Bergholm gives us precision-tooled jump scares and creeping, clammy atmospherics; a malevolent mother and an insurrectionist child.

The film’s main asset is impressive newcomer Box: veering between bratty backchat and bruised reticence, she’s tossed on unpredictable tides of teenage emotions.

The film feels more like an elbow in the ribs than a slap on the wrist, revelling in the miscommunications between Susan the Sasquatch’s literal-minded monkey brain.

Funny Pages spins a hilarious tale from the fringes of the underground comics scene, powered by a wonderfully sour performance by Daniel Zolghadri as Robert, a teenage cartoonist who strikes out on his own.

Alternately hilarious and spine-tingling, it recalls David Lynch’s Twin Peaks in its serious, penetrating sense of doom.

Inviolata is Italian for “unspoiled”, and the word could apply to its people as much as their straw-gold land.

There’s a new maturity both in the character and in the storytelling that makes this final film in the trilogy take wing.

Parental indifference is not attuned to the looming tragedy in this horribly compelling fable.

With its eddying, fluid score and judicious use of silence, its satisfying layers of storytelling, this is a supremely confident piece of film-making from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, albeit one that, at three hours long and with a rather Chekhov-heavy second half, will certainly require the right mindset.

This classic adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel is actually only the first half of the book and the Goldwyn Studio's notion of 19th-century Yorkshire is distinctly odd. But it's an intense, atmospheric work, and the performances are first rate. [11 Aug 2013]

What’s so invigorating is the way she gives each principle equal weighting, discussing her formal decisions, such as Cléo’s editing or the tracking shots that move right to left in 1985’s Vagabond, with the same intensity and enthusiasm as her more existential motivations (she describes her 1965 summer bummer classic Le Bonheur as “a beautiful summer peach with a worm inside”).

Ultimately, the revelation here is not so much Dolan’s more contemplative approach to film-making, but the subtlety and sensitivity of his performance.

Miss Juneteenth is a beautifully observed and quietly powerful drama that applies its coming-of-age tropes to children, parents and politics alike.

Raunchy, honest, non-judgmental comedy about two Yorkshire schoolgirls reacting against the inertia of their sink estate and sharing the favours of a randy estate agent. Adapted by Andrea Dunbar from her Royal Court play, directed by one of this country's great realists, and acted with gusto by Siobhan Finneran, Michelle Holmes and George Costigan. [01 Jan 2006, p.63]

Central to the spirit of the film is Seydou, a gangly string bean with a smile that warms the screen; a teenager who is still enough of a child to believe that manhood means never being afraid. It’s a gorgeous, sensitive performance from Sarr.

Sudanese film-maker Amjad Abu Alala’s radiant drama dares to wonder if death could inspire courage rather than fear.

Tonally, Can You Ever Forgive Me? cuts an elegant path between humour and pathos.

Charming, elegiac tragicomedy, scripted by playwright James Goldman, about being middle-aged in the Middle Ages. [03 Jan 2010, p.22]

About Dry Grasses tiptoes around the edge of being suffocatingly verbose, and there are scenes that could stand a tighter edit. Still, the meaty, novelistic writing and exceptional quality of the performances make for a rich and engrossing viewing experience.

Scenes of faces melting and bodies merging have a satisfyingly tactile feel, harking back to the experimental cinematic trickery of Georges Méliès, albeit with added 21st-century oomph. There’s a real physical depth to Possessor that helps keep the story grounded even during its most outlandish flights of fantasy.

Yates (hired on the strength of his taut British crime flick Robbery) eschews fashionable camera gimmickry and facile psychiatry, and concentrates on telling a fast-paced story of decent San Francisco cop Steve McQueen doing his job. The set-pieces (the car chase, the airport shoot-out) are famous, but the film lives on through its tone of romantic realism. [23 Jan 2000, p.10]

The story works on two levels, first as a prickly critique of the pressures facing Black creatives. But equally satisfying is its depiction of the abrasive, complicated dynamics in a high-achieving family.

Part cautionary tale about the pitfalls of judging a book by its cover, part wily, gaslighting mind game, Luce is a tricky thing to pin down. And it’s entirely appropriate that a film that so bluntly challenges the preconceptions that determine society’s evaluation of a person should itself be a slippery enigma that defies neat categorisation.

There are few genuine surprises, perhaps, but there are distinctive elements here which set the film apart, not least the way lack of fluency in a language (Julia’s Romanian is sparse to non-existent) creates a sense of siege.

It's a skillful blending of the folksy and the sophisticated, shot almost entirely on location. With evergreen songs, delightful choreography by Agnes De Mille, and charming performances from Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae as the romantic leads, Charlotte Greenwood, and Gloria Grahame as the girl who can't say no. [22 Dec 2013, p.40]

It’s the more deceptively restrained and poetic elements that strike home.

The film’s message is a beautiful one: to integrate our real-life vulnerabilities with the persona we project is to become all the more powerful.

The comedy doesn’t work quite as well this way around, though Fowler is extremely likable as a sweet-natured slacker, channelling the endearing guilelessness of Murphy’s original Prince Akeem. Still, there are enough in-jokes and returning characters to keep fans happy.