Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) has fashioned a slightly more earnest variation on the typical MCU movie — one that is still fun and funny, but also rooted in a desire to speak meaningfully about racism, global culture clashes, and the tension between hiding behind one’s borders and helping outsiders in need.

Maintaining his fondness for long, contemplative shots, Weerasethakul creates a deceptively serene sense of storytelling, with gentle grace notes of wry humour.

Brooklyn balances its melodramatic leanings with several light touches.

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.

Newtown, which focuses on the bereaved families, is about coming to terms with loss.

If Beale Street isn’t quite as seamless as the Oscar-winning Moonlight, this adaptation of the James Baldwin novel still proves to be a stirring, absorbing experience that articulates something ineffable about everyday life.

A magnificent and enthralling film that fits into no easy genre bracket, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) – to give it its full title – is a technical tour de force, a beautifully performed and smartly scripted black comedy that will leave its audience keen to head back for more.

Director Marielle Heller is less interested in the machinations of Israel’s scheme as she is the psychology behind it, giving us a touchingly understated portrait of self-loathing and loneliness.

A lovely, satisfying saga, Wolfwalkers has the feel of an instant classic.

The effect is a patchwork rather than an interwoven whole; the wistfully self-reflexive tone will appeal to fans of the less emphatic, more meditative end of the Almodovar spectrum.

It’s the right film at the right time, a cathartic moment in which audiences will shed tears for a little machine made of silicon and aluminium, wrapped in tin foil and running on less computing power than our smartphones, yet which will outlive us all – perhaps by billions of years.

Often very funny, especially in classroom scenes filled with unconventional teachers and unruly pupils, the film also shows real feeling for the tangled workings of the human heart and the way individuals are at their loneliest in a crowd of people.

Films about dementia don’t tend to figure on audience’s good time viewing lists, but Familiar Touch is rather special – it shows the ravages of the disease but maintains the dignity of the sufferer.

Like its central character, this film is unconventional, and at times abrasive, but it has a seductive, searching quality and a swell of melancholy which makes for an engaging, if unpredictable journey.

In short, The Velvet Underground is a documentary that meets the Velvet Underground eye-to-eye and enriches it.

Saud, Nadeem and Salik are engaging and inspirational individuals. Shaunak Sen’s film does justice to their efforts but also allows us to see the bigger picture of a highly connected, complex world that humanity shares but seems intent on destroying.

The film is scrupulous about giving voices to men who, as prisoners, were denied them. If there is an overlap in some of the observations and insights that the former inmates bring to the film, they tend to be points which bear repeating.

[A] powerful, at times shocking but also intensely human documentary.

The sixth film in the series is among the most outstanding, delivering a near-exhausting amount of stupendous action sequences paired with deft character drama and the requisite life-or-death stakes. Fallout is a testament to writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, who gives the proceedings a witty, sophisticated grandeur, and yet the film belongs to Cruise and his seemingly limitless passion for putting himself and his audience through the wringer.

An abundance of monologues gives a clear indication as to the stage origins of this Jazz Age-story, but they also add to the fire-and-brimstone feeling accentuated by director George C. Wolfe’s darkly enticing adaptation.

Robot Dreams may be sentimental, but it is also wise, resisting the urge to craft the sort of crowd-pleasing happy ending one might expect. Rather, Berger goes for something truer.

Education is aptly titled as a finale, as it describes the effect of the Small Axe series, but the word ‘open’ also comes to mind.

Andersson’s consistency may have made him a director for acolytes above all, but they will find this a satisfying and richly resonant lesson in obliqueness and sometimes opacity.

To the outsider, Naples is often seen as a city of colour and life, a place of bubbling exuberance. Not so in Giancarlo Rosi’s strikingly melancholic documentary portrait of the southern Italian metropolis.

It’s extraordinary how a work like Nomadland can hold a mirror to society and refract back to the audience the light of their own lives.

A warm gathering of Scandinavian artists, with Sweden’s Skarsgård and Norway’s Hovig both excelling under Norwegian director Maria Sødahl’s attentive care.

Tavernier is a life-long cinema fan and every frame of this three hour documentary is a reflection of his passion, infectious enthusiasm and generous spirit.

It’s this adoption not only of Minnie’s point of view but the voice and narrative style of her half girlish, half womanly outlook on life that makes The Diary of a Teenage Girl such a vibrant, hopeful film.