This is a muscular story about the fight for freedom which is rich and vibrant and authentic. However, Bilal’s beefy approach also extends to scenes of torture and bloodthirsty battle sequences.

Newtown, which focuses on the bereaved families, is about coming to terms with loss.

Although it lacks the layers evident in Yeon’s acclaimed animations (including the thematically-linked Seoul Station), this is still an entertaining ride, as well as providing political commentary when it overtly references the Korean government’s response to the MERS virus alongside commenting on the country’s class system.

Durham captures a place in time quite beautifully, and McNairy is sympathetic and believable playing a character who could be perceived as weak, or neglectful, but instead comes across as a somewhat hopeless romantic. It’s really his performance that lingers.

It is a grim, gruelling two hours that might benefit from some editing but Balagov is clearly a talent to watch and festivals championing new discoveries will want to take note.

Ultimately, This Is Home is a film which focuses on opportunity, rather than oppression, and a timely reminder that humanity knows no borders.

The unexpectedly out-there quality of the third act reveal is a surprise which will work best on an unprepared audience.

A promising and emotionally mature romantic drama from British writer-director Harry Wootliff.

There may not be a lot of depth to Green Room, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t sufficient thought and care.

Flanagan brings enough smarts and soul to the flawed, fascinating Doctor Sleep that he manages to escape The Shining’s shadow mostly unscathed.

This may not be the most nuanced of films, but its blunt-force impact leaves one shaken.

Last Days In The Desert possesses the attributes that have been the hallmark of writer-director Rodrigo García’s best films: It’s emotionally uncluttered while being narratively ambitious.

A solid, persuasively-acted account of the real-life mission to bring a Nazi war criminal to justice.

Karen Gillan is the main selling point of the latest film from Riley Stearns (The Art of Self-Defence) – an odd mix of deadpan satire and high concept sci-fi that some may find off-putting – so it’s handy for him that she offers not one but two intense and stripped-back performances.

Nia DaCosta’s heartland tale, rough around some edges, is a promising feature debut.

Smothering the screen with good intentions, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (adapted from Annie Barrow’s best-selling comfort novel of the same name) is British security-blanket film-making at its finest.

Committed performances, a hefty budget and assured hands behind the camera ensure that Dragon Blade delivers on its promise of sprawling battle scenes, intriguing culture clashes and budding bromances, where its giddily high concept and unlikely casting may so easily have seen it fail.

Fortunately, the time-honored theme of brotherhood carries the film over its occasional damp patches along with Ding’s assured handling of stunts and pyrotechnics.

A trim, evenly-paced 80 minutes, XX is one of the more consistent contemporary horror anthologies.

Jon Nguyen’s carefully-calibrated ode to Lynch is in itself Lynchian, an essential picture for the director’s legion of fans.

Hands Of Stone tests how far a film can go solely on heart, and in this case, it turns out to be just enough to overcome biopic conventionality.

Fascinating in the way it explores the inner lives of these two women, Moka is never quite as tense or compelling on the level of a thriller.

As entertaining and engaging as Spider-Man: Homecoming can be, it remains merely a solid reboot.

Boosted by a warm performance from Ali’s Moonlight costar Naomie Harris, Swan Song proves to be a rather straightforward tearjerker, but it earns its sentiment thanks to the thoughtful approach from its cast and crew.

A palpably well-made documentary if an uber-voyeuristic one, The Princess attempts an immersive approach into the life of Diana, while examining the attitude of the public to her – and the royal family – during that time.

Last Letter is snugly nestled at the sugarcoated end of the director’s tonal spectrum with its tale of a family tragedy which revives a high school love triangle decades after it had seemingly ended in heartbreaking fashion.

Martone crafts a passionate, angry film that is full of atmosphere and great performances, but never fully convincing or compelling as a drama

Though perhaps low on insights, this is an evocative portrait of a brief, intense window of hedonism, self discovery and Olympic levels of self-indulgence experienced by young people on the cusp of adulthood.

Initially, it plays like an atmospheric but predictable stalker thriller with not much more than style – and maybe the casting of the always watchable Jason Bateman – to recommend it. Later, though, it turns into a considerably more intriguing and twisty psychological drama.

There’s ample amusement in the twists, betrayals and revelations that unspool. But Bad Times never really transcends the inherent limitations of its setup; it’s fun, but fleeting.

Even when the jokes occasionally fall flat, the ideas are killer.

