Underneath it all, superb performances from a stellar, experienced cast – confidently shepherded by debut director/star Kate Winslet – hit authentic, relatable notes, and save the film from sinking entirely into melodrama

Driven by a compelling performance from non-professional Ubeimar Rios as a man out of time, Mesa Soto’s second feature is simultaneously satisfyingly tragic and hilarious.

Foy is terrific in a film which balances bruising candour about mental health issues against arresting wildlife photography and a fervent appreciation of the natural world.

Emma Mackey gives a heartfelt performance as the titular protagonist, whose marriage is collapsing just as she’s about to be named her state’s new governor, and this comedy-drama contains some of the crackling dialogue and disarming candour of Brooks’ best work. Ultimately, however, this disjointed character study ultimately feels as messy as its heroine’s life.

Like the characters it follows, this first feature from director Jaydon Martin is unpolished, honest and a little rough around the edges at times.

Pinho’s interest in neo-colonial issues is tackled with a lucid gaze and appropriate room for local perspectives.

Koberidze invites us to reshape and reappraise our perspective on what constitutes beauty. It’s a bold decision and, coupled with the endurance-testing pacing and running time, one which will make the film something of a marketing challenge beyond the die-hard Koberidze fan base. And yet there is something alluring here – it’s a meditative and elusive picture that conveys a spiritual beauty as much as an aesthetic one.

What makes this adult animation so affecting is the writer-director’s commitment to fortifying his spectacle with a deep emotional undercurrent.

The result is an appealing, soulful romance with a considerable emotional tug.

The aim was to create something “funny, beautiful, spiritual, political, complex, simple and true”. The Scriver brothers succeed in pretty much all of this and, with the film’s quirky, psychedelic style of computer animation, create something genuinely unexpected and visually playful.

Djukic’s coming of age drama is heady with intertwined sensual and religious symbolism; the first rate score and sound design teases out the tangled, conflicting impulses towards Catholic devotion and erotic abandon.

The killer mascots may spring the coop, but this sequel never breaks free of its own conventionality.

This propulsively entertaining, bracingly amoral character study is powered by Timothee Chalamet’s performance as a despicable egoist who happily manipulates those around him.

White lands on an organic happy ending that doesn’t negate Gibson’s sad circumstance but, instead, reinforces everything that was so inspirational about their poetry and worldview.

If the Zootopia series is about looking past our biased assumptions about others, the new film makes the point most effectively as its two leads open up about their own shortcomings, allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Goodwin and Bateman are certainly most appealing when their characters are at their most genuine.

If the film doesn’t always mesh its two main strands – tough family drama and reflections on the state of a nation – it does so often enough and passionately enough to impress.

Shot from inside its community, Rocks is more than simply a polemic, though, and is careful to root its message in sequences of day-to-day reality.

Despite some clever moments and a similar commitment to gloriously over-the-top violence, the follow-up lacks the inspiration and sheer fun that defined the original.

Ultimately director Jon M. Chu’s more-is-more approach has a numbing effect, the endless spectacle leaving little room for nuance, depth or genuine feeling.

It’s certainly got the Perkins style and plenty of genuine chills, but the journey is more satisfying than the destination.

This Running Man could have been a powerful anarchist fable for our turbulent times but fun as it is, it runs out of steam before making any lasting impact.

This initially subdued, superbly acted story of an unlikely connection takes a savage and unsettling tonal swerve in the final act. The latest from Paul Andrew Williams will not be for everyone, but it is a chokingly tense commentary on the precarious nature of community.

Aiming to be a blistering examination of America’s unwinnable War on Drugs, the high-octane King Ivory is intense without being insightful.

When Now You Don’t tries to be poignant while pondering the passage of time and the loss of loved ones, the franchise’s glib construction cannot withstand the tonal shift. And the story’s relentless razzle-dazzle eventually feels laboured, sapping the fizzy fun.

