A tender, intelligent imagining of the playwright in retirement.

Pity, which Makridis co-wrote with Yorgos Lanthimos’ regular collaborator Efthimis Filippou (Dogtooth, The Lobster), strikes a tonal balance between ruthless and wry, which positions it comfortably alongside the best of Greece’s current new wave.

Petrunya is careful to maintain the ideal balance, parodying the ridiculous response to its protagonist but never downplaying its realism.

In all its flawed brilliance, The Square remains an original, visceral, uncomfortable and essential viewing experience.

Diao’s flamboyant direction means that he often sets up one elaborately staged tableau just for a single shot, those shots sometimes coming in expansive flurries; some action scenes also feature lightning inserts fired off with surreal abruptness, as in the first gang rumble.

Nowhere Special is a tender story of a life which is ending and another which is beginning.

The feisty restlessness of Agathe Riedinger’s impressive feature debut belies the profound sadness of its central theme – that for many young women, beauty and pain are one and the same.

Redford has rarely been this commanding in his recent work, playing Tucker with a mischievousness in his eyes but also so much soul that his thieving feels more like an expression of some sad longing than a chronic criminal mind-set.

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.

All three leads get stronger as the movie goes along, in part because Miller’s full intention isn’t clear until about halfway through. These characters are foolish without being idiots, which produces a more sophisticated type of comedy.

Director Gavin Hood gives the proceedings a rousing electricity, and he’s aided by a cast which leans into the story’s urgency and continued relevance.

Like its central character, this film is unconventional, and at times abrasive, but it has a seductive, searching quality and a swell of melancholy which makes for an engaging, if unpredictable journey.

A Compassionate Spy is intimate and modest, more about a marriage than geopolitical tensions.

There’s a wistful quality to the storytelling which softens some of the sharper edges of tragedy and hardship in this undeniably affecting picture.

The film refuses to go in predictable directions, unveiling bizarre side characters and travelling down odd narrative backroads. But that occasional bagginess also allows for a richly textured picture bursting with energy.

Luca Guadagnino’s lush documentary may be traditional in its use of talking head interviews and evocative archive footage, but it works a treat when the subject is this fascinating.

Antibirth is intentionally ramshackle and hallucinatory as storytelling, seen through the viewpoint of characters who are mostly too stoned to concentrate – but it’s also highly crafted and unsettling.

Entertaining and informative as a contextualising accompaniment to Welles’s reconstructed experimental project The Other Side of the Wind...Neville’s film may reveal little that hardcore Wellesians don’t already know. But it offers a lively evocation of the great man’s brilliance, waywardness and pained relationship to Hollywood history.

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.

It is a more stimulating, thought-provoking and entertaining call to arms than anything we are likely to hear from an aspiring President over the next year.

The Wild Robot’s nicely modulated ending packs a wallop, hinting that a mother’s job is never done — that’s just not in her programming.

Lee is firing off rounds in all directions here. Some land, some distract, some feel like overkill. For cineastes, it’s a provocative redrawing of the canon; Coming Home or The Deerhunter, and even Stone’s so-called “definitive” work including Platoon now seem only part of the picture.

While attention, fairly, will go to the work’s visual and tonal acuity, Wells’ measured but relentless probing, her careful peeling away of the layers of this intimate piece, mark her out as one of the most promising new voices in British cinema in recent years.

With Spurlock and Takal throwing every horror trope on the screen, Rats is a delectably awful experience which, grimly fun though it may be to watch, hopefully won’t lead to a Cockroach sequel.

An elegant, sometimes eerie film, Celebration does not editorialise: its only implicit commentary is a futuristic electronic score, which suggests that Saint-Laurent is something of an extra-terrestrial being. A tender, more melancholic work than its title would imply, Celebration should not be construed as a debunking of its subject, more as a gentle lament for an institution fading into the sunset.

Through the love story at the heart of this visually arresting feature debut, Utama offers the audience a relatable connection with a way of life which is on the verge of extinction.

This impressive, unflinching debut from Ninja Thyberg eschews the victim narrative which tends to shadow stories focussing on women in the porn industry, instead following Bella’s cool-headed navigation of this treacherous and frequently exploitative world.

On its surface, the film may touch on the familiar theme of how artists draw from their own lives, but Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgard bring incredible tenderness to a story that is ultimately about what children and parents never say to one another — and whether those lifelong silences can ever be broken.

The structure of The Plains is playful and idiosyncratic, rather than formalist or rigid.

Muntean leads us into a playfully caustic realm of social satire, as his characters find themselves in unknown territory without either GPS or a clear moral compass.

The film’s most rewarding strand is the inventive, pointed way in which clothes and textiles are used as metaphors both for female constraints and female defiance.

If this focus on fleeting pleasures occasionally risks exoticizing the subject, Mayfair’s sensory approach to illustrating an almost unbearable absence of female fulfillment achieves a powerful universal resonance.

Writer-director Emmanuel Mouret’s lengthy but deliciously calibrated Love Affair(s) consists of talk, talk and more talk uttered by attractive protagonists in French settings that range from enviably nice to spectacular. This would fit perfectly in a time capsule under ’Unapologetic French Art Film’.

