It is silkily persuasive in its own hot-sleuthy way.

Driven by a powerhouse performance by mesmerising transgender actress Vega, the fifth feature from Sebastián Lelio combines urgent naturalism with occasional flickers of fantasy to impressive, and wrenchingly emotional effect.

Miron’s cinema vérité approach still finds time for contemplation and appealing images of the countryside through the changing seasons. His very promising feature debut remains consistently engrossing through unexpected developments. He even surprises us with the sense of renewal and hope that suddenly blossoms from Kathy’s darkest hours.

What Does That Nature Say To You may be a touch disappointing for lovers of the director’s wry understatement, as certain themes feel uncharacteristically emphatic and even, in a last-act discussion scene, too explicitly stated. Otherwise, a group of regular Hong players mesh with seemingly effortless grace in a way that is bound to click with fans and with the director’s regular international outlets.

Homegrown never makes excuses for its subjects — there’s no blaming their ugly views on economic disparity — but the disturbing ordinariness of these men is chilling.

It feels like a gorgeous, decidedly dewy-eyed heritage hagiography.

Lacking some of the simplicity and elegance of the first instalment, The Conjuring 2 is nonetheless a smoothly efficient horror movie, building to a powerhouse finale rooted in our emotional connection to the film’s well-drawn main characters.

With its restrained tone and measured performances, The Sun Rises creates a fragile world populated by characters who don’t know how to move forward — either separately or, perhaps, together.

Viewers are in good hands — if they’re not too demanding — as Zhang Yimou puts the easily distinguishable characters through their paces.

What it lacks in substance is compensated for by Lee’s entertaining performance.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may not be that fresh or substantial – it’s basically comfort food for long-term Burton fans – but it’ll be hard for viewers to repress a pleased smile, or graveyard rictus.

Sluggish pacing slightly undermines the film’s main assets — the strong performances from Kelli Garner as Mary and a suitably ravaged-looking Nick Stahl as Eli.

Following up her Sundance prizewinner Clemency, director Chinonye Chukwu brings intelligence, sorrow and rage to what eventually becomes a courtroom drama, but the film is most effective when it pushes against its conventionality, locating the psychic scars within this woman and the nation.

A Gentle Creature is a grim state-of-the-nation fable, a bitter mix of tragedy, farce and road movie soaked in the bleak sardonic spirit of Gogol and Dostoyevsky, not to mention gallons of vodka.

Sometimes Shults’ reach exceeds his grasp, resulting in a self-conscious epic that wants to hammer home its characters’ emotional wreckage. Nevertheless, Waves is also powerfully immersive, investing so passionately in these individuals that it’s hard not to do the same.

Hitchcock Truffaut is of undeniable appeal to those with even a passing interest in the history of cinema. There’s nothing rarified about the air the project breathes, either – this features passionate people who have made their own iconic cinema talking about two giants of our film age with an enthusiasm which is infectious.

There’s pleasingly little sentimentality and much honesty to be found in Hirayanagi’s screenplay, particularly in its acknowledgement that new experiences can make you lose, as much as broaden, your mind.

With superb understatement, Marceau communicates Emmanuele’s seemingly inexhaustible patience, while hinting at all the unresolved feelings she has about this impossible man.

Although the premise is undoubtedly far-fetched, Malaysian director Sam Quah succeeds in constructing the kind of tightly wound suspense piece for which disbelief can be suspended.

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.

A strangely-compelling, unpredictable and manipulative piece of work.

Mixing often horrifying war footage with testimonies from a wide range of Ukrainians of varying ages, Freedom on Fire is an urgent, somewhat hectic, at times cluttered film – but that’s partly explained by the fact that Afineevsky has been able to assemble it so rapidly, only six months after the invasion began.

The multiple scenes featuring family fights feel raw and authentic, sometimes painfully so, because they seem part-improvised: but at times they drag on too long, a sign of a larger problem with pacing and rhythm. What brings it all back from the edge are the performances.

Newcomer Jelly Lin brings a delightfully quirky demeanour to her literal fish out of water.

Visually inventive, wryly satirical, White Noise the film leaves viewers to apply DeLillo’s sometimes prescient visions of a morally and physically diseased America to post-pandemic 2022 as they see fit. But it still has a lot going for it, much of it entertaining.

J.A. Bayona’s adaptation of this much-filmed story is elevated by bracingly muscular action sequences. It manages to sustain a degree of tension despite an overlong running time and the fact that the outcome of the incident is unlikely to be a surprise to anyone.

The circle of life and death may be warped and buckled in Hounds, but nobody can stop it turning.

The film’s professional polish and slick accessibility sometimes come at the expense of probing insight, but those still grieving his suicide should find comfort here.