This brutal survival tale is so powerfully engrossing that, despite the clear limitations of his monochromatic, showy approach, the film’s compelling construction tends to override the legitimate criticisms.

A confection that is equal parts murder mystery, old-fashioned ghost story and supernatural thriller, the third instalment of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot series proves to be the most enjoyable.

An intense combination of apocalyptic nightmare and family psychodrama. ... A provocative, rigorously composed film that confirms Paxton as a singular talent after a string of award-winning shorts.

It’s an appealing little charmer of a film, captured with a pleasingly lithe and lively animation style.

What really separates The Girl With All the Gifts from the genre pack, however, is its moral intelligence, clever thematic consistency (drawing on the Greek myth of Pandora’s box) and emotional heft, the latter component rooted in the truly captivating breakout performance of young Nanua.

What’s deeply satisfying about this knotty drama is the even-handed approach.

Napoleon features exceptional battle scenes as well as tart back-and-forths between these romantic combatants, resulting in a lavish, thoughtful drama that remains entranced and bemused by France’s most notorious emperor — a brilliant strategic mind who could not have been more insecure.

This is a generous, consistently pleasurable comedy.

Writer/director Benjamin Naishtat’s subtle, twisting, state-of-the-nation drama works effectively as a noir-like thriller, and as an exploration of a country that has lost its moral compass.

This is a Western which is rugged and raw, eschewing the genre’s mythmaking for something a little more off the beaten path.

Turning Red is often very funny thanks to the fact that Shi lets her main character be smart and three-dimensional — the filmmaker doesn’t talk down to her adolescent audience by burdening the script with juvenile jokes.

Magaro, never allowed to explain his character, does a terrific job with internalised anguish, keeping it in check so it’s a presence in the car but not one which prevents him demonstrating his love for his kids, over and over again, in whatever way he can.

This is not the first documentary to deal with thwarted creative ambitions. It may, however, be the one that most effectively and entertainingly cocks a snook at the very fates that conspired in the first place.

With a terse 85-minute running time, The Guilty illustrates Möller’s confidence with the craft of film-making.

Loznitsa’s essay raises questions about the nature and ideological mechanisms of totalitarian myth-making, and the nature of public grief as propagandist display.

Like I Lost My Body, Meanwhile On Earth is a moving elegy on the power of grief, and the lengths to which we are driven in order to feel whole. While it may not have quite the same visceral impact as Clapin’s animation, and culminates in a soft, somewhat-obvious ending, it nevertheless leaves its own mark.

A winning romantic comedy about two men whose emotional intimacy issues may jeopardise the good thing they’ve got going, Bros is frequently funny but also quite touching, spearheaded by the dynamite chemistry between co-writer Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane.

A bittersweet comedy of manners that sees Allen pushing the boat out stylistically and in narrative ambition, even as he treads familiar ground.

The Truffle Hunters is a film as distinctive and lingering as the scent of the rare tuber that inspires it.

Amid the formal fluidity, the forceful acting keeps us hooked.

Filmmaker Tim Sutton elicits pitiless performances from Frank Grillo and Jamie Bell playing two very different criminals on a collision course, and the film exudes a grungy, B-movie ethos in keeping with its scrappy, resourceful characters.

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.

Garner and co-star Jessica Henwick navigate the picture’s mixture of drama, suspense and horror superbly, leaving the audience fearful that this slow-burn powder keg will eventually go off — although we’re not sure who the casualties will be.

It’s no surprise that director Spike Lee prefers a hammer to a scalpel for this real-life drama, but his righteous fury is supplemented with a mature thoughtfulness that gives the proceedings the grim weight of history.

Haynes makes intriguing work of subtly metafictional psychodrama in May December.

Kasbe has imbued When Lambs Become Lions with the feel of a thriller rather than a polemic.

Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) has fashioned a slightly more earnest variation on the typical MCU movie — one that is still fun and funny, but also rooted in a desire to speak meaningfully about racism, global culture clashes, and the tension between hiding behind one’s borders and helping outsiders in need.

For a story which ponders on late-life exhaustion and loss of curiosity and pleasure, The Room Next Door strikes a defiant blow against ennui, staking out new territory for the director.

Ultimately, the film makes a case that perhaps it’s better not to know everything about the person you love. And sometimes you just need to shed the baggage and start the relationship again from the beginning.

National Bird shows that there is indeed a horrible reckoning, but it mostly comes from within. This is a personal film about guilt.

The gritty realism of Io Capitano’s story is leavened throughout by recognizably ‘Garronian’ touches; pools of magic realism, theatrical set pieces of colourful intensity.

Ratchapoom’s feature debut is a visually ambitious and thematically layered big swing that’s as polarising as it is creative.

In its narrative tautness, this documentary can hold its own alongside the best of Romania’s contemporary fiction.

Although it’s a wisp of a thing, it delivers rich rewards. Mirrors No. 3 (which takes its title from the third movement of a Ravel piano suite) is an elegant demonstration of what can be achieved with limited ingredients in the hands of an inventive creative team and a first-rate cast.