Tim Roth gives a meticulously withdrawn performance that speaks volumes, and although filmmaker Michel Franco can be too fussy in his starkly somber design, Chronic is nonetheless a captivating work.

The perpetual undercurrent of tension between them always feels plausible and is well-rendered by Arana and Sanz, who co-wrote the script. Amongst all the glancing ironies and wit, time also is thankfully also found for a little old-fashioned tenderness.

This is a film with the logic of a dream, which is to say, no logic at all. But it also has the power of a nightmare. And, like some of them, it lingers.

Beats brilliantly captures the nervy, joyful terror of turning up at a derelict warehouse equipped with a soundsystem and woefully inadequate toilet facilities. And it’s a testament, too, to the uncomplicated platonic love between two lads who both know, deep down, that they are too flakey to stay in contact.

It may not know where to end, and it makes a surprising late-in-the-game play for sentimentality where it has previously been bracingly crisp about hot topics including abortion and post-natal depression, but it’s mostly a wry plea for tolerance when the world is most disposed to hear it.

Two unrelentingly fascinating performances from Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm, and an exquisite black-and-while aesthetic which moves from leering vaudeville to something filthier and shameful, command attention.

The broader approach to storytelling on McQueen’s part robs 12 Years A Slave of some of the precise, up-close vibrancy that was the hallmark of his earlier films. As a consequence, this new film feels a little less personal, although that criticism should not dismiss the intelligence and feeling on display.

An intimate but ambitiously mounted ensemble piece, The Old Oak ranks among Loach’s foremost state-of-the-nation dramas.

Younger fans of the modern actioner may find Manhunt a little old-school, especially in its unabashed romantic heart and flag-waving for the square-jawed good guys. But it’s breezy, handsomely mounted fun that shows that Woo has lost neither his mojo nor his sense of poetry.

Footage is surprising, and, occasionally heart-breaking; not because of the disabilities onscreen, but because it recalls the idealism of the 1970s, long since gone.

The going can be a bit slow at first, but the interweaving narratives, which comment on (and sometimes echo) each other, begin to develop a hypnotic grandeur. It’s a hell of a trip.

The input of the eloquent, brilliant, bitchy circle of friends with which he surrounded himself creates a portrait of the man which is every bit as candid as his work.

A love story between shelf stackers in a provincial superstore isn’t the most scintillating pitch. And yet, with the aid of affecting performances and a good eye for the virtuoso moves of a forklift truck, director Thomas Stuber mines the magical in the mundane.

This magnificently-realised film moves from feeling like a long, dry history lesson to becoming an angrily-direct and emotional tribute to the reformers of the past.

The latest picture from husband and wife team Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji is an engrossing and thoughtful, if slightly meandering, portrait of contemporary China which straddles the impact of Tik Tok, the self-commodification of a whole generation of ambitious young people and the social and shadow of the pandemic.

Delightful, occasionally quite moving and always exquisitely crafted, this is a modest charmer about trying to make sense of the world either through art or other pursuits.

Essentially, for all its sci-fi/disaster/zombie movie trimmings, at its heart the film is a mismatched buddy movie that celebrates the bond from birth between Porky and Daffy.

Gay Chorus Deep South draws its strength not only from its subject, but also the effective way in which it it presents its arguments.

A deft and absorbing multi-pronged tale about a kind, hard-working woman whose life becomes a morass of collateral damage, A Girl Missing is satisfying slow-burn drama expertly told.

Those who can’t understand the tangled battle zones or tragic recent history of Iraq may take some comfort from Nowhere To Hide’s revelation that ordinary citizens of that country don’t understand any of it either.

This sensitively structured psychological drama benefits from first-rate casting.

Gagarine’s increasingly wayward trajectory demands of its audience not just a leap of faith but a vault into the stratosphere, and its tone of naïve romanticism could rankle with more jaded viewers. Still, conviction and chutzpah, plus often dazzling execution, will chime with younger adult audiences.

It is the viewer who feels the injustice and outrage on his behalf, deepening the emotional connection to events.

Open-minded audiences will soon realise that Pillion is not out to provocate, but to authentically and sensitively explore a side of gay culture little seen in mainstream film.

Kuperstein’s roaming camera may sometimes overwhelm the film with its artful choreography, but generally manages to take the viewer by surprise – as does a comic narrative which constantly takes unexpected turns.

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

Writer/director Anthony Maras largely sticks to the dramatisation playbook, but does so in an effective, affecting and empathetic fashion.

Letting yourself be loved is not exactly an original message, but here it’s the comedy that counts and Schlesinger is generous with her script, giving even minor characters their fair share of jokes.

Hadi has an eye for detail, echoes and lyrical touches.

Desplechin has a gift for examining grief and pain but often leavens the dismay with humour or irony. It is impossible to predict whether catharsis is within reach and that delicate balance is what keeps the proceedings compelling.

Predators may not find all the answers, but it offers a thought-provoking exploration of the questions and should attract audiences fascinated by the morality of the media and the complexities of crime and punishment.

