Liu Jian’s animation Have a Nice Day is at once a bloodthirsty genre thriller; a political statement about China, globalization and capitalism; and a vibrantly witty piece of postmodern pop art.

Johnson and co-writer Matthew Miller turn the story of RIM’s brisk rise and meteoric fall into a kind of breathless tech fever dream, a relentless but addictive downbeat human comedy about the struggle to stay on top in a fast-moving industry.

By the end, loving and eating, wanting and devouring are made to converge in ways that are both gruesome and fascinating, thought-provoking and oddly touching.

This is a moody comedy about unconscious marital discord, but it’s also about that ineffable discontent that envelops most of us. Digging For Fire is funny because it rings true — and because it stings a little.

Expertly paced, Glory builds to a cleverly staged off-camera climax that perfectly caps everything that has gone before.

Director Mark Grieco grabs our attention by going beyond the obvious. Exploring the consequences of well-intentioned actions and providing a sense of the much bigger picture transforms A River Below into an unexpectedly compelling proposition.

Low-key performances by the conflicted Lahti and the radiant Airola prove the final knockout hit, with The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki at its best when it’s lingering upon the nuanced expressions on their faces, or highlighting the way their portrayals so convincingly convey their characters’ affections.

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.

The unguarded authenticity of this film shifts its simple story away from any banality towards being a revealing narrative which celebrates the creative spirit and ponders the invisibility of Blackness.

A Quiet Place is the rare example of a creature feature which uses special effects sparingly (and possibly due to budgetary restrictions) in order to amplify the drama onscreen, not solely provide it. It employs the full register of sound, and the lack of any noise, as a dramatic player, informing all the action to the point where Krasinski’s film becomes a startlingly sensory experience.

The film works on multiple levels. It’s an indictment of colonial brute force; a critique of masculine entitlement, an observation of the uneasy coexistence between tradition and modernity. But mostly, it’s a rich, engrossing and distinctive approach to African storytelling.

Richly detailed, sensitively played and cleverly mounted.

As a dreamy yet concrete evocation of lives beset by unseen anxieties and dwindling resources, Western has a mythic quality in keeping with its totemic title.

An impressive US debut for French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, dramatic thriller Prisoners is a potent mix of suspense, emotion and intrigue that draws intense performances from leads Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Director Lenny Abrahamson has made a deeply moving story about how adults try to explain the world to their children — even when they don’t always understand it themselves. And Brie Larson gives a tremendous performance as a mother who must be strong for her boy, until she suddenly can’t be anymore.

Seeds is a sweet, meditative elegy for a way of life that is fast disappearing.

Poppe’s way into the story – spending every second with one young woman as she navigates the carnage – is a moving testimony to the simple heroism that such events bring to the surface. Ultimately, it’s an homage to the very generation of young Norwegians who Breivik wanted to obliterate.

Wang’s brutally revealing trilogy presents a challenging statement about working-class life, urban and rural, and urges us to think about economic exploitation and the nature of labour in the globalised world.

As Maria, Burow shines in a phenomenally demanding role that challenges us to tune in empathetically to a character whose actions and motives are rarely less than problematic, but are always limned with a fine brush.

Curry Barker’s astute horror takes the simple, familiar premise of a love-sick man attempting to win the object of his affections and shapes it into an incisive, entertainingly schlocky study of romantic co-dependency, patriarchal entitlement and the all-too-easy subversion of good intentions.

While it smoulders with indignation for the injustice that was perpetrated for so many years, Great Freedom is also a love story, a remarkable character study, and an absorbing meditation on what long-term imprisonment for a crime that is not a crime does to the soul.

The Holdovers is crushingly wistful in precisely the way moviegoers have come to expect from Payne.

The main thing with a rousing cinematic experience like Architecton is that it wins the emotional argument.

This meditative piece sidesteps ponderousness thanks to its modesty and inquisitiveness.

