A dark and darkly funny dissection of a couple’s ‘perfect’ relationship, examining how internal forces and exterior pressures can drive two people to their breaking point.

The script is structurally similar to "21 Grams," but restrained turns and perceptive direction make this honest rather than manipulative.

If you’re playing Wes Anderson bingo, you can tick off ‘droll whimsy’, ‘visual pizzazz’ and ‘Bill Murray’. Yet, thanks to the Far East setting and a rollicking story, this is a fun and fresh-feeling experience.

Once again Audiard articulates big themes within a mosaic of everyday struggles. A painful yet rewarding tale of social strife and uplifting resilience.

A tough, impactful film that offers a sometimes uncomfortable but always gripping examination of cause and effect.

Exquisitely shot, superbly acted and deftly written, this is easily one of the best arthouse films of the nineties.

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.

Genuinely gripping, Demi makes an awesome femme fatale.

The allusions and illusions are just a treat until about two-thirds of the way in, when a genuinely shocking development takes the film off into psycho-horror that is almost as baffling as it is unsatisfying.

Treating his seafood substantially better than Oldboy, Jiro is a miracle of perfectionism married to expertise. The same can said for Gelb's loving documentary.

Oscar heralds will no doubt dub it "The Hurt Locker" for snipers, but the fitting combo of Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper have created a thrilling Iraq war story that manages to both honour the necessities of heroism and ruminate on what heroism might cost a man.

Tenebrae is essential viewing for fans of the Italian stallion thanks to some of his most arterial gore to date.

Don’t let its commercial nosedive in the US tell the whole story. Cloud Atlas is a tough sell, but a rewarding journey all the same. It’s an adventure into the very concept of storytelling: magical, enthralling and thrilling as much as bewildering, pompous and potty. In other words, up in the clouds.

A full-on action flick, subversive rom-com and weapons-grade star vehicle that’s drenched in Tinseltown glitz, from a director who knows how to put the money on the screen while his tongue’s firmly in his cheek.

Sands has his own personal link to the Holocaust, revealed over time, and My Nazi Legacy becomes horribly gripping.

There are familiar moments in Vera Brittain’s stirring story, though the Kent's craft and Vikander’s exquisite talent will ensure that the author’s memories live in the minds of a fresh generation...

A Lower key than Wallace and Gromit or Pirates, but tightly packed with charm

A slight but mightily effective adrenaline rush of a movie, with powerful performances all round and precise direction from Kitty Green. Watch it on the big screen and allow it to properly get your heart pounding and palms sweating.

A crunching, visceral transplant for this cannibal tale from its urban Mexican setting to an American milieu.

If Chris Morris had grown up in Sweden watching Jacques Tati and Ingmar Bergman films, he might be making films like this. Based on Andersson’s mordantly funny observations about the human condition, the pigeon has it pretty good.

A wholly captivating date movie for eternal romantics who also enjoy slime-and-tentacle transformations.

A storming debut from writer-director Saim Sadiq: emotional, tender, and quietly radical. With any luck, it will herald a new era for Pakistani cinema.

It's a million miles from MTV chic; instead a timeless record of a timeless band, now fifty-somethings uniting an everyman/woman/child audience. Feel the power.

The road-crime movie is such a formula in Hollywood that almost every debuting director turns one out, but writer-director Matthew Bright rings the changes by modeling this white trash nightmare on Red Riding Hood.

Unashamedly romantic and achieved with a beautifully subtle, old-fashioned elegance, it’s a graceful coming-of-age tale ripe for awards.

A quietly moving coming of age story that resists formula or easy redemption, driven by a strong, unvarnished performance from Witherspoon, who deserves huge credit as both star and producer.

Stealing the show is Suzanne Flon's immaculate display as the matriarch whose good-natured indulgence of her ghastly relations belies a guilty secret. Mercilessly acute and quietly devastating.

Atmospheric and engrossing, this meticulous recreation of time and place acquires an unsettling contemporary relevance through its analysis of the mindset of a mass murderer with a death wish.