This religious-themed horror based around the phenomena of Marian apparitions has an intriguing premise but cuts too many corners in its catechism.

This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection offers a vivid, beautifully crafted reflection on identity, community and the tension between respecting age-old traditions and accepting the seemingly unstoppable march of progress.

Director Adam Wingard embraces the towering scale of these showdowns, and a stellar cast that includes Alexander Skarsgard and Rebecca Hall tries to add some gravitas to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the actors fight a losing battle against some impressive special effects to command our attention.

Bringing a children’s favourite to life with vividly realistic visuals and appealing production design simply proves superficial when it lacks the heart and charm that has endeared its source material to readers for more than a century.

As the story progresses, Bell’s decision to share the focus and to examine her relationship with her mother makes more sense, bringing an intimacy and tenderness to the rock documentary format.

This stylish, superficial lark is perhaps too pleased with its central conceit, but director Ilya Naishuller keeps the mayhem and dark laughs rolling at a steady clip.

This involving, stranger-than-life story has been edited for cinematic release although seems purpose built for streaming: like its protagonist, it suffers from a sense of unfinished business and unanswered questions.

I’m Fine isn’t dour about its protagonist’s dilemma — nor is it disingenuously upbeat. Kali’s performance is full of attitude and quiet desperation, as if Danny stops rollerskating her anxieties will finally catch up with her.

The atmospheric revenge-thriller marks the feature filmmaking debut of actor/writer/director Leah Purcell, who plays the titular matriarch with steely resolve, rousingly adapts her own play and book, and delivers an impassioned film with an unflinching Indigenous and feminist perspective.

Writer-director Megan Park’s unassuming feature debut sensitively argues that young people should never have to face such horrific circumstances — but, given enough time, they can prove stronger than their concerned parents imagine.

Olivia Munn is quite touching as the title character, and the picture cleverly dramatises the conflicting thoughts that bounce around inside us and, often, dictate our lives.

Writer-director Todd Stephens can allow quirkiness to overwhelm the thin narrative, but the story’s emotional underpinnings guide the film past its occasional rough spots.

A screenplay which could have benefited from another pass undermines the credibility of what comes before, and, despite a formidable intensity from Riseborough throughout, leachs tension along with plausibility.

Familiar execution and drab characters conspire to drain this vital story of its intensity.

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.

It’s the central performance by feature first-timer Mahayni that best demonstrates the picture’s overall charms.

This often absorbing opus can be as mighty as Superman himself, but a lack of restraint proves to be its Kryptonite.

Wittrock and Chao have such a spark that it’s disappointing that Long Weekend is ultimately one more picture about how an amazing woman helps a nice but ordinary guy turn his life around. Chao’s lively performance — not to mention the audience — deserves better.

Gitankali Rao’s debut feature is a stunningly realised work of animated film-making.

A little more venom or bite might have been welcome but this is still an entertaining skewering of celebrity and the way a single day can flip from triumph to outright disaster

Natural Light is a tough, slow film that makes demands on its audience – though much of the real horror is as just-off-screen for us as it is for Corporal Semetka. But it’s also an absorbing, beautifully crafted, thought-provoking addition to the new Hungarian cinematic wave.

Maria Speth’s study of a veteran teacher and his early teens students lasts three and a half hours, but not a moment is wasted. Anyone who teaches, or has ever been taught, will find something to relish in this serious-minded but quietly celebratory film. just as Bachmann puts the students at ease, the film-makers have managed to do the same – unintrusively catching the pupils’ episodes of vulnerability, or certain telling moments, as when two of them exchange flirtatious taunts.

In the sheer exuberance of its exploratory spirit, Koberidze’s film is very much of benefit to cinema – and any who feared that the art form was running out of new ways to find poetry in the real.

The film’s freewheeling dynamism and stylistic elasticity allow Fabian to shake off the stuffier tropes of historical drama.

The layering of styles and perspectives provides a sympathetic insight into the motivations and real life experiences of police officers working within a fundamentally corrupt system.

Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy allows Hamaguchi to return to themes he has explored in previous work from the way life is measured in twists of fate to a sense of duality in individual lives and characters.

