[A] very entertaining, surprisingly moving film.

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.

Hanging By a Wire may have all the urgency of a Hollywood disaster movie from the 1970s, but also incorporates an undercurrent of commentary on the neglect of poor rural communities in Pakistan.

Featuring uncanny and hugely personable performances by Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel, and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy, and a smart script by Jeff Pope (Coogan’s co-writer on Philomena) that delivers laughs from both familiar and unexpected quarters, this is a fond, frequently very funny homage to an act that has lost none of its genius.

What’s crucial to the film’s success, however is the fact that, despite its candour about Lara’s pain, the film refuses to relinquish a note of hope.

Overall, though, the stylistic consistency and sustained chill of the black comedy make for a satiric focus far keener than, say, the farcical overkill of Triangle Of Sadness.

It may be based on universal human anxieties about love, relationships, compatibility and loneliness, but Filippou’s script takes on a defiant, prickly life of its own, refusing to play as an easy allegory.

A rough-hewn fairytale unfolding against a fully realised world, this is an arresting feature debut for director Laura Samani.

Throwing darts at genre conventions while honouring what is eternally mythic about the milieu, this comedy-drama draws off-kilter performances from Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska that subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) reframe archetypes and consistently set us back on our heels.

This meticulously conceived documentary is both a definitive account of the voyage as well as a creative, cinematic you-are-there unfolding of the events that transpired.

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

The newness is subtle and gently perplexing, but very satisfying indeed.

Whether Hill’s debut as a writer-director is drawn entirely, or partly, from personal experience seems a moot point: there’s a sufficient clear-eyed skill to the project to elevate it out of the memoir arena and mark the actor out as a directing talent to watch.

Never Look Away is an often moving, thoughtful drama about the correlations between personal experience, politics and art.

A dizzyingly ambitious meta-satire about Hollywood, IP, hacky horror, and gender and sexual identity, Teenage Sex And Death cannot help but occasionally misstep, but the rush of ideas and the confidence of the filmmaking never waver.

The film’s ace card is its intertwining of not one but two mismatched buddy relationships.

Distinctive 2D animation mixes graffiti-strewn, street-level realism with playful stylisation...for an aesthetically striking, instantly immersive and highly memorable end result.

Empire Of Light is a sentimental film – the piano-heavy score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross advertises that from the opening bars – but its message of love, tolerance and finding family wherever you can should make an impact in darkened rooms wherever it plays.

Amrum is something of a departure for Akin, the kind of precision miniature work that can be achieved on a smaller canvas.

Another End has a lot going for it, not least its command of audiovisual atmosphere and the way it makes the audience work to join the narrative dots before delivering a sucker punch final twist that will encourage lively post-screening debate.

Nicchiarelli brings broader contemplations that help lift the film beyond the usual run-through of sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, regrets, righting past wrongs, carving out meaningful relationships with those previously neglected along the way, and facing the future on one’s own terms.

Some zinging dialogue and pungent photography are complemented by the two young leads and the late Anton Yelchin in support.

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.