There is a bristling, neon energy to Zola which, given its provenance as a series of real-life tweets from waitress and exotic dancer (and now executive producer) A’ziah “Zola” King, seems about right. This is a road trip movie straight outta weirdsville.

Credit goes to the Philippou brothers for their originality and perfectly queasily executed bits of ghoulish anarchy.

Occupied City is designed not so much to provoke emotions as to challenge our capacity for paying attention (“It’s okay to drift in and out,” recommends McQueen in the film’s production notes.) When we focus, we’re compelled to connect the double strand of the narrated past history and contemporary images in front of our eyes.

By comparison with Red Army, Red Penguins is a less-polished, seat-of-the-pants effort that involved Polsky sitting and waiting in a Moscow hotel room for opportunities to do quickie interviews (with many still reluctant to talk about those days pre-Putin). But there is some evocative archival footage, including shots of the game’s between-period “entertainment,” which involved dancers from the strip club that operated within the arena.

The Hand of God lacks the imagination and mysticism that elevated The Great Beauty from being just a navel-gazing narrative about film. And the movie's presumptions about sexuality and coming-of-age are far too male-centric to be comfortably amusing.

If Hokum proves anything, it’s that McCarthy isn’t just part of this new wave of horror filmmakers—he’s carving out his own narrow corridor within it. A place where folklore, psychology, and just enough chemical suggestion collide.

Squaring the Circle is a gripping true story told with towering visual panache.

Boys Go to Jupiter, the debut feature film from American 3-D animator, video game designer, and illustrator Julian Glander, is both jaded and fresh, a Gen-Z version of Richard Linklater’s early slacker comedies with a sprinkling of Studio Ghibli’s childlike fantasy.

The largely interior cinematography by Claire Mathon is stark, cold and beautiful, backed by a soundtrack that ranges from funereal chamber music to discordant jazz-noise meant to inspire dread. If that sounds uncomfortable, well, that’s the point of being her.

Coherence was hard to establish but the memory prompts, the lurid colourization and off-beat editing held the attention.

If John Wick is a ballet of ultra-violent choreography, then Sisu: Road to Revenge is its bad-ass country cousin: a full-body-contact square dance where you don’t just swing your partner to the left, but off the top of a speeding train, headfirst into a tree.

By the end, we have the sense of witnessing a blackly funny social encounter, but watched a heroic fable in reverse, in which the clueless Donghwa, instead of a hero-conquering the dragon and saving the princess, has been politely demolished, chewed up and spit back out.

As a movie, it’s riveting. It also ends up being a thoughtful study in media coverage very much worth contemplating.

As an impressionistic portrait of the man, it works, mainly because of the intense vulnerability Dafoe brings to the role.

I was worried King Richard would come to resemble the platitudinous The Pursuit of Happyness, which earned Smith an Oscar nomination, but is not one of my favourites of his films. I was pleasantly surprised thereafter.

It’s conceptually unsettling and bold, but there are some hiccups with the execution.

An emotionally moving thriller that smoothly negotiates the horrors of the supernatural and real world evil with haunting imagery and tension.

In Sharkwater Extinction, we also get a glimpse of the sanguine approach Stewart brought to coming face-to-face with the extermination of the creatures he loves.

Complications of history aside, The Woman King is Black Panther minus the vibranium and with more women warriors, an empowerment tale fueled by kickassery, with battle scenes, ear-splitting ululated war cries and sword fights.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld is likely to be divisive; I’m divided myself. Brügger’s awkward juxtaposition of clowning with real-life horrors is off-putting. In a time plagued by conspiracy theories, the film is an example of an acutely timely uneasiness, reminding us how conspiracies can be simultaneously toxic and compelling.

It’s intimate, quiet, lovely, and in spite of the melancholy, there are moments of real connection and joy.

Asteroid City is very Wessy. Maybe the most Wessy ever. And thank goodness for that.

It’s an affectionate, meticulously constructed look back on a moment in cinema history that takes nothing away from the original masterpiece and may even lead a few souls to it.

Starring two grande dames of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, The Truth is a mistress-class in the art of French close-up acting, from the twitch of a dismissive eyebrow to a pout of disappointment.

What begins as a weird tribute to The Wizard of Oz becomes a genuinely creepy horror. West chooses deliberate methodic movements rather than jump scares to terrify the audience, and the film is all the better for it. And he never lets loose of an underlying sense of humour that is as clever as it is demented.

The subtle trick of Paris, 13th District, is that it plays like a romantic dramedy, but it really is more like a series of character studies of these young people whose lives just so happen to intersect.

Encanto is just so lovely to look at that its story, while well-told, is almost secondary. You honestly just want to crawl inside the screen, wear Mirabel’s swooshing skirts, pet those donkeys, sniff those flowers, and chow down on that grilled corn. Wonder and imagination are in abundant supply.

Like a rash of contemporary films — The Trial of the Chicago 7, Judas and the Black Messiah and Da Five Bloods — F.T.A. reminds us how much the anti-war and civil rights battles of the past are currently resonant, even when we have our history slightly wrong.