Resolute, inquisitive and remarkably at ease on camera for a lad of such tender years, Alan S Kim is a star in the making.

The Mauritanian is not the film it could, and really should, have been.

Led by a tour de force performance as savage, unpredictable and frightening as the film’s titular ursine, Black Bear stars Aubrey Plaza in stellar form as a writer-director seeking inspiration, in this bamboozling psychological character study.

There are just too many jumps to make and spaces to fill to fully believe this fantastical obsession.

Trouble lurks around every corner, and the narrative does keep us guessing, but this limits any sincere indictment of the apparently irresolvable us-and-them conflict. An arresting, often edge-of-your-seat action film, then, but not the enduring La Haine-inspired inspection of societal ills that it could have been.

The pacing and lack of incident may detract from the overall emotional investment we have for Horvát’s latest, but in its construction of a murky intrigue, composed visual style and Stork’s exceptional performance, there’s enough to make the journey home to Budapest a worthwhile visit.

A Glitch in the Matrix’s incuriosity and unstructured approach to its material at best mirror its subjects’ modes of thinking; at worst, it is little more than a voyeuristic freak show.

The Capote Tapes show a talent that seemed to go to waste while at the same time teasing us with the possibility that there is more yet to come.

In seeking to understand both abuser and abused, Slalom offers a truly nuanced picture of abuse without sacrificing indictment.

The same ragtag energy which propels it can occasionally become distracting, and there are sequences in the script which feel gratuitous. However, its independent spirit shines through gloriously, reminding the viewer that, really, a decent story and some talented actors is all that’s required to make a movie.

In sensual romantic drama Simple Passion, Lebanese-born director Danielle Arbid captures viscerally that peculiar detachment that comes from romantic and sexual infatuation.

Though physically confined to a single, overcrowded communal space inside La Maca, Night of the Kings travels well beyond its bars and high walls, soaring far and wide with spirit, invention and imagination.

Chief in CODA’s achievements are the dynamics of the very close unit at its core. Coming away from the film, there is the sense that this could very well be a real family.

Overshadowed at the time and since, Summer of Soul brings the Harlem Cultural Festival and a pivotal point in American history into the light.

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

Blurring traditional boundaries of documentary with rich, beautiful animation in many shades and colours, the Danish director has a great deal invested in telling this story.

A galling, distressing but enthralling documentary.

A lacklustre, clichéd and at times wholly unbelievable film.

As a purely aesthetic cinematic experience, Beginning will surely number among the best of the year.

Combining a realist setting with a dreamlike style, The Road to Mandalay could easily have become a well-intentioned polemic, yet thanks to Midi Z’s brilliant command of visual metaphors and compassion for his subjects it’s elevated into a an unnervingly immediate portrait of the human cost of displacement.

With believability being pushed too far, and the film’s direction needing a tighter pace, even the surreal visual effects and trippy weirdness aren’t quite enough to make it work.

American filmmaker Ryan White, director of the acclaimed Netflix mini-series The Keepers, spins a web of riveting, murderous intrigue in his latest documentary Assassins.

A Ghost Waits is an unexpectedly heartfelt gem of micro-budgeted filmmaking.

As a fictionalised account of what was once described as the worst European genocide in the post-war period, Quo Vadis, Aida? is wrenching and vital in its bitter grief. As a study of political and diplomatic inertia in the face of contemporary global human tragedies, it could not be more urgent.

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.

Dear Comrades! works well as an historical drama, a political satire and even a cold-war thriller. It’s brilliance, however, lies in its study of the profound cognitive dissonance that comes of all totalitarian systems.

MLK/FBI is an insightful, adroitly constructed documentary which seeks to mine new truths from a recent, tangible past. Filmmaker Sam Pollard pits the aspirations, endeavours and character of a great, but flawed humanitarian against the racially-driven, underhand tactics of a tyrannical government organisation.

No doubt thanks to her own wealth of acting experience, King elicits outstanding performances from her cast, proving that big boys do cry when the stakes are high enough and love, respect and hope triumph over hate.

