The Devil’s Candy is a masterful slow burn, the horror and violence alluded to rather than seen.

The film also has plenty to say about male stubbornness and the casual misogyny that lurks behind the apparent equality of Lebanese society.

A shattering portrait of a luckless woman unable to pull out of the tailspin that is her life, Where Is Kyra? is a powerfully moody character study anchored by a remarkable performance from Michelle Pfeiffer.

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.

Despite a twisty, juicy and compelling story, there remains a staid conventionality that keeps the political and thematic undercurrents from being explored as satisfyingly as one might hope.

Garrone’s new film reminds us that traditional fables don’t need injections of contemporary relevance to grip, stir and disturb us.

The film builds to a conclusion that is unexpected but surprisingly effective in its understatement, suggesting that this veteran director can still find new ways to explore what everyday courage looks like.

Like the family at its centre, Captain Fantastic is an odd bird, sometimes endearing, sometimes unbelievable.

This story of a homesick college freshman, played affectingly by Raiff himself, doesn’t break any new ground - it doesn’t even try - but his film is still an appealing charmer.

Featuring some of the group’s lovably mediocre projects, the documentary neither ridicules their so-so talent nor tries to oversell the purity of their artistic aspirations. Instead, this is a slight, wistful shrug of a picture that’s filled with resignation but also a lot of fondness.

Unkovski’s film may be singing from a familiar hymn sheet, but he makes that part of its charm.

The muddled but icily engaging All The Money In The World is a thriller packed with ideas which director Ridley Scott only sporadically delineates with the same vividness as he does his stylish compositions. And yet, this true-life tale of the kidnapping of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty’s grandson maintains its hold, bluntly outlining how the desperate clamour for wealth poisons all those caught up in its frenzy.

The combination of sensitively handled character drama and slow-burning horror genre tropes builds into an intriguing tale of survival and empowerment with a standout central performance from Anna Diop. ... But the supernatural element almost feels like a distraction or one ingredient too many for the film to incorporate.

Part cringe-comedy, part diagnostic study of the modern pandemic of male loneliness, Friendship has several inspired moments, and strong performances from Robinson and Rudd. Ultimately, however, its determination to straddle both camps means it stretches itself rather too thin.

This heartfelt picture can be overly familiar, but Poulter’s intensely interior performance lends the proceedings sufficient edge and fascination.

Promising Young Woman builds to a truly shocking climax that delivers Fennell’s themes with a dark and twisted sense of humour—and justice. It’s a clever and unexpected turn in a film full of surprises.

It is pleasant to watch, needs a much stronger structure to hold it together.

Considine’s strong central performance gives the film an emotional resonance.

By unsuccessfully splitting the difference between being frightening and funny, the picture ends up residing in the same bizarre uncanny valley as its creepy title character, proving to be somewhat menacing but also awfully artificial.

This laidback documentary portrait – directed by her son, Spanish actor Gustavo Salmerón – takes on a casual, boisterously wistful air, as the eccentric octogenarian reflects on her many years, while the extended clan buzzes excitedly around.

It’s authentic without being grim; moody and tentatively hopeful. There’s a British verite influence at play, but King Jack’s heart is positively American.

Mickey 17 sometimes wobbles balancing its different tones. But what holds Bong’s eighth feature together is his palpable rage at humanity’s cruelty mixed with his compassion for a protagonist who cannot die – and, therefore, cannot truly live.

A refreshingly offbeat noir, one that spices its murder-mystery thrills with a good bit of feminist empowerment.

Haneke’s magisterial control of tone, actor and shot is not to be underestimated: there are scenes of quiet, nuanced authority and menace here that, true to form, compel our attention with their glacial brilliance.

Always watchable but not transcendent, Cedric Kahn’s character study builds its portrait via landscape, work, prayer and friendship.

A cult item par excellence, Bone Tomahawk does for the Western what Gareth Edwards did for Monsters. Long, slow and low-budget, Bone Tomahawk is also disturbingly tense, hyper-violent, and destined to attract an adoring fanboy following.

Boy From Heaven is an ambitiously complex story of religious espionage.

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.

There’s a gentle, lived-in quality to the material that’s a departure for Soderbergh, whose films would rarely be called heartfelt. But by his standards, the unhurried Let Them All Talk is an unusually compassionate examination of a group of characters, across different generations, who find themselves at a crossroads.

Wong’s indomitable spirit is what lends the film such an appeal.

Allynne and Notaro’s film is suffused with sweetness, but the slim, conventional story keeps the directors and their capable cast from really exploring the bonds that connect people, whether as friends or lovers. It’s an OK debut that, like Lucy herself, struggles a bit to find its footing.

What results is an affecting tone poem which ruminates on the passage of time and the passing of traditions from one generation to the next.