Never appearing to judge any situation, Kingdon confidently allows the images to tell a fascinating, universal story of inequality and class division, revealing a country that feels more like a capitalist society than anyone’s idea of a Communist state.

This is an unsettling rebuke of government control and ideological manipulation — as well as a sharp cry against compliance with the prevailing status quo.

Jackson’s film is more than a technical tribute: it’s a testament to the bravery and camaraderie of the soldiers, the memory of which has faded like the photographs he brings back to life. In a way, it helps arrest the fear that we are forgetting this futile obliteration of an entire generation.

An intense romance notable for the craft of the filmmaking and Diop’s original approach to complex issues of love, loss and the forces for change that can rise from the ashes of tragedy.

The rarefied world of haute cuisine is not exactly a hard target to satirise, but this deliciously savage comedy from director Mark Mylod makes every bitter mouthful count.

The Lost Leonardo is one of those rare documentaries in which almost everyone involved volunteers their loose-lipped testimony, seemingly unconcerned as to the dubious light in which it may place them, and Koefoed turns it in at a snappy 96 minutes with all the bells and whistles of a doc crowd-pleaser.

Perhaps the most persuasive aspect of this hopeful parable of failure is the way casting, acting, script, and camerawork conspire to usher us into an immediately believable world which is observed with a painterly eye yet never seems staged.

So compellingly directed and acted that for much of the time we could almost be watching a documentary, Life and Nothing More is an involving, quietly moving piece that eschews conventional narrative shape to offer a multi-layered depiction of exactly what the title promises.

Tótem embraces chaos and bustle in an ensemble drama of a family living through crisis. This thematically rich piece offers a set of vivid character studies, while musing on life, death and time – largely from a child’s perspective.

This essential documentary is necessarily, unflinchingly grim; the cinematic equivalent of walking in the survivors’ shoes, and a complex, challenging but crucial viewing experience that burrows its immense sorrows deep into the audience’s bones.

Filmmaker Lina Soualem’s sentimental journey with her actress mother Hiam Abbass becomes a powerful celebration of lives marked by separation, exile and erasure.

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

A subtle, respectful and enlightening patchwork of contemporary French lives.

In what is only fitting for a story literally and figuratively embroidered around hearts, the film’s visual and emotional beats are perfectly in synch.

The film consistently works as both a straightforward psychosexual thriller and something more troubling — almost unspoken — underneath.

So many films have tackled the underlying tensions between diametrically opposed family members, but here Eisenberg sidesteps cliches, consistently complicating our feelings about these nuanced cousins.

It may take a while to acclimate to the film’s off-kilter rhythms and strange happenings — not unlike the film’s protagonist, an outsider entering the forbidding Alaskan wilderness — but Saulnier has crafted his most mature effort to date, mixing his love for pulp fiction with a sombre examination of the inexplicable evil all around us.

What makes this adult animation so affecting is the writer-director’s commitment to fortifying his spectacle with a deep emotional undercurrent.

An engaging, authentic, moving film about the way society persists in seeing monsters where there are none.

Tickled is unexpectedly compelling, alternately painful and funny and deeply sad.

Marked by strong, reserved performances — and deeply compassionate to its soulsick characters — this quietly absorbing drama has secrets in store, each of them revealed with uncommon elegance.

The combination of exuberant energy, wise-cracking humour and warmhearted emotion makes for a captivating crowdpleaser.

A hypnotic and inventive Asian odyssey ... The viewer may not know exactly where Gomes and his characters are headed, but the journey is pursued with wit, imagination and intelligence, and delivers oblique insights about the way we see the world and history.

The Lighthouse provides a marvellous chamber-drama platform for two actors, Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, who seize the opportunity with gusto.

Mackey convinces us that there are so many more colours to Emily than the ones she is allowed to display. Her thoughtful, understated performance matches a film that teases out the flesh-and-blood emotions from the stuff of gothic romance.

What makes Hold Your Fire so timely and disturbing is also how much remains the same.

