The Truffle Hunters is a low-key delight, a poignant lament for a fading art that doubles as foodie heaven. Go on a full stomach.

A visually stunning Swiftian satire, Children Of Men may appear clumsy, but its message is simple, heartfelt and ultimately rather moving.

Buoyed by a trio of standout performances, this freshly resonant thriller brings urgent life to one of the Black Panther movement’s greatest tragedies.

In a film tracing the endless battles between style and substance, Brooks delivers both in abundance.

Excellent performances from Pollack and Davis in particular, make this one of Woody's finest of the 90s.

Courtenay is heartbreaking as a broken man crushed under the wheels of a callous system.

If it’s not top-drawer QT, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is at once an engaging buddy comedy, an intoxicating fact and fiction mash-up, gorgeous filmmaking and a valentine to the movies that delivers geek nirvana.

As funny, bittersweet and as distinct as you'd expect from Wes Anderson, a director who helps you know you are not alone. Terrific performances from sprogs to stars and a lovely sense of the sorrow and joy of growing up.

Visually striking, intellectually challenging and emotionally harrowing.

Sharing the Palm D'Or at that year's Cannes, Farewell My Concubine is the emotional story of two childhood friends who grow up as apprentices in their much-loved opera house. With stunning set pieces and the dramatic backdrop of the revolution, Kaige captures perfectly the relationship between the two boys.

An idiosyncratic, thematically dense twist on the vampire myth that’s oddly paced but beautifully played. One to sink your teeth into.

Despite its bleak locations, High Hopes is in fact very funny, with wonderful observations on life in the capital...and believable, touching performances all round.

Elements of self parody from the master of slapstick leave you yearning for the early work that made his name. But it's worth a watch to see Chaplin and Keaton in one of few on-screen appearances together.

A solid if, given its subject, oddly workmanlike documentary, this makes a very good case both that the fashion world had a genius on its hands, and that they didn’t have a clue what to do with him.

No ceremonious life lessons here — Booksmart lives in a euphoric moment of unapologetic youth that knows what it deserves. Cherish it, revisit the time capsule of our boisterously ambitious era endlessly.

Brad Dourif shows he was always great in one of John Huston's better later films.

McQueen serves up an awe-inspiring, visceral reflection of London’s torrid history of racial prejudice and police brutality, while John Boyega gives a career-best performance dripping with power and passion.

A beautifully understated performance from Sydney Sweeney, paired with stylistically minimalist filmmaking, make for a chilling, compelling chamber piece — finding the humanity underlying even the tensest of confrontations.

Evocative and endearing - a worthy string to the Lean bow.

Wang never loses the pieces, directing with clarity, force and evident affection, building a multi-plotted, multi-layered collection of intimate individual stories into a sweeping, emotional mosaic of life. Wonderful.

So intense you’ll want to scarper but so riveting you can’t leave, Sirāt is an assault on the senses, mind and emotions. If only all movies took swings this bold.

Understated performances and unflashy filmmaking coalesce into an absorbing mixture of the personal and the political. It may take its time but, given the circumstances of its making, this is an extraordinary achievement.

An award-worthy performance from the reliably exceptional Andrea Riseborough elevates an affecting portrait of the road to recovery that fails to tread new ground.

An often overlooked fine entry in the Kurasawa canon, this shows a good many western 'epics' how it's done.

Too many classic set pieces to mention but keep your ears cocked for that immortal line "Mmmm, Juicy Fruit." Certified brilliance.

One of modern American film’s most intelligent and provocative accounts of a nation’s political failings, and a near-perfect depiction of journalism at its purist and most inspired. To be more succinct, it is quite brilliant.

Not one of Nicholson's best, but an enjoyable comedy nonetheless.

Wonderfully revealing and mythologistic.

Its faults - sketchy narrative, overblown abstraction - are counterbalanced by its gripping engagement between man and machine, and its rhapsodic wonder at heaven and earth and the infinite beyond.

This fourth Toy Story isn’t as essential as the previous films in the series, but there’s no denying the joy of seeing Woody and friends back in action, while once again it’ll likely leave you with a tear in your eye.

Witty, moving and visually dazzling.

A hard film to love, but a hypnotic meditation on all the elements -- gossip, religion, bullying -- that can turn a parish and country bad.

