This is a nervy study of how poverty wears people down, eroded by uncertainty and the grinding effort to stay afloat.

Effectively employing and expressive performances from his three actors, and subtle symbolism, Polanski fashions an engrossing drama in which the mounting sexual tension is palpable. He and his crew make remarkably resourceful use of the movie's severely confined locations, and the hand-held black-and-white camerawork is dextrous. [25 Jun 1993, p.11]

Appealing documentary of the Nobel Prize-winning author has fascinating details.

Whishaw’s performance is a theatrical masterclass in controlled ramble; Hall’s is the art of listening, with responses that range from concern to a slightly cocked head. Their chemistry enlivens the most throwaway anecdote.

Absolutely essential.

Late Wenders sits at an odd angle to the young man obsessed with wandering and with the United States. There is a sense of a busy mind eager to share enthusiasms. Its generousness is part of the appeal.

Arjona brings heat to an undeveloped character. Powell, who manages to wring a moment of magnetism from iPhone notes, inevitably steals the show.

Christian Petzold, the film’s writer as well as director, rightly took home Berlin’s Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize for this genre-defying comedy of manners. The German master deftly weaves ecological catastrophe, sexual capering and a portrait of beta masculinity into a plot that, at first glance, could be a holiday-from-hell sitcom episode.

Unnervingly naturalistic performances from two cinematic legends – the great Italian giallo master Dario Argento, the great Italian giallo master and the star of La Maman et La Putain – add to the sense of loss.

It is a film of many enchantments.

The film is at its best when incorporating text from the play with oddly appropriate gameplay.

Mostly, Joyland is a film of huge heart and empathy. Mirroring the hapless hero’s journey, it’s an unexpected romance.

No other British film has, in a generation, done such imaginative work in restructuring romantic comedy. It is one of those rare films the audience didn’t know it really, really needed.

It’s all very superficial, but carried off with impeccable style.

For all the eccentricity of its premise, Rose of Nevada has things to say about how easily we can become disconnected from the relatively recent past.

The ever-reliable Dyrholm is both charismatic and curdling as the grubby matriarch. But most of the film is writ large and affectingly in Sonne’s agonised face.

Veiel structures his film with grace and guile.

The script, by Johannes Duncker and director Ilker Çatak, grabs the viewer from the get-go. Judith Kaufmann’s urgent, claustrophobic cinematography tightens the vice-like grip.

Moratto and Thanyá Montesso’s script is precise and minimal. Christian Malheiros and Tales Ordakji make for a wildly charismatic screen coupling.

C’mon C’mon is certainly heartfelt, but it lacks the lovely levity that defined Mills’s earlier films.

In delicate movements, the miserabilism of Small Things Like These coalesces into a wonderfully understated seasonal catharsis.

Cheap gags aside, The Super 8 Years comes together as an effective gloss on a life that has already been carefully examined.

Mirror is much copied, but as the recent run of Terrence Malick films demonstrates, eschewing time and plot for flotsam and psyche is much harder than Tarkovsky makes it look.

A real stonker of an entertainment.

The film built around the actor’s affecting turn works equally hard at upending expectations.

There’s nary a dull moment – nor a dull character – in this gripping history.

An absolute treasure.

Forming a Greek chorus, the films are only as disjointed as their context: the obliteration of normal life and the stubborn, miraculous act of carrying on.