The latest animation from Chris Williams, his first for Netflix, is a rambunctious triumph; an old-fashioned ripping yarn which pays tribute to generations of monster movies past, showcasing some genuinely dazzling animation while also delivering an unexpectedly sophisticated message.

The brisk rhythms and energy of the storytelling ensure that the pace rarely flags, and that every frame of this film about the business of death is bursting with life.

It’s simply executed but undeniably powerful in its lean, stripped back elegance.

It’s a tragedy of sorts, one that at times is almost too dark to bear. But there are moments too when Hold Me Tight achieves something quite remarkable, blurring the line between reality and imaginings to burrow into the heart of grief and loss in ways that are also life-affirming.

Mixing political commentary, ethnography, teenage melodrama and genre horror, the film is an unashamedly cerebral study of multiple themes – colonialism, revolution, liberalism, racial difference and female desire - with its unconventional narrative structure taking us on a journey that’s as intellectually demanding as it is compelling.

This audacious action-thriller is the filmmaker’s most purely entertaining vehicle, but underneath its adrenalised set pieces are quieter concerns about how best to make lasting change in a corrupt world.

Beautifully shot, like Rohrwacher’s other features, on Super-16, this film, with its richly textured images, does indeed feel at times like a retrieved and rather miraculous relic from a lost era of cinema, which is not to say that it isn’t of its own moment.

It’s a rich and complicated film.

Hull’s wisdom, and the agility of his insights as he struggles to make sense of his condition, form the basis of this elegant, evocative and deeply affecting documentary.

In terms of execution and panache, Museum has the mark of a true original – at least, of a film-maker discovering his own voice through fearlessly trying whatever works, sometimes tipping his hat to tradition, sometimes following his own path with brio.

Moore’s performance means that we are with Gloria every step of the way, sharing in the little victories and the jolting setbacks.

A ravishing visual colossus, Blade Runner 2049 more than lives up to its predecessor’s legacy as a groundbreaking mixture of sound, images and mood.

Tavernier is a life-long cinema fan and every frame of this three hour documentary is a reflection of his passion, infectious enthusiasm and generous spirit.

This is storytelling which is as enigmatic as it is compelling. Not surprisingly, the use of music throughout is superb.

It’s no discredit to Steve Jobs, Danny Boyle’s propulsive and iconoclastic biopic of the digital-revolution visionary who democratised personal computing, that it’s a dispiriting study of capitalistic self-aggrandisement – one that leaves a sense of unease despite its ironically upbeat ending.

There are no human characters in Flow and no dialogue beyond barks and squawks but the sense of peril is compelling, the visuals are impressive and the emotional spell it casts is captivating.

The Witch’s greatest asset is its precisely controlled menace, and so even when nothing terrifying is happening, it feels like something ominous could be unleashed at any moment.

Nobody is quite perfect here, nobody fully the villain; and as our suspicions wax and wane about Rahim himself, we, the audience, become the emotional repositories of these constantly shifting grey areas.

The script holds plenty of satire and laugh out loud moments, but Wilson and Huston keep it supple enough to bend protectively around the central love story, while allowing the morality tale element to still have bite.

Alex Schaad’s spiky, good-looking debut feature takes a clever concept and develops it into a witty, provocative exploration of identity, gender fluidity, sexuality and the pursuit of happiness.

Like the filmmaker’s 2022 feature Barbarian, Weapons takes its time laying out an elaborate story, repeatedly shifting perspectives and main characters until the myriad strands come together in immensely satisfying fashion.

A nail-biting, evocative and utterly persuasive crime drama that is very much a part of the country’s burgeoning film output.

The story of a couple finding their best life in the rural Ireland of the 1980s is beautifully realised and quietly beguiling.

Djukic’s coming of age drama is heady with intertwined sensual and religious symbolism; the first rate score and sound design teases out the tangled, conflicting impulses towards Catholic devotion and erotic abandon.