The film should scratch an itch for the Bowie obsessive hungering for a decent take on the overall mythology, but at the same time, it may leave that very audience wondering when, if at all, the South London lad will get a more comprehensive big screen outing.

Following the freewheeling day to day life of dogs living on the streets of Istanbul, the initial novelty and intrigue of this extraordinary documentary broadens further to a profound meditation on how mankind treats our so-called best friends, and one another.

There are glimmers of a more complex, empathetic film here: the main cast do fine work with what they’ve got and the film’s apparent detachment from its characters mirrors the empty indifference that often characterises depression. But any potential for complexity is undone by the film’s tacky reveals, mawkish speechifying and its often spiteful approach to its own characters.

There’s much more to Oeke Hoogendijk’s My Rembrandt than initially meets the eye. Taking a close, curatorial look, not at the life, times and oeuvre of the great painter himself, but of contemporary relationships with his work, her latest documentary explores, to great effect, the motives for possession, obsession and ongoing fascination with the Dutch Old Master.

Second Spring is a film about endurance and acceptance, tackling its subject matter with quiet poise where a lesser film might have fallen to mawkish sentiment.

Much of this documentary sequel to to Thomas Balmès’ 2013 film Happiness is beautiful and humane, but is more often simplistic and questionable in its exploration of the impact of technology on a traditional society.

Phyllida Lloyd’s strong third feature, Herself, is as much an indictment of the grinding bureaucracy failing to house and protect women abused at the hands of their partners, as it is the men who inflict such despicable physical and psychological trauma.

What lets the film down somewhat is an issue that has dogged much of the studio’s recent middling efforts, namely an inert narrative and a wishy-washy message that ultimately doesn’t have the courage of its own convictions.

WW84 is far from perfect: its length and fumbling of Minerva’s arc are chief among its sins, but equally there are no denying its simple, vibrant charms. Much like Christopher Reeves as Superman, Gal Gadot simply is Wonder Woman – and this latest entry is undoubtedly her most fun, spectacular and charming yet.

The fear of old age’s erosion of our faculties, our agency and our relevance is a potent, almost paralysing one: the way we perceive and treat our elders invariably reveals something about ourselves. In her charming and off-kilter documentary The Mole Agent, Chilean director Maite Alberdi confronts that fear literally through the eyes of her subject.

It is the physical, dogged determination of both mind and body that defines Il Mio Corpo.

Visually striking and audibly arresting from its opening number until the curtain comes down, Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan is an affectionate paean to its irascible, impudent frontman.

What we are ultimately left with is a well-made, consummately-performed drama – Laura Linney shines in a small role as John’s equally exasperated younger sister – which unfortunately falls a little short of the intended emotional catharsis Mortensen is reaching for.

Conceived, written, shot and released all in the early months of the Covid crisis and taking place entirely on a Zoom call, Host is about as contemporary – and chilling – as it gets.

Don’t Click is anti-torture porn, a rebuke to mindless muck for the sake of entertainment. It’s likely, though, Don’t Click will be quickly accused of being exactly what it’s rallying against.

The film conjures a man who is fundamentally, simplistically decent, while his demons only intrude on his integrity in the most superficial ways. Yet, in the end, Mank is not about capturing the totality of a person, but leaving an impression of one, and in that it is certainly successful.

Remarkably, this is Cole's first time in front of the camera. He approaches Alex’s emotional journey as a teenager with a sure touch, switching effortlessly between innocence and a gradual hardening.

Never has the banality of the plight of refugees been laid out so plainly as in this heartbreaking, Kafkaesque documentary.

With his first big screen endeavour, Patrick, Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants has crafted as unusual an exploration of grief and loss as you are ever likely to see.

It’s all over in the blink of an eye, but Lovers Rock is a party you won’t ever forget.

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

Director Yeon Sang-ho’s Peninsula is a solid follow up to his original, with just about enough shambling momentum to distract from a fairly uninspired plot.