The shame this film provokes – or should provoke – in collective society will make it difficult and distressing viewing. And there’s no beauty to show here, despite former cinematographer Kelly’s accomplished work. There’s always love, though. If only there was more to go around.

Melodrama is a neglected genre, often delivered with a post-modern twist these days. Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz proves in this stirring, heart-wrenching period film that it can be served straight up and still work a treat.

This impressive feature from Alexandre Moratto takes the topic of modern-day enslavement as a jumping-off point for a morality tale which gets increasingly knotty and satisfying as it goes on.

Superb performances from Boyega and the late Michael Kenneth Williams highlight this sombre, character-driven tale.

Aleksandr Sokurov’s Francofonia is rich, complex, challenging.

A weaponised comedy which concludes with real poignancy. ... The film shares with [Veep] a similarly tart and unvarnished view of the savage, sweary machinations of power and the expendable status of the powerless.

The film’s freewheeling energy is as appealing as its developments are unpredictable.

This charming story . . . has a deft, audience-friendly lightness of touch, focusing on Armenia’s people rather than its difficult history. Nevertheless, it firmly makes its points about displacement, cultural cleansing and the difficulties of returning home.

You may emerge from Climax, as from a full-on club night, feeling shattered and asking yourself what was the point of it all. But there’s no denying the mastery of Noé and his team, and the extravagant talent of his cast.

A classic, if downbeat, addition to the canon.

While Holofcener doesn’t ultimately dispute that it’s nice to be nice, she does suggest that it’s worth remembering constant positivity has its own negatives.

Director Marielle Heller is less interested in the machinations of Israel’s scheme as she is the psychology behind it, giving us a touchingly understated portrait of self-loathing and loneliness.

Whether Medusa Deluxe quite convinces us that it needed to be a one-shot exercise, it’s carried off niftily — the electric performances, from a super-alert, bristling cast, giving a feel of live event to the action, framed in Academy ratio.

If the intimacy of small town existence is cherished here, there’s also an ominous sense of that same life being eroded and undermined.

Though the script rarely makes an unexpected choice, it’s the way that the film dissects its many underlying complications that matters more than eschewing predictability. Calmly, but filled with feeling, Graizer lets his protagonists’ actions and choices subvert the norm.

A surprisingly demented delight; a crazy, spirited, if simplistic fusion of off-beat adult humour blended with the sensibility of an anarchic toddler.

The directorial debut of long-time screenwriter and producer James Schamus exudes a tasteful reserve, but actor Logan Lerman cuts through the seeming gentility in a performance that seethes with his character’s burgeoning arrogance and cynicism.

Tickling Giants shows how a window of freedom and hope can unleash surges of creativity, like the improbable overnight success of a surgeon satirist.

If Saroo’s story seems out-of-this world, the team behind this film have risen to meet the challenge it sets. There may be a sense of inevitability about Saroo’s ultimate destination, but what counts here is the journey.

Working with writer (and co-editor) Amy Jump again, Wheatley wades into the prescient 1975 text, delivering a complex, fluid interpretation which is respectful and almost-faithful while still being its own beautiful, crazed beast.

This Paris-set debut feature from Australian director Josephine Mackerras negotiates morally complex territory and the minefield of society’s double standards with an admirably light step.

The writer-director’s evident anger is tempered and fragmented by both fatalism, games of truth and lies, self-doubt and frequent reminders, in this Biblical landscape, of the historical and geological long view. Ahed’s Knee also works, perhaps surprisingly, as a drama that crackles with a never-consumed sexual energy.

If The Power Of The Dog isn’t the absolute killer coup that Campionites might have hoped, this is her most thoroughly conceived, consistently involving drama for years: taken all in all, pretty much the full visual, dramatic and, indeed sonic package.

The third act of this film is a celebration of Simon’s determination and of supporting team which surround him.

A well-researched, sharply organised exposition of a strange and disturbing set of alliances.

Smuggling Hendrix is an amiable affair that gradually grows on the viewer.

The reason The Wolfpack is so fascinating, and at times so disturbing, is because it keeps us teetering uneasily between empathy for a remarkable human drama and the suspicion that we’re not getting the whole truth, let alone nothing but the truth.

Herzog’s typically dry narration is a particular delight in Into The Inferno.

Humanity is the first casualty of war in Bad Roads. Natalya Vorozhbit’s adaptation of her 2017 play is a howl of anguish over the recent history of the Ukraine and the impact of hostilities with neighbouring Russia.

It’s a trip, and then some.

Many of these jagged little vignettes are exquisitely realised, others are genuinely chilling. Whether they fully coalesce into a coherent whole is one question; whether they even need to is another. Renoir may leave questions, but it’s an elegant, thoughtful piece of filmmaking that digs into the guilt and confusion that underpins a child’s struggle to process death.

While any narrative nuance is left in the dust by the film’s singular focus on bloody retribution at all costs, it is one hell of a ride.

The film’s look is as striking as Fan’s performance.