All in all, Nine Days is a stellar feature debut, with strong filmmaking, from its assured compositions to its superb dimly lit frames, where shafts of outside light or wall lamps illuminate slivers of the sets. And Winston Duke, who appears in just about every scene in the film, offers a complex portrait of a wounded man.

Avi Belkin’s fascinating, meticulously assembled documentary Mike Wallace Is Here fondly celebrates his life but also questions Wallace’s influence on the quality of public discourse in modern media.

And while the story of the film lacks some of the sinuous inventiveness of its predecessor [Your Name], it shares the striking animation style, romantic sensibility and a similar poppy score.

Brandon Cronenberg’s third feature is best appreciated as a singularly unnerving experience, one punctuated with enough outlandish and disquieting moments to compensate for a script that can be episodic and thematically repetitive.

Even when the film risks becoming overly precious, Ronan keeps Rona’s struggles gripping. It is a tale not so much of triumph as one of melancholy resilience.

We only see what Loung sees, feel what she experiences but through her ordeal there develops an emotional connection to a country undergoing some of its darkest hours.

Anchored by standout performances by Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer and young Kelvin Harrison Jr., it’s a strong indie film about race, family and trust that should connect with fans of smart, provocative cinema.

Generously mixing comedy, nostalgia, pathos and misanthropy, Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point embraces its brood’s rambunctious spirit, resisting the temptation to let any character become the central protagonist.

The humour is low key, repeatedly mining the juxtaposition of the supernatural and the banal; a likeable performance from Maeve Higgins is the picture’s driving force.

Kosinski settles for a simplistic ending, and the film can’t avoid certain narrative predictability, but for all its conventionality, it’s also brave enough to push against those conventions to find the humanity within its heroes.

The strength of Slick Woods’ performance lies in the way she finds the plaintive grace notes beneath the brash, sassy confidence of that exterior. She brings out the vulnerability in this seemingly tireless spirit, transforming Goldie’s story into a poignant coming of age.

Even if it tells the age-old story of the filthy rich getting richer and the poor going nowhere, Betting on Zero is still rather shocking.

Unquestionably uneven and only occasionally inspired, Hail, Caesar! is nonetheless engrossing and funny thanks to its off-kilter energy and a lead performance from Coens regular Josh Brolin that’s a model of quietly controlled chaos.

There is beauty in the 35mm black and white landscapes and framings of this painterly widescreen feature, but it stands in stark contrast with the alienating narrative and tone of a film which, like Kosinski’s book, takes a strange relish in charting the descent of simple country folk of a never-named country into sexual depravity and joyless cruelty.

The latest picture from Melanie Laurent is a strikingly beautiful production which delves deep into the ugliness at the roots of psychiatric medicine.

That balance of despair and hope, dark reality and a feel-good ending is not always perfectly executed but, as the picture navigates its plot twists and reaches its moving finale, the tonal discrepancies begin to feel insignificant.

The early potency of this macabre fairytale becomes increasingly diluted however, as the film progresses and the story broadens.

A magnificent performance from Rebecca Hall is Christine’s clear highlight, but the entire ensemble shines in this stripped-down but deeply sympathetic drama.

This pleasing, if perplexing, feature debut from Qiu Sheng takes an agile and experimental approach to structure, as two story strands glance off each other, and occasionally intersect.

A rambunctious, sexy, funny, irreverent whirlwind of a movie, Dope doesn’t seem like it has much discipline or focus, but its frantic forward momentum and haphazard mixture of styles, although demonstratively entertaining, shouldn’t distract from a rather pointed political message about race in America.

For a Burroughs adaptation, it has all the provocation but none of the haunting power that Naked Lunch still holds, almost 35 years later.

It’s a serious message delivered in typically entertaining Lanthimos style and hammered home via a bravura climax which manages to be both gonzo and gut-wrenching in equal measure.

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.

Possessor is ultra stylish and uber violent, but, despite a top tier cast, it’s not always entirely clear what is going on and who is in control of the finger on the trigger.

Miike is on fine form, never losing his sense of humour, or sense of character, even as yet another axe is embedded in yet another skull.

The film is sometimes stylishly executed, but its hyper-aesthetic, even rarefied approach, together with a confusing dream-tinged narrative and a general sense of narcotised sluggishness, will make for limited appeal beyond Asian markets and the fanbase for traditional drawn animation.

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.

Even if The Untamed comes perilously close to sabotaging itself at times, this generic tightrope walk is a ferociously individual, highly intelligent piece and a superb, very affecting cast ensure that the human factor remains dominant, however creepily inhuman things may become at times.

A stunning location and a winning character are cannily deployed to create a likeable film in which audiences will need little persuasion to cheer the triumph of the underdog.

Censored Voices is a reminder that glorious myths of wars and the men who fight them wither under scrutiny, in Israel and everywhere else.

