The energy and passion of Zbanic’s fresh, new, direct gaze at the conflict comes through in every frame.

Parasite is a malign delight from start to finish, with a Machiavellian sense of mischief and a cinematic brio that shows Bong revelling in his Hitchcockian control of somewhat Buñuelian material.

There’s a lot of love in ROMA, and, as is the way with love, it doesn’t always arrive in ways that are equal, or reciprocated, or even endure. His first film to be set in his homeland since Y Tu Mama Tambien in 2001 is Alfonso Cuarón’s most personal film, and his most honest. It may even be his best.

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

The broader approach to storytelling on McQueen’s part robs 12 Years A Slave of some of the precise, up-close vibrancy that was the hallmark of his earlier films. As a consequence, this new film feels a little less personal, although that criticism should not dismiss the intelligence and feeling on display.

Kenneth Lonergan’s deeply moving return after the travails of Margaret shows what a rare storyteller he is, measuring out his narrative beats in a world which crackles with life, guiding Casey Affleck’s magnificent performance, instantly recognisable as a career-be

It’s a musical and a piece of time and a feeling that’s a privilege to share.

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.

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.

Baldwin’s insights originate from 1979, but they still speak volumes, and Peck makes their observations sting.

While attention, fairly, will go to the work’s visual and tonal acuity, Wells’ measured but relentless probing, her careful peeling away of the layers of this intimate piece, mark her out as one of the most promising new voices in British cinema in recent years.

Perhaps the most impressive element is the way that the picture so deftly juggles its tonal shifts. Rocks is as mercurial and complex as any moody teenager can be, veering from hilarity to misery and back again in seconds.

In its narrative tautness, this documentary can hold its own alongside the best of Romania’s contemporary fiction.

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

It’s raw religion, and it’s a treasure.

There may be money on the screen, but cash alone can’t guarantee this kind of pulsating, cinematic magic, delivered by a director at the height of his powers, mustering the very best at their craft.

Beautifully observed, gently amusing and often performed with emphasis on the small things in life rather than any major dramatic incident, its focus on retrospective jealousy is an unusual and intriguing one…and offers an absorbing story that comes up with some gently profound truths.

This is a remarkable debut feature; provocative, absorbing and mysterious. There are no easy answers to the big existential questions, just a desire to seek them out with a kind heart and good intentions. In the end you just have to have faith.

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 vital cinematic document. ... The conversations could not be more stimulating, offering a glimpse of Black America past and present that is joyous, defiant and sobering.

With most of the story of Inside Out playing out inside Riley’s mind – the child’s eyes providing the emotion-themed characters’ view of the outside world – the film offers ample scope for the creativity of the filmmaking team.

Invested with a real sense of joy, Faces Places is also something of a lament for a fast disappearing France.

There are three superb performances at the picture’s centre, but none is more radiant than that of Greta Lee, gracefully capturing the spirit of a searching soul who seems to understand things about the nuances of love that are beyond the grasp of the rest of us.

It’s a beautiful, supremely touching performance from Chalamet which gives this surprisingly safe story its moving purity.

Lengthy it may be, but this is light-of-touch fare, provocative and satisfyingly enigmatic, and though it feels like a four-hour MacGuffin, it remains an accomplished, literary and self-referential exercise in narrative deferral.

Lengthy it may be, but this is light-of-touch fare, provocative and satisfyingly enigmatic, and though it feels like a four-hour MacGuffin, it remains an accomplished, literary and self-referential exercise in narrative deferral.

A lyrical study of the twisting nature of memory and the lasting impact of childhood trauma, Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s debut Blue Heron has an authenticity and sensitivity that steers it through occasional moments of narrative affectation.

It’s only when Baumbach surrenders to the inherent theatricality of what he is creating, that Marriage Story finally takes wing and flies.

As a drama, this is less nourishing than the heritage it pays tribute to. But for Chazelle, the story is just a slight rib around which he builds a modern rhapsody.

Like its dappled forested backdrop, the film is a thing of pensive beauty rather than volatile drama.

Lady Bird is often screamingly funny but it also has a generous spirit, embracing characters with all their flaws and foibles, virtues and defects.

