Natural Light is a tough, slow film that makes demands on its audience – though much of the real horror is as just-off-screen for us as it is for Corporal Semetka. But it’s also an absorbing, beautifully crafted, thought-provoking addition to the new Hungarian cinematic wave.

Maria Speth’s study of a veteran teacher and his early teens students lasts three and a half hours, but not a moment is wasted. Anyone who teaches, or has ever been taught, will find something to relish in this serious-minded but quietly celebratory film. just as Bachmann puts the students at ease, the film-makers have managed to do the same – unintrusively catching the pupils’ episodes of vulnerability, or certain telling moments, as when two of them exchange flirtatious taunts.

In the sheer exuberance of its exploratory spirit, Koberidze’s film is very much of benefit to cinema – and any who feared that the art form was running out of new ways to find poetry in the real.

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

The layering of styles and perspectives provides a sympathetic insight into the motivations and real life experiences of police officers working within a fundamentally corrupt system.

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.

It’s a crowdpleasing tale of triumph over adversity which hits its raw highs and gritty lows every bit as emphatically as Turner during her famously electric performances.

This new edition feels less inspired, missing not just the superstar’s quick wit but the 1988 film’s fecund fish-out-of-water premise.

As arresting as this speculative portrait can be at times, the film is ultimately both galvanised and limited by how unknowable its protagonist turns out to be.

Like its dappled forested backdrop, the film is a thing of pensive beauty rather than volatile drama.

One of the most astute aspects of Morales and Duplass’ script is how it captures the twists and turns of a new friendship that is buoyed by excitement and yet remains tentative, and how it navigates the constant shifts that come with both fresh and established relationships.

This is a ‘minor’ Hong compared to some of the sixteen films he has premiered since 2010 . . . But it’s still a delight, a wistful, smart, chamber piece that gently teases out questions about whether you can love someone without controlling them in some way, whether acting can be sincere or sincerity can be an act, and how much of our life in the present and future is conditioned by our life in the past (a lot, as it turns out – but we knew that already).

Sometimes marred by plot contrivances, Boogie works best when it breaks free of cliches to deliver an honest portrait of the struggles to attain the American dream.

The set up promises a high concept romantic comedy, but in execution, Maria Schrader’s immensely enjoyable picture delves rather deeper, touching on philosophy, socio-sexual ethics and humanity’s uneasily symbiotic relationship with technology.

Whatever the film’s flaws, this is certainly the most unrepentantly confrontational work we’ve yet seen from Jude - and perhaps from any Romanian director. And, as the beleaguered, improbable figure of scandal at the centre of it all, stage actress Pascariu impresses with a crisply reserved performance.

While this medium-budgeted action film clearly hopes to launch a cinematic series, the YA trappings feel familiar, despite some intriguing ideas about toxic masculinity and adolescent insecurity.

Starting sedately but promisingly, it sails (literally, in one respect) into a perfect storm of heavy-handed symbolism and sentimentality.

A Shape Of Things To Come may not offer any grand insights into the never-ending battle between humanity and nature — between taking part in society and leaving it all behind — but this minor-key documentary suggests that, like some wild animals, Sundog is perhaps someone you don’t want to corner. There’s no telling what he might do.

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

A marvellously colourful and emotional adventure, Raya And The Last Dragon compellingly argues that the world is a dark place — but the only way to heal it is to hold onto hope.

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

Indeed, the fact that the movie’s youthful lead will have to say goodbye to his childhood might be inevitable, but it never feels as standard as it sounds. Assisting immensely are some naturalistic performances, particularly from Yasan.

While little here eschews genre conventions, Bana’s weathered performance and striking work by DoP Stefan Duscio ensure that this is a gripping-enough watch, even as it ticks a torrent of familiar boxes.

Cherry comes across like a deeply personal passion project for a group of talented filmmakers, and that’s for better and for worse. In its attempts to address Cleveland’s opoid crisis and the devastating trauma of repeated overseas conflicts for young Americans, the Russos’ film can effectively convey the grim desperation of those involved. It is often distracted by its own technique, though. The tone wavers wildly, the attention hovers, and scenes are allowed to ramble on. At times the resulting sense of discomfort can help challenge the viewer, but Cherry isn’t sufficiently fresh to be challenging enough.

Structured to an unusual beat and often stuck in its own feedback loop, The United States…is a flawed film, much like its protagonist, but Day doesn’t set a foot wrong throughout, even as Daniels’ adoring camera traces her every breath in full close-up.

Rather than including people with their politics, the filmmakers depend on flashy sleight-of-hand, distracting us with a deceptive narrative trick that isn’t nearly as fresh as they think.

What stands out in relief from the film’s flat characters and pedestrian storytelling is its dramatic core: the killing machine that death row had become in South Africa by the end of the 1980s, with 164 executions taking place in Pretoria Central Prison in the year in which Shepherds And Butchers is set, 1987.

A well-researched, sharply organised exposition of a strange and disturbing set of alliances.