It’s a crowdpleasing tale of triumph over adversity which hits its raw highs and gritty lows every bit as emphatically as Turner during her famously electric performances.

This new edition feels less inspired, missing not just the superstar’s quick wit but the 1988 film’s fecund fish-out-of-water premise.

As arresting as this speculative portrait can be at times, the film is ultimately both galvanised and limited by how unknowable its protagonist turns out to be.

Like its dappled forested backdrop, the film is a thing of pensive beauty rather than volatile drama.

One of the most astute aspects of Morales and Duplass’ script is how it captures the twists and turns of a new friendship that is buoyed by excitement and yet remains tentative, and how it navigates the constant shifts that come with both fresh and established relationships.

This is a ‘minor’ Hong compared to some of the sixteen films he has premiered since 2010 . . . But it’s still a delight, a wistful, smart, chamber piece that gently teases out questions about whether you can love someone without controlling them in some way, whether acting can be sincere or sincerity can be an act, and how much of our life in the present and future is conditioned by our life in the past (a lot, as it turns out – but we knew that already).

Sometimes marred by plot contrivances, Boogie works best when it breaks free of cliches to deliver an honest portrait of the struggles to attain the American dream.

The set up promises a high concept romantic comedy, but in execution, Maria Schrader’s immensely enjoyable picture delves rather deeper, touching on philosophy, socio-sexual ethics and humanity’s uneasily symbiotic relationship with technology.

Whatever the film’s flaws, this is certainly the most unrepentantly confrontational work we’ve yet seen from Jude - and perhaps from any Romanian director. And, as the beleaguered, improbable figure of scandal at the centre of it all, stage actress Pascariu impresses with a crisply reserved performance.

While this medium-budgeted action film clearly hopes to launch a cinematic series, the YA trappings feel familiar, despite some intriguing ideas about toxic masculinity and adolescent insecurity.

Starting sedately but promisingly, it sails (literally, in one respect) into a perfect storm of heavy-handed symbolism and sentimentality.

A Shape Of Things To Come may not offer any grand insights into the never-ending battle between humanity and nature — between taking part in society and leaving it all behind — but this minor-key documentary suggests that, like some wild animals, Sundog is perhaps someone you don’t want to corner. There’s no telling what he might do.

A warm gathering of Scandinavian artists, with Sweden’s Skarsgård and Norway’s Hovig both excelling under Norwegian director Maria Sødahl’s attentive care.

A marvellously colourful and emotional adventure, Raya And The Last Dragon compellingly argues that the world is a dark place — but the only way to heal it is to hold onto hope.

Observational yet authoritative in its approach, Li’s film first paints an inspiring picture, then a dispiriting one.

Indeed, the fact that the movie’s youthful lead will have to say goodbye to his childhood might be inevitable, but it never feels as standard as it sounds. Assisting immensely are some naturalistic performances, particularly from Yasan.

While little here eschews genre conventions, Bana’s weathered performance and striking work by DoP Stefan Duscio ensure that this is a gripping-enough watch, even as it ticks a torrent of familiar boxes.

Cherry comes across like a deeply personal passion project for a group of talented filmmakers, and that’s for better and for worse. In its attempts to address Cleveland’s opoid crisis and the devastating trauma of repeated overseas conflicts for young Americans, the Russos’ film can effectively convey the grim desperation of those involved. It is often distracted by its own technique, though. The tone wavers wildly, the attention hovers, and scenes are allowed to ramble on. At times the resulting sense of discomfort can help challenge the viewer, but Cherry isn’t sufficiently fresh to be challenging enough.

Structured to an unusual beat and often stuck in its own feedback loop, The United States…is a flawed film, much like its protagonist, but Day doesn’t set a foot wrong throughout, even as Daniels’ adoring camera traces her every breath in full close-up.

Rather than including people with their politics, the filmmakers depend on flashy sleight-of-hand, distracting us with a deceptive narrative trick that isn’t nearly as fresh as they think.

What stands out in relief from the film’s flat characters and pedestrian storytelling is its dramatic core: the killing machine that death row had become in South Africa by the end of the 1980s, with 164 executions taking place in Pretoria Central Prison in the year in which Shepherds And Butchers is set, 1987.

