3 Faces can sometimes feel like a whimsical doodle without much forward momentum. But that placidness belies a certain degree of melancholic resignation on Panahi’s part, for himself and his homeland.

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.

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.

More a gloss than an insightful dissection, this documentary frustrates by sticking to the man’s surface, reducing his words to commendable sound-bites rather than deeply exploring them.

Asgari maintains a tight hold on the material as the night unfolds; there is little sense of hysteria or panic, just a steady drip of the shaming consequences that follow from the breaking of one taboo.

Infused with nostalgia, United Skates is also an infectious call to arms, noting the way in which communities are starting to fight back.

A sensuous swath of striking imagery and otherworldly atmosphere, Mandy is a hypnotic, bloody pleasure.

Savage’s success at getting under the skin of the kind of cancerous depression which gnaws away at the soul means that this is not always the easiest watch. There are no audience-appeasing neat happy endings, just raw emotional wounds and aching compromises. But, despite a low key approach, this is a compelling, sometimes wrenching drama.

Union is capable of powering the film through, valiantly trying to plug the holes the high-concept plot can’t reach. She’s got that big screen charisma, even though, this time, she’s working with small-screen material.

Making fine use of a top-flight Spanish-speaking cast, Asghar Farhadi deftly inserts love, resentment, class, money and family ties into a propulsive narrative replete with doubts, accusations, intimations, red herrings and other welcome ingredients from the suspenseful-drama arsenal.

There’s an observational authenticity that is refreshing in an audiovisual culture whose attempts at self-analysis are too often skewed by melodrama. It’s also heartening to see such delicate stories of ordinary people come to the fore in a country whose filmmakers faces enormous hurdles; technical, financial and bureaucratic.

Meditative in its pacing, painterly in composition, quietly devastating in its low-key drama, the latest film from Xavier Beauvois shares some of the slow-burning potency of his acclaimed study of religious faith, Of Gods And Men.

A film that is a small delight, a perfect cinematic short story.

An indulgent 130-minute running time and a plot that wildly over-stretches sees Racer ultimately bounce off the rails.

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

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

The film is as much an exploration of often contradictory human attitudes towards migration as it is towards the experiences of the refugees themselves.

Both McGregor, close cropped, and Seydoux, in retro bangs, give tender performances, although there’s not much that’s new in the love story once you push the robotics aside. Tech-heads who rush to Zoe may leave the theater feeling under-charged.

There is not enough in the performances or the script to set it apart from the constant flow of indie crime dramas.

The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic play about failed hopes and tangled attractions, is solid and satisfying in Michael Mayer’s intimate retelling for the screen.

Like McQueen’s designs, it is thrilling, troubling and tinged with tragedy.

The 12-year project – commissioned by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation – is evidence that Timoner, who made documentaries before, can craft a nuanced dramatic feature.

A comprehensive remembrance of Radner’s public legacy is underpinned by an engrossing insight into her private struggles, making for an informative and poignant showbusiness story.

There’s real feeling coursing through Jellyfish, even if its insights aren’t particularly trenchant.

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’s ambitious, and she hits some of the right notes, but much of it ends up off-key.

While the character’s resulting journey of self-discovery may follow familiar lines, it is bracing nevertheless.

It achieves stray laughs and some clever moments, but not enough to render it more than a strained curiosity.

Densely factual and sometimes a little unweildy, this is a film in which good intentions outweigh style and execution.

Jessie Buckley is a force of nature in the lead role of this sinewy psychological thriller.

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

The film boasts plenty of comic-book action while also making room for a darker tone and emotional resonance rarely matched in previous installments. In a cinematic world stuffed with big-budget movies, Infinity War is a genuine blockbuster.

Woman Walks Ahead is a story of defying expectations, finding common ground and gaining knowledge.

Ultimately, it works as both a character study and welcome example of an LGBTQ film in which none of the characters are defined by their sexuality or gender, but by their individual choices — both good, and bad.

Vampire Clay is clumsily structured and paced, with the gross-out effects dashed off at the beginning and the laboured explanation effectively defusing the tension just at the point when it should be building into a claypocalypse of gore and violence.

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.

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.

Although at times a little overwrought in tone, and at others emphatically sentimental, the film doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to condemning a society which punishes its poor.

Like its appealing main character, I Feel Pretty is a smart, funny comedy that isn’t always confident enough in its potential greatness.

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

Despite high quality performances from Close and Pryce, the film leaves us with question marks over the credibility of the central scenario.

