The Peasants again melds oil paintings (some 40,000 of them) over live-action footage of actors to become a dynamic, immersive drama that brings the pleasures and pains of the past to ravishing life.

The heartbreaking plunge into sisterhood and grief that is His Three Daughters is an intensely composed elegy about the devastating effect of saying goodbye to a parent.

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.

The results are often revelatory, offering an unvarnished look at being young, free and unsettled, with the individuals they meet being almost as important as the journey itself.

The results are more dutiful than absorbing.

Writer-director Andrea Di Stefano crafts a tense yet also rather moving thriller-melodrama out of the most cliched premise: a cop who is talked into running a favour for a gangland boss on his last night before retiring. It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a stylish Italian crime thriller.

The filmmakers switch the focus from the suspense of an uncertain outcome to the central friendship between the two women, a friendship that Diana tends to inadvertently torpedo. This allows both actresses to bring a depth and texture that sustains the picture through the extended swimming sequences.

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.

This is a story of survival, but it is by no means typical of the genre – instead it is sensory, tactile; a film that taps into an atavistic, instinctual primal quality that characterises new motherhood.

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

The film follows a slick, predictable rise-then-fall narrative structure full of boisterous montages when things are going well and sombre music once the good times end.

The result is an engrossing exercise in empathetic humanism, unhurried and uninflected; the various sections of the film are divided by ruminative fades to black.

Like the mismatched team from the Pacific Island, the picture is big-hearted and sweet-natured, but it is also rather lacking in polish and staying power.

The film can sometimes be dramatically simplistic, relying on perfunctory montages and creaky expositional dialogue, but Domingo ensures that Rustin is a layered and vibrant character, pushing Rustin to be bolder than it otherwise is.

The elegant tone undercuts the material’s inherent bite, ultimately defanging a picture that eventually shifts into a twisty thriller.

Janet Planet is alive with possibility, not just for the youngster but also for the remarkable writer-director who announces her big-screen ambitions with stunning force.

Whether or not there’s a factual basis to the story, it’s undeniably an absolute blast.

The first feature film from cinematographer Ellen Kuras is a satisfyingly textured portrait of a remarkable and unusual woman, who had an almost Zelig-like gift for bearing witness to key moments in history.

This is an ambitious, often provocative interrogation of masculinity, cancel culture, social media, and the power of celebrity through a humorous lens.

Kendrick’s measured approach pushes against genre expectations — which will no doubt disappoint viewers accustomed to streamable docuseries. Yet that makes her film an assured subversion which elicits both engrossing chills and surprising humor.

American Fiction can be tender and also brutally funny, wise but also sometimes rushed in its attempts to tie up its many threads. The film is always alive with ideas and filled with compassion for its complicated characters, however. Like a good novel, it’s very hard to put down.

This genial comedy/noir is a genuine crowdpleaser – funny, sexy, clever and confident in building a low-key humour which hits the target over and over again.

The gritty realism of Io Capitano’s story is leavened throughout by recognizably ‘Garronian’ touches; pools of magic realism, theatrical set pieces of colourful intensity.

Logic, though, is not at the forefront of The Nun II which, like its predecessor, attempts to force the fear through endless jump scares and bombastic music rather than take time to build any real tension.

Garner and co-star Jessica Henwick navigate the picture’s mixture of drama, suspense and horror superbly, leaving the audience fearful that this slow-burn powder keg will eventually go off — although we’re not sure who the casualties will be.

Sarsgaard is characteristically impressive, his gentle performance holding onto its mysteries and maintaining a dry delicacy that eschews Hollywood demonstrativeness.

As with his award-winning debut, the French filmmaker sometimes risks heavy-handedness to make his points, but his argument’s brute force is amply persuasive.

An unusual underdog saga about an ordinary investor who inspired a grassroots movement that scared Wall Street’s major hedge funds, Dumb Money is a snappy, entertaining picture that taps into a lingering resentment about how rigged the financial markets feel to many Americans.

The picture’s initial comic energy proves hard to sustain even with a short runtime, though, as the jokes start to feel strained and the numbers grow uninspired.

This is an undeniably moving story, and Winson — who died in 2015 aged 106 — a man worth honouring, but One Life comes across as an orchestrated tearjerker.

A confection that is equal parts murder mystery, old-fashioned ghost story and supernatural thriller, the third instalment of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot series proves to be the most enjoyable.

The film finds an unexpected way to reach its happy ending, but ultimately Quiz Lady is a fun premise seeking a sharper execution — unlike the brilliant Anne, Yu and her cast don’t have all the answers.

Grant Singer’s feature directorial debut suffers from an overinflated sense of grandeur and a frustratingly convoluted story, reaching for dramatic heights that it hasn’t earned.

There has been no shortage of films that deal with Europe’s current refugee crisis over the last decade or so. Still, this picture, with its supremely confident handling of a fractured, fragmented structure and its twin driving forces of compassion and fury, is undoubtedly one of the best.