Like a shot of summer holiday straight to the arm, this will have you shimmying out of the cinema and hugging all your neighbours. It’s joyful.

A story of love and discovery told with curiosity and care, Dosa honours her unique subjects — lending tenderness and poetry to the archive footage.

For a change, we're in a privileged position, always knowing more than the characters we're following, understanding their wrong-headed thought processes, appreciating the ironies they miss, seeing where a slightly different bit of behaviour would have saved lives or led to happier endings.

Talented Norwegian Joachim Trier - distant cousin to the better-known (and Danish) Lars - delivers a wonderful, melancholy character piece that's funny and tender, and as fresh as a breath of Oslo sea air.

With strong performances in service to a clear, confident vision from Chloé Zhao, this is a wrenching contemplation of the “undiscovered country” of death and grief.

A hugely assured debut, The Witch is a beautiful, bleak brainworm that will haunt you for days.

Intelligent science-fiction sometimes seems an endangered species - too much physics and there's a risk of creating something cold and remote, too many explosions and get lost in the multiplex. Looper isn't perfect, but it pulls off the full Wizard Of Oz: it has a brain, courage and a heart.

With the camera placement being as meticulous as the use of Handel on the soundtrack, this impeccably played saga deservedly earned Mungiu a share of the Best Director prize at Cannes.

It’s a beautifully animated tale (keep your eyes on the way Kubo’s hair moves) that balances story with comedy and moments of effective (if light) horror.

Truly great cinema- manages to dodge that 'dodgy sequel' curse with ease.

Although time doesn't flatter the film much, it remains engaging and insightful.

The Vast Of Night is a modest film about small-town dreamers that delivers big-time rewards and announces a singular, exciting talent in director Andrew Patterson.

Making exceptional use of stillness and silence, this is a rather sad study of the passing of traditional concepts of American masculinity along with the landscape that forged them.

Dark, disturbing and difficult, this is a deep dive into a troubled headspace and never lets you leave. Ramsay is now four for four, one of our most exciting filmmakers. If she could not leave it so long next time, that’s just fine with us.

It demands patience and an open mind, but Lowery’s return to his indie roots after Pete’s Dragon is a highly unusual and, at times, emotionally shattering fable.

With the help of a staggering ensemble cast, Steve McQueen has made an intelligent, emotional thriller that contemplates contemporary American politics as confidently as it does blowing shit up.

As a psychological drama, it's a sophisticated, gripping piece that unusually leaves you wanting to go on past its unsettling conclusion.

On Her Shoulders is a compassionate, level-headed portrait of a remarkable woman. What it lacks in filmmaking fireworks, it makes up for in the sheer magnetism and moxie of its hero.

A marvellous follow-up to 2004's "Sideways" - well worth the wait.

Astonishing. The definitive take on a monumental moment in history — without ever losing sight of the man underneath the visor.

A tense, slickly executed thriller.

Two of cinema's most iconic stars on top form make this worth a good look.

Delightful, but bum-numbingly slow.

What gives the film its layers is the refusal to cut straight to the music.

Edwards and Andrews insisted on using the picture to drive another nail into her detested Mary Poppins image.

Interesting depiction with a pretty decent performance from Holden and supported by a credible cast.

Shot over three years, this is one of the more considered and insightful Iraqi documentaries - although some may find its stylistic contrasts a little self-conscious and distracting.

Two things make Eastwood's task easier for him: a superb cast and a cracking source novel. Dennis Lehane's book is one of the very best thrillers of recent years, richer in Boston detail and closer in character study than anything Eastwood manages to bring to the screen.

A searing indictment of all sorts of American dreams, Glengarry Glen Ross is a welcome if foul-mouthed reminder of just what it takes for a lot of folk to make it through the working day.

If The Force Awakens raised a lot of questions, The Last Jedi tackles them head-on, delivering answers that will shock and awe in equal measure. Fun, funny but with emotional heft, this is a mouth-watering set-up for Episode IX and a fitting tribute to Carrie Fisher.

A taut, thrilling documentary that plays out like a heist movie while never overshadowing its message or activist credentials.

This arty approach may dismay hard-core horror fans, but it captures the dark grace of the original with wit and style.

