While on the whole Vice succeeds in offering a highly original take on Cheney’s time in office, it does have a number of weaknesses.

Unveiling personality traits previously unknown, alongside footage that’s captivating to observe, this lovingly constructed documentary will leave you with a fresh appetite to revisit Bergman’s filmography in as much detail as presented throughout.

In the end, it’s more disappointing than bad. A great cast and an interesting period of history (even if it has been done to death on screens and in classrooms) wasted on a sombre muddle that wants to have both the gravity of Shakespeare and a fresh, dynamic perspective.

Despite its myriad issues, Glass is often a hoot to watch – particularly once Elijah comes out of his self-induced fugue to wreak havoc on the facility, with Jackson hamming it up with infectious relish, bouncing off the gurning McAvoy.

While it is hard to imagine its themes of gender fluidity and female empowerment not resonating with contemporary audiences, Wash and his fellow screenwriters make these parallels irritatingly obvious, to the extent that characters constantly say and do things that feel implausibly millennial, and caricatures (especially male ones) abound.

The real marvel of this biopic is how well it captures the stoic resolve of two men who come to realise, perhaps long after their own audience, that life has joined them together for better and for worse.

Endlessly thought-provoking, the disturbing nature of this quite incredible work cultivates a long-lasting sense of unease in the viewer and achieves what all good documentaries aim to do – it remains firmly lodged in you mind and refuses to loose its terrible grip.

Hill does his best but Jim is woefully underwritten, a shuffling loser who various other characters try to bolster with the dignity of a back story that doesn’t seem to fit his actual behaviour.

The Favourite has ribaldry and intelligence to burn, a deliciously entertaining period piece that feels liberated by its period, rather than restrained and invigorates like a glass of wine thrown violently in your face.

A vital and timely missive to a new generation that is as sobering as it is uplifting, all built around a performance of astounding accomplishment.

By showing that self-worth and acceptance of one’s faults are to be valued, DuVernay has shown how empowerment can come from changing your own outlook, and perhaps adults as well as kids will be able to take something positive from this movie.

For fans of the original film this will be a very enjoyable sequel, perhaps just shy of being an all-round triumph, but an admirably heartwarming effort at continuing the legacy of everyone’s favourite magical nanny.

It is evident that her art is what she has used to plough through the attendant difficulties – lack of success and recognition, mental health issues – of the life she chose for herself. And as the documentary confirms, she has indeed been rewarded for it at long last.

Perischetti, Ramsey and Rothman’s picture is an irresistible treat throughout, an unadulterated confection crafted with wit, vivacity and heart.

Despite the golden cast, this is Redford’s show, bolstered by a life-long career of effectively playing younger versions of Tucker.

Disobedience’s third-act narrative inertia does little to dampen its tonal sobriety and quietly powerful compositions. While nuance may be lacking, it makes up in tone and directorial precision.

Rocky has always lived and died on its direct, unsubtle sincerity. It’s in these heartfelt moments where Creed II flies, underpinning its thoughtful climax and one of the series’ most surprisingly moving endings.

Marsh has crafted a compelling film, yet for all the fine performances and intriguing subject matter it is never quite compelling.

Drily narrated by Udo Kier, Hitler’s Hollywood is not a film about the rise of Nazism, nor even a linear history of the era’s cinema. Rather, it seeks to capture its spirit, interrogate its aesthetics and finally, to try to understand the insidious power of its propaganda.

Ultimately, Anna and the Apocalypse ends up lacking the requisite bite to really make it fly as that quirky leftfield offering it so badly wants to be.

The real success to Ralph Breaks the Internet is how, while having the most amount of fun possible, it’s also able to be cleverly subversive (no longer should the iconic Disney princess be reliant on men to strive) and deeply rooted in its themes of friendship, and all the ups and downs that follow.

Tim Wardle engagingly recounts the fascinating story of a set of triplets who were separated at birth and reunited through coincidence when they were 19. The telling however slowly takes a darker turn as facts around the original separation are probed and frightening truths about science and human intent come to the surface.

Even if it does occasionally threaten to outstay its welcome with a 111-minute running time, the deeply engaging performances and that freeing and uninhibited Spanish flavour which Marques-Marcet brings to his English-language debut, means it’s the kind of world you really don’t mind lingering in.

It might be that the actor Dano baulks at taking the scissors to any of the performances of his fellow thespians, or that screenwriters Dano and Zoe Kazan are too faithful to Richard Ford’s source novel but this results in a deadening of effect that renders the melancholy monotonous.

Everything builds to a brilliantly over the top finale that becomes almost mesmeric with its use of colour, music, movement and panting.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web demonstrates how uncertainty is a detriment, just as it proves Alvarez will always be a stylist worth watching.

Nathaniel Kahn’s The Price of Everything certainly doesn’t hold back in its skewering of a contemporary art world defined far more by financial gain and status seeking than a genuine love of beauty.

It’s difficult given the premise of the film not to come out of The Workshop thinking of alternative directions the story could have gone in.