Two strong performances root the film. Prabha’s role is to be the anchor to Anu’s flightiness; they modulate their performances well together, but are equally strong apart.

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.

Some of the credit must go to the stellar casting and performances. It’s difficult to single out one of the six actors in this alternative family unit as it’s a true ensemble display. But Kore-eda’s deft command of tone is a key factor too.

Surprising, awkward, refreshing and, at times, downright hilarious, German director Maren Ade’s dazzlingly original follow-up to her 2009 Berlinale Silver Bear winner Everyone Else is that rarest of things: a nearly three-hour-long German-Austrian arthouse comedy-drama that (almost) never drags.

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

The latest from the Safdie brothers is a cracking follow up to Good Time: a jangling panic attack of a movie and a timely reminder that, when he puts his mind to it, Adam Sandler can be one of the finest actors currently working.

Thanks to a sterling lead performance from Oscar Isaac, the Coen brothers have once again delivered an impressively nuanced character study — one that has much to say about art, compromise and all the aspiring hopefuls who never got their moment in the sun.

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.

TÁR’s engrossing spell starts to dissipate over its final third, and yet this is that rare film about a creative person that feels neither self-pitying nor self-aggrandising. Indeed, one of the picture’s great strengths is that it’s never entirely clear what Field thinks of his complicated heroine.

Sherpa swiftly proves as grippingly human and political as it does visually spectacular.

A complex work of novelistic density, this is among the boldest and most accomplished statements from one of the world’s exemplary filmmakers.

A polished, engrossing procedural, Spotlight offers plenty of old-fashioned pleasures — chiefly, the sight of smart, scrappy muckraking journalists stopping at nothing to uncover systematic corruption.

Sunday’s Illness doesn’t put a foot wrong.

To say that Dominik’s film touches on a raw nerve is an understatement, but the film, dedicated to the memory of Arthur, is revealing both about these musicians’ creative processes, and about questions of mourning, trauma and emotional survival

Graced by Tilda Swinton’s emptied-out performance as a woman haunted by a strange sound whose origins she is obsessed with uncovering, Memoria eludes easy categorisation while becoming a powerful meditation on connection, spiritual isolation and renewal.

Hardly a conventional love story, but achingly tender nonetheless, Here is fully present and dazzlingly alive.

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

A remarkable study of poverty, family and personal responsibility, The Florida Project meticulously illustrates how life on the margins affects one impressionable six-year-old.

In a film lasting a shade over two hours, consisting of just 46 separate shots, the undisputed emperor of Taiwanese slow cinema crafts a ravishing, wordless story of urban loneliness.

Some cinema hits you in the gut – this film places you right inside the gut, and while it’s not always a pleasant place to be, it’s a visit you’re not likely to forget.

While this simple story may not seem inherently momentous, it speaks volumes about the ways in which women are marginalised — especially when it comes to making decisions about their own bodies.

The Zone of Interest is a challenging rather than conventionally provocative film but, by any measure, essential viewing and a work that will be a vital focus of discussion both in the cinephile world and beyond.

This portrait of the artist as a young film-maker will certainly stand the test of time.

The fourth fiction feature from Kleber Mendonça Filho is a sweat-saturated riot of a movie: a dual-timeline thriller powered by the kind of anarchic, erratic energy that you would expect to find at the end of a two day bender.

Once again, Lee has crafted a film of wondrous complexity and inscrutability. The more we see in Burning, the less sure we are of what we are watching.

Hamaguchi has taken Murakami’s original story as a springboard rather than a strict template, changing and adding locations, inventing additional characters and boosting the importance of others.

There’s a seam of pitch black gallows humour running through the picture, and moments of absurdist hilarity. But mostly, it’s an impassioned and forthright condemnation of the regime and of the men who do its bidding.

There’s a combination of humane sensitivity and intellectual agility at play in this story.

Using techniques of distanciation that sometimes make it an alienating, even confusing experience, László Nemes’s cogent, strikingly confident debut is harrowing, but cinematically rewarding.

The latest documentary from Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo (Tempestad) is an intimate, immersive portrait of a way of life – its rhythms, hardships and its communal joys – told through the eyes of the young people who rarely question it.