A decent historical drama, with one of the best extended battle scenes (a full half of the movie is the face-off in the 'village of death') in recent memory.

A phenomenal, heart-breaking performance from Jeff Bridges powers this simple but affecting redemption story.

Hitchcock's coldest, hardest movie until its controversial ending.

Wry and haunting.

Life-affirming and often laugh-out-loud funny, this is feel-good movie-making par excellence.

Unlike a number of director’s cuts, this version does embellish the original film. It won’t, however, win any converts. Fans should see it again, first-timers should believe the hype. Non-believers should suffer eternal damnation. [2000 re-release]

Soppy and girlish in the extreme, this should keep even the tiniest viewer rapt, while all too many adults may fall victim to an inexplicable bout of eye-watering long before the closing credits.

Its opening act may take some adjusting to, but succumb to the capable, captivating dynamic of these women and you won’t be disappointed.

Knowingly blending realist grit with generic guile, this unrelentingly tense account of a fragmented family living in constant fear thoroughly merited the Best Director prize at the Venice Film Festival.

A quality ghost story with an unusual backdrop and great performances.

Written by Roddy Doyle this was never going to be a depressing tale of single parenthood. Instead we watch through rose-tinted glasses as the ever watchable Colm Meaney bonds with his family over his daughter's pregnancy out of wedlock in Catholic Ireland.

Exquisitely designed, this cornucopia of melodramatic fragments and movie pastiches will enchant Guy Maddin fans.

Network is typical of the cool intelligence of '70s American cinema.

A completely merited cult favourite of the avant-garde genre. This is surprisingly compelling in places.

The plotting - Kelly's struggling painter falls for Leslie Caron's French waif, engaged to nice but dull Georges Guétary - lacks the pace, exuberance and wit of, say, Singin' In The Rain, but compensates with fantastic Technicolor visuals..., George Gershwin's sublime music (pick of the tunes: I've Got Rhythm, S'Wonderful and Our Love Is Here To Stay), sublime art direction from the great Cedric Gibbons and astounding choreography and footwork from Kelly.

It may not be to everybody's taste, but this is a daring antidote to its more saccharine cousins.

Cruel comedy with a delicious light touch.

Marx brothers anarchy that makes up for plot inconsistencies with infectious humour.

While Miyazaki’s two-hour-long, historical-melodrama swansong is destined to be his most divisive film yet, it is also his most adult and interesting, and never less than visually breathtaking throughout.

Genuinely original: a silly, hilarious and oddly profound adaptation for adult-sized children.

A film as sweet as it is sad, as pertinent as it is absurd, Limbo is an experience where not much seems to happen but where little things mean the world.

This powerful film offers no excuses for Sandro’s actions, but his situation demands our empathy.

While not quite offering the emotional gut-punch it promises, its many ideas never completely cohering, Soul is nevertheless a gorgeous and tender existential trip. It’s full of surprises.

The performances are credible, but set-pieces like the water-cannoning of a procession of burkha-clad protesters are also impeccably judged.

Some of his Salgado's depictions of human suffering are not for the faint-hearted but, like this fine film, demand to be seen. Unmissable.

Mason's urbane genius and Douglas' dimpled two-fistedness (and stripy sailor shirt) beef up a floppy script.

Brimming with compassion and punctuated by humour, this is a moving look at prison and prisoners. It’s both infuriating and inspirational to see so much beauty in such a harsh environment.

A daring, distinctive and downright delightful debut from Domee Shi, and a welcome change of pace from Pixar. Turning Red is, appropriately, its own beast — and one that’s easy to love.

A placid, poignant, well-kept secret of a movie.

A movie that could only have been produced by the 1930s studio system. Absolutely spectacular.

The villainy is, perhaps unavoidably, somewhat signposted, but this is a tense, gripping thriller that combines real-world relevance with high-concept entertainment. In a superb ensemble, O’Connell is outstanding.

Impassioned and disturbing, this documentary matches "The Cove" for marrying cool intellect with real fire.

Echoes of Dog Day Afternoon and Locke reverberate around this claustrophobic thriller, which is tautly plotted, precisely paced and grippingly played by Jakob Cedergren and his unseen co-stars.

A precious thing, if likely to please refined aesthetes and odd children rather than win over Pixar-sized crowds.