The Jackass films measure success by how often they elicit one of three responses from viewers: laughter, wincing or nausea. By that proudly juvenile standard, Best And Last fully accomplishes its objective, offering pummeling slapstick as the popular series’ collection of goofballs get hit, tasered and tortured.

A bombshell medical diagnosis prompts a young man to reflect on life’s precious gifts in Nino, Pauline Loques’ delicately-handled debut feature which builds into a touching drama carried on a soulful, understated central performance from Theodore Pellerin.

With Toy Story 5, Pixar reaffirms what has always made this franchise so beloved, resulting in another delightful adventure that mines fresh emotional terrain while producing plenty of hearty laughs.

Spielberg has long been fascinated with the concept of information (and misinformation) as both weapon and tool, and ultimately gives this science fiction fable the feel of a gritty 1970s conspiracy thriller; a bombastic underdog, truth-to-power tale – albeit one with cosmological consequences.

We Are Aliens remains visually engrossing and, as storytelling, it’s mostly sophisticated and intelligent.

Debut director Kane Parsons assuredly harnesses the creepy, mind-bending potential of this liminal concept, delivering an original horror that has both the scares and the smarts.

Ben’Imana is a film that works by accretion, layering its stories, characters and themes like the colourful textiles seen in robes, scarves, curtains, bedcovers, school uniforms, or, in one devastating scene, the torn clothes of massacred children, unearthed in a garden.

La Gradiva is not about overt bullying but rather an exploration of the mercurial nature of young group dynamics that zeroes in on the bruising pressure points of teenage life – that are as much self-generated as imposed by others.

At a narrative level, it pulls from modern anxieties surrounding surveillance, the unfettered spreading of information and the trauma of contagion (and indeed lockdown), But, as you would expect from the director of 2016’s Train To Busan, Colony’s main draw is its visuals, its carefully choreographed action sequences unfolding at a breakneck pace saturated by lashings of gore.

Here, the impossible appears to occur, but with a grounded psychological precision that more than earns the break with reality and means that the film’s carefully established realism is deepened – reaching almost unbearable levels of emotional resonance, rather than undermined.

Clio Barnard’s adaptation of the novel by Keiran Goddard is, like her previous works, an expertly-observed study of human relationships, how they are shaped by environment and buffeted by opportunity – or lack of it. Featuring a superb ensemble cast, it’s grounded by a gritty, relatable authenticity that pushes it past its more didactic moments.

Without getting too sappy or strident, Jim Queen explores how sexual fluidity can open up exciting possibilities but also break people’s hearts. In the case of this cheeky picture, it can be pretty funny, too.

It’s a handsomely mounted piece that leans more towards psychological warfare than the sword-based bloodshed that fans of Kurosawa’s previous work might expect.

The third feature from Zachary Wigon (following 2023’s Sanctuary and 2014’s The Heart Machine) takes gonzo delight in ratcheting up traditional gothic psychodrama tropes to frenzied heights while also paying striking homage to its literary roots.

Full Phil is a work of art masquerading as a B-movie, a film of depth and strange fascination – one that ends in a moment of body horror that turns strangely tender. It’s difficult to think of many other contemporary cineastes who could pull that off.

Everything is in flux in The Dreamed Adventure, even the genre of a film that shape-shifts between noir, western and romance. At its heart is the director’s extraordinary deployment of a cast of non-professionals who seem to carry their own stories with them in every line and gesture.

The Diary Of A Chambermaid’s outward prettiness merely emphasises the melancholy and quiet anger at its core, as Jude reveals his disdain for how rich families (and countries) treat poor immigrant labour. Marguerite and Pierre are never outwardly cruel, but their repeated microaggressions are a comparable torture.

Okonedo and Oyelowo give affecting performances as star-crossed lovers who can’t quite own up to their mistakes . . . Together they give Clarissa a touching guardedness that might not offer the spit and fire of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, but certainly understands the permanent heartache and the poeticism of a life deferred.

As a portrait of the man, it’s selective but not so much as to feel shallow. It fleshes out his qualities and weaknesses while preserving much of the enigma. Which is exactly what you imagine Cantona himself would want.

Smoothly executed throughout, Avedon displays some snappy editing allowing for flow. It may be couched in admiring tones but it is persuasive in arguing why the photographer mattered, and why he seemed most at home and in control from behind a camera lens.

It’s an intelligent and involving film that successfully questions Hollywood cliches of war drama, while drawing knowingly on that tradition.

A compassionate, clear-eyed study of a young woman searching for a place to call home, Ashes is driven by Anna Diaz’s evocative performance which expresses a world of discontent through the simplest of glances.

Exhibiting an emotional restraint sometimes missing from his previous films Girl (2018) and Close (2022), Dhont’s latest proves to be an affecting, familiar drama.

More effective as an earnest, cumulative emotional journey than as a viewing experience made up of rather random parts, La Bola Negra does eventually repay some of the batter

There’s much to admire in Emmanuel Marre’s ambitious second fiction: the lighting choices are thrillingly unexpected; the performances are superb across the board. But whether there’s enough there to justify the running time is another question.

The Man I Love doesn’t feel so much like a portrait of a time and place rather than something more essential and human: a portrait of a passionate and loving character caught in a final performance he didn’t ask for, and which he wishes would never end.

Minotaur sees Zvyagintsev set his own deliciously ink-black stamp on Chabrol’s erotic thriller; indeed, for the majority of its runtime, Zvyagintsev deliberately flattens both the eroticism and the thrills – a carefully judged gambit that allows scenes of nudity and murder to land with greater force when they finally arrive.

Nemes takes a much more direct approach in Orphan; a no less challenging film in its own way but one that yields more immediate appeal, even embracing the pleasures of melodrama.