A little too jaunty and picaresque at times, Bye Bye Germany is nevertheless, when it hits its stride, an entertaining, watchable take on the oppressed-minority-comeback genre (“We’re the Jewish revenge”, as one of the salesmen bitterly quips), shadowed at every turn by an unspeakable horror.

The directorial debut of Orphanage screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez is powerfully frustrating, undone by an ornate storytelling style in which twists only beget more twists, all in service of some fairly obvious observations about guilt, self-deception and devotion.

For those who remain seated, this is a strange and forthright cinematic object with considerable rough-hewn charm. Those who recall Jesus Christ, Superstar will feel faint pangs of familiarity at the mix of sincerity and crazed audacity.

It may play a little flatly, but its sincerity of purpose remains affecting throughout.

There’s precious little to care about in a movie that’s neither ingenious nor silly enough to savour.

The gargantuan critters are dwarfed only by the derivativeness in Rampage, a clunky spectacle that, like many Dwayne Johnson vehicles, is elevated by his charismatic presence but not enough to recommend it.

Mrs. Fang is unreservedly voyeuristic, the camera maintaining its own vigil over Xiuying who is seen in lengthy, merciless close-ups staring straight ahead.

By no means a conventional horror film, yet several degrees more twisted and gruesome than the average indie relationships drama, this is likely to appeal to more adventurous cult film fans.

The Endless is a demanding, rewarding picture with moments of unusual terror and awe, offering a science fiction/horror scenario on a literally cosmic scale which boils down to a study of a complicated sibling relationship.

The honest naturalism of the two young leads is the main reason for the film’s intense grip and power.

One of the many pleasures of this understated drama is its slow-burn magnetism and lack of flashy genre posturing.

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 almost works as a love letter to a seemingly ageless, bikini-clad Stone who invests her character with endless energy and enthusiasm. If she is engaged in a losing battle with the lack of originality or spark in the material, then nobody seems to have told her.

Director Julien Faraut, who oversees the French Sport Institute’s 16mm film collection, showcases masterful command of the documentary form. His insightful, entertaining and often humorous film will appeal to fans of McEnroe, tennis and sport in general.

This film, mostly shot in the UK, is technically suberb. But splitting the pleasures of virtual and reality, Ready Player One never fully satisfies on either front.

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.

Jones is a marvel, really, all the more so now that time has refined and enhanced her unflagging lust for life. Fiennes delivers a documentary which captures that spirit in a way that’s cinematic and rousing.

Some of the most fun in Uprising comes from its elder statesmen, holdovers from Pacific Rim who play for laughs.

The Workshop conveys a stunningly authentic portrait of French youth today; their class, racial and occupational concerns.

When the film works — or, whenever de Palma brings relatable spirit and charisma to her centrepiece role — it’s a slice of undemanding fluff, serving up an underdog fantasy that probes the difference between the haves and the have-nots without daring to dig too deep.

Beauty And The Dogs is a forthright and accomplished film which deals with its controversial subject matter without flinching. Tautly plotted, it has a pace and tension which mitigates the exhausting spectacle of watching a vulnerable young woman getting bullied and browbeaten by a selection of utterly horrible men.

Even with uneasiness dripping from Smith as Adrian, the acting in 1985 is like the script – stiff. 1985 gets the notes right, and its foreboding look takes us back to a dark age. It’s a lesson worth remembering. Yet with all the prejudice and pain, the film still feels a lot like a sermon.

None of the interactions come across as a sham or an empty formality. Patients are treated with respect, at least in the hearings room.... There’s also genuine and inadvertent humor in the midst of sadness and administrative formalities.

Underneath the entertaining horror, this is ultimately a story of the toxic trappings of masculinity; a world in which keeping a stiff upper lip and resolutely burying your demons can summon the most terrifying of consequences.

Norway’s Roar Uthaug (The Wave) directs it straight up, without even a twist of humour, bouncing Vikander from set piece to set piece with no real attempt at coherent plotting in-between. Yet Vikander is so watchable as the video-game-made-flesh, and the low-fi chase sequences can be so exciting, it’s almost enough. Almost.

Looking and sounding disarmingly like father Tim, Roth imbues Danny with an edgy vim and vigour - reminiscent of his father’s early performances for Quentin Tarantino - and palpable vulnerability which draws sympathy for his righteous anger, however misjudged it may be.

It is a governing sense of restraint that lends the film such an emotional kick, and breathes fresh life into an old classic.

Wim Wenders’ latest is a handsome production which, although it is rich with symbolism, is ultimately not quite as satisfying as it should be.