It is ultimately a heartfelt, inspiring story about ordinary people who choose to stand up and make a change – and a reminder that, for so many women, the fight goes on.

The film has much to say about peer pressure and male rites of passage, although Polinger’s points can become repetitive and his insights not especially deep. Still, this uneven mixture of coming-of-age drama and psychological horror suggests a filmmaker with a flair for unsettling atmosphere.

While Selena’s raw talent and infectious personality are a huge draw, the film’s real selling point is its access to Selena’s family, open and honest in their recollections.

The storytelling is so deft and slick, it almost feels scripted at times. But there are certain elements that you can’t dictate in advance, like the almost spiritual connection that grows between Nikola and the gangly, damaged bird that he rescues from the dump, and which, in turn, reaffirms Nikola’s bond with the land.

Cactus Pears is a subdued, sensitive study of bereavement and the quietly radical act of being queer in a rural, lower-class Indian community.

Reconceiving the iconic sci-fi villain as an underdog hero, Predator: Badlands is a consistently entertaining action-thriller filled with propulsive set pieces.

Farsi’s film now stands as a powerful memorial to someone who was both ordinary and extraordinary.

The third act action is propulsive and stylishly executed, and the film’s conclusion has a bittersweet poignancy. And while Arco’s journey is not an unexpected one, the film’s optimistic endpoint brings a welcome note of hope.

Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson shine as these troubled souls drawn to each other as much as they are to their shared love of the venerable singer-songwriter, and the film’s musical sequences are easily its high point. But writer-director Craig Brewer stumbles when the couple step away from the stage, falling victim to an overly melodramatic approach that’s out of rhythm with the rest of the picture.

While her work certainly speaks for itself, it’s fascinating to hear Addario tell her own remarkable story.

There’s an undertow of melancholy certainly, but also a light, buoyant quality to a film that cherishes its moments of humour and absurdity.

Little Amelie is, despite occasional inevitable lapses into sentimentality, visually engrossing and thought-provoking fare that ranges daringly across emotions ranging from pure delight to fear and horror.

Del Toro’s undying adoration for his fantastical creatures leaves us hungry to learn more about the inner workings of the man who brought them to life.

The picture affirms Nebraska’s stature without shedding much light on the man who brought it to life.

Gavagai is refreshingly grown-up in the way it sets up satirical targets and then complicates them – pointing out, for example, that tensions around caste, exclusion of the ‘other’ and the guilt of privilege are not the exclusive preserves of white people.

It remains a superficial exercise in creepy fun, but – like so many horror sequels – retreading familiar ground proves an exercise in diminishing returns.

On the whole Is This Thing On? settles comfortably into a melancholy register, watching Alex and Tess negotiate their new normal, with or without punchlines.

Landmarks may not strictly be the film that admirers of Martel’s formal radicalism have been waiting for: notwithstanding some eccentricities, it is a relatively conventional work. But it’s very much from the heart, and from the political conscience – a critique of colonial history and the enduring abuse of power in Argentina.

Deeply empathetic and increasingly universal, Ghaywan’s sophomore effort isn’t particularly subtle, but that does little to dilute the film’s impact or detract from its message.

For all the creativity on display in Tron: Ares, it’s in service of a story with scant signs of life.

The lack of a satisfying human connection between key characters is a stumbling block, but Wyatt does deliver plenty elsewhere.

Essentially a four-handed chamber piece of sorts, this adaptation deals with powder-keg themes of the colonial psyche, racial tensions and retribution, but ultimately proves too stilted and stagey to pack much of a punch.

In lesser hands, this could have been merely a gimmick but, with his feature debut, director Ben Leonberg delivers an effective, genuinely unsettling chiller.

Challenging on practically all levels – and yoking together ideas from Chile’s history, the occult, right-wing conspiracy theory, Jungian psychology, silent film and elsewhere – directors Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina pull it all together by virtue of their mastery of technique.

