Its relatively tranquil surface, its small amusements (many of them revolving around a tasty turn by John Turturro as a histrionically insecure American leading man), its moments of touching, almost Sirkian melodrama, above all its ability to tease resonant themes out of seemingly inconsequential scenes or lines of dialogue, make for a film that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Rambunctious and playful, writer-director Nida Manzoor’s feature debut radiates fizzy delight, showing audiences a breezy good time.

Newcomer Hall strikes a real presence. She’s posed a lot, it’s true – against the sun, the rust-coloured sheets of Diddi’s bedroom, the doggedly brown bar in which she works – but she’s as bright as the light of summer in Iceland, and her character seems just as likely to survive this problematic present.

At a time when comic-book films have become formulaic and interchangeable, James Gunn’s third instalment of Guardians Of The Galaxy feels refreshingly vivid and distinct – a rousing space adventure which is dedicated to delivering both gorgeous spectacle and an emotional wallop.

This is a film which handles its high concept with confidence, and a winning balance of comedy and emotional punch.

Ukrainian director Maksym Nakonechnyi’s debut feature is a sensitive, nuanced meditation on war and its effects on the psyche of individuals and nations.

Observational yet authoritative in its approach, Li’s film first paints an inspiring picture, then a dispiriting one.

Faithful to his title, Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan) deivers a cruel, desolate, unforgiving image of Russia’s new middle class, ruled by selfishness, greed, frustration, envy, anger and anxiety in Loveless.

While Wilson stays resolutely — and perhaps for some frustratingly — neutral about whether that link is forged by lived experience or spiritual ability, her film can be read as a celebration of human empathy and the power of shared connection.

An eye-opening, moving and often shocking film, Motherland is a serious-minded documentary without talking heads, music, or narrative structure.

Australian director Cate Shortland (Somersault, Lore) takes a horror movie premise and imbues it with the knotty emotional complexity of a dysfunctional relationship psychodrama.

Often, the randomness of the jokes is as sparkling as the execution, creating the sense that the filmmakers will try just about anything for a laugh — and the more shocking the better.

After four hours, there’s no sense you know the city, present or past, or that you ever will understand it. Would maps and timelines make it any more ‘satisfying’? Instead, you are haunted by it..

Thanks to the tight team-work between Carreira and her intuitive lead actor, On Falling will grow to become an intense, enveloping experience.

Uneven, sometimes repetitive but also powerfully moving and thought-provoking, Silence is an imperfect movie that’s very hard to shake.

The ‘I could have been a contender’ brand of sports movie gets a twist in this tasty, if minor-key, biopic.

Sierra’s film not only stands as a love letter to peaceful protest but also to intelligent law enforcement that took the opportunity to de-escalate and resolve the situation without violence. Whether audiences agree that it has ’changed the narrative’ or not, it is a powerful testimony to a community’s ability to take control of their part of the story and give it a happy ending.

Following the siege month by month through 2016, the film has a gripping narrative drive, with many sequences that work to variously harrowing and cathartic effect.

The film’s freewheeling dynamism and stylistic elasticity allow Fabian to shake off the stuffier tropes of historical drama.

Writer-director Sara Colangelo’s intimate, slender drama withholds much about its main character, which allows Gyllenhaal to sketch the outline of a fractured soul.

Leave The World Behind draws from familiar elements, but this adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel stands apart thanks to its excellent performances and slow, superb escalation of tension.

There are wonderful, quintessentially French flourishes scattered throughout.

Focused and thought-provoking, it should be welcomed as a return to form after the disappointment of The Unknown Girl.

A superbly silly sendup of the modern musical landscape, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is as thimble-deep as the throwaway hits it’s satirising, but also just as lively.

Non-professional Sangare is magnetic throughout, whether on the saddle or an interview hot seat.

Julia Roberts blasts through this family reunion drama-turned-thriller with one of the most forceful performances of her career.

It is as visually extraordinary as its predecessors and, while the film contains some of those earlier pictures’ weaknesses, the deficiencies are starting to feel like charming quirks in an otherwise transporting series.

The accomplished third film from Emanuel Parvu, Three Kilometers To The End Of The World is a disaster unfolding in slow motion. Superbly acted and deliberately paced, the film is a compulsive account of the shattering of a family, and of a life changed forever.