Piece by piece, Assassination Nation lays out and deconstructs the misogynistic assumptions that underpin many of our reactions to the girls’ behaviour.

A quietly devastating portrayal of family and theft in contemporary Japan.

A mess then, but a mess that deserves to be indulged.

Martin’s film is a thoroughly sobering watch and leaves us with tough questions about how the West chose to deal – or rather not deal – with Assad and the refugee crisis.

Outlaw King is proof positive that Pine is one of the most underestimated actors in modern cinema.

Jackson and his entire production team have produced a film which is both a form of cultural monument and a monumental cinematic achievement.

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.

Possum’s evocation of wrongness, that unbalancing feeling that something is off – if only you could put your finger on it – lingers long after its overdetermined climax has resolved.

Tinge Krishnan’s Been So Long is a musical delight of heart-warming songs, sardonic British humour, and fantastic performances.

Where Tan describes the process of making Shirkers as an exorcism (presumably of Georges), the final product is more akin to a séance, a communion with a lost soul keen to still be heard from beyond the veil.

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, tries to make a virtue out of extreme silliness and disjointed, oh-so-random plot points, but the end result is a desperately tiresome viewing experience.

Kevin Kerslake’s Bad Reputation doesn’t explore just Jett’s rock star image and the added layers of hostility and confusion that her gender brings to the term ‘rock star’ but also, how cinema weaves its elements within the world of music, it’s aesthetic and subcultures, cinema and music as creating its own little world.

There’s nothing inherently problematic about reverence and homage, but the partial focus on the Strodes, and the ideas cased within regarding the bonds and abscissions violence brings, makes one wish more time was spent studying their multi-generational dynamic than on Michael’s murder spree.

Caniba offers no trite explanations or condemnations of Sagawa. Instead, we are offered a small window into his reality.

For every slick moment of style, there is an immensely somber undercurrent that matches its beating heart and occasional levity.

Cosmatos’ Mandy matches Cage grimace for grimace and achieves, at times, a transcendent midnight madness.

Equal parts arthouse cinema and coming-of-age drama, the influence of his tribute to teen rebellion remains deeply felt.

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.

We all know how this story ends, but in this fable of astronomic ambition it’s about the journey, not the destination.

A Faithful Man may tip its hat to the conventions of film noir – Abel as the patsy, Marianne as the femme fatale – but Garrel’s winking sensibility is far too fun for real darkness. Instead, he gives us a wonderful soufflé of a film – light, airy, and a rare treat.

Venom is a desperately confused piece of work which has only a few compensatory pleasures to offer along the way.

Close’s performance here surely must finally provide her with the Oscar she has deserved for so many years; the suppressed resentment which slowly builds up on her face steadily throughout the film is a masterclass in screen acting.

This is not a run-of-the-mill pop doc: it’s part defiant portrayal of a woman, part autobiographical travelogue, part tale of a country in turmoil through the coming of age story of a young girl, and part meditation on creativity and self-hood, baring all about the elusive grasp of the westernised dream.

The film is freaky, experimental, sometimes hilarious and unnervingly intense.

What Denis’ film is concerned with is the visceral bodily experience and the claustrophobia of living in the middle of the infinite. If outer space is a cold and vast external of nothingness, then there is also an interior space of bodies, living, writhing, and fluid.

While Kursk doesn’t have the sufficient depth required for a truly effective historical drama it certainly works as a well-mounted and occasionally gripping, if somewhat formulaic thriller.

There are few outright surprises in Maya, and though things proceed roughly as we might expect there is a deeper sort of emotional revelation that comes from letting the story proceed on its own terms.

Free Solo goes some way to explaining just why someone would want to do such a thing, but is ultimately more captivated by the vicarious thrill of watching Honnold do his thing.

Genre film or not, Davis’ depiction of profound grief is tremendously effective, elicited by McQueen’s audacious direction.

The film’s biggest weakness is its reluctance to interrogate the personas of its supporting characters.

The vision of the black American experience might be grim, but it is never miserablist or despairing. The songs, the traditions, the love and the community are still there, even if the world seems to be undeniably on fire.

It’s an enjoyable but static viewing experience, where even the tales of wild parties, disco dancing and sex become worn out through overuse.

Weighed down by existential questions, Lucky carries the burden of life’s unanswered questions on his sun-lined face; it’s a fearless portrayal of someone facing the finality of their life.

What begins as an intriguing premise is gradually squandered, used as little more as background noise for comic tics and lazy characterisation.

A deeply felt personal journey, the film shifts seamlessly from unflinching realism to a poetic expression of masculinity in crisis; crossing back-and-forth across the blurred boundary that separates art and reportage to create a totally unforgettable film about the bond between people and place.

Out of Blue undeniably works as a stylish, psychological neo-noir, but significantly less so as metaphysical rumination.

As the film drifts through dream sequences and diversions, the dramatic power of the chase fizzles in the damp of the woods.

Ultimately, Alverson’s The Mountain is arthouse cinema at its frostiest.