The Forgiven is a decidedly uneven piece of work.

Director Nash Edgerton never really sinks his teeth into the delectable darkness of his hero’s nemeses, struggling to maintain the right acidic tone.

Director Ava DuVernay emphasises an emotional clarity and narrative simplicity that allows the book’s sci-fi examination of friendship, family and forgiveness to resonate with almost mythic force.

Instances of alchemy abound in the narrative — walls are converted into projectiles, brick courtyards into hungry beasts — but the same magic can’t improve soap opera-like theatrics, the overuse of expositional dialogue or an eagerness to flit between action scenes.

There’s pleasingly little sentimentality and much honesty to be found in Hirayanagi’s screenplay, particularly in its acknowledgement that new experiences can make you lose, as much as broaden, your mind.

Even when the lines uttered sound more like a statement than an actual conversation, Sen remains a master of everything he controls as Goldstone slowly inches towards its bullet-riddled finale.

Although much of the film is effectively claustrophobic, it is too bogged down by exposition to fully take off.

The Cured is at its sharpest when drawing acute political parallels. As a zombie film, the shocks are few/

Guardians of the Tomb, however, takes itself far too seriously, aside from the woeful running commentary provided by the thoroughly expendable Gary as the team plods from one dusty spider-filled room to the next, a sense of repetition quickly setting in.

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.

Admirers of Soderbergh’s experimental tendency will applaud the film’s execution – it was shot on the iPhone 7 Plus – while this story of a tenacious woman fighting all odds should have added appeal in this #MeToo moment. For a mainstream genre piece, however, the narrative execution is a little too cavalier to guarantee audience satisfaction.

The result is both a compelling, damning cultural observation and testament to Greenfield’s own visual artistry.

The unflinching rawness of the action has considerable impact while undercutting the dominant jingoistic tone. Despite the team’s tactical strengths, their plans often suddenly unravel because of unanticipated elements, resulting in stomach churning injuries.

A dazzling, studious exercise in found footage excavation and reconfiguration, laced with tongue in cheek.

It’s not until the end credits roll that one realises that Monster Hunt 2 is essentially an amiable detour in a bigger story, or enterprise, since Wuba is no closer to fulfilling his destiny. Yet when you have a star of Tony Leung’s magnitude selling out with such panache, it seems churlish to complain.

Able to generate dread and awe with equal skill, Annihilation is an absorbing amalgam of genres and influences, all coming together to produce a dazzling creation as vivid as the hybrid life forms our heroes encounter on their perilous journey.

Trying to split the difference between trashy and classy, Red Sparrow is a sleek, juiced-up espionage thriller that overdoes everything: its brutal violence, its dramatic flourishes, its hairpin plot twists, and most certainly its sexpot shamelessness.

Writer-director Chen Sicheng dials the original’s lewd humor down a notch, but still mines stereotypes for easy laughs with Wang delivering his trademark high pitch comedic star turn.

So lush with gorgeous detail it’s like a piece of highly-textured haute couture, there’s also a sharp social message behind the elaborate seams.

Burke — perhaps best-known as the grown-up version of the scary baby in the last films in the Twilight saga — is outstanding as the fragile, yet determined heroine who is terrorised beyond the bounds of sanity but has to remember that she might be doing all this to herself.

For over an hour, Permission unfolds as a mildly amusing romcom about two modern Brooklyn couples facing commitment crises. Toward the end, the main plot, about a straight pair experimenting with polyamory, takes a dramatic turn.

On the whole, 15:17’s slavish adherence to reality ends up arguing that, sometimes, a little Hollywood phoniness can go a long way.

While we can quibble about the underused lead or the meandering plot, Fifty Shades Freed ultimately authors its own most stinging rebuke, closing on an extended montage highlighting major moments and turning points from the trilogy. Tellingly, none of them come from this film.

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.

Theron will put to rest any doubts about her feel for comedy; the darker the better.... As Tully, Mackenzie Davis is radiant.

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.

Authenticity rules the day here, the contrast between the banality of daily existence and extreme conduct is the main point of the picture, all of it defined by an insistence on staying close to the actual events and refraining from any attempt at psychological observations or analytical motivations.

Gitai’s personal knowledge of his people and their deep-rooted issues lends West Of The Jordan River a powerful intimacy.

The movie radiates considerable compassion, sensitively addressing issues including addiction, recovery and forgiveness. Joaquin Phoenix’s raw, wiry performance never strives for greatness, which only makes it all the more affecting.