This is one of the best evocations of the end of days ever committed to film: not too shabby, given a meagre budget. [29 Jul 2018, p.66]

Does she actually love Hae Sung? The answer to that question eludes Nora, Past Lives, and the director herself, as Song’s script allows these strikingly mature and reasonable adults to work through some very difficult emotions.

First-time feature director Lee Cooper’s sweet, soulful documentary Maisie captures Raven in the run-up to his 85th birthday celebrations and provides a joyful insight into the trailblazing life of Britain’s oldest working drag performer.

Thunderbolts* does feel different to what’s come before, not because of those indie credentials, but because it’s the first of its kind to seem genuinely self-aware.

Radcliffe, who remains movie-star ripped for the film’s duration, is a genius casting choice. He has pitch-perfect comic timing without necessarily coming across as someone trying to tell a joke. There’s a real sincerity to him and he has the eager grin of a Broadway performer about to take their bow.

An austere and appropriate rumination on leave-taking and loss. [07 Dec 2007, p.20]

Causeway has two incredibly gifted performers at its centre, and knows they’re who you want to see.

You’ll likely catch yourself, by the end, weeping while looking up at an alien squid blob who talks like a British Second World War general, one of the Communiverse’s many oddball residents. But that’s just Pixar doing its job, right?

Cillian Murphy allows the light to dim from his eyes in every subsequent scene, but it is Robert Downey Jr who is titanic here.

Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron contains multitudes. It is beautiful, tortured, whimsical, and stoic.

Assayas's attention to even the most marginal character is a joy, as are his mesmerising changes of pace and register. A slow-burning delight. [11 Feb 2000, p.11]

The combination of Christie and Wilder ensures the story is impeccably told and the dialogue is unsurpassable from start to finish.

Penn and Kaufman’s film about him is sprawling and uneven but also heartfelt and inspiring. It’s informative but has an immediacy which you rarely find in conventional news reports. The documentary leaves you with admiration not only for its subject, the comedian turned wartime leader, but for the doughty Hollywood star who put himself in the eye of the storm too.

As light as McAvoy’s touch might be – this is a film, after all, that features a James Corden cameo – there’s more to do here than simply cheer the boys on and hope they get one over on the Oxbridge elite. There are bigger questions to ask, and California Schemin’ is willing to ask them.

The tone is distinctly feelgood, but the film, directed by Shekhar Kapur, thoughtfully explores the different ways that relationships can be built, and what cultures can teach one another.

The unexpected advantage here is that, when Williams wants to be truly upfront about his struggles, that veneer of fantasy shields us from the more harrowing details of his life, so that we can confront them yet still enjoy that “right f***ing entertaining”.

Manzoor’s film, with a roundhouse kick to the heart, both parodies the generational divide with its fantastical plot and finds sympathy for what makes parents domineering.

It’s a little metatextual analysis served up with a generous side of guts and gore, stabbing its cake and eating it with gleeful abandon.

The Big Sleep is as fresh and perverse as ever, and remains one of Hollywood's most entrancingly strange bedtime stories.

Hermanus is more than happy for his film to live in the shadows of Kurosawa’s. There’s still much to savour.

This is kinetic, muscular, easy-to-cheer filmmaking applied to a story ready-made for the silver screen.

The future presented in The Beast, Bertrand Bonello’s mesmeric blend of sci-fi, horror and romance, feels frighteningly plausible.

Benediction isn’t a cradle-to-grave biopic, nor does it dramatise a single, pivotal event. It’s one man’s breathless search, careening back and forth through the chapters of his life in search of something concrete and true. It’s beautiful, but only in the way it tends to its tragedies with such care.

Cooper shows us his subject’s mix of magnetism, volatility and childlike egotism but he remains a strangely elusive figure. It’s left to Mulligan’s Felicia to crack the film’s sometimes too-shiny facade and to give its story some bruising emotional depth.

The real way Safdie puts a chokehold on his audience is by examining Mark and Dawn’s physical and emotional weaknesses in such forensic detail. The Smashing Machine may not provide the pay-offs that audiences expect from more conventional sports movies, but this is the most raw and vulnerable that Johnson has ever been on screen. Once you’ve seen him this exposed, you won’t watch his typical action movie stunts in quite the same way ever again.

The Last Wish is visually gorgeous with an attention to detail you might not expect given it’s a sequel to a spin-off of a two-decade-old film.

Only 72 minutes, in black and white, this is a small classic, directed by Robert Wise. [02 Jul 2000, p.17]

It’s a phenomenal performance from McAdams, subtle and gentle in its heartbreak.