The Humans won’t work for many – it’s a slow burn with a mean ending. Some may insist that the story lacks cogency offstage, but it’s those frenetic, intimate and often senseless moments that justify its title.

It’s a supremely compelling tale leavened by its wry humour and a subtle commentary on the essential emptiness of American life.

There’s a potent earnestness about The Chronology of Water – Stewart shows a deep empathy for her subject, and Yuknavitch’s memoir is transformed with an unapologetic confidence.

Harari’s film is a practical, simple and saddening document of everyday madness.

Haapasalo uses warmth, respect and empathy as her modus operandi, allowing her trio to wade through the liminal cusp of adulthood – no longer teenagers, yet not quite young adults – as they search for meaning through friendships, fleeting situationships, and budding romantic connections.

As with the titular Ravel piece, this is a work that is mellifluous, melodious and mysterious in equal measure. A Sphinx-like Beer, once again, seems to connect with her director on a level which transcends the purely professional, and through her economic yet forceful use of body language and expression, she makes certain that the film adheres perfectly to Petzold’s immaculate calculations.

It may be a tad uneven and repetitive in places but it’s also enjoyably sweet and silly.

By exploring his passions and drives, Schible has given meaning beyond the surface to Sakamoto’s music. It makes for fascinating viewing, and even more beautiful listening.

Beyond the archness and cynicism, there are some profound, self-reflective insights about what it means to make moving images in the 21st century.

There are points here where it feels as if Linklater was trying to make a gender-switched version of Fassbinder’s tragic The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, but without really leaning into the forceful bitterness and agency of the protagonist, and opting to have the text make a more profound point about the precarious nature of power and influence.

It’s a hypnotic lesson in watchful photojournalism, offering an insightful take on a quest to liaise with wildlife in its natural habitat – in this case, the rare Tibetan snow leopard.

In this years-long dance between the two, The Eight Mountains plays as a gentle epic, equally accomplished in its minimalistic approach to intimacy as in its grandiose portrayal of landscapes, an immersive visual experience that needs not sacrifice the arcs of its characters to succeed in building arresting contemplation.

Allergic to the ponderous brand of overdetermined ‘metaphorror’ currently in vogue, Cregger possesses a showman’s instincts, his energies primarily invested in pound-for-pound entertainment value. Maybe that’s why the subject at hand feels so perfunctory, the broad feminist stance filling out the vacant space in otherwise unrelated macro- and micro-scaled tricks of structuring.

Cobb is excellent at toeing the lines between calm and unhinged, often fluctuating between them and never really settling on either.

Sitting in the crux between comedy and horror, it presents both a stark reappraisal of conditional acceptance and a needle precision critique of mental health awareness.

Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth rise to the extraordinary demands of the material, which asks them to access the deepest parts of their humanity.

The Substance’s presentation is as shallow as the very thing it’s critiquing. There’s no compassion, and certainly no catharsis – just more hagsploitation and a sense of déjà vu.

The lure of intense mystery that beguiles you into trying to solve it again and again; the transference of an intoxication that makes you feel physically different afterwards. It sounds hyperbolic to describe art as having such power, but surely the reason we care about art is a belief that such power exists. High Life is too layered, too ambiguous, too potent to be about any one thing.

Its entwined torrents of pain and pleasure chart the boundaries of sensation in a buttoned-up age, and allow us back in the present to be scandalized by its raw, visceral (in the definitional, from-the-guts sense) hungers as if for the very first time.

Strengths lie in this film’s commitment to understanding an extraordinary, reclusive woman, its weaknesses in a dogged fidelity to relaying the small events of each passing year.

Through all the accolades bestowed by colleagues, critics and even presidents, the documentary is at its strongest when it speaks to Moreno’s impact on future Latin American performers, giving them the role model she never had.

Chukwu is a master of show don’t tell, and the deft emotional performances she elicits from Woodard and Hodge make this heavy experience completely worth it.

Chukwu directs a compelling tribute to what Mamie endured and achieved, yet for anyone familiar with the history, new insight is perhaps lacking.

While the subtextual gleanings may not be particularly illuminating or fresh, Obsession delivers everything you could want from a story that is as terrifying, maddening, and tragic all at once.

It’s a tender and warm film about missed connections and ships that, for whatever reason, end up passing in the night.

Anchored by two superb lead performances from a strong and silent Kaluuya and vivaciously hilarious Palmer, Peele flexes his aptitude for creating tension to both horrific and comedic effect.

There are many hallmarks of the psychological horror at play (a creepy killer, a traumatised survivor, a parent with dark secrets) but under Perkins’ careful hand, the familiar feels unnerving all the same, a puzzle box dripping with bright red blood.

There is a persistent tension in the film between the history of those who were forcibly displaced, and Hiam, who made the autonomous choice to leave.