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

Lively performances elicit enough chuckles for this Chinese version to pass muster as undemanding entertainment, although erratic pacing prevents the proceedings from ever truly hitting their stride.

Even when it is more dedicated to brand extension than the art of deduction, Detective Chinatown 3 exudes a heightened zaniness which is most welcome in today’s largely homogenised franchise landscape.

As a brief, brightly-coloured, virtual babysitter – lasting just long enough to keep the children diverted while you check in and out of that last Zoom meeting, and get dinner on the table – it dutifully fulfills its obligations. But anyone looking for much beyond that in this tale of a flying squirrel – well, they’d have to be nuts.

The notion that lives and loves are forged and defined in everyday moments isn’t unique; however it feels both accurate and earned here.

Certainly, The Mauritanian doesn’t lack for sincerity or muted rage. But the earnest, pat execution ultimately does a disservice to Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s arduous odyssey. His is a story that needs to be told, but with a little more urgency and ingenuity than what’s brought to bear here.

Dramatically the film can feel a little one-note and overlong. But it stands comparison with Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio as a fascinating portrait of an artist fighting to survive in the cut and thrust of times quite unlike our own.

The result often verges on sensory overload but is nonetheless largely coherent and frequently inventive while evincing a determinedly dark sensibility.

A mosaic portrait of Hong Kong’s older gay community is pieced together, but the film loses some of its energy and focus as it drifts to its close.

Taylor can’t juggle the different tones, and as Sue tries to stay a step ahead of the crooks and the cops as her lies threaten to unravel, the film’s attempts at societal critique feel facile.

Even for a film about time loops, everything feels overly familiar. (Note to filmmakers: Simply referencing the film you’re stealing from doesn’t excuse the theft). And unlike Mark and Margaret’s do-over day, in the end the whole thing slips by without leaving any impression at all.

Director Jeremy Sims allows this simple saga of renewal and survival to go a little broad and self-consciously crowd-pleasing, resulting in a comedy-drama without the original’s elemental grace and wisdom.

The material may be slicker but the novelty of the format has faded.

Attempting to celebrate the power of community and new beginnings, Sia’s directorial debut mostly serves as an unintended cautionary tale about chronic whimsy and outdated ideas.

Beautifully crafted and perfectly cast, the film touches on everything from keeping up appearances and family dynamics between parents and adult children to a critique of retirement homes that over-medicate residents. Nina and Mado’s loving intimacy is exquisite as is the care with which the proceedings are lit. The answer to Nina’s question, who cares about two old dykes, is that we do.

There is a spare, focused storytelling here that creates room to breathe.

This muted drama is powered by uneasy questions about how our environment and cultural heritage inform our lives — and whether individuals can ever truly break free of their past.

Together Together makes for comfortable viewing elevated by Harrison’s sparky presence.

Told mostly through the screens that consume the characters’ lives, the feature debut of director Carey Williams has its superficial pleasures as a riff on our media-soaked moment, but the novelty of the approach is hard to sustain, and a fresh-faced cast fails to capitalise on the play’s enduring appeal.

The combination of archive footage, fresh interviews and extensive dramatic reconstructions is tightly edited. Hobinkson makes the most of a hugely involving story and a collection of fascinating individuals.

While this lively crime comedy doesn’t exactly break new ground, it does, in the form of an appealingly naive central performance from Brown, have a disarming, sweet-natured charm at its heart.

It’s inventive enough to surprise, while still bringing with it fond memories of everything from Hammer to The Innocents, Dracula to creepy country house Gothic horror.

The unnerving prescience of Ana Katz’s low key, symbolism-steeped drama adds an extra layer to this intriguing but slight blend of observational intimacy and science fiction.

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.

The film is held captive by its myriad influences, but Cage is so high-spirited that you won’t mind being its prisoner.

The muted elegance of Passing’s design proves to be a deft feint for a film full of passion and profound longing, highlighted by two controlled but devastating performances.

Judas is an explosion of pent-up plotting, as if the film industry itself would only have this one chance to make a film about the Panther movement and it all has to be told in one go. Hopefully, this is not to be the case. As this film rises up to an unthinkable conclusion, there is clearly so much more to tell, and, as always, to learn.

