[A] delicately calibrated portrait of dissolution which points to the versatility of writer/director Alex Ross Perry.

The Treasure once again demonstrates that even though there is little chance of his breaking down the doors of your next door multiplex, Porumboiu is certainly one of the most original filmmakers to emerge in the recent past.

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.

There’s much that is brilliant here, although the loss of nuance in translation from page to screen reduces a potent brew of emotions to more literally-depicted stages and consequences of pure, overwhelming, overwrought grief.

West and Cohen reflect some of Murray’s unassuming nature in a diligently assembled, absorbing film that treats its fascinating subject matter with respect.

The Children Act is a cerebral piece, for sure, and a disturbing one by the end, but Thompson’s performance brings life to the complex moral questions it attempts to examine.

The film’s deadpan good cheer makes room for big-budget spectacle and a modicum of emotional depth, but a self-effacing vibe and pop-culture giddiness work the best here — necessary countermeasures as Marvel fights against the inevitable creative fatigue incurred after a decade of multiplex dominance.

Though the film doesn’t scrounge too deeply, offbeat gags, ample emotion and parallels with human nature all go hand-in-hand.

Knight’s intuitive portrayal – her vulnerability, rage and raw sexiness – shows and tells exactly what it’s like. It’s a moving and emotional debut which knocks out any loaded sense of familiarity regarding the film’s no-hope setting.

Silva is a shrewd storyteller, uninterested in genre conventions or shock value; rather, he’s using that tension to tease out the anxieties of ordinary life and interactions.

The extent of Kroc’s greed is The Founder’s unique playing card, and John Lee Hancock delivers it with a depressingly special sauce.

It’s an entertaining, engaging, colourful picture in its own right with decently-handled action-adventure set-pieces and sly comedy, detouring from the expected thrills and spills into body-hopping comedy drama.

Companion looks fantastic. But, underneath that glossy surface, it makes some biting comments about power dynamics, free will, and what it really means to be human.

Nearly 70 years after the release of the original film, Godzilla Minus One returns the titular beast to its roots as a metaphor for Japan’s postwar anxiety and grief, in the process delivering a stirring spectacle that also contains a palpable emotional undercurrent.

For viewers who adjust to its deliberately slow rhythms, the reward is a vivid portrait of daily life in Kabul and a rich look into childhood from the perspective of children who have every reason to expect the worst.

The restrained, austere filmmaking of the latest picture from Wayne Wang belies the emotional depth of this sober picture.

What sets it apart is Thornton’s deep spirituality, examined here as the titular ‘The New Boy’ encounters – and explores – Christianity. But it is not a two-way street: Christianity will never accept who he is.

The sheer energy of the performers, especially an exuberantly funny Mamiya, and the slapstick goofiness of the whole make this an eccentric, hugely enjoyable film - and often, partly because of its relative demureness, a fairly arousing one, with female pleasure and male discomfiture foremost on the menu.

Wind River can be thrilling and it owns the ability to surprise and shock throughout.

Sharp-witted, sympathetic and illuminating, Coexistence, My Ass! successfully runs the gamut from hilarity to heartbreak.

Ultimately, 11 Minutes is as much a virtuoso party piece as anything - but it shows a veteran director in youthful form, clearly having a ball.

Edward Berger returns to the German source material, adding some twists and turns, in a wrenching, visceral adaptation of a work that is almost a century old, written when ruined veterans could still hear the sound of the gunfire in their dreams.

An enraging portrait of entitlement, opulence and corruption, The Kingmaker starts as a profile of Imelda Marcos but soon widens its perspective to depict a Philippines in peril.

The blend of character study, Hitchcockian intrigue and an excellent central performance from Aline Kuppenheim makes for a tensely involving tale.

[An] empathetic documentary ... It can’t be classified as triumphant but, with Ferguson’s editorial savvy, Nothing Compares reclaims O’Connor’s rights to her own narrative in a film which ends on a proud note. It’s also a reminder of how genuine she has been throughout decades of struggle.

Ardalan Esmaili and Soho Rezanejad give the film a real sense of compassion and depth, with their scenes together brimming with depth and a sense of shared history.

Many Americans recognise the injustices within the country’s prison system, but the case has rarely been laid out as comprehensively as it is in The Alabama Solution.

Promised Land deftly flits from biography to impact study to cinematic essay on the boom and bust of happiness-peddling myths, drawing a clear line from the music king to the current US leader.

It’s the right film at the right time, a cathartic moment in which audiences will shed tears for a little machine made of silicon and aluminium, wrapped in tin foil and running on less computing power than our smartphones, yet which will outlive us all – perhaps by billions of years.

Ramona is both wonderful and appalling, and Vazquez’s edgy performance drags us entirely into her relentless, thoughtless world, with her flaming red hair, her smoker’s cough, her gravelly tones and her unfailing ability to bring joy and despair to those around her.