Strip the neo-noir style and attitude away from Stefano Sollima’s latest, and you get a not particularly original tale . . . But there is one very attractive bonus, aside from the moody Roman settings: the casting of Pierfrancesco Favino and Toni Servillo.

Set in Rome’s sprawling Cinecittà studios in their 1950s heyday, Finally Dawn is a rich, shape-shifting fairy tale, an odyssey of empowerment about a vulnerable girl navigating her way through a day and night of enchantments and dangers, using her weakness as a kind of magic shield.

An invigoratingly savage Nordic western, The Promised Land is earthy, enjoyable stuff: an expansive, sweeping epic with hope in its heart and dirt under its nails.

Drawing from elements of his own childhood, Miyazaki has dreamed up a fantastical environment in which anything seems possible — including the potential to remake oneself.

This docudrama, recounting the background to Isabel Wilkerson’s acclaimed 2020 study ’Caste’, is an unwieldy, fragmented hybrid that comes across very much as an educational project, never quite gelling as narrative.

While the first half of Rotting In The Sun may be overly self-indulgent, once Silva gets himself out of his system, he gives his skills and Saavedra an opportunity to shine.

Dogman may have a more intimate, reflective tone than much of his work – at least until its final man-versus-dog showdown – but it struggles to get past that initial cool pitch.

Coup de Chance is not a major reinvention, but it does have more spirit and joie de vivre than anything Allen has done in a while. A sharp, lively cast shows that he is actually rather good at directing in French, and the stars seem accordingly to be having a good time in this light comedy that takes an unexpectedly dark turn.

It is an absorbing film of quiet power.

Each of the film’s three strands has its own dramatic flaws and virtues. But what is most intriguing is the way that the stories are braided, both in editor Anita Roth’s intercutting and in the establishing of visual parallels.

While there’s a sense that Korine is fully at peace with a lack of meaning in his work, it’s doubtful that he was aiming to be boring.

It is a unique story, told in a distinct way.

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.

Fennell is in that kind of blow-it-all-up mode, and the result is a spikily entertaining, narratively rackety ride led by a formidable Barry Keoghan in devil-may-care mode.

Their marriage was unequal, and so is the film, but Maestro is honest about the larger-than-life flaws of its central character, and Cooper is impressive in the role.

An episodic string of very uneven vignettes, the film benefits hugely from the unifying presence of artist Pousti — a non-pro, like the rest of the uneven cast — who dominates nearly every scene with a genial, subdued intensity as the thirtysomething, bear-like Mr Amir.

Even as the film sails insouciantly into a rarefied imaginative stratosphere of its own, it’s anchored to emotional reality by a dazzling performance by Emma Stone – if anything, outdoing her revelatory turn in The Favourite.

The latest from Andrew Haigh is an exquisitely melancholy fantasy-infused meditation on loss and isolation. A luxuriantly sad and skin-tinglingly sensual gay romance, it is propelled by a killer combination of 80s queer pop and a pair of devastating performances from Scott and Mescal.

Its layered story, about a rich man and the extraordinary book that changes his life, is particularly well-suited to Anderson, who revels in such Russian Doll narratives and delivers the story as a dramatic reading, narrated by its characters.

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.

El Conde comes across as a well-funded toyshop for Larrian to play in, indulging flights of fantasy, paying homage, and exacting a retribution which could, should, have been a far more effective sandblast from a man who has spent much of his creative life holding this particular vampire to account.

Comandante is a film designed to make Italians feel good about being Italian – about pasta, sentimental songs and strongly demarcated gender roles – while also telling them how to be good Italians – chiefly by saving people at sea, not blindly following orders and getting on with other Italians whose dialects they don’t understand.

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.

The film itself has a commendable logic and credibility, but perhaps lacks a little of the pulse-racing intensity that might have made it a more obviously commercial proposition.

There is a big effort put into the world building, which pays off.

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx are clearly enjoying themselves voicing their very different characters — Ferrell naive and energetic, Foxx cynical and streetwise — but apart from a few inspired moments, the outrageousness soon drags.

Adapted from a chapter in Bram Stoker’s novel, the picture initially has some gory fun with its close-quarters suspense, but Ovredal unsuccessfully tries to elevate his monster movie with flimsy psychological depth and unconvincing emotional underpinnings.

Neill Blomkamp puts the pedal to the metal with Gran Turismo, a high-octane underdog sports drama that boasts electrifying race-car sequences but a badly cliched narrative away from the track.

The imbalance between the sketched, what-if nature of the film and the weight of its visual wizardry is keenly felt.

Lacking the killer instinct of its ferocious titular beasts, Meg 2: The Trench lumbers through the waters, failing as both a gripping thriller and a cheeky ’so bad it’s good’ piece of late-summer escapism.