Hadzihalilovic is a director who refuses to compromise her very distinctive vision and that is the case here, even if The Ice Tower, which bows in Berlin Competition, is her biggest film to date; utterly beautiful in every frame with a breakout lead performance by young French actress Clara Pacini.

Even for a man who could be called the greatest actor of his generation, the obtuse script and abstract visual language are too much to overcome in what is ultimately a dull, meandering film.

Part of what makes Brides so engaging — and not in a passive way – is its closeness to the truth: not just of the Begum story, but life truths.

Emma Thompson again proves what a versatile star she is in The Dead Of Winter, not only convincing as a have-a-go heroine unexpectedly trying to save a damsel in distress, but also single-handedly rescuing this film from the worst of its formulaic elements. Indeed, lying beneath the icy surface of director Brian Kirk’s thriller is a lake of gooey warm sentiment that’s deep enough to drown in.

It’s clear that waters need to be calmed or someone will be hurt, but The Librarians also shows that won’t happen unless people stand up and take action. So it’s a call to arms, then. But, be warned: a horror story too.

The Ugly is less concerned with the machinations of the whodunit and more invested in how physical appearance defines both ourselves and our feelings about others.

What Does That Nature Say To You may be a touch disappointing for lovers of the director’s wry understatement, as certain themes feel uncharacteristically emphatic and even, in a last-act discussion scene, too explicitly stated. Otherwise, a group of regular Hong players mesh with seemingly effortless grace in a way that is bound to click with fans and with the director’s regular international outlets.

With The Last Viking, Danish star, screenwriter and occasional director Anders Thomas Jensen (Adam’s Apples, Riders of Justice) brings another one of his blackly comic, absurdly violent tales to the screen with enviable ease.

This audacious action-thriller is the filmmaker’s most purely entertaining vehicle, but underneath its adrenalised set pieces are quieter concerns about how best to make lasting change in a corrupt world.

This high-concept feature tries so hard to charm that it becomes an exercise in wading through sickly sweet treacle.

While the three sections don’t tie up narratively, nor strictly conclude as such, they leave plenty of ideas in their wake – and a multitude of entrancing images.

Even those with little interest in the beautiful game should be entertained by Saipan, a breezily engaging narrative.

Rambunctiously riffing on celebrity, activism, technology and economic inequality, this dark satire works best when the director’s swirl of images achieves a hypnotic, primal rush. At other times, Sacrifice is as muddled as the terrorists’ plan.

It effectively combines familiar genre tropes with Jenkin’s unique visual style and a resonant message of community.

The Choral is a narratively jumbled film whose unrestrained sweetness and adept ensemble tie up some of the film’s looser ends.

A bright, light confection about resilience and joie de vivre into old(er) age that’s as predictable as it is disposable.

Seeking to be a nonstop adrenaline jolt, Fuze starts off strongly but eventually fizzles, its high-octane ambitions soon becoming mechanical and rote.

A memorable take on the hiphop movie.

The two actors manage to capture the vulnerabilities that come with opening yourself up to someone else, particularly at such a delicate age.

Filmmaker Julia Jackman’s droll fantasy feminist fable is a true original.

A lyrical study of the twisting nature of memory and the lasting impact of childhood trauma, Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s debut Blue Heron has an authenticity and sensitivity that steers it through occasional moments of narrative affectation.

Wheatley’s hyperbolic set pieces feel perfunctory rather than euphoric or hilariously bombastic.

It’s one of the most powerful King features for some time.

Perhaps unsurprisingly – and intentionally – Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is a much gentler affair, intended to affectionately lampoon those ageing musicians who struggle to retain their creative spark and trade heavily in nostalgia. There is plenty of that here – the film essentially retreads old ground and gags – but the sharp wit of the original is sadly lacking.

With its restrained tone and measured performances, The Sun Rises creates a fragile world populated by characters who don’t know how to move forward — either separately or, perhaps, together.

