Yonebayashi pays perfect tribute to Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli with this bewitching and visually dazzling adventure. Studio Ponoc is off to a flying start.

A tense true crime thriller that avoids schlock horror tropes in favour of a welcome focus on the environment that allowed one of America’s worst serial killers to operate freely for years.

A gripping study of treachery, identity and survival.

The golden-larynxed franchise graduates with a merit.

Gyllenhaal flexes all his considerable acting muscles in this taut, tense thriller. One of the better remakes you’ll see.

Delivering knockout action and political punch, this blazing siren of a B movie imagines America at civil war with vicious force. Sequel, please.

Riveting, unhinged, and sardonic to its honey-soaked core, this is another Lanthimos-Stone winner. (With a great opening-title typeface, to boot.)

A welcome return from Hoop Dream director Steve James. Even at just shy of three hours, the format strains to accommodate such a complex, involving true-life story, but it makes a seriously impressive attempt.

A light, funny, blissfully entertaining flick about heavy, sadly still relevant themes.

A well-above-average ho-ho-ho-horror film with a shivery sense of winter weirdland and anarchic ultra-violence, it’s also a strong candidate to become a holiday favourite thanks to a perfectly judged punchline.

It's not big and it's not clever, but it's very, very funny.

Though inspired by real-life journals, Guerra’s haunting and beautifully shot film transports us into the realm of the mystical and surreal.

Wise (and Crichton) concoct the most absorbing, riveting take on science fiction tempered with science fact.

Compelling and honest with flashes of dark humour which makes this a meaty comedy drama.

As befits a distillation of 1,318 pages of the story so far, Akira the film is teeming with incident and detail.

It's a tale that subtly reinterprets the genre and delivers Jarmusch's most accomplished, if not necessarily his most accessible film to date.

A worthy, exciting, emotional addition to the venerable monkey movie marathon. Apes will rise. Sequels are likely.

The exuberance of the package, coupled with a sexual frankness seldom seen in English language cinema, makes this the most fun foreign film since "Y Tu Mamá También."

A crowd-pleasing oceanic musical with big tunes and beguiling characters, Moana is likely to thwack a big smile on your face. And did we mention the idiotic chicken?

Powered by a taciturn, soulful performance by its young star, this meditation on fear, shame and sexual repression packs a wallop.

Breathing new life into the overfamiliar terrain of the serial killer, Irish director Billy O’Brien here both successfully reintroduces Max Records to the world, and elicits Christopher Lloyd’s best performance in a long time. His film deserves cult classic status at the very least.

Featuring excellent work from grandstanding Cox and just-lying-there Kelly, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe creates a successful feeling of mounting dread punctuated by crashing thunder and surgical viscera.

Given the wealth of footage available, you can’t really go wrong with docs on the Apollo era – and yet amongst all that, Cernan is compellingly frank about the human costs of spaceflight.

Necessary, deft and ultimately shocking. This is a beautifully hewn, brave piece of filmmaking that asks difficult, searching questions that will haunt you long after the credits roll.

This needs its 'based on a true story' caption because otherwise you'd never believe it.

Essential stuff, even by the big man's considerable standards.

One of those sunny-natured indie comedies that comes out of nowhere to put a smile on your face.

A perfectly cast comedy of manners that couches complex emotional questions in joyous farce and continues Gerwig’s reign as the undisputed Queen Of Quirk.