Writer-director Glasner’s control of tone in a potential misery fest that – believe it or not – contains a bunch of laugh-out-loud moments is pitch perfect, most of the time.

The Mission is a thoughtful, fair-minded exploration of what motivated Chau, and also spreads out to confront bigger questions on the legacy of colonialism, the delusions of white saviour narratives and the thin line between faith and fantasy.

Kore-Eda’s film is more than the beautifully luminous faces of his actresses, the particular way they move and speak, or the lovely landscapes of Kamakura, even though all of these should be admired. So much more lies buried in-between the lines.

Nicole, Ruby and Elise are powerfully defiant just by refusing to be intimidated or shaped by patriarchal forces: an idea which rises above the outlandish events unfolding on screen to strike a universal, cathartic chord.

The result is a deeply touching tapestry that celebrates the diversity and cultural richness of LA, while at the same time exploring the hopes and fears of a generation heading into an uncertain adulthood.

Editing is clearly complex given the variable footage, but each emergency call and every character is successfully individualised and identifiable, and several arcs snap into the overall narrative drive.

An impressively nuanced portrait of the three-way relationship between a man, a woman and his disease.

McBaine and Moss offer a celebration of the young women attendees alongside a consideration of the everyday sexism many encounter.

Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff’s laid-back documentary is a slow burner but has a hypnotic charm that animal lovers in particular will find hard to resist.

Though a little too languid at two hours, The Love Witch is appropriately seductive.

There are conventional elements to this story, but also a level of craft that keep the proceedings reliably taut — especially when Kurzel unleashes another excellent chase sequence or shootout.

A poetic, though admittedly esoteric piece of cinema.

It’s his most mature film, an unabashedly and audaciously experimental work.

While Will and Harper’s friendship gives the film its strongly beating heart, the casual reactions of strangers often also prove to be moving.

Although the sparse dialogue and gradual build requires an investment on the part of the audience, this is an accomplished work.

This first film by writer-director Léona Serraille is full of snap and surprises.

Some small-scale but surprising formal twists, and much playfulness, will keep his admirers happy.

The film proves to be a sleek, efficient exercise, with Soderbergh riffing on the conventions of the haunted-house thriller while applying intelligence and technical mastery.

A documentary that is particularly urgent and eye-opening in the context of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Before it starts to lose steam in its third act, Trainwreck is a deft blend of laughs, romance and poignancy — not to mention one of Apatow’s most polished, mature works.

Foy is terrific in a film which balances bruising candour about mental health issues against arresting wildlife photography and a fervent appreciation of the natural world.

Robot Dreams may be sentimental, but it is also wise, resisting the urge to craft the sort of crowd-pleasing happy ending one might expect. Rather, Berger goes for something truer.

An assured, intelligent piece of filmmaking.

Even with an abrupt ending and the sense of unfinished business, Diego Maradona is more satisfying than Kapadia’s previous work.

Ripped from the headlines, keenly researched and carefully crafted, this fictional tale has near-universal resonance although some viewers may find it forbiddingly French in that talk, talk and more talk is as plentiful as are distinctive characters and punchy imagery.

It is a premise that facilitates a forensic examination of China’s family planning model within the quasi-futuristic trappings of its urbanised present. It is also paradoxically highly specific in its subject yet incredibly difficult to pin down in terms of its broader identity, as it skilfully skirts genre lines.

Byrne pops around the stage like a man rejuvenated, or perhaps one who has never aged, without as much as breaking a sweat. How wonderful for it all to be the same as it ever was.

The story arc of Lunana may offer few surprises but Dorji handles it with confidence and buckets of charm.

All This Panic has a refreshingly light touch. These girls can make heavy weather of routine situations yet shoulder enormous responsibilities with grace and good humour.

A luminous, heartbreaking performance from Olivia Cooke shines through every frame of Katie Says Goodbye.

While the emotional intensity and somewhat protracted narrative can be exhausting, in visual terms the film is a tour de force, steeped in blood, dust and squalor.

The subtext of In Viaggio (which translates as ‘Travelling’) is that it is while on the road, away from the close confines of the Vatican, that Pope Francis is at his most uninhibited and, therefore, most revealing.

Elegantly shot and fluidly edited, What Is Democracy? reveals Taylor’s sure instincts as she shapes the vast sprawl of often disparate, sometimes random-feeling material into a focused, thought-provoking essay that even leaves you feeling that there was so much more to say on the subject.

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.

While the film’s conclusion is perhaps a little heavy-handed, the delivery of the message – of women’s reproductive rights and agency over their lives and bodies – is an emphatic slam dunk.

It’s an offbeat combination of erudite esoterica and sensory pleasures (many of them music-related) that patient viewers may find beguiling.

