Ahead of the pack must be the winning duo of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, whose performances in director Stanley Donen’s masterpiece Charade is as intoxicating as a dry martini.

Although Tamhane's film recalls Franz Kafka in its nightmarish vision of inhumane bureaucracy, Court is neither faceless nor surreal. Rather, the absurdity and numbness are all too human and as such even more frightening.

Locke never shies away from from thrusting 21st concepts of masculinity into the full glare of the high beams, exposing its morally complex protagonist at his most vulnerable before triumphantly rebuilding him from the foundations upwards. Don't miss it.

The film is both a biography of Cave's life and a beguiling vision of a musician considering the meaning of his own art.

Its specific frame of reference sees it build to a bleak and powerful conclusion, if one devoid of much hope.

Petzold struggles to keep hold of the reigns, wielding the effects of melodrama with little to no precision or psychological acuity, and leaving the essential romance at the heart of the story to be rendered almost entirely unbelievable.

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.

Biller is an eccentric talent - always a plus in the world of film - and The Love Witch is a triumph of form and style.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ timely documentary on the Nobel Prize-winning novelist is a persuasive argument for rereading Morrison if you’ve already read her works – and if you haven’t, an imperative to get to it.

Machoian has crafted an intense, moving and bleak portrait of a disintegrating marriage and fractured masculinity.

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.

This brilliant, beautifully observed comedy is a joy to watch throughout. The Second Mother's narrative works on so many levels, reflected in the film's ambiguous title, and the characterisation is flawless.

Linklater’s Hit Man is an Aperol Spritz with enough fizz and prosecco to cover the taste of the strychnine. This could be one of the brightest dark comedies of recent times.

German director Christian Petzold’s latest is a tense, emotionally fraught drama, layered with smouldering internal conflict that by its incendiary close invariably catches alight.

The Argentinian director’s follow-up to 2019’s Lux Æterna is a typically difficult watch, subjecting us to the grinding indignities of old age, but it also a deeply moving study of lifelong love and loyalty to the bitter end.

Suffice to say, There Is No Evil is a deeply felt study of the effects of state violence on the individual. While the cost of resistance is high, the price of compliance may well be greater.

Foregoing breadth in favour of depth, War is at its core a character study disguised as a science fiction epic.

It’s wholesale thievery of what is a director’s famed aesthetic, for sure, but it does somehow fit the lyrical and haunting material, often beautifully so. Also, the shallow field of depth used to heighten – and blur – the boundaries between the magical world and the natural world is successful in creating rich atmospheres.

At 150 minutes, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? could easily have been shorter and still achieved its intended emotional and aesthetic effects. But a river isn’t less pleasant for meandering before it reaches the ocean: if this is how it has to happen before we lose the thread of Lisa and Giorgi’s lives in the flow of others, then so be it.

A constantly surprising treat of a film that returns more the less you give.

Lanthimos has broadened his scope and has created a marvellously bleak, bizarre comedy.

It’s the impeccable performances of its central quartet and delicious premise that makes A Quiet Place such an exhilarating watch.

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

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.

Chaplin built his reputation of finding the poignant humour in poverty, and many screwball comedies of the sound era invariably touched on the Depression, none more so than Gregory La Cava’s 1936 My Man Godfrey.

Rams is a truly remarkable, eccentric work.

Tarkovsky possessed a sensibility for, and mastery over, the cinematic form that few directors – before or after – have been able to match; a mastery evident in almost every sublime frame of Mirror.

Challengers is, in the end, a fantastically well constructed film with a star-making performance at its centre. Not quite a masterpiece, Guadagnino holds back from fully embracing the potential of his film’s eroticism and style, but Challengers is nevertheless a worthy contender.