Streetwise is too familiar in terms of plot beats to completely stand out from the crowd but its unerring sense of place will nonetheless make Na a director to watch.

The man himself and the machine tend to become confused in a swirl of dark glasses and wet raincoats in a production-perfect Italy of the late 1950s.

Brooklyn balances its melodramatic leanings with several light touches.

Hostiles demands patience and concentration but rewards that with an assured, thought-provoking window into a past whose legacy is still being felt to this day.

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

Thankfully never taking itself too seriously, the latest Jason Blum-produced comedy-thriller is happy to carve out its spot as the horror-themed, millennial-focused Groundhog Day, and to have fun doing so. A dynamic lead performance and a willingness to keep things short and snappy also ensure viewers won’t mind venturing into rehash territory.

Despite an overly polished and broad approach, the film is ultimately a persuasive portrait, guided by strong performances from Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman as anchors who decide they can stay silent no longer.

It heads into strange and violent territory but is never overly comfortable there – it is always intriguing and defiantly left-field.

The whole film is a lively lesson in music history that should stimulate renewed interest in Native American artists and convince other documentary filmmakers that there is still much more to explore

The use of animation is sometimes a little crude, but the homespun aesthetic works well with the quirky nature of the story which unfolds.

Certainly the film comes across in its revved-up, fragmented, ramshackle way as a modern Russian epic – with Limonov as a unique anomalous individual, yet at the same time somehow exemplifying the contradictions and neuroses of a tormented modern nation. He also comes across as a human, flawed figure, self-aggrandising, self-pitying, sometimes helplessly romantic.

I’m Your Woman benefits greatly from its off-kilter rhythms and intuitive digressions, even if it can be tonally uneven and a little obvious thematically at times.

Refreshingly, there is no clichéd love story or illicit thriller that emerges; Marston is pursuing ideas that are far more personal and philosophical, about the masquerade of identity and what it means to that identity when you make a significant change in your life.

The Water Diviner is a heart-warming tale of family, love and sacrifice told with four-square enthusiasm and manliness by director and star Russell Crowe.

The downside to the film is Kossakovsky’s feeling that he had to include people in the mix.

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

Lucia’s Grace does provide a strong showcase for the range of Rohrwacher’s talent, displaying her skill with physical comedy and her ability to invest her character with emotional conviction.

Scintillating on the track but not as agile away from the races, F1 is a thrilling sports film susceptible to every cliché of its genre, confident that its expert setpieces will outrun all that is otherwise derivative about this underdog story.

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.

Bad Day succeeds because of the quality of the craftsmanship, the decision to bring a more measured perspective to typical thriller conventions and the performance of Nigel O’Neill who makes a very human and flawed avenger.

A work that is uneven in form but arresting in content and especially vital as a commentary on contemporary African society, human rights and disability issues.

If this Mulan can be faulted for excessive earnestness, the movie’s sweeping visuals and inspirational tone are hard to resist.

It’s a frayed fabric of a story that contains moments of daring artistry and beauty, but doesn’t always knit together into something satisfying and solid.

Some things never change: the pranks remain juvenile, the stunts continue to range from harrowing to disgusting, and the laughs come at a steady clip, even if there’s more than a little familiarity to the formula by now.

The actors’ on-screen rapport is sweet and loving, and they lean into deadpan once Together gets bloodier and increasingly more outrageous.

Thanks to Thea Sharrock’s graceful direction, this live-action movie never feels heavy-handed, speaking to its young audience without talking down to them.

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

Rumours doesn’t quite maximise the potential of its incongruous encounter between the living dead and the great and good, or between urbane boardroom satire and psychotropic freakiness. What sustains it, though, are the performances, performed with relish by an ensemble cheerfully riffing on national stereotypes.

The droll, slight Smoking Causes Coughing plays like a loose collection of Quentin Dupieux’s leftover ideas, but there’s ample charm in these surreal bits and pieces — especially for anyone already on the auteur’s cheekily bizarre wavelength.

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.

The cumulative stress of the pandemic is everywhere, as pervasive and ubiquitous as the omicron variant. Beth’s lonely home-working set-up; the eerie quiet in the predawn hours; the brittle desperation in the callers’ voices; the sheer volume of cries for help: it all captures the sense of teetering on the brink, the uncertainty, the unfamiliar anxieties of the first lockdown.

The spectacle gives you enough action from enough famous names to sustain the momentum of its legacy.

This culture clash plays more with delightful nuances than with big surprises, but David Zellner brings plenty of American innocence to the role of a fortune-seeker brought to his knees; as they say in Texas, he’s all hat and no cattle.

