While not seeking to paint all Russians as ‘victims’ and explicitly acknowledging the situation is far worse for Ukranians, Talankin’s footage comes as a reminder of children as the innocent victims of war.

It is the attention to detail and the refusal to compromise that allows Serra to create such a compelling, coherent vision.

Carefully made and perfectly acted.

Full of committed performances, particularly from Elba and the impressive young actor Abraham Attah, Beasts Of No Nation is a project of considerable integrity which makes for a consistently-engrossing, if over-long, viewing experience.

Some viewers may find it hard to credit the emotional extremes on display here, which seem more to do with the codes of French psychological drama than with the way people might actually behave in real relationships. Indeed, Binoche has not always convinced in conventional terms when playing women in a psychosexual fluster. Nevertheless, it’s something that she specialises in, and she pushes that register a lot further here – and far more compellingly - than in Denis’s Sunshine.

The film makes a powerful case that, despite a troubled upbringing, Hutchence was not naturally self-destructive.

Though audiences may have heard this one before, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power preaches effectively to its choir, with a decade of fresh data and increasing cataclysms...to persuasively make its case.

Director Gus Van Sant turns this fascinating true crime story into both an entertaining period drama and an evergreen tale of ordinary men pushed into desperate acts.

Even if The Untamed comes perilously close to sabotaging itself at times, this generic tightrope walk is a ferociously individual, highly intelligent piece and a superb, very affecting cast ensure that the human factor remains dominant, however creepily inhuman things may become at times.

The Big Short means to infuriate its audience, but it’s smart enough to know that such an approach doesn’t preclude a film from being darkly, cathartically funny as well.

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.

A simple story told with abundant gentleness, Yomeddine looks at a group of outcasts with such compassion and generosity that it has the good manners not to artificially inflate their tale with phony uplift.

With style, strong performances and emotive use of mis-en-scene, On Swift Horses is a flawed but intense critique of Americana.

He may not add anything new to the spy genre, but Zhang knows how to deliver a ripping yarn with the requisite panache.

Unsettlingly perceptive as well as absurdly comedic, Under the Tree chronicles domestic tensions left to fester; when grudges branch out like a leafy tree in a suburban backyard, everyone suffers.

As Gena attempts to live an authentic life in a place which is dangerously prejudiced against her, so Queendom takes shape as a damning portrait of state-sanctioned intolerance and suppression.

The result is an appealing, soulful romance with a considerable emotional tug.

As the story travels from bittersweet to comic and back again, The Last One for the Road never feels like it explores new territory in terms of its characters and situations. But the specific setting both in time and place make it a very vivid portrait of a place ravaged, like its characters, by time, but hopeful that one last drink might enable things to be seen in a more positive light.

Sadiq’s screenplay navigates a complex web of secrets and lies, pressures and prejudices to create a soulful human drama intent on challenging narrow minds.

Drag is a form of self-expression, an act of political defiance and a means of reinvention in Solo.

House Of Gucci can switch into camp faster than you can swing a bamboo-handled handbag, and will certainly launch a thousand Gaga memes, an element which is accentuated by the random application of chart bangers in the soundtrack. But it’s also unsettling, entertaining, and really quite unusual: like next year’s fashions from a more extreme house, it grows on you.

Dark Night is a drama of grim inevitability.

There’s much here, or in everything we see - which is essentially the film’s subtext - that is hilariously open to interpretation. See how you get on.

Although Sierra Pettengill’s film will perhaps be most notable for its inclusion of startling scenes from Riotsvilles, model towns built by the US Army to train for actual riots, there’s much here to consider about the American worship of law enforcement and demonisation of dissent.

The resulting film is both warm and reticent at the same time, so keen to cleave to reality that it shuns dramatic fireworks – particularly in its gentle, muted ending.

It’s a wildly original work from De Los Santos Arias, a film with a gleefully wanton approach to form, style and story in which no directorial decision is predictable, and, despite a slightly overstretched running time, no moment is ever dull.