Big-name stars and dazzling visuals leap off the screen in eye-popping 3D, while the most recognisable chapter of China’s most-beloved literary text plays out in exuberant and energetic fashion. The Year of the Monkey could not have asked for a more enthusiastic welcome.

Terrence Malick often wrestles with the cosmic, the spiritual and the eternal, but with A Hidden Life, the meditative writer-director attacks his usual themes from a rewardingly timely and urgent perspective.

A visually stunning, thoughtful, and profoundly unsettling study of the impact of male violence on the lives of three women played out in the pitiless sunlight of rural southern Mexico, Natalia López Gallardo’s feature debut Robe Of Gems is creepy in all the right ways.

This Hamlet sticks to the narrative essentials to produce a terse, pitiless retelling.

Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s intriguing, modest drama keeps its focus tight on Gabrielle but, thanks to a keenly observed screenplay and Drucker’s finely balanced performance, presents a wider view on the female mid-life experience.

Sometimes overwhelming but always penetrating, the film practically demands multiple viewings to absorb its rich collection of ideas, images and music.

The result is a polished horror yarn that leads to a satisfying conclusion, and leaves the impression there is more than enough material here for a potential prequel or an extension of Solveig’s story.

Jacoby delivers an adroit portrait of the artist at work in a technical package which wraps itself smoothly around this intense, surprising story.

Last Breath honours the constant possibility in work like this that the worst could happen at any moment — and that the line between living and dying is always frighteningly slender.

Baseball is just a game, but Lund recognises why some need it so badly. On the diamond, these ageing men feel young again – if only for a few hours.

Although there’s certainly a lot going on on screen, our attention is focused on Bening’s central performance.

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

Arthouse audiences will be intrigued to discover how Sciamma has channelled the fluid energy of her contemporary work into the more constrained environment of a costume drama. It won’t hurt that this is a strikingly handsome production which will be admired on a technical level.

It’s a distinctive work, both visually – the stark black and white photography accentuates the uncanny, almost lunar pockmarks on this scarred terrain – and in terms of its intriguingly detached outback noir storytelling.

Petzold’s lean, crisply-shot tale is a deft shape-changer, switching mood and register, interlacing romance with suspense and sudden jabs of humour.

It fields such a disorientating mix of styles and symbols and tonal swerves (Rupert Everett going full fruit, for example), that it’s quite a surprise that Colbert has managed to weave a structured story throughout She Will. But she has.

Solidly grounded, teeming with thought-provoking ideas, wonderfully atmospheric, and often visually striking, this magical realist eco-fable about a dead mother who returns to transform the lives of her dysfunctional family pays the price for its own high ambition and is simply unable to sustain the intensity until the end. But until then, it’s a hypnotic and entrancing ride.

The end result is a delicate and ultimately touching evocation of first love’s intensity.

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.

The message of doom is mitigated by the comraderie of men and women determined to do good, but more so by the wondrous species of coral under threat.

It might be with a child’s eyes that Summer 1993 relates the efforts of a six year-old trying to cope with grief, but it is with maturity, empathy and heartfelt emotion that it conveys the uncertain reality that follows.

This gritty social realist character study is spiked with striking and unexpected detours.

Once No Way Home finds its rhythm, the picture builds to a thoughtful, touching final act that does justice to the heroism and self-sacrifice that has always been central to Spider-Man’s appeal.

In truth, Buddy is not especially scary, its many kill scenes staged for laughs. But if this horror-comedy makes an obvious point — television shows meant for kids sure are weird — Kelly finds enough fresh ways to exploit the idea.

Appropriately for a group known for its theatrical, crowd-pleasing tunes, this authorised-by-the-band biopic carries itself lightly, serving up familiar plot points with panache and a sense of humour, while at the same time investing in the story’s emotional through-line, building to a genuinely moving climax.

In a bittersweet film like this, you wouldn’t call that magical, but you could call it real, as if the Dardennes came to Brooklyn, only funnier. That mood succeeds thanks to understated performances by Weinstein’s cast of mostly non-professionals, who seem to be working according to a life-script that they know well.

It’s a piece which is deliberate, but not sterile; disturbing, but too grounded in reality to be truly frightening, even though it probably should be given it attempts to blend the fears of body horror with climate change.

The story is told entirely on a computer screen, through skype, social media and editing programs. And despite the restrictions of this device, the film crackles with tension.

While her work certainly speaks for itself, it’s fascinating to hear Addario tell her own remarkable story.

It’s a joy to see them performing energetic old hits like ’Popscene’ and ’Song 2’, and a privilege to watch them create their more introspective new material.

Johnny Depp’s broodingly psychotic turn as convicted Boston crime lord James ‘Whitey’ Bulger is not the only tasty thing about Scott Cooper’s tale of the unholy alliance between a South Boston Irish mobster and the FBI.

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.