Murina is a superb study in sustained subliminal menace, with Gracija Filipovic especially skilled playing a young woman learning how to utilise her sensuality to secure her freedom

Frot and Deneuve work subtle wonders with their purpose-written roles.

It is sophisticated yet innocent, and while always accessible for young fans it never suffers from a lack of dialogue, with the straightforward and breezy story easy to follow and fun to enjoy.

The sour taste of colonialism is pungently evoked in Sweet Dreams, a largely accomplished second feature by Bosnian-Dutch writer-director Ena Sendijarevic.

There’s considerable cumulative power to these intimate glimpses of kids, from primary school tiddlers to high school graduates, all facing an uncertain future.

It’s not just the structure of the film that is clever, Sweeney varies his joke delivery, so that there is a mix of one-liners and more slow-burn humour alongside a raft of sight gags.

At first, it appears that Hosoda merely wants to remake Beauty And The Beast, but there are surprises in store that shouldn’t be spoiled. Let it be said, however, that what makes Belle affecting in its later stretches is Hosoda’s subversion of that fairy tale’s narrative — in particular, its notion of true beauty and the reasons why the Beast has grown so withdrawn and distrustful.

And as a statement of intent, it’s unequivocal: Rowland combines striking visual flair with razor-wire character studies.

Although this doc is slender, it’s also fascinating, playing into nostalgia and current-day politics in equal measure.

The film makes its points — about ableism within the world of sport and broader society — as emphatically as any of Nao’s punches.

Everyone commits to Pirates as if it’s the first time this story has been told, and in a way, that’s true. A joyous feature film centring around British Black and Asian male teenagers whose problems are exactly the same as every other teenager in the country makes it revolutionary within that familiar framework.

The result of the collaboration between mother and son brings no great epiphanies but it remains a film that both beguiles and unsettles as it salutes a remarkable woman and the enduring demands of ties that bind.

Shot with grace and sensitivity in black and white using available and natural light, What You Gonna Do is a visual treat, the easiest on the eye of all the director’s films to date. It is also, for all its unevenness, a stirring, committed portrait of black lives at a crossroads in the American South.

The subtle brilliance of its mise-en-scene, from 1980s Ohio boardrooms and rubber-chicken dinners to all-black wait staff and the casual discrimination against women, beds the story in the awful truth.

A beautifully bizarre film whose considerable strangeness allows for sharp observations about family, loneliness and the terror of emotional intimacy, Kajillionaire is further proof of writer-director Miranda July’s ability to bend reality to her will.

Both homage and critique, Peter von Kant astutely gets under the skin of the lesbian-themed original, ekes out new resonances and proves both authentically Fassbinderian and altogether Ozonesque in its ironic sensibilities.

It’s so doggedly faithful to the show, so emphatically orchestrated and so powered by Cynthia Erivo’s exceptional performance, that resistance to its 169 minutes of theme park magic becomes futile. This is a film that leaves nothing in the wings — except for an entire second act, and a sequel which has already been shot.

American Fiction can be tender and also brutally funny, wise but also sometimes rushed in its attempts to tie up its many threads. The film is always alive with ideas and filled with compassion for its complicated characters, however. Like a good novel, it’s very hard to put down.

While it’s not quite as light on its feet in terms of the plotting, and while several key incidents and character motivations are rather questionable, it’s an immensely enjoyable movie which is at least as funny as the first outing, if not more.

There remains something unknowable about Luma, but while that proves a limitation, Cow also turns it into a strength. We wonder what’s she thinking, and then we put ourselves in her place — and realise it’s not a great place to be.

Kidnapped hides a bleak and bracing message inside lovely old costumes and sumptuous set pieces .

The latest documentary from Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo (Tempestad) is an intimate, immersive portrait of a way of life – its rhythms, hardships and its communal joys – told through the eyes of the young people who rarely question it.

Has value as a cultural document as well as a riotously entertaining film.

It’s above all a character study, as well as an elegant technical achievement that puts a distinctive stylistic slant on its realist subject matter.

Sometimes all a documentary needs to do is to get us in the room with somebody we’re curious about. Laura Poitras did this, and a lot more, in Citizenfour, by taking us to meet US whistleblower Edward Snowden; she pulls off the same trick in Risk.

This sequel may not be as buoyant as previous chapters, but the filmmakers’ continued commitment to honouring these characters — and to understanding what is so universal about their quest to love and be loved — is worth treasuring.

An expression of his career-long preoccupations, Jia Zhang-ke’s odyssey through China since the turn of the century has an epic sense within a homespun feel.

The novelty of his volcanically vulgar, deeply cynical tone may have worn off some, but Iannucci has nonetheless crafted another poisonous cocktail of naked ambition and blustery bravado with a decidedly bitter aftertaste.

The filmmakers’ handling of the surprises has a narrative deftness and visual cleverness that is legitimately unbalancing. It also adds a blast of dark comedy to the proceedings.

A lively, funny and touching exploration of the way we live now through the filter of two generations.

Kohn constructs a thought-provoking film that is also an entertaining human comedy.