The Killer is a masterfully engineered piece. Throughout, Fincher pitches his own methodical control against The Killer’s, but also signals the glitches in his protagonist’s logic and flawed self-knowledge.

When the film shifts into territory less Hitchcockian than Lynchian – with a touch of Park Chan-wook’s Asian Gothic – the quiet confidence of Kurosawa’s approach has paid off, allowing him to vault into this more intense register. It’s not all just ghoulish fun, though: there’s a serious subtext here involving everyday evil.

This is a big-hearted song and dance spectacle for the entire family in which everyone laughs at the same jokes.

The Magician has an intensity and power many conventionally budgeted thrillers miss. Robustly funny, X-rated dialogue delivered with laid-back confidence and stomach-turning nonchalance also help.

It’s a gloriously punk spin on the historical documentary genre, channeling the humour and rebellious spirit of a people who have been part of “eight or nine different countries” during the 20th century, who have spoken multiple languages, but who have managed to maintain their own distinct identity nonetheless.

With fresh access to her personal, self-serving and -aggrandising archives, Veiel lets Riefenstahl speak unedited: she puts a lot of issues to rest through her own lies, evasions and unrelentingly difficult personality.

Touching, funny, perceptive and simple enough to carry large audiences, The Second Mother is carried throughout by a hilarious, intelligent and soulful performance from veteran Brazilian actress, comedian and TV host Regina Case, surrounded by a solid supporting cast.

The Quiet Girl is thoughtful, spiritual in its stillness but alive with the hum of the land and the emotions it guards. Editing by the experienced John Murphy finishes the work with a precision that also smoothes this rites of passage story. Certainly, this is a quiet film, but it speaks in high volumes.

Ben Affleck produces one of his most irresistibly entertaining dramas — albeit one that never forgets the capitalist reality of this feel-good story.

Two Prosecutors is crisply fable-like in construction.

Filmmaker Julia Jackman’s droll fantasy feminist fable is a true original.

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

It’s hard to imagine the courage which went into the making of this highly personal documentary. ... With its unflinching candour about both the nature of the abuse and the effect that it had on its victims, the film is a difficult and upsetting watch.

This is a gripping, sometimes hypnotising film in which notions of good and evil are less clear-cut than the urgent desire to stay alive.

Director Jon Watts’ self-penned script possesses a faultless sense of timing, and it becomes the gift that keeps on giving in the hands of Clooney, Pitt and a fine supporting cast.

As often with Kore-eda’s pictures, Broker is about family, but it extends beyond that theme to talk about fundamental aspects of life — the need to belong, the hope of connecting with likeminded souls, and the desire to find a place called home.

Highly entertaining from start to finish, the film benefits from David Koepp’s inventive screenplay and Soderbergh’s storytelling swagger.

It’s such stately, evocative, confident filmmaking, the only reservation being that it’s also a bit chilly.

Last And First Men is a stunning work of beauty and horror.

Though it centres human rights and environmental themes, The Territory is more than just an issues doc. It is moving precisely because it goes right to the heart of what filmmaking can be – a tool to capture, control and explicate a unique world view.

Hansen-Love finds moments of truth in the melange, and Seydoux is transcendent, carrying a sadness inside which proves incredibly moving when the opportunity for love presents itself and she melts into it.

A terrifying disaster thriller.

The Irishman is vintage Scorsese, with an often sinuously moving camera, occasional break-the-fourth-wall monologues, wicked wise-guy humour, and explosions of sudden tenderness and casual violence. And its final half-hour pulls something even deeper from the filmmaker – moments of reflection, twinges of regret, worries about chances thrown away.

A Quiet Place Part II proves to be an even fiercer and more emotional experience than the first instalment. Expanding its world slightly without losing sight of the elements that made the original so effective, this superb piece of mainstream horror filmmaking is bolstered by some terrific performances, most notably Millicent Simmonds as a deaf daughter assuming the role of family protector in the wake of her father’s death.