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.

Ex Machina exposes the insecurity of the male ego by showing his lust for creation as simply another strand in the patriarchal power game. The film's trajectory forms a thrilling, exciting corrective.

Argentinian director Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen is an enigmatic, semi-absurdist puzzle that defies the allure of narrative solution in favour of the liberation of loose ends.

Elevating silliness to the level of profundity, House doesn’t so much serve its swirling madness to you as it dunks your head into a cauldron full of it.

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 quite literally a darkness at the heart of the American dream as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl.

Kline perfectly captures the out-of-jointness of our age, defined by a generation caught by social and economic decline in a state of permanent instability.

A triumphant debut feature with an important message that masterfully balances its personal and political concerns.

It is Hall for which this film will be sought out and remembered, and she elicits such a great deal of empathy as to make the inevitable climax all the more gut-wrenching.

Blending and bending genres to highlight the elusiveness of the truth, Green's avant-garde documentary presents the audience with a wealth of interviewees, each giving their own account of how the murder was reported.

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.

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.

An expertly handled plot, interweaving lives, coincidence, past trauma and circumstance, is concerned with far more than mere bloody vengeance. Five years since the delirious oddity that was Men & Chicken, Jensen gets members of the old band back together for a thrilling, poignant film which sees writer-director and cast on top form.

Although A Most Violent Year may hit fever pitch when Abel engages in a nerve-wracking chase of a stolen tanker, it's in the murky uncertainties and frosty climate that it endures and excels.

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.

An ornately mounted story marked with tints of antiquarianism, The Lost City of Z is perhaps Gray's most accomplished film to date.

Baumbach writes his dialogue with a sharp pencil and the film bursts with non-sequiturs, put downs and hilarious lines.

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.

Petzold's Phoenix is a high-concept premise executed as a heart-wrenching character piece.

An exquisitely rendered study of entitlement and millennial dissatisfaction.

The key here is the perfectly-cast Wilson, constantly swimming against the current of her own harrowing memories, often telling more in a single glance than her sporadic utterances to her similarly-broken brother ever could.

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

Andersson packs his film with thought-provoking deadpan humour.

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.

The topic of who can participate in the arts often ignores society’s racial prejudices and class assumptions, thankfully The Plagiarists’ perfectly judged mimicry of independent cinema illustrates the profound effect a lack of diversity has on the type of art that gets made.

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.

All of this is achieved with the signature levels of emotional intelligence that Pixar are renowned for. The level of detail with which they have created this world is staggering, with each aspect of the psyche carefully thought out.

Mercier has a presence about him that’s unshakable.