An uneasy and messy union of genre and arthouse, Possessor disturbs, thrills and eludes us in equal measure.

Collective is a brilliant documentary in its own right, but in this time of pandemic, scandal and democratic upheaval it is also the year’s most important.

Like most of Howard’s films, Hillbilly Elegy is perfectly watchable, unchallenging and largely forgettable awards fodder.

Taking a sledgehammer to institutionalised racism with the clarity of purpose and skill of a master craftsman, Steve McQueen is once again at the very top of his game, and indeed his profession, with Mangrove.

Just as Andersson reveals profound truths about human existence in miniature, so does Being A Human Person discover something of Andersson’s whole in revealing him, synecdoche-like, in part.

Tracing ambivalent pasts and ambiguous futures, Monsoon grows into a brooding portrait of immigrant displacement – one marked by a ceaseless yearning.

Benjamin Ree’s The Painter and the Thief is an art heist film like no other and an arresting documentary of startling, often brutal, emotional honesty.

Re-framing more traditional genre choices for representing dementia, the Japanese-Australian filmmaker has crafted a chilling, mysterious horror to communicate the confusion and terror caused by diminishing intellectual acuity.

Though the slow, blurry-edged stupor of Shirley will not be to everyone’s tastes, it cannot be denied that it examines its subject, and a rather tired genre, with feverish, dreamlike fluidity rather than rigid biography. That, and Moss’ enthralling lead performance, are Shirley’s chief accomplishments.

In a way, Michael is an audience surrogate, informing our own understanding of her; his – and the film’s – refusal to pin Stokes down as either a genius or crank (as if they are binary) speaks to her own project’s attempt to capture the totality of a thing and the noble futility in such an endeavour.

The US-born, Kenyan-raised director’s feature-length debut is told with honesty, determination and grace.

A sumptuously shot, nostalgic bildungsroman framed by a bitttersweet darkness, the film deploys many well-worn tropes of the coming of age drama. But they’re executed with such a light, self-aware confidence that Summer of ’85 has wit, warmth and charm to spare.

Doing these usually faceless public servants justice is vitally important. But Totally Under Control somehow feels unfinished.

Exciting, thought-provoking and visually striking, it is everything an animation can and should be for viewers young and old.

Nathan Grossman charts her rise in this perfectly enjoyable but ultimately unpersuasive and shallow documentary.

White Riot is a belligerently hopeful film: Shah vividly depicts the insidious violence of racism, but she also renders its futility in the face of community, and of music’s limitless power to unite and strengthen.

Positing the question of whether the principal objective of incarceration is punishment, rehabilitation or undue persecution, Garrett Bradley’s Time is another vital addition to a growing canon of films to pointedly critique the US legal and prison systems’ unjust treatment of people of colour.

Having penned the script herself, July trusts her four actors to provide the goods, which they do. The director is left to concentrate on the construction of this haphazard, seat of their pants, wing and a prayer lottery of a film. And though it feels like it shouldn’t work, it really, really does.

Fundamentally, On the Rocks understands that the rich complexity of long-term relationships – both paternal and spousal – can never truly be captured, only gestured towards. The result, on screen, is deeply warm, funny and comforting, and among Coppola’s finest work.

Not only does it represent some of Sorkin’s best work for years, but in this time of civil unrest and with the dark clouds of November nearly upon is, this reminder of the right to resist the state could not be timelier.

Eternal Beauty, whilst it is not entirely devoid of cliché, provides a much-needed, deeply human alternative to the noisy and tragic narratives about hallucinatory derangement, terror, and victimisation that we may have come to expect from films about madness.

Rocks is a faultlessly authentic study of contemporary young life in the inner city.

Entertaining from start to finish and wonderfully played by a largely female cast, David Arquette has a small role as an escaped convict, Grant’s film beautifully upends the sexist notion that women are naturally inclined to nurture. It surprises, too, as a tribute to the fortitude of working-class women.