Moshe is not the first filmmaker to grapple with theories surrounding the manipulation of the fabric of time but his intimate approach, coupled with strong performances, make this an intelligent homespun take on a familiar subject.

Taking on one of cinema’s foremost obsessions with a compassionate and ethical approach, Our Body tells the hidden, forgotten and ignored stories of female bodies through their unhurried encounters with the extensive, often invasive, and wonderfully life-saving medical interventions at a Parisian public hospital.

How does where we are from impact on the kind of love we feel? López Riera’s answer, which can be summed up as boy meets girls meets magical realism meets women’s solidarity, is both intimate and ambitious in scope, thought-provoking and emotionally engaging.

Joy Ride could easily have felt like a series of increasingly outrageous skits but, thanks to the chemistry between its leads and the tonal confidence of first time director Adele Lim, it ultimately lands as a raucously authentic comedy.

Irreverent and action-packed without sacrificing charm or emotional resonance, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Mutant Mayhem takes a page from the recent Spider-Verse animated films to bring a hip, youthful energy to a very familiar piece of IP, in the process giving us a story that’s fresh and funny.

Aurora’s Sunrise is notable not so much for its use of animation, which is effective but not especially creative or technically groundbreaking, but for the dramatic sweep of Aurora’s incredible tale.

Barraud offers a satisfyingly slippery tale in which we think we know where it might be headed but are constantly met by a little twist or discovery that puts everything into a different perspective.

Whether Medusa Deluxe quite convinces us that it needed to be a one-shot exercise, it’s carried off niftily — the electric performances, from a super-alert, bristling cast, giving a feel of live event to the action, framed in Academy ratio.

Despite an appealing cast and some nicely executed moments (not to mention some direct references to the original attraction) Dear White People director Justin Simien’s third feature is mostly a dispiriting experience.

Very British and proudly Black, Edwards’ film juggles tones and formats we’ve never seen put together before and it’s a pleasure to see a first-timer flex her muscles in a part-musical, wholly dramatic story of a recently-released prisoner who takes a shine to his partner’s micro red frock.

Director Yuval Adler taps into the lean story’s Collateral-like intrigue but, outside of Cage’s hair-trigger antics, there is not much surprise here — especially when the filmmaker unveils a twist most will see coming down the road.

It may be fuelled by the schmaltzy lyrics of a boy band, but this is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of female friendship.

It packs a quiet emotional punch.

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.

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

Nolan demonstrates his usual prowess for impeccable visuals and stunning craftsmanship within a deeply despairing portrait of an arrogant genius who, too late, realised the impact of his monstrous creation.

While Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach may couch this self-discovery narrative in powder pinks and unrelenting pep, their message is authentic and acerbic: an urgent feminist call to arms wrapped up in a hugely entertaining popcorn movie.

For all the gambits that end up feeling like gimmicks, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock never stops churning with ideas and ambition. The film pays Hitch the highest compliment by trying to follow his example and never do the expected thing.

There’s a lightness to the film and a loveliness to Feña’s open-hearted struggle.

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

An ensemble cast led by Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney brings persuasive conviction to period heartwarmer The Miracle Club.

With its looming, angular and alienating architecture, and thoroughly considered technological and ethical future landscape, this is a phenomenal and inventive piece of world-building from Prague-based director Robert Hloz.

It’s an uncomfortable watch, but a extremely effective one.

Balanced on the tightrope between comedy and pathos, the precision-tooled Mamacruz is essentially a sensitively observed character study, with Spanish veteran Kiti Manver delivering a compelling, nuanced central performance as a religiously-repressed woman in late middle age who comes late – in all senses – to the transformative power of her own sensuality.

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.

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.

What emerges is the story of an extremely close and profoundly charming boyhood friendship – but one where the junior partner couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put the genie of his extraordinary talent back in the bottle once his pal had coaxed it out of him.

Brimming with confidence and swaggering showmanship, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One further cements this series as a consistently dazzling action franchise.

[An] unusually direct, moving and deceptively simple exploration of love – and of film – as defences against forgetting.

Savill keeps the tone upbeat, homing in on her character study. From goofy grins to anxiety-ridden wide eyes, Scotney’s range and talent is clear: her comic timing and commitment to Millie’s mania are exemplary. But in centring her above all else, there are a few too many narrative stones left unturned.

Kristen Lovell has skin in the game of the story she tells, making The Stroll, an oral/archive history of the trans sex workers of New York’s Meatpacking District, a raw and tender memoir.

In between the nudity and four-letter words, the film looks seriously at grief, arrested development and economic inequality, and there’s a sweet rapport between the two leads. A series of irritating plot twists and a predictable trajectory ultimately undercut Lawrence’s bravely brash portrait of a woman going nowhere fast.

Klondike is both despairing – sometimes in a blackly comic vein – and empathetic in the way it sees the incident from the ground up rather than from the sky down.