Irrational Man heads to one of the most startling pieces of action he’s ever filmed. It hints where he stands now as a moralist or cynic in a corrupt world.

Ariane Louis-Seize’s debut feature plays like a coming-of-age genre mash-up, and features a tortured blood-sucker protagonist reminiscent of Only Lovers Left Alive, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night or even The Hunger, although it is narratively and stylistically striking enough to make its own impact.

Well written, -acted, -cast and -produced, this wholly entertaining yet stingingly relevant story of the 1970 Miss World finals should have been a smash hit when it opened in UK theatres on March 13, but events overtook its release.

While this stirring dramatization of Davidson’s life hits conventional narrative beats, sensitive handling and a remarkable central performance from Robert Aramayo do heartwarming justice to a remarkable life.

This tale of repression and injustice is potent enough to overcome the inevitable distancing that occurs because of the animation process.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman make for fine sparring partners and the film has enough low-key, slow-burn suspense to keep the simplicity of the premise humming along.

Guzzoni crafts a suitably glowering and hostile atmosphere for this story, which delves into the very murkiest corners of Chilean society.

Even those with little interest in the beautiful game should be entertained by Saipan, a breezily engaging narrative.

Maurery handles her character, a nasty piece of work to be sure, with such natural aplomb that she makes Mrs Drazdechova not only perfectly credible but pretty scary too.

The directors’ first joint feature is a tremendously effective revenge movie; a picture that reframes the neo-noir by harnessing a hate crime and diverting its power into a thrillingly transgressive erotic thriller.

Although MEMORY follows some templates of the format, trying to lock Alien into a cultural and political framework, the film itself transcends that obviousness.

It packs a quiet emotional punch.

The Incredible Jessica James may be a slight romantic comedy, but there’s abundant pleasure in watching comedienne Jessica Williams in this star-making performance.

Deeply empathetic and increasingly universal, Ghaywan’s sophomore effort isn’t particularly subtle, but that does little to dilute the film’s impact or detract from its message.

Suzume is hardly a film for all tastes, but is certain to thrill anime buffs across all ages and continents.

A very basic formula, executed in bare-bones fashion, works a treat because this set of interviews with Brian De Palma on his life and films is so revealing, and entertaining, that little is needed here other than the man, his opinions and some telling illustrations.

Its immersive intensity makes it essential viewing for Serra followers, and for anyone interested in documentary’s ability to record, and make us think about, the extremes of the real world.

Its impact sealed by across-the-board strong performances from its all-male cast, Tangerines is a film about loss and belonging, about rootedness and departure.

The impressive feature debut from Maltese-American writer and director Alex Camilleri manages to be both self-contained, in its depiction of an embattled community, but also unexpectedly far-reaching in its themes. The film is an exploration of masculinity in crisis, of the attrition of traditions by the forces of progress and of the agonies and uncertainties of new parenthood.

Between the highs-and-lows of razzle-dazzle couture there a substantial film here, and a frank portrait of a damaged, evasive man trying to come to terms with what he has done.

Szumowska’s command of craft and a torrent of unsettling imagery will enhance her reputation as a visionary director.

Cesar Diaz’s debut feature is both compact and ambitious, distilling its larger themes into the core story of one young man and his secretive mother.

The Smashing Machine may not always transcend genre conventions, but is a consistently idiosyncratic and candid look at a working-class athlete with a complicated romantic relationship and a crippling opioid addiction. Despite his hulking physique, Dwayne Johnson plays Kerr with real vulnerability as his championship aspirations slip away.

Dynamic storytelling and powerful performances bring out the pathos in an unusual tale of conflicting loyalties set on the criminal edges of a travelling community.

It’s the empathy Syversen and her lead actress evoke for a free spirit battered into submission that is this tough little film’s greatest achievement.