While its surprising innocence is what makes this film appealing, the franchise is still dependably cheeky thanks largely to Hugh Grant.

Director Nia DaCosta’s follow-up is both bitingly satiric and elegantly suspenseful, illustrating how race and class still bedevil modern life. Produced and cowritten by Jordan Peele, and featuring an arresting performance from Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Candyman has an unmistakable anger embedded within its scares, persuasively depicting how Black Americans feel traumatised by a country that treats them like monsters.

Golden Exits is an idiosyncratic film about little moments of human pain and loneliness. There’s jealousy, sadness, unfulfilled loves and lives, all of it relayed in quiet conversations and glances, rather than big dramatic scenes.

For all its visual prowess, the film’s most successful element is its balance of the fantastical with the familiar.

Jarmusch fans won’t find much of the director’s signature touch here, as he self-effacingly pays homage to a beloved act – Stooges fans will find plenty to enthuse about in the film’s ample coverage of a little-documented career.

El Conde comes across as a well-funded toyshop for Larrian to play in, indulging flights of fantasy, paying homage, and exacting a retribution which could, should, have been a far more effective sandblast from a man who has spent much of his creative life holding this particular vampire to account.

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.

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.

In presenting its story as a portrait of a budding great statesman discovering his destiny, Barry is neither insightful nor poetic enough to justify its increasingly didactic approach.

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

By focusing on the touring footage, Howard’s picture distinguishes itself by allowing us to remember them as they started out while emphasising their skill as musicians (there’s an interesting comparison with Schubert and Mozart) and the endearing closeness of their unit.

Aster’s bold flourishes occasionally fall flat, but Florence Pugh holds the film together — especially when its plotting stumbles or its shocks grow predictable.

J.A. Bayona’s adaptation of this much-filmed story is elevated by bracingly muscular action sequences. It manages to sustain a degree of tension despite an overlong running time and the fact that the outcome of the incident is unlikely to be a surprise to anyone.

The radiant, heartfelt performances from Izia Higelin and Cecile De France make you care about the final outcome even when you feel you know exactly where Summertime might be headed.

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.

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.

Entertaining in its grand flourishes but spottier when it comes to character work and thematic coherence, the film boasts a slightly darker and more mystical air than its peers, accentuated by some of the most arresting set pieces in the MCU canon.

The film is led by Maika Monroe’s fragile performance, which grounds the story even when the proceedings start to become formulaic.

Margot Robbie and Idris Elba shine, balancing humour and edginess in a blockbuster studded with visual wonders and inspired set pieces.

All but the most dedicated fans of the director’s work might find this story a little too diffuse and meandering, its rewards too deeply buried beneath the evasive wordiness.

What the film depicts is at times creepy and unsettling, but it lifts the lid on an aspect of the virtual world which may be unfamiliar to audiences in the west.

Although Mother And Son loses some of its energy as it unfolds, it is still a sensitive and complex examination of the shifting tensions in a migrant family.

Both characters are endearingly freakish to look at, yet Eliot’s skill is to infuse them with such vulnerable tendencies and believable characteristics as to render them immediately human.

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

My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea is slight and uneven, but its quirky, handmade aesthetic nicely conveys its characters’ adolescent vulnerability and restless spirit.

Unavoidably uneven but fairly engaging throughout, Manifesto is a cavalcade of provocative ideas, arresting visuals and fabulous wigs.

The Incredible Jessica James may be a slight romantic comedy, but there’s abundant pleasure in watching comedienne Jessica Williams in this star-making performance.

Flitting between demonstrations, recorded addresses and interviews from both sides gives rise to highly relevant observations and intriguing asides — and even when they’re obvious, they’re astute.

Consisting of three non-fiction segments and four narrative instalments, the film is refreshing in its understated modesty. If anything, the shorter running time seems to energise the directors, who tell miniature stories with a minimum of fuss but careful attention to the emotional fallout of life under quarantine.

Oldroyd attacks with a pace that makes his plot twists more shocking and shows an economy that harks back to the golden age of noir.

Its sly irony is muffled by a convoluted, fatally tedious plot.

Bobi Wine is an intimate portrait of a hugely engaging figure that also serves as a sobering warning about the seeming impossibility of democratic change in a dictatorship.

Whannell is so invested in unloading juicy surprises that this initially realistic story becomes increasingly preposterous, but Moss keeps the film anchored in plausibility; although sometimes just barely.

As much as is possible considering all the Dark Knight films that came before, The Batman feels like its own creation, not beholden to past instalments while still honouring what remains riveting about this character’s milieu.

There’s plenty to admire in this trim, nearly dialogue-free 97-minute drama, not least Mads Mikkelsen’s raw performance as a downed airman waiting for rescue in the Arctic wastes, and the widescreen majesty of the Icelandic landscapes that stand in for the film’s polar setting.