While it may be a little better in concept than in execution, there’s enough energy, imagination and innovation here to satisfy any genre hound suffering fatigue from the endless wash, rinse, repeat cycle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, et al.

With the imperfect but fascinating Endzeit, director Carolina Hellsgård ultimately guides her ravenous wanderers down an original and largely unbeaten track.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a rich, tender and poetic film as much about love as it is about injustice.

The Oscar-nominated Hedges is, as one would expect, superb in the title role, but performances across the board are excellent.

His scattershot approach means that the film frequently wanders off topic, in pursuit of a litany of social, economic and political injustices.

Far from perfect, and very rarely offering us anything unexpected, Beautiful Boy is nevertheless a well-mounted depiction of the terrible cycle of substance abuse.

As a historical account it is unvarnished without feeling dry or academic, and as a coded satire of the contemporary British political climate it is urgent and deeply impassioned.

Something about the film’s tone fails to convince. Chekhov was the master of subtext and lauded for his compelling psychological naturalism. On screen, though, the characters’ desires come across as melodramatic and their impulsive actions lack Chekhov’s subtlety.

Traversing the curiosities that we all yield at an adolescent age where discovering and understanding our bodies is a paramount experience, one cannot help applauding the director in depicting the taboo subject in such a pure fashion.

What Keeps You Alive is a gorgeous rural revenge featuring two strong lead performances, a blood-stained, thicketed idyll, and some moments of dark humour – or cathartic victory – depending on how you view your current or past relationships.

The first forty minutes or so are – as you would expect – a harrowing recreation of the bombing and the crime.

With a filmmaker as intelligent and controlled as Nemes, Sunset has the assurance that everything has a place and the confusion is intended. But even this has a paradoxical effect.

The trademark brutal violence remains effective, and Zahler maintains a pervasive feeling of dread throughout his films, but Dragged Across Concrete shows the limits of taking the game long.

With Vox Lux, Corbet has delivered a towering film, a unique uncompromising vision that reveals the darkness on the edge of town that lurks in the depths of the spotlight. It’s funny, thrilling, deadly serious and achieves genuine depth.

After the profanity-laced Shakespearean barrage of Deadwood, Dewitt and Audiard’s Wild West is a more prosaic place, but it is also sharply intelligent, extremely funny and full of surprises.

Overall this is a remarkable debut from Elba, and it makes for an engaging, captivating watch.

Even magnificent scenery like this can get dull if there’s no invention or novelty to proceedings, but fortunately the six tales collected in the dusty old hardback book The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the Wild West, complete with colour plates and tracing paper, are packed with originality, poetry and glorious wit.

Bradley Cooper’s soulful exploration of the depredations of fame is an effective melodrama boasting genuine star turns from himself and Lady Gaga.

While it’s obvious that fans of Lavelle and his many creative ventures will get the most out of The Man From Mo’Wax, this remains a fascinating insight into both the hubris and vulnerability of the music industry, which never shies away from casting it’s subject matter in a sometimes unfavourable light.

It is remarkably good.

Alfonso Cuarón returns to his childhood for inspiration with the meticulously beautiful Roma, an autobiographical black and white thank you letter full of warmth and love.

Where The Happytime Murders excels is in its humour, because it’s very, very funny. But more than that, it’s filthy. Utterly, gloriously, unapologetically, deeply, darkly, sexually filthy.

This is the refined work of an artist at the peak of his powers, and, dare we say it, a masterpiece.

Mulubwa’s performance gives I Am Not a Witch its furious heart, but Nyoni weaves her spells subtly and has produced a film of intensity, satire and grace.

The Children Act brilliantly recreates the measured mind and language of a judge. But McEwan and Eyre are also interested in conveying the tumultuous emotional currents that operate below the surface in a person – often unrecognised until it is too late.

That Lee has crafted a funny film full of snazzy editing, stylish imagery and a tremendous blues rock score, yet is laser-focused on a very serious subject matter, demonstrates his mastery of the cinematic medium.

This is not just a biopic, or a bunch of worthies singing the praises of the King of Rock and Roll and hoping thereby to get a dribble of the blue suede limelight. Rather, it is a thought experiment, an argument, an essay in the true sense of that word, which is truly revealing.

A conspicuous example of political cinema made into art, The Wild Boys has more ideas in its 110 minute runtime than most filmmakers have in their entire oeuvres; jumping gleefully into the murky waters of gender politics and taking great delight in the overflowing bounty of cinephilic pleasures and vulgar perversities that spurt onto the screen.

Makala examines the tribulations of desolation and solitude with such respect that it’s impossible not to feel compassion.

The Guardians is a subtle, beautifully made and quietly feminist work about the fortitude of women during wartime.

Besides the overt journey for Christopher Robin of rediscovering some childhood joy, this film is a poignant exploration of the way in which we sideline important friendships at the behest of professional advancement.

Iceman’s violence and viscera is satisfying in its immediacy, and Randau’s singular focus is certainly admirable. It’s just a pity that any nuance in the fine line between humanity and savagery is lost among all the hacking and slashing.