Landmarks may not strictly be the film that admirers of Martel’s formal radicalism have been waiting for: notwithstanding some eccentricities, it is a relatively conventional work. But it’s very much from the heart, and from the political conscience – a critique of colonial history and the enduring abuse of power in Argentina.

This is, quite simply, thoughtful and ultimately moving animation at its best.

Slow-paced but always absorbing, the film features a magnetic central performance by Ia Shugliashvili as one of the strongest, most quietly heroic introverts we’ve seen on screen in a while.

The message of doom is mitigated by the comraderie of men and women determined to do good, but more so by the wondrous species of coral under threat.

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.

Like the distinctive artwork made by Showing Up’s sculptor protagonist, Kelly Reichardt’s eighth feature is beautifully crafted, a modest gem that grows in impact the more one examines it.

In terms of execution and panache, Museum has the mark of a true original – at least, of a film-maker discovering his own voice through fearlessly trying whatever works, sometimes tipping his hat to tradition, sometimes following his own path with brio.

The spell that the writer-director slowly weaves is intoxicating.

Haynes makes intriguing work of subtly metafictional psychodrama in May December.

Although Sorrentino’s Fellini mash-up adds little of substance to what il maestro showed and said all those years ago, it’s still a remarkable cinematic experience.

Cover-Up pays fitting tribute to a man who has made it his life’s work to seek out and expose the hardest of truths.

April is a formidable, defiantly esoteric work. It demands considerable investment from the audience, but does repay it.

Lit like a Rembrandt, acted like a neo-Realist classic and with all the searing social conscience of a new Dardenne brothers film, Vitalina Varela is both richly familiar and profoundly unique; if occasionally a challenge to watch.

There’s a slight lack of dramatic tension in much of the lead-up to its harrowing finale, with too much weight placed on the capable shoulders of the French-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei.

It is a film in which, over two hours, the maverick Argentinian virtuoso quietly blows up and rebuilds the established language of cinema in challenging but ultimately exhilarating ways.

Ultimately what makes this an unusually rewarding picture about motherhood is the fact that it shatters the binary distinction between the good mother and the bad one.

All of The Big Sick’s power has gone into its script and performances.

The result is a vibrant, infectious and surprisingly hopeful portrait of a divided America, fuelled not by idealism but dogged determination.

Ceylan’s script reveals a stagnating provincial world, characters all handling their thwarted hopes and inevitable resignations in their own way.

Guzman’s heart and soul investment in the film and the snapshots of people power in action make for an emotional and involving documentary.

On its surface, the film may touch on the familiar theme of how artists draw from their own lives, but Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgard bring incredible tenderness to a story that is ultimately about what children and parents never say to one another — and whether those lifelong silences can ever be broken.

Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy allows Hamaguchi to return to themes he has explored in previous work from the way life is measured in twists of fate to a sense of duality in individual lives and characters.

City of Ghosts shows us the power of media to bring the grim truth about life under ISIS to the world, even when under a death sentence. In keeping our eyes on Raqqa, it also reminds us of the limits of that power.

This documentary reminds us that justice can be as elusive in the US suburbs as anywhere else, and that having guns keeps people who are born different from getting too close.

Both intimate and epic, American Factory offers a remarkably candid, fly-on-the-wall account ... It’s a deceptively lighthearted look at one of the most significant cultural and economic conflicts of our times.

Thoughtful, moving, overreaching and uncompromising, First Reformed is a tremendously tormented work from writer-director Paul Schrader.

An assured, intelligent piece of filmmaking.

Baby Driver’s superb set pieces and unpredictable song selections keep the story humming along, which is crucial since Wright’s plotting isn’t quite as deft.