A satire of Hollywood ego, a loving tribute to Cage’s hair-trigger intensity and a consistently funny bromance, Massive Talent doesn’t overstay its welcome or ever get too pleased with its premise, finding humour and sweetness in the notion that sometimes even Nicolas Cage can’t live up to being Nicolas Cage.

As free-wheeling as a Preston Sturges farce, the handsome-looking Mug feels scattershot at times but it does convey the sense of a Poland racing towards hell in a hand cart.

Provocative Italian feature Bad Tales is one of those films that aren’t afraid to confront you with the grimmest aspects of the human condition, but yet leave you feeling strangely exalted by the sheer cinematic invention involved.

[A] subdued but affecting drama which showcases both a stark and striking backdrop and a pair of lovely, intimate performances from character actors Dale Dickey and Wes Studi.

This is pungent filmmaking which creates a world steeped in superstition, ritual and folk-magic.

Fences is a deeply affecting treatise on marriage, poverty and the struggles of sons to confront the long shadow of the man who brought them into this world.

It is a fascinating, horrifying story and Klayman eschews any tricks or gimmicks — bar some lively collage animation — to allow this explosive narrative to evolve through the eye-opening experiences of those who lived it.

Built on a potent mixture of quiet bravery and hard-won access, David France’s new documentary, Welcome to Chechnya, puts audiences in the middle of the literally life-or-death struggle of an already endangered minority.

In its style as well as its psychological focus, Hounds of Love marks Young as a filmmaker to watch, though he’s not the feature’s only standout. His trio of leads has rarely been better.

Giving her characters shading and the story space to breathe, Talati has created a quietly captivating, sharply observed film.

The ending is as low-key as the rest of the film, but the subtle shifts in power and understanding feel like a significant coming of age.

Padraic McKinley’s feature directorial debut is a hugely confident survivalist tale that’s as bluntly effective as the primitive weapons employed in this bare-knuckle saga.

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

To reveal much at all about the film’s abrupt change of register around two-thirds of the way in would be unfair. Suffice to say that if The Mountain has been a very austere, mid-life-male variation on Into The Wild up to now, it soon feels like we are watching a Gaspar Noé movie, with a little dose of Miyazaki thrown into the mix.

More than a quarter of a century later, Beauty and the Beast enchants again as a swirling blend of live-action story, stage, screen and sheer, rococo-spun fantasy.

While the three sections don’t tie up narratively, nor strictly conclude as such, they leave plenty of ideas in their wake – and a multitude of entrancing images.

Drawing heavily from his own adolescence, director Sean Wang makes a beautifully-crafted feature debut, which manages to be both personal to his own specific cultural experience, and speak to more universal truths about walking that tricky path to adulthood.

Baden Baden is an intimate, at times seemingly whimsical narrative that appears to drift almost free-associatively from episode to episode. But it’s unified by a distinctive humour and intelligence, crisp visuals, and Richard’s intensely charismatic presence.

Riotous good fun from start to finish, RRR, a fictionalised account of two real-life revolutionaries fighting against the British Raj and Nizam of Hyderabad in 1920s India is being deservedly championed for reminding audiences what big screen entertainment is all about.

The thriller-like intrigue in Meeting With Pol Pot is sustained by tension around whether the title event will ever actually happen and, ultimately, whether any of the trio will make it out alive.

Winterbottom delivers a heady cocktail of absurdity and profundity, laced with a generous measure of cutting one-liners in a film that builds into a scathing commentary on a world where the rich keep getting richer and the poor are merely collateral damage.

Can a film be baffling and rewarding at the same time? Can a stimulating cinematic experience co-exist with the suspicion that the filmmaker has deliberately set out to frustrate the audience? For all who believe the answer to those questions can be ‘yes’, then Sunset (Napszállta), second film by Son of Saul director László Nemes provides a rich seam to explore.

