There is a great performance here from Sasha Lane and this is another step onwards and upwards for Andrea Arnold herself.

While some viewers may complain that the action is too heavily weighted toward the ending, I’d argue that this is a strong example of destination-not-the-journey film-making.

There is something interestingly non-argumentative and personal about this documentary. It is gentle and reflective, a paean to his own youth and idealism that have been preserved in the ice.

Anyone who has pushed things a bit too far, and woken up with one too many “wtf” mornings, will appreciate how close Belgica has got to replicating hedonism going off the rails.

Did you like The Commitments? Did you like We Are the Best!!? Well, Sing Street isn’t as good as either of those two, but it’s still pretty terrific.

For a directorial debut, Ross’s film is admirably odd and hard to pin down.

In addition to its ability to take this odd premise and run with it, Nina Forever scores by being tremendously erotic. Granted, what’s sexy varies from taste to taste, but the exuberance in passion exhibited by young Abigail Hardingham is refreshing in a landscape of independent films that too frequently play nudity for a cheap laugh or just to tick a box off a potential distributor’s list of requirements.

Occasionally too emblematic as individuals, the characters collectively mesh into a portrait of a dislocated society elevated by Sutton’s talent for disorienting imagery.

Author is less a run-through of one of the biggest controversies to plague the literary world in the past century, than an illuminating study of the enigmatic and driven woman behind the phenomenon.

Eat That Question does a good job of giving us just a taste of nearly every era in Zappa’s multifaceted career.

Holmer draws confident, luminous performances from the cast that rise to the occasion but never seem over-coached or phony.

Greene makes it clear early on that his interests lie less with a news report than with what Werner Herzog dubbed “ecstatic truth”. The dial swerves between “catching something” to “clearly rehearsed” and back again, and all to the betterment of the final project.

For those looking for a ride through our modern technological world, or indeed a preview of what is to come, this is it.

It’s a shocking and compelling piece of work.

The ending doesn’t quite land the gut punch it’s hoping for, but this is more about fun than about exposing deep, nefarious truths. At least, I think it is.

It’s Shannon who leaves the most lasting impression.... She effortlessly mines the material for all its uncomfortable laughs.

It is elegantly shot and very well acted. A definite frisson.

Equity takes us inside modern Wall Street in a unique and gripping manner.

When something is this engaging (and funny, did I mention funny?) it ceases to merely be about ideas and becomes, even in this borderline sci-fi context, a thoughtful movie about people.

Perhaps no film can entirely compete with the simple fact of this novel/museum’s existence, but the movie circles around the dual conceptual artefact beguilingly.

Like the emotional equivalent of a massage with a sandpaper loofah, the film leaves you feeling raw and tender, thanks particularly to the knockout performances from the small cast, especially Collette.

This deafening fantasia of internal and external combustion delivers outrageous action spectacle magnificently divorced from the rules of narrative or gravity. . . . I think we can include Isaac Newton among the people who are getting their asses kicked here.

The Light Between Oceans isn’t subtle – that swoony title should tip you off – and it’s a fair way from the realist grit of the less obviously commercial pictures Cianfrance has made previously. There’s more corn in the recipe here, a bit more ham and cheese. But he carries it off with forthright defiance and with strong, heartfelt, ingenuous performances from Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender.

Richness, warmth and tenderness pulse from this lovely documentary.

Things to Come is a smart, earnest undertaking: an exploration of the insecurity that can hit any of us, at any age, when we start to question the life we’ve built.

The anarchic spirit of agitprop pulses from this scrappy, smart, subversive film.

Buttons will definitely be pushed by White Girl, but after the moral panic hopefully people will still be talking about the film itself.

Mixing droll animation, stock footage and a restrained number of talking head interviews, the director Penny Lane’s biography has all the whimsy of a tall tale, until a late change in tone surprises with genuine emotion. Nuts! is really a kick.

Given the nudity on show, some are already quick to criticise Park’s direction as gratuitous and to claim that his male gaze is affecting the depiction of lesbian romance. But the impotency of the male characters helps to counter this while the sex scenes themselves, as lovingly shot as they might be, feel vital to the narrative.

It is Davies’ ability to invest even the most apparently-humdrum moments with some form of intense radiance that sustains his film.

