Each set piece is orchestrated with aplomb - a raid on a tunnel under the border being a particular stand out - but Sicario is kept grounded in reality. Villeneuve keeps his focus tight on his small group of characters and though the plot is complex, it fits the Byzantine intricacies of the problem and the obscure motivations of the operators.

The film is often remarkable, gorgeous even - many of the shots in Youth would make excellent closing shots, including the opening shot - and funny. It's a work of wonderful moments, but it's less than momentous and, significantly, you'll never believe a single word of it. This is a pity as the performances are excellent.

Essentially a caper movie, Dope defies the wearisome social realism that is often used to depict lives at the bottom of the social ladder. The script is verbally smart and the various contrivances and tangles of the plot are amusingly played out.

A mix of Loachian social realism and Death Wish-style violent fantasy.

Osborne, who initially got his kicks with Kung Fu Panda, doesn't trust his source material and the film becomes about collecting the pages of the story and the effect the story might have on the people who hear it, rather than the telling of the story itself.

Though an entertaining-enough stab at a new kind of orgiastic extravaganza, Noé's Love is so mired in its own hang-ups and conservative gender views that it never gets past the first stroke.

An amalgamation of Disney's heritage, current status and future enterprises that starts in the evocatively rendered 1964 World's Fair, Tomorrowland is a refreshing and well-intentioned standalone piece that revels in a creatively manufactured appropriation of the conglomerate's existence.

A neat little thriller which unfortunately never achieves plausibility.

As the family resolves problems of the film's own making, the satisfaction gleaned is relatively minor. The threatened and/or promised explosions fizzle out frustratingly, leaving behind the lurking impression of Louder Than Bombs as a well-crafted, well-played, slickly-written misfire.

Scary and funny by turns, Green Room has the potential to become a cult hit, with a genuine midnight movie appeal, and furthers the growing reputation of this young director.

For the occasional lapse...there is often a striking image or sly moment of humour to take away and overall, the film rewards persistence.

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.

A beautiful entity, near flawless in design, any talk of accolades certainly seems justified.

Both leads produce solid performances despite a sloppiness in both the direction and the writing.

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.

A highly original and utterly enthralling film that touches on staggeringly expansive themes - more typically expected in the work of master auteur and persistent award-winner Terrence Malick, than from animations.

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

The biggest strength is in the Bellas themselves. More confident in their respective roles, Anna Kendrick in particular develops her lead from a prickly outsider to someone slightly more goofy, and by extension a little more likeable.

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

Nothing is too much, and whilst there is the danger that some will find the unremitting havoc tiresome, Miller's endless innovation keeps things fresh despite the surrounding wasteland.

Vinterberg's Far From the Madding Crowd is a wondrous feat: at turns tender, dramatic, fragile and bold, it's the definitive adaptation.

The aimless, wandering of this twenty-something is a little kooky but rarely unfunny, and Côté flourishes as a woman positively drained by the prospect of having to move forward at all.

The Great Museum is a beautiful love letter to obsession and eccentricity, the love is given and received in equal measure. This, at its nature is what art should do, and what cinema strives for and rarely achieves, with this poetic discourse about the difficult question of what to do with the art of robber barons in relation towards a finality that befits such a collection.

With Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon doesn't merely hit it out of the park, he Hulk-smashes it.

Llosa shoots for the stars with her oblique pseudo-think piece, but unfortunately ends up dragging her latest offering down to the bottom of the coldest, darkest abyss of cod spirituality imaginable.

What Brett Morgen crafts for his audience - in what may very well come to be known as the definitive documentary on the musician - with Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) is simply stunning. Morgen runs his coverage of Cobain from the cradle to the grave.

This is a heartfelt and charismatic teen movie that gives a platform to a promising young talent.

Above all else John Wick is a lean, mean revenger to go with its ice-cold protagonist. It's not perfect, but you'll be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable action movie this year.