Despite these subtle barbs, Return to Dust ends up as an elegiac love story as the unlikely couple form a bond built on a foundation of total understanding and empathy.

Co-writers/co-directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz confound life and art, reality and dreams, sanity and madness in their surreal vision of conservative America succumbing to – or biting back against – the encroaching counterculture.

It’s refreshing to see a film like this which opts for an editorial line that’s not just wall-to-wall celebration, and actually attempts to dismantle and dissect its subject rather than merely lionise him to the hilt.

It’s a moving ecological parable, and its visuals are an encouraging continuation of the general trend in 3D animation towards graphic textures and away from the restraints of realism, even if it’s something as small as a leaf being represented by an abstract splotch of paint.

Touzani steers clear of easy clichés and pitfalls that the film’s premise might suggest, giving a masterclass in restraint. and it’s Azabal’s exceptional portrayal of Mina, rather than Bakri’s Hamil, that emerges as the film’s beating heart.

It’s an intimate dramedy that strikes a delicate balance between melancholy and wryness . . . and while perhaps a little slight in content, Fremont is a stylish, sweet evolution for Jalali, and a poignant reflection on the modern immigrant experience.

Director Green may get the best out of Smith, and his directorial style is, in general, very robust, yet his hyper-competence occasionally works to the detriment of the film, feeling cautious and out of step with the bold ambition of hi subjects.

Lentzou is certainly onto a winning formula, but it’s Kokkali and Georgakopoulos’ superb performances that ultimately make up for Moon’s shortcomings.

Ultimately this story of a young boy’s emergence exhibits strong teleological leanings, suggesting that all our endeavours – even our apparent failures – ultimately have a purpose in a grander scheme.

It’s a throwback to the exhilarating, ferocious Hong Kong action filmmaking of yore, capping off a muscular actioner that marries old-school bravado with contemporary technique.

A luxe, rather ridiculous look at the uber-rich.

At times it’s a little too ponderous, and sometimes struggles to bring variation and surprise to its runtime. Yet this laconic, meditative drama muses on the nature of time and the revelation that, even though Muzamil’s predicament seems highly unlikely to the rational onlooker, the knowledge he accrues is pertinent to all mortals.

The set-up is fascinating and the tension is increasingly grotesque. Yet there are many plodding stretches which Corbet doesn’t succeed in concealing by inserting wild camera movements combined with Scott Walker’s bleak, juddering orchestral score. This music feels like possessed black stallions galloping to hell. It bludgeons you with loud, brash, hysterical horror.

Gripping and full of tension, The Teacher not only makes for a wonderful cinematic experience, but poses some all-important questions the wider world has seemingly avoided answering for too long.

The Boogeyman is deftly done, its child-focused stakes are never less than alarming, and its ending, ambiguous and closeted, rings true.

Modern viewers, raised on decades of gialli and slashers, will have little trouble identifying the shadowy figure whodunnit. But there is still real pleasure to be had in wandering these halls of repressed madness, where everyone seems affected in one way or another by the tragedy of Kathleen.

Despite its myopic politics, it’s hard to deny that Civil War is an engrossing film. The performances given by the central cast are quite remarkable, with Moura and Dunst operating as foils and McKinley Henderson providing his characteristic brand of steely gravitas (he also delivers one of the film’s best moments).

If you believe cinema’s job is to ask the questions rather than offer the answers, then this will usefully challenge you. A dirty fingernail stuck right into the open wound of our unspoken social anxieties.

With five decades to plow through, director William E Badgley manages to skilfully compact the Rebel Dread’s political awakening and leftfield creative escapades into an insightful document of an integral fragment in British pop history.

A chamber piece with a small, charismatic cast, in a location made vivid thanks to strong production design, would seem an ideal model for lower-budget counter-programming efforts, should audiences show up. And with Dick Pope on cinematography duty, the visual realisation tends to avoid staginess.

Perhaps a little slacker than some of his previous outings, but Panahi’s commitment and courage shine through.

Too real for its whimsy and too whimsical to be realistic, Amanda will likely linger on those people who don’t leave their bedrooms much, more than on the reasons why they should – and that stunts its charm.

Monkey Man is an energetic and thoughtful debut feature that leaves one excited about what Patel’s future as an action star might look like.

There’s quite a lot to digest, and not all of it goes down easy, but it’s hard to fault Strickland’s ambition and imagination.

The superb casting of the two lead co-stars, who were only told the outcome of their characters storylines on the day of shooting, really buoys the film.

Slipping into insanity right alongside its protagonist, Smile is an uncommonly sharp movie deviously disguising itself as more of the same. Lowering our defences with the appearance of the commonplace may be its most wicked move of all.

While beautiful, the impression left by Banel & Adama is confusing.

Fiori exemplifies both an excellent command over form, as well as a great affinity for poetic storytelling, using all the tools at her disposal to get to the devastating truth at the core of the film: that instead of providing the necessary support to underprivileged children trapped in generational cycles of incarceration, the Italian state chooses to criminalise their behaviour.