Goldin’s career and Poitras’ latest asserts the primacy of the artist as a participant in the world. Something which will make us see the world differently starting from the very walls from which the art might hang: the rooms in which the films are seen.

Written by first-time screenwriters Darren and Jeff Allen Geare, The Retaliators deserves praise for its storytelling and plotting. For a good hour or so, the direction in which the film heads is destination unknown.

Saturday Fiction certainly demands patience, shrouded at first in a smog of exposition.

With starkly enigmatic, but beautifully wrought and filigree imagery, with a dark cutting humour which is bleak rather than ironic, Garrone is not interested in touching our hearts or giving us a comfortable moral.

Ultimately, The Lavender Hill Mob remains an unblemished gem that proves that the period wasn’t just one of fertility on the other side of the atlantic.

Una is undoubtedly a difficult watch, and its moral ambivalence may be beyond the pale for some. But the sensitivity with which it treats its subjects and the nuance that the film brings to the most incendiary of debates is admirable.

Alongside The Wrestler, The Whale is Aronofsky at his most compassionate. It’s a gargantuan invitation to empathy and understanding.

Harmonium remains a deeply affecting narrative of guilt, consequence and failed redemption.

The Wonders is a complex and nuanced illustration of a family trying to live by their own standards - whilst only partly failing. Rohrwacher's vision is tactful and restrained, with so much we don't ever know. The characters' histories are there to be guessed rather than spelled out.

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

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.

The footage of Leclerc ascending sheer, near-featureless sheets of rock is so defiant of physics that it is easy to forget just how mind-bogglingly dangerous it is.

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.

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.

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

Straight Outta Compton proves as infectiously entertaining as it is educational thanks to F. Gary Gray's richly textured direction and a thumping soundtrack that confirms rap as the protest music of its time.

Paris, 13th District is a paean to the freedoms, the heartaches and the confusion of singledom.

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.

Perhaps the greatest shock is how decent the boys turn out to be. They're sincere, articulate, yet self-aware: they have been shaped, not ruined, by their experience.

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.

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

Broomfield’s triumph is in reimagining Biggie and Tupac’s murders out of their mythology and into a new context in which they are emblematic of a social malaise characterised by toxic masculinity, misogyny, racism, and police corruption.

The funniest Spider-Man film yet, Homecoming is a true teen flick, its visuals full of colour and exuberant movement.

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

Olga’s final sequences suggest a hope for the future, but there is an underlying irony to the superficially-peaceful imagery, rendered horribly prophetic in the current moment.

Dark Horse is a relentlessly pleasing film that has all the satisfying hallmarks of a Rocky-like underdog tale with the added value of being true. While one suspects a feel-good studio adaptation won't be far off, the real story is a worthwhile bet.

The Dance of Reality is a rich and expressive new offering from a man who has always tried to sculpt something resembling cinematic poetry, whatever that might look like.

More than a casual swipe at modern social trends, Rotting in the Sun exposes a kind of cruelty, alienation, and social stratification that is only as modern as the technology through which it expresses itself.