This accomplished and satisfyingly hard-edged drama harnesses the monetised narcissism of influencer culture and looks beneath the gloss to find an ache of emptiness.

An achingly intimate portrait of a marriage weathering a storm ... what shines is the combination of Owen McCafferty’s stingingly honest screenplay and the two lovely, emotionally textured central performances.

Compelling as a tale of Cold War intrigue and fraught international relations, Castro’s Spies is equally gripping on a human level especially when the focus settles on emotional accounts of what happened to each one of the five.

In Pearce’s sure hands, the film sustains its tension, even as it sideswipes the audience with slickly executed change of tone.

Indivisible peers and probes, offering a sensitive, insightful and sometimes even dream-like rumination on the cost of seeking and subverting normality.

It’s a little rough around the edges but there’s no denying the film’s unflinching potency.

There’s enough cinema in Among the Believers to set it a step above solid respectable investigation.

Layering its fairly straightforward story of an adopted Irish girl who tracks down her birth mother with immersive visual and aural motifs, it plays more like modern operatic tragedy than run-of-the-mill social drama.

Theron will put to rest any doubts about her feel for comedy; the darker the better.... As Tully, Mackenzie Davis is radiant.

Childhood is a mystery we endlessly come back to and a place the Leydens have never fully left; Ní Chianáin gives the viewer an intimate view of it in this unusual little story.

Slow is a supremely confident piece of filmmaking that negotiates the tricky terrain of non-typical sexualities with sensitivity, humour and a refreshing lightness of touch.

BenDavid Grabinski’s time-twisty, sci-fi gangster comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is brimming with hair-brained schemes and hilarious gags; the kind of unruly one night adventure that isn’t about logic, it’s about stoking delirium.

Love is a constant saving grace in The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo. Diego Cespedes’s striking debut feature blends together a heady mixture of melodrama, western and coming of age tale to create an imaginative, indignant AIDS-era story.

The saga, directed by a Scot in New Zealand with no American actors, takes us back to American truths. Guns, greed and rugged nature defined the West, setting the New World apart from the old. The roots run deep.

Ethel & Ernest is, at its heart, a fond character study.

The Innocents successfully weds three elements: a strong, original concept distilled through a smart screenplay; excellent young performances; and a mise-en-scene which puts the audience in a child’s circular view of a very small world - tiny by nature of childhood itself, in which the smallest areas are unfathomably large, and also by circumstance on a self-contained housing estate.

Moshe is not the first filmmaker to grapple with theories surrounding the manipulation of the fabric of time but his intimate approach, coupled with strong performances, make this an intelligent homespun take on a familiar subject.

Big, bombastic and full-blooded, Jeymes Samuel’s neo-Western might tick off plenty of the tropes of the genre, but the outlaw energy he brings to the picture makes it feel, if not fresh exactly, then certainly a whole lot of fun.

The Dissident holds few new revelations but presents its case with enough infuriating evidence and storytelling power to make it worthwhile.

Understated and confidently judged, it becomes a testimony to the old-fashioned virtues of social-realist storytelling rooted in ordinary lives and timely concerns.

In a scant 72 minutes and in a few locations, Holmer has found a dignity in her appealing subjects, and a mystery.

Egilsdottir makes Inga a very sympathetic figure, playing her with the bone weary resolve of someone who recognises that she has nothing left to lose.

A thoroughly enjoyable, visually ravishing feminist Western played out in the widescreen vistas of rural Indonesia, Marlina The Murderer In Four Acts weaves basic elements into a tale worth telling splendidly accompanied by a sit-up-and-take-notice musical score.

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.

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

This is an atmospherically shot film about African oral culture, about riots, street musicians and storytellers. But it also uses the space and denizens of the prison as a metaphor for the divisions and tensions within Ivorian society.

Leyla Bouzid’s fiercely committed debut should draw plenty of attention not only for the way it deals with the political climate in her homeland but also for how she charts the painful transition of her lead character from outspoken, rebellious adolescence to a more careful and often resigned adulthood.

Josef Kubota Wladyka’s third feature film is a playful and whimsical confection, a deft blend of escapist kitsch and the real emotional heft that Kikuchi brings to the role.

Each of the film’s three strands has its own dramatic flaws and virtues. But what is most intriguing is the way that the stories are braided, both in editor Anita Roth’s intercutting and in the establishing of visual parallels.

The Oscar-winning actress gives a volcanic performance that is nonetheless very controlled, avoiding melodramatic theatrics. Pattinson plays off his costar superbly, giving us an inattentive husband who comes to realise how little he understands about his wife.

Reticence is also the keynote of The History of Sound’s two riveting central performances.

It’s a sad, sad film about the tragic loss of a generation, but the thought of Brittain moving through the generations to deliver her message afresh is somehow a consolation in its final, rallying cry.

The Animal Kingdom sets itself up as a brooding chiller, jump scares, freaky coups de cinéma and all, but gradually shifts gear to become more poetic and tender.

Joy Ride could easily have felt like a series of increasingly outrageous skits but, thanks to the chemistry between its leads and the tonal confidence of first time director Adele Lim, it ultimately lands as a raucously authentic comedy.