By illuminating the passion and creativity shared by two Iranian friends, The Friend’s House Is Here both celebrates and worries about an emerging generation of women activists yearning to defy a dictatorship. Its rebellious spirit isn’t fiery but, rather, quiet and confident — and all the more inspiring as a result.

Censored Voices is a reminder that glorious myths of wars and the men who fight them wither under scrutiny, in Israel and everywhere else.

An intense and touching tale of first love set over a six-week period, Summer Of 85 blends the energy of youth with the curveballs of fate in a pleasant, keenly acted package that, despite a tragic core, will send all but the most strait-laced curmudgeon out of the cinema smiling.

There’s a discourse going on here about family and memory, about what we lose if we turn ourselves into work machines who can “pull a 48” (go for 48 hours without sleep) that leeches subtly into the fabric of Kreutzer’s psycho-drama, buoyed by a fine use of setting, camera focus and colour.

Whether the pen is mightier than the sword may be up for debate, but as this engaging and hopeful documentary by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh shows, words have the power to change things when wielded carefully.

This gripping tale of misguided patriotism recreates a vanished set of circumstances via excellent performances and well-tailored cinematic choices. While there are a few meditative lulls in this 165-minute adventure — which opens Un Certain Regard in Cannes — the proceedings are never dull and an accretion of detail leads to a memorably moving denouement.

Rauniyar handles the socio-political complexities of life post-conflict with a lightness of touch and flashes of absurdist humour. Much more than a photogenic ethnographic postcard from afar, this is a deceptively complex story of muddled allegiances and proscriptive social rules.

The questing duo has trusted ‘GTA’ and its trigger-happy denizens: they just need to trust the audience a little bit more that this new world can be enjoyed without the same old beats.

A rambunctious, sexy, funny, irreverent whirlwind of a movie, Dope doesn’t seem like it has much discipline or focus, but its frantic forward momentum and haphazard mixture of styles, although demonstratively entertaining, shouldn’t distract from a rather pointed political message about race in America.

Huezo’s picture, which is loosely adapted from a novel by Jennifer Climent, is distinctive in its child’s-eye-view of this most abnormal of normalities.

Like Cai, the doc is a crowd-pleaser which reveals its complexities in a careful viewing.

The bittersweet realities of being a stranger in a strange land create a complex, thought-provoking human interest film.

While the Chilean-Spanish writer/director weighs down every second of Blanco En Blanco with tension and solemnity, its big moments continually hit their marks – including the devastation and absurdity of its prolonged final sequence.

Bobi Wine is an intimate portrait of a hugely engaging figure that also serves as a sobering warning about the seeming impossibility of democratic change in a dictatorship.

Favouring an unhurried pace, Filho takes the time to let us get to know Clara. And while the moments of drama are small and intimate, the effect is engrossing.

Cole, best known for a supporting role in the TV series Peaky Blinders, gives everything to this role. It’s a physical transformation in which he convincingly plays a beaten, battered-to-a-pulp boxer who learns the rules of Muay Thai, but also a deep internal reach to deliver a complex, defiantly self-sabotaging character with depth of understanding.

Daaaaaalí! is less about Dalí himself, more about the difficulty of capturing his mercurial essence.

Underneath Vol. 2’s sarcastic exterior, Gunn’s script has a big, bleeding heart, pinpointing the characters’ insecurities and emotional scars.

For all the film’s provocations, both serious and mischievous, it’s a remarkably elegant, subtle piece.

Unkovski’s film may be singing from a familiar hymn sheet, but he makes that part of its charm.

The fantastical elements soon fade away and the film becomes grounded in the tender realities of growing up, finding oneself and questions about love, sexuality, home, family, and the future.

This gritty, gripping movie starts slowly but builds in intensity, culminating in sorrow and raw nerves.

Bryan Cranston creates a potent sense of Trumbo as a reasonable man, full of charm, eloquence and principle and he is surrounded by a string of performances to savour.

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

Propulsive and entertaining, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man has plenty to keep fans happy and a wider audience engaged.