Played with restraint and individuality by a fine ensemble, this is a moving but provocative study of belief, duty, compassion and acceptance.

Full of character-based suspense, it’s dramatic and ramped-up with tension. Existing between a Sundance and a FrightFest film, this is a challenging, horribly plausible future vision.

As much Tolkien's baby as Mignola's, this has more heart and humour than most fantasy films can dream of. Hellaciously good.

An indie with real pedigree and smarts, Holofcener's comedy of manners is well-observered and well worth watching.

Deftly handled direction from Sophie Hyde and a thoroughly impressive dual performance from Emma Thompson 
and Daryl McCormack enlivens an electric script, tackling taboo sexual subjects with wit, flair and welcome realism.

If you thought the sweetness of The Straight Story was unprecedented in Lynch’s work, look again at this earlier true-life tale of odd, everyday heroism.

Some gorgeous imagery – mostly in pictures taken by the kids – and heartbreaking stories, but the directors' appearances sometimes feel self-indulgent.

Marvelous supporting performances from scene-stealing Kirby, Maximilian Schell, Paul Benedict as the nutty professor and Frank Whaley as Broderick's quiff-coiffed room mate pile on the pleasures, but the sight of Marlon Brando on ice skates is surely the absolute treat in a film well worth rooting for.

Killer Of Killers looks the business and comes with all the gory kills and human heroes you’d hope for, but like most anthologies it is a little hit-and-miss.

If you’re not up for a film that’s nearly three hours of wall-to-wall fighting, this chapter might get on your wick. That fighting, though, is a bone-crunching, butt-clenching masterclass.

Mesmerising and mystifying, in equal measure. Enys Men confirms Mark Jenkin as one of the most exciting, original cinematic voices in the UK right now.

This Cannes favourite regards Egypt’s recent political uprisings from a fascinating new angle. A minor masterpiece of claustrophobia and expertly managed tension.

An interesting introduction to (or reminder of) Amanda Knox’s story following the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher, but it doesn’t have the depth of other recent true-crime investigations.

There’s palpable dread throughout this stagey but nevertheless evocative whirlwind of dysfunction. It’s a gripping, appropriately stifling experience, and the feelings — the fear, the disappointment, the unhappiness — hit home.

An ace in the hole from a filmmaker himself unafraid to gamble. The Card Counter’s pacing won’t be for everyone, but Schrader fans will be all-in on this gripping portrait of lament.

There are no gothic extravagances in Kathryn Bigelow's bone-dry, style-rich, noir-steeped vampire western. Instead it comprises a fascinatingly modern take on blood sucking mythology, shedding tradition to examine the creatures as human counterparts.

Impeccably mounted and played, this is gastro-cinema at its most sensual and intoxicating.

A touching and revelatory piece of film-making about the plights of real people living in an uncertain world.

If your anti-Apartheid musical knowledge only goes as far as The Specials’ Free Nelson Mandela, this is a toe-tapping, thought-provoking education.

If it falters early on, The Summit Of The Gods emerges an astonishing work of animation of both intimacy and incredible scale, stunningly well-crafted and smartly adapted.

Clara Bow is mesmerising in this ahead-of-its-tie air force drama.

An uncompromising debut that weaves Lidia Yuknavitch’s rich but troubled life into hypnotic poetry. Kristen Stewart reintroduces herself as an exciting filmmaker who’s out to make a splash.

As the drama circles their inaction, this trio of excellent performances fills the screen with a form of spiritual exhaustion, and the film slumps into noir’s typically happy-clappy comeuppance of failure, betrayal and ruin. But the mood has caught on, and the film, stamped with a stunning visual emptiness, haunts the memory for long after its sour close.

Perhaps, it was the choice of material, a much more internalised story despite its glossy Raj setting, or the absence of Robert Bolt as screenwriter (it was he who put the fire in Lean’s belly), but the film, for all Lean’s innate elegance, is strangely remote and unmoving.

Loach scans the contemporary landscape, and instead of a firebrand approach of stereotype, delivers a film of immense sadness. Someone should project this on the walls of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Hardly must-see Wenders, but for fans of his road movies, it remains a treat.

With spectacle in abundance and sexiness in (supporting) parts, this is superhero filmmaking on an unprecedented scale. Rises may lack the surprise of Begins or the anarchy of Knight, but it makes up for that in pure emotion.

Solid and stately, a ’70s-feeling jungle adventure film that’s more of a thought-provoker than an excitement-inducer. But there’s nothing wrong with that.