It takes its narrative cue from the Bon Secours mother-and-baby home in Tuam, County Galway in which “significant” numbers of dead children have been discovered. Even though this is placed within a potentially-exploitative genre framework, it is still handled with sensitivity and sympathy by this latest female director to flesh out horror tropes.

A workmanlike and sometimes clumsy screenplay is not enough to extinguish the spark from this real-life fairytale romance, which delivers both a heartfelt emotional story and a grim lesson in 20th-century British foreign policy.

The journey is definitely worth making, as both people and places lead Kit slowly towards some sort of rapprochement with his identity.

Touching on the pressures of living in a patriarchal society, as well as exploring attitudes towards nationality and sexuality, the film unpacks a raft of parallels in its three stories, leaving seemingly disparate characters with the same choices.

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.

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.

Ewing and Grady want to leave viewers with a heartwarming message about the capacity of people to discover their true selves.

Its odd meld of drab suburban casinos, wrapped motel rooms, nightmarish Iraqi torture sequences and military correctional facilities where the furniture is bolted to the floor, all build to a video-artist vision that comes bursting surprisingly out of an old-school box – and results in one more male-slanted Paul Schrader script about a haunted man at a crossroads.

The vivid performances capably capture the humanity at the centre of a film that can sometimes be dominated by Wright’s showy excesses — in particular, his overly elaborate set pieces. But there’s no mistaking Cyrano’s sense of tragedy, its lament for soulmates destined not to get their happy ending.

Impressively for a piece of foundation-stage universe building, Jiang Ziya manages to hint at a world beyond the frame without mitigating its individual pleasures.

All credit to Dan Stevens for rendering so vividly a selfish, abrasive character.

The combination of a first-rate cast, a rippling, frequently witty score and a highly-strung, madcap plot — which itself wouldn’t be out of place in a comic opera — makes for a quirky, offbeat spin on the relationship drama.

There are enough twists and turns in Self/less to keep things interesting

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.

For all its exquisite construction, though, The French Dispatch doesn’t have much of the sneaky sentimental undercurrent that makes Anderson’s films more than just intellectual exercises.

Like the bullets and bomb blasts that punctuate the narrative, Donbass only sometimes hits its target, but even so, it’s clearly the work of a director with an angry message to get across, in an idiosyncratically caustic way.

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.

The smouldering animosity of an impoverished small town towards two outsiders, combined with the contained tension as a precarious alibi collapses, one chance event at a time, means that the film should resonate with audiences looking for effective genre material.

The craftsmanship on display in Let The Corpses Tan is flawless.

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

The Brutalist is defiantly its own kind of construction, but longueurs and narrative inertia make it not quite the resounding statement it aspires to be.

Reaching wide but grasping tight is where After Louie fares best; while the film looks broadly at the contemporary gay community, it’s the combination of intimacy and authenticity that makes the biggest impact.

Twomey’s mastery of colour and exquisite blend of traditional Afghan-inspired imagery with cel animation techniques is not matched by such a confident command of tone, which rarely shifts out of a single mournful register.

One of the most consistently engrossing elements of Macbeth is Kurzel’s vision of that harsh world, helped by a tight unit of costume, design and camera.

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

More than just another personal story of adversity overcome, Boesten’s film paints a rich, complex portrait of Black American life.

For all that it dances on familiar ground, Firecrackers ends on a pleasingly opaque note. It’s attractively shot by Catherine Lutes, and smartly cast with unknowns, making it more than just a calling card for its young writer/director. There’s much to take note of here foom Mozaffari and her all-female crew.

Ethan Hawke delivers an intense, committed performance as the hopelessly drug-addicted trumpeter Chet Baker in the odd, erratic Born To Be Blue, written and directed by Robert Budreau as a bumpy free-form improvisation on the hopeless-wreck-makes-musical-comeback biopic.

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.

Dedicated, an end caption tells us, to the victims of martial law, Season of the Devil may be one of Diaz’s more downbeat, even languid works, but it’s no less angry and intense a cri de coeur, albeit one that’s often challenging to connect with.

In No Sleep Till, it feels as if time is standing still.

Winocour doesn’t overstate her subtexts, but they’re there - Disorder is a film about haves and have-nots, about the psychological effects of war, and about the abuse of women as chattels.

It’s a technically accomplished work. The score is nervy pulsing and electronic, adding to the propulsion and tension of the storytelling.