Suburban suffocation, impending doom, a tragedy waiting to happen, The Swerve is a compelling depiction of existential angst, melancholy, and mental illness, with director Kapsalis opting for subtlety over big-scene meltdown histrionics and much to his credit.

Away combines Zilbalodis’ signature minimalist style with the structure of a classic survival story.

It’s a shame that the real hope gap here is that between expectation and reality.

Although the handling of certain plot dynamics on occasion isn’t as strong as its potent aesthetic finesse, Ly mounts a thriller operating as a savage indictment of social policies and underhand police tactics and ass-covering corruption.

This movie is a slow-burning story of loss and solitude which is also resonant with humanity, dignity, and hope.

Kaufman’s latest work, a creeping, deeply unsettling, cerebral horror of sorts, is a further addition to his challenging, thought-provoking brand of filmmaking which gets under your skin, and stays there.

The alienness of humanity, when seen from another perspective, is evident throughout the film.

She Dies Tomorrow is billed as a horror, and its scenario certainly is that. But the word ‘horror’ denotes active subjects – even if their activity is mainly screaming and running – whereas there’s a melancholy to Seimetz’ film that feels too fixed in place for the instability of horror.

The master of cerebral action cinema is back, and whatever lessons were learnt about the triumph of the human spirit during the making of Dunkirk, they were swiftly forgotten for this new piece of filmic flimflammery.

Doff, who acts as both writer and director, establishes an offbeat, ridiculous tone from the start that solidifies itself with visual humour and sharp dialogue that pay off in riches further down the line.

Perfect 10 is an acutely observed and beautifully shot coming-of-age story. It is also a tender, fastidiously constructed portrait of working-class girlhood that shimmers with angst, vulnerability, and compassion.

No amount of tight corridors and shots of CCTV monitors ever make protagonist Tatyana feel in peril: this, far more than derivative monsters and confusing themes, is Sputnik’s fatal error.

There’s little here to surprise anyone with a passing familiarity with the story, and its creepiest elements sometimes feel neutered. It may be heresy, but the body-horror of the Land of Toys and sublime terror of the whale were imagined far more viscerally in the Disney version.

The moral ambiguities and questions of legacy, friendship, family and integrity in Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor are the strongest points of an ambitious, punishing addition to a long line of films to explore the inner workings of the Cosa Nostra.

Labyrinth of the Turtles is a charming and occasionally moving love letter to the legendary Spanish-Mexican surrealist, and at a spry 80 minutes, doesn’t outstay its welcome.

There is no doubt that Alice is an empowering watch. It skillfully combines narrative realism with compelling character development and whip-smart dialogue to produce an engrossing look into a subject matter that is all too frequently over-sexed and sensationalised.

A funny and touching coming-of-age story that occasionally loses its way, just like its protagonist.

A documentary of tremendous urgency and compassion, The Fight is essential viewing for anybody who wants to understand the present political moment.

Make Up taps into a rich Gothic tradition where repressed emotions find their vent in uncanny space and sexual awakening is realised through the imagination.

It’s a fiery mix of ambition, mother-daughter love, female empowerment and childhood dreams – the gravities of each masterfully held together in the film, like planets in the canvas of space, revolving harmoniously around the sun.

Calm with Horses’ driving concern – the corrosive nature of violence on the self – is rendered in brutal, empathic precision, while the recovery of its protagonist’s humanity as it teeters on the cliff edge is simply heartbreaking.

Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency is a sombre, layered study of the human cost of capital punishment. One of this era’s most powerful actors, Alfre Woodard, leads with one of her best, most understated performances yet.

Benjamin is a charming metropolitan rom-com which is ultimately too lightweight to escape the gravity of its influences.

Spaceship Earth deftly captures the sincere wonder and optimism of those who believed in the project. There’s simply no denying the sheer ambition of the damn thing, let alone that they more or less pulled it off.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets’ vérité style belies a quasi-staged reality that challenges the distinction between fiction and documentary, studying the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world.