It’s only when Pugh gets her hands on spoiled younger sister Amy and opens up that often-overlooked strand of the work does the film seem to find relevance beyond its pretty fussiness and that warm, wintery – decidedly Christmassy, somewhat pleased-with-itself – glow.

It’s a remarkable film – exhaustive, informative and rigorously researched, but also crackling with energy , ideas and formal daring.

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

Rasmussen’s consideration of one man’s journey sheds light on the emotional legacy that can linger even after sanctuary is found.

Shot and edited with Wiseman’s customary poetry and precision, Ex Libris is structured as a series of forays from the Library’s Fifth Avenue heart to its orbiting satellites, and back again.

Quietly, profoundly moving.

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.

Nickel Boys is about societal evil, certainly, and carries a score which almost bites the skin of the audience as a reminder of that pain, but it is the tenderness at its core that deals the emotional blow.

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 is a delightful surprise, and though it is even more minimalistic than his last two illegal exports, This Is Not A film and Closed Curtains, it is also more mature, and better calibrated and - at the risk of annoying art house patrons who often hate this term - more entertaining than the other two.

One of the more satisfying and provocative artist portraits of recent years. Poitras’ film combines the richly sketched sense of a broader cultural landscape of Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground, with the angular candour seen in Marina Abramovich: The Artist Is Present.

Thrillingly inventive, satisfyingly textured and infused with warmth and humanity, this is a triumph.

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.

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.

Co-directors Ainsley Gardener and Briar Grace Smith tell a sprawling story of separation and disposession which feels both intimate in terms of its setting and epic in resonance.

A wildly entertaining, modern-day screwball comedy ... Baker continually ups the ante on the picture’s unruly humour and propulsive pacing.

The Favourite is one of those rare films where the energy generated by three talents at the top of their game and the energy generated by their characters swirl and merge in a perfect storm.

With a running time of four hours, Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros is a marathon, even by Wiseman’s leisurely standards. But it is an absorbing film, a forest full of trails for viewers to wander in.

The Brutalist is defiantly its own kind of construction, but longueurs and narrative inertia make it not quite the resounding statement it aspires to be.

A chaotic, unpredictable portrait of a chaotic, unpredictable individual, The Worst Person In The World is a spirited and thrillingly uninhibited piece of filmmaking from Joachim Trier.

With shades of Robert Altman’s freewheeling spirit embedded in this tale of politicians, Hollywood producers and waterbeds, Licorice Pizza gains momentum as its ambles along, resulting in Anderson’s gentlest, most endearing picture to date.

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.

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

Its quiet humanism and painstaking attention to detail are sure to appeal to the core audience which has faithfully followed her for more than a decade.

For a while, Fury Road’s complete disinterest in screenwriting fundamentals feels liberating, as the director keeps upping the ante on this desperate chase through the desert. But what feels liberating at first can become monotonous, and Fury Road starts to drag once the frenetic sameness of Miller’s strategy takes hold.

Collin attempts to do more than recount facts; if he can’t always wholly capture the figures at the film’s centre, he can convey a sense of the time and place that Lee and Helen inhabited.

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.

What you get in these performances is intelligence, emotion and physicality, and when they come together as combustively as they do here, what you get is something extremely rare - a film that catches the messy, hot complexity of life and love.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a period drama of startling tonal fluidity, and Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps deliver reserved performances that slowly reveal significant depth, transcending the material’s potential plight-of-the-artist clichés to hit at something far richer and more mysterious about desire, ambition and control.

The film develops into a stirring salute to their deep-rooted spiritual devotion and quiet determination.

The Souvenir: Part II is a film to savour, visually and sensorily.

What’s certain is that Sound Of Falling, the striking second feature from German director Mascha Schilinski, is a work of thrilling ambition realised by an assured directorial vision.

This is no superficial recounting of yet another injustice against native people.

Education is everything, and Mangrove, conventional though it may be, is still a radical step on the way to societal self-examination.

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.

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.

Cold War is glorious, sophisticated film-making, shadowed by the spirit of Pawilowski’s Oscar-winning Ida. Lead actress Joanna Kulig is arresting.