Playfully, almost proudly shallow as it feeds off the feverish highs and lows of its addicted protagonist, this neo-noir offers plenty of buzzy delight — that is, until the story’s pretensions bring down the whole house of cards.

A delicate exploration of how art can address (but never fully heal) personal pain, Hamnet is a potent love story anchored by Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal’s expertly modulated performances.

Those laudable intentions can too often result in a lethargic narrative. The characters may contain degrees of shading, but they rarely come to life, leaving Nuremberg feeling like a professional but dusty reenactment.

Unfortunately, no matter the initial electricity DaCosta brings to the material, the crackle gradually starts to wane, the momentum diluted by extraneous subplots and slack pacing.

Unfortunately, much like the light at the end of the tunnel, the thinness of this situational comedy, which continues to hit the same jokes with diminishing returns, becomes glaringly obvious.

While it nearly wears out its welcome with a repetitive cycle of encounter, flashback, reflection and fight, its mix of vibrant visuals, melodrama and low-key comedy kick the story into gear in the final hour.

My Sunshine is a deceptively sweet little heartwarmer that eventually cuts deeper.

Swedish director Jonatan Etzler, making his English-language debut, cannot keep this daring story plausible enough to offer meaningful insights into our broken education system.

As a double act, McKellen and Coel are a charming pairing, combining a classic wit and neo-soul cool to delightful results.

Roofman sidesteps this tale’s most potentially fascinating elements to sell a more conventional narrative.

Donzelli’s observations on the working poor don’t dig deep enough, resulting in an overly polished glimpse at the struggles of making ends meet.

To the outsider, Naples is often seen as a city of colour and life, a place of bubbling exuberance. Not so in Giancarlo Rosi’s strikingly melancholic documentary portrait of the southern Italian metropolis.

The sincerity of Rental Family’s characters, the Tokyo location and a narrative playfulness more than make up for the film’s less complex threads.

Ansari’s screenplay makes the most of the comedy talents of himself, Palmer and Rogen, with each getting their fair share of jabs and zingers. Yet Reeves is the star of the movie, givig the best comedic performance of the year.

Amidst Wake Up Dead Man’s more sombre atmosphere and grimmer sense of humour, Craig and O’Connor add additional emotional shading to a film that, like the series as a whole, is still primarily meant to be an entertaining puzzle.

For every moment The Lost Bus impresses with it scale and craft, there are other instances where it feels like we’re watching these screaming kids be dragged through a Disney amusement park ride.

While the entire cast impresses, standout performances come from Murphy and Lycurgo. They make it clear that Steve and Shy are two sides of the same coin, both shaped by past trauma and finding it almost impossible to exorcise their demons.

Cover-Up pays fitting tribute to a man who has made it his life’s work to seek out and expose the hardest of truths.

An increasingly overwrought approach undermines its better instincts and creates an uneven affair.

Director Gus Van Sant turns this fascinating true crime story into both an entertaining period drama and an evergreen tale of ordinary men pushed into desperate acts.

Francois Ozon’s adaptation is at its best when it sticks to the letter and tone of Camus’ enduring, enigmatic novella.

The boundaries between fiction and reality are permeable throughout, with some shots juxtaposing actors against phone camera footage of the real life characters that they portray. For the most part, it works very effectively, although the snippets of real life phone footage are a little distracting, jolting us out of the nervy chokehold of the story.

Precision-tooled, ambitious in scale yet bracingly concise, this is Bigelow’s boldest and most assured film yet.

A screenplay dense with incident and ideological discussion is carried efficiently by fast-moving, sleek direction and sumptuous mise en scene that catches the tone of a changing society and its sudden explosion of capitalist excess. Yet it never quite comes to life as a character sketch.

The Smashing Machine may not always transcend genre conventions, but is a consistently idiosyncratic and candid look at a working-class athlete with a complicated romantic relationship and a crippling opioid addiction. Despite his hulking physique, Dwayne Johnson plays Kerr with real vulnerability as his championship aspirations slip away.