This is a thoroughly engrossing and densely textured drama, showing Farhadi's cool skill in dissecting the Iranian middle classes and the unhappiness of marriage.

There’s little doubt who the hero of Peter Berg’s retelling of the 2013 Boston marathon bombings is: the city itself.

Most people will find Thru You Princess inspirational. A few will find it infuriating. But that’s frequently the case with a good documentary.

In addition to being a funny, invigorating and inspirational ode to being the cleverest kid in the room, it’s a remarkable testament to the suspension of disbelief.

Don’t Breathe is a master class in tension, and while its script could have been written on the back of an envelope, its editing and use of sound design is a triumph for film theorists.

What could have been mere summertime chum is actually one of the more cleverly constructed B-movies in quite some time.

For what is, in essence, a by-numbers Disney sports flick, there’s endless freshness and vivacity to Mira Nair’s picture – her best in years.

It is an eccentric and entertaining movie soap-opera.

This feature is a very funny, if derivative panto-ish romp about the early life of Shakespeare.

You’ll shed a tear or two, possibly more.

As repellent a figure as many may still find Gibson, I have to report he’s absolutely hit Hacksaw Ridge out of the park.

The pleasure in watching this documentary is derived from its countless twists.

It’s a tight, slick polemic which doesn’t shy from the complexity surrounding the debate or the fact it wants you the viewer to get up and do something about it.

His fly on the wall approach never feels exploitative – in instances, it yields surprising empathy. In spite of his characters’ actions, Minervini miraculously captures traces of profound humanity.

It’s terrifically watchable, a high-octane automobile of a film with dodgy steering, but exciting in a world of dull and prissy hybrids.

It’s a richly detailed character study, immersing the audience in the life and mind of its imperious main character.

The story is told with stark and fierce plainness: unadorned, unapologetic, even unevolved. Loach’s movie offends against the tacitly accepted rules of sophisticated good taste: subtlety, irony and indirection.

Ma Loute is a fascinatingly made film, theatrically extravagant and precise, although perhaps a little over-extended.

What a lovely film Paterson is.

The film is very funny – but asks its audience to wonder if being funny, if wanting to make people laugh, and particularly if using comedy for family-bonding, really is the sign of being relaxed and life-affirming in the way people who are talented at comedy often assume.

It’s an action-thriller with punch; Bridges gives the characterisation ballast and heft and Pine and Foster bring a new, grizzled maturity to their performances.

Neruda takes a lot of wild chances and, like the poet whose life acts as inspiration, it’s unwilling to play by the rules. Dizzily constructed and full of more life and meaning than most “real” biopics, it’s a risk worth taking.

As comeback projects go, Blood Father is stellar. It’s a wonder Quentin Tarantino, the king of career resurrection, didn’t get to Gibson first. The actors completely tears into the role of Link, a battered and disgruntled ex-con. Richet matches him, delivering a muscular and deliriously entertaining B-movie that is sure to play like gangbusters with genre aficionados.

If The Student lacks the searing moral exactness of the Russian literature on which it draws, it’s an often hypnotic warning against dogma’s eternal allure.

What is very impressive about Raw is that absolutely everything about it is disquieting, not just the obvious moments of revulsion: there is no let up in the ambient background buzz of fear.

The movie stunningly replicates that sense of inside and outside that must be felt by witnesses to any historic moment: the private debate, the enclosed conflict, and the theatre of confrontation unfolding beyond. What a dynamic piece of cinema.

It’s a real flight of fancy.

What we have here is an embedded report that sacrifices impartiality for access. But what access.

Maybe the final five minutes are a little too over the top, but the overwhelming impression is that Dounia has ambition and vision, a conviction that she might still be able shape her own future. It’s an exhilarating film.

It is a film of immense humanity and charm: the very best kind of date movie.

This sunny 1989 fantasy by master animator Hayao Miyazaki broaches the issue of female sexuality more boldly than any Western children’s movie would dare.

Zero Days is an intriguing, disturbing watch.

Cillian Murphy is excellent as the fiercely committed Josef Gabčík; Jamie Dornan does very well in the slightly more reticent role of his co-conspirator Jan Kubiš. An intelligent, tough, and gripping movie.

The President is a striking movie - and a bold and challenging change of directorial pace from Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

It’s a charming and engaging mix – the antithesis of Metallica’s ego overload, and just as watchable.