This is not a film which minimises the pain of depression or the impulse to end it all. Bruises, both physical and mental, are on show throughout. It’s an approach which might come at the expense of some of the humour – the comedy evokes bittersweet grimaces rather than belly laughs – but does make for a satisfying study of male friendship.

With rigour and clarity of purpose, actor/director Fran Kranz holds the audience in his hands, probing at the unthinkable and daring to keep the faith.

Wright’s moving performance and some genuine heart-felt and -breaking moments amid all this natural majesty make Land a journey worth taking.

A melancholy character piece about a man who senses his run is nearly over, Jockey rides Clifton Collins Jr.’s gentle central performance to modest glory.

Lister-Jones gives a heartfelt performance as this unhappy woman coming to terms with her disappointments, and she’s assisted by Cailee Spaeny as her character’s younger self. But the slim story and wobbly execution ultimately undermine some deft observations about depression, forgiveness and the inner child who needs to be heard.

The picture draws parallels between China and the US when it comes to botched and skewed deployment of information.

Fascinating, mind-expanding, infuriating and bewildering, this is a bracingly ambitious documentary which embraces the artificiality of the computer generated animation which constitutes a large part of its approach.

By the time Wheatley, who also edited, concludes with a full-on eye-searing weird-out, it’s hard not to feel that he is retreading old ground – that this isn’t a more arboreally lavish A Field in England 2.0.

Rasmussen’s consideration of one man’s journey sheds light on the emotional legacy that can linger even after sanctuary is found.

Despite all the influences that have been brought to bear on Cryptozoo, it still very much feels like its own creature.

The performances are often revelatory, but the sense of history coming alive — of the past speaking to the present — is even more riveting.

Often quite touching and funny, writer-director Sian Heder’s second feature sometimes succumbs to contrivances and crowd-pleasing theatrics, but one can hardly fault her obvious affection for these messy, engaging characters.

Debut director Prano Bailey-Bond crafts a stylish, effective horror that is both an homage to genre cinema of that period and a psychological dive into the combined traumas of grief and guilt.

Midi Z’s control of mood, pace and performance builds an engrossing drama that works on the intimate level of a moving human tragedy whilst also providing an insight into the much bigger picture of the problems and heartaches facing the people of Burma.

An elegant, absorbing piece of storytelling.

The energy and passion of Zbanic’s fresh, new, direct gaze at the conflict comes through in every frame.

Because The Little Things is so indebted to the tenets of its genre, it can only succeed by bringing originality and a fresh perspective to the whodunit. Unfortunately, this film becomes a victim of its uninspired construction — which ends up being no small thing.

There’s hopes of an awards push for Zendaya and a bravura show from John David Washington, and their commitment should be recognised (although, as producers, they’ve already experienced some significant success). This is a woefully self-indulgent piece, however: fascinating at the outset in its frank assessment of race – written by a white man - but ultimately a hollow drum.

It’s an aggressively stirring account of a nation painfully enduring catastrophic conflict as prelude to independence.

Demonstrating a light touch — underscored by a whimsy-leaning score and overtly comic moments, but never delving into flimsiness or farce — Yan handles her chosen topic, and the tapestry of tales it’s woven through, with care.

Love Sarah is a well-meaning exploration of female friendship, and of the cultural significance of cuisine. Yet the under-developed story leaves us with the sense that this is little more than a foodie instagram feed with a narrative attached.

Coward’s brand of urbane casual elitism is rather past its sell-by date. But the problems run deeper in this energetic but scattershot version of a property which might have been best left to rest in peace.

Ciorniciuc’s journalistic background infuses the film with rigour and forward propulsion so that a narrative spine begins to develop. And he does a fine job contrasting the family’s reality with the puffed-up words from politicians and community leaders, who see the Bucharest Delta as merely an opportunity for an urban park.

Australian director Simon Stone’s (The Daughter) film delivers strong performances – from Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan in particular – and top-level craft, but with an undercurrent of real emotion which sensitively conveys the fragility of lives and time. To use another of those abused words, it’s captivating.