to speculate on the nature of art and the difficulties of navigating adolescence. One of the greatest triumphs of Miyazaki’s movie, however, is how well-defined each of its characters truly are.

Shines out as a rough diamond, a masterpiece of British cinema undeniably worthy of its classical title.

The dark recesses of a diseased mind may make the headline, but it is the indictment of far more widespread infection that rings out and is striking in its prescience.

Not only emblematic of independent American cinema, but, released in 1969, is the definitive statement on the death of the 60s.

For all its heart and warmth, the desire to offer as many contrasting viewpoints as possible leads to a sense that the biggest elephant in the room isn’t really being dealt with. Support the Girls, ultimately, is a film about an industry built on sexism, that prefers not to dwell too long on the question of sexism itself.

Where The Wolfman is a a fairgound ghost train, entertaining but ultimately shallow, Cat People is a true journey into the power of fear and belief, at once frightening, disturbing and psychologically complex.

Director Carla Simón’s Alcarràs is at once a paean to family, community and a dwindling way of life, and a complex and heartbreaking study of the victims of progress.

A captivating film of deep emotional power; like weeds slowly cracking the pavement above, its movements in isolation are barely felt but its effects are profound.

Though Mudbound represent a period of injustice consigned to history, its examination of a toxic, racist masculinity stuck in the past could hardly be more relevant today.

An impressive, lingering debut from Hall, Passing exists as a fragile, precious, impossible reverie within a snow globe that could shatter at any moment.

My Life as a Courgette is a tender, funny and wise-beyond-its-years stop-motion animation that takes on tough subject matter through the eyes of a child.

A galling, distressing but enthralling documentary.

The directors’ regard Hatidze with reverence and respect, allowing her the space to feel the tragedy and confusion of her plight and to sit with her melancholy as her life is changed by forces she cannot control.

An empathetic depiction of two marginalised ways of life; God's Own Country is a deeply felt romance that harnesses the primal relationship between people and place.

Richard Linklater once again casts his outwardly laid-back yet deceptively astute gaze on those loitering around the edge of adulthood with Everybody Wants Some!! - a joyous and often uproarious portrayal of college-age adolescence and the alluring freedom that brings.

Behemoth is a stunning and moving denunciation of the situation in Inner Mongolia, where the mining industry is permanently changing the landscape.

The revelations and images contained within are individually resonant and telling of a wider picture, but there’s a sense that Wang, or perhaps her financiers, are cautious of pushing too far. Unfortunately, this winds up leaving One Child Nation a muddle of confused half-messages which reach for and fall slightly short of an admirable goal.

You don't have to like a piece of art to appreciate the artists vision. Terrence Malick has created a beautiful and ambitious meditation on memory, childhood and the nature of being.

Ultimately, Decision to Leave is like a beautiful airport novel of a film. It is far cleverer than it needs to be and is so acted with sly charisma.

As this semi-autobiographical film plods on, there is an unshakeable sense that in reaching for the stars, The Fabelmans instead lands somewhere more mediocre and disappointing.

Starless Dreams is a fascinating and humane view of the marginalised and forgotten. The girls' voices rise as a startlingly powerful chorus, questioning, challenging and demanding we listen.

Arguably Andrei Tarkovsky’s finest masterpiece, the Russian director’s 1979 film Stalker is the culmination of a career-long preoccupation with memory, trauma and the relationship between subjective perception and physical reality.

There are few documentaries that feel like wholesome family films (20 Feet From Stardom is a rare example) but this is one. Overly reverential perhaps, but Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is an uncynical tonic for a very cynical age.

It's Coogler's confrontational depiction of police brutality and his attempts to represent the society he aims to inspire and inform that makes Fruitvale Station such essential viewing.

The film reveals its twists and turns with a delicate hand and always manages to stay one step ahead of the audience, even as most of those watching will surrender to the hypnotic erotic charge that runs through the film.

EO is at once a cinematic curiosity, a compelling drama and a harrowing portrait of cruel whimsy.

The Work is a rousing, arresting and ultimately cathartic call-to-arms for the power and value of rehabilitation.

It shows the desperation, the pain and the suffering, but it also reveals the spirit and fortitude of those tasked with caring for the sick.

There is a wealth of real humanity underneath The Truffle Hunters‘ polished surface; in key moments, the film’s high aesthetics fade away to reveal unvarnished, understated pathos.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is bold, beautiful and brutal. It’s Tarantino’s best film since Kill Bill, perhaps even since Pulp Fiction.

After the Storm is undoubtedly one of Kore-eda's best.

It's a singular and deeply resonant work that finds a mesmerising poetry amidst the chiaroscuro rubble of post-colonial Portugal.

While it is a triumph on an aesthetic level – Chen’s camera glides euphorically through temples and city streets, while the costumes and sets are meticulously authentic – it falls short because it struggles to combine the observational, detached style of its first half with the dramatic tribulations of the second.

In one truly magic moment, Buster Keaton – who had fallen on hard times and was largely forgotten – joins Calvero for his final gala performance. It is a cinematic meeting to be cherished and makes up for the maudlin and wordy melodrama that precedes it.

Booksmart has its undeniably crowd-pleasing moments, but it doesn’t stray as far from the status quo of the genre as it possibly could have.

McQueen and Newland’s assured script grips from the start and keeps us deeply involved in the characters’ fates.

Campillo doesn't edit for our comfort and we feel both the tragedy and the boredom of death.