Like its distraught protagonist, Amber Tamblyn’s Paint It Black is unforgiving, flawed and ferocious.

What an enjoyable spectacle it is.

Arrival is a big, risky, showy movie which jumps up on its high-concept highwire and disdains a net. And yes, there are moments of silliness when it wobbles a little, but it provides you with spectacle and fervent romance.

It is a sombre and painful drama, enacted with reserve. There are no closeups, and it is fully one hour into the running time before we get even a medium shot of the female lead’s face. Even then there are shadows.

It is a thoroughly absorbing and moving film, especially when Hull has a dream about recovering his sight and seeing his children. The tone is sober, unflashy, and Hull’s reflections on God are presented without any hectoring or special pleading. Affecting and profoundly intelligent.

[A] richly enjoyable documentary tribute.

It’s a proper animation buff’s piece of work, and admittedly a little slow to get its yarn ripping, but mesmerising and moving in the later stretches.

An intensely angry and persuasive piece of film-making, though maybe letting Bill and Hillary off the hook, a little bit.

Private Property’s vicious form of prurience may make some queasy, and is hardly the type of movie that could get made today without great backlash, but there’s definitely more going on here than mere time-capsule curiosity.

Split goes all-in on McAvoy slipping from persona to persona, and luckily he’s got the acting chops to sell it.

A toxic cloud of anger, suspicion and sadness hangs over this documentary.

The life of Orry-Kelly is a story that needed to be told, and Armstrong stocks up a lovingly rendered homage-cum-investigation with oodles of verve and panache.

Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting is everything I could reasonably have hoped for - scary, funny, desperately sad, with many a bold visual flourish.

Maybe any biopic risks naïveté in suggesting the agony of postwar Africa can be soothed by a love story about a handsome prince. But this movie has candour, heartfelt self-belief, and an unfashionable conviction that love conquers all - though not immediately.

It’s an impressive spectacle, if not a happy one.

Even if Aisholpan’s training – which includes hoodwinking, responding to calls, dragging dead foxes and other hallmarks of falconry – is for the camera, it doesn’t make it any less extraordinary. Especially in this remarkable environment, captured in breathtakingly crisp digital video.

Much will be said about Gray’s cinematic craft (as is often the case when a director works with cinematographer Darius Khondji) but beneath the slow roll down the river pierced by arrows from unseen, defensive natives, there’s a fascinating, mercurial screenplay that offers just enough to keep you journeying for more insight.

Hidden Figures is a bouncy, almost garish feelgood girl pic. A movie that knows right from wrong and doesn’t see any use in complicating matters.

It’s a kaleidoscopic and vivid rendering of a world that is larger than life, flamboyant but ultimately fragile.

This assured debut tells us teenage girls can – and will – save themselves.

To make the movie work, the audience needs to put in a little effort, but a philosophy of connectedness is present.

The film is almost totally schematic and this weakens it. What strengthens it is the sheer emotional power of its making.

It is a film of much humanity and very far from smart European pap. But the external brilliance of its making does at times subvert its inner workings, as if its manufacture and its meaning were not quite in perfect harmony.

This film is conceived as a showcase for its performers, and, as that, it is immaculate.

Falardeau draws exceptional character work from his cast.

Brings a new urgency to an old subject: the ivory trade, which is threatening the world’s elephants. This threat has not been cancelled or brought under control, as I had assumed. The film persuasively argues that it is all but out of control: so much so that elephants are in danger of being wiped out in the wild in just a matter of years.

Into the Inferno is an intriguing, unnerving documentary.

Dunning recounts spellbinding tales that led to the gradual downfall of his expansive Mile Hill Farm, and the destruction of his two marriages.

For all of Mills’s cinematic tricks, he’s emerging as a great realist film-maker.

Gary Oldman is terrific as Churchill, conveying the babyishness of his oddly unlined face in repose, the slyness and manipulative good humour, and a weird deadness when he is overtaken with depression.

It’s a carefully balanced and frightening film with Knox a terrifyingly unknowable character at the grisly centre.

As Jonathan Demme’s concert documentary Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids indisputably shows, Timberlake is only truly in his element when on stage being a showman.

The movie is rich on its own as a character piece about the difficulties of being bi-racial, especially at the very specific location of Columbia University.