Grief, guilt and family dysfunction prove to be overwhelming forces in Hereditary, a supremely elegant and tonally assured horror movie that trusts its audience will acquiesce to its measured, absorbing storytelling style.

Listen To Me Marlon is an elegy, with scenes of extraordinary beauty throughout – not least the young Brando himself — but Riley has not made a hagiography, nor is this documentary just for Brando fans.

On Becoming A Guinea Fowl is a formally daring picture that blends fantasy, stylised drama and elements of black comedy to explore the societal pressures that rewrite the truth.

Beautifully shot, like Rohrwacher’s other features, on Super-16, this film, with its richly textured images, does indeed feel at times like a retrieved and rather miraculous relic from a lost era of cinema, which is not to say that it isn’t of its own moment.

An expression of his career-long preoccupations, Jia Zhang-ke’s odyssey through China since the turn of the century has an epic sense within a homespun feel.

What’s perhaps unexpected, in a film that has the look of a brooding fable by Carl Theodore Dreyer, is how funny it is at times.

A confident blend of comic-book élan and stirring sentiment, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse finds fresh ways to tell the familiar story of everyone’s favourite web-slinger.

With standout performances by stars Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, expert imagery and striking production design, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is hardly a tale told by an idiot. But it could actually use a little more sound and fury – and a better idea of what it’s supposed to be signifying.

There are no human characters in Flow and no dialogue beyond barks and squawks but the sense of peril is compelling, the visuals are impressive and the emotional spell it casts is captivating.

Guillermo del Toro channels all the streams that make him unique into The Shape Of Water, pouring his heart, soul and considerable craft into an exquisite creature fable.

It’s hard to imagine the courage which went into the making of this highly personal documentary. ... With its unflinching candour about both the nature of the abuse and the effect that it had on its victims, the film is a difficult and upsetting watch.

Thanks to the director’s command of his material, the entanglements we witness may be unbelievably challenging and yet do not require any suspension of disbelief. This subtle, convincing emotional tour-de-force doesn’t feel as long as its generous running time.

Packed with dazzling sets and effects, and touching on multiple genres and styles, it is a sometimes exhausting ride – especially when we’re struggling to engage with a changing cast of characters rooted in Chinese places, history, legend and religion. But it’s also a memorable and exhilarating one.

Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days is touching, involving and very well acted.

The ending is as low-key as the rest of the film, but the subtle shifts in power and understanding feel like a significant coming of age.

If the intimacy of small town existence is cherished here, there’s also an ominous sense of that same life being eroded and undermined.

Tangerine paints a portrait of transgender sex workers and their clients that pulses with raunchy energy and compassionate humour. It’s a bracing slice of American indie film-making.

Director Lenny Abrahamson has made a deeply moving story about how adults try to explain the world to their children — even when they don’t always understand it themselves. And Brie Larson gives a tremendous performance as a mother who must be strong for her boy, until she suddenly can’t be anymore.

Unrelenting as its tone may be, the feature proves a delicately layered, deftly shot work that makes an incisive statement about the prevalence of apathy, arrogance and egotism in contemporary China and beyond.

As fascinating as the film’s production process proves, it’s the results of their creative labours that entrance and enchant.

Respectful, frank and moving, this is a small film with a devastating impact.

Featuring a compelling central performance from Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall takes a while to engage, but turns into a twisty, thought-provoking drama.

Fallen Leaves may not set the film world on fire, but is guaranteed to cast a warm glow.

Mascaro’s striking aesthetics give the film a texture and atmosphere that aligns the audience firmly with its protagonist; she’s seeking transcendence, and the movie she’s in approximates it one lustrous frame at a time.

A stirring follow-up that tops the formidable original, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse draws us deeper into Miles Morales’ saga while offering the same stunning animation, dazzling set pieces and irreverent humour.

At heart Dreamcatcher is a simple film, but it is also a rigorous and compassionate one.

Even when the filmmaking falters, Krisha Fairchild’s unsettlingly intense lead performance dominates the movie, leaving us feeling as captive as the character’s wary kin.

The picture deftly blends genres to create an arresting snapshot of the ricocheting carnage of sexual violence.