A captivating film of deep emotional power; like weeds slowly cracking the pavement above, its movements in isolation are barely felt but its effects are profound.

[An] astonishing feature debut.

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.

At once a searing, affirming and defiant portrayal of race, poverty and frustrated aspiration in America.

Bombach’s camera captures Murad’s extreme courage, her dignity, humility and sorrow – she is wise beyond her years and the weight of her loss hangs heavily on her.

A searing indictment of religious fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism. Inherit the Wind’s relevance continues beyond its immediate parallels with McCarthyism.

A work of astonishing aesthetic beauty, made up of static compositions and use of chiaroscuro that recalls the Dutch masters.

Rape scene aside, Nowhere is stunningly beautiful to watch. There’s not one frame that hasn’t been intricately stylised. Araki brings his trilogy to a head in a bundle of celluloid confusion that encapsulates nihilistic teenage mentality and delivers an expressionistic banquet for your eyes to devour (and your brain to decipher). It’s a wild, enjoyable teenage riot.

Although a couple of narrative twists late on threaten to drum us into melodrama, Chazelle never misses a beat and the film builds to a cathartic crescendo.

Kubrick’s film is the most accurate and timeless portrayal of a world facing mutually assured nuclear destruction, and paradoxically accomplishes this feat not through a realistic study but through the blackest surrealism.

The Punk Singer is a rewarding and positive experience. Anderson delivers a fascinating account of the grunge era and an influential story of a role model who has the guts and spunk to hopefully inspire a whole new generation of Riot Grrls and Boys.

Visually striking and audibly arresting from its opening number until the curtain comes down, Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan is an affectionate paean to its irascible, impudent frontman.

The Ivory Game depicts humankind both at its deplorable worst and at its best. Its burning images will sear through conscience and consciousness but there is faint hope in the lasting hoof-print they leave.

The deft and highly emotive handling of his condition and the wider ramifications of his story make The Dark Horse a lot more than merely the against-the-odds chess story that it may initially appear to be.

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.

Rarely has China's explosive economic growth been captured with such grace and with such a heavy heart.

We can all look forward to Hollywood completely dropping the ball with its inevitable remake, but until then, Train to Busan is the year's best genre offering by a zombie mile.

Is The Painted Bird exaggerated? Does it go too far? Does it break the limits of taste? “Yes” on all counts. Walking out is an understandable and valid reaction but watching, getting angry, suffering and approaching understanding is also important too.

Made up of a series of related but not necessarily connected vignettes, each filmed with a static camera, they resemble New Yorker cartoons scripted by Samuel Beckett.

A fluid, dreamlike tone poem of mothers and fathers, death and continuance.

This is a brilliantly contained and sublimely ridiculous send-up of competitive male egos from a refreshing female perspective.

It should confirm Nichols' reputation as a mature filmmaker of great tact and intelligence.

The haunting supernatural forces at work in Never Gonna Snow Again are elusive, inexplicable and yet perfectly in sync with reality.

Among all the violence, body horror and Giger-esque sexuality, Titane’s most surprising quality is its tenderness.

While Duarte and Stockler’s deeply-felt turns anchor the film from drifting into simplistic sentimentality, Hélène Louvart’s sumptuous cinematography elevates the script’s high-flung emotion with spaces that are often dreamlike; light is tangible like a haze, colours deep and tactile, and characters are glimpsed and doubled through screens, glass and mirrors, and Benedikt Schiefer’s classical score tenderly fills out and gives detail to the broader emotional brushstrokes.

The rage that fuels Singleton's film is harnessed to great effect, he shows the reality, and while it builds to a melodramatic conclusion, it depicts life at its most raw.

It’s an assuredly thought-provoking film that’s earnestness doesn’t drag it into the weeds, concluding with a wholly deserved, humanely warm resolution.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets’ vérité style belies a quasi-staged reality that challenges the distinction between fiction and documentary, studying the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world.