There may be little here we haven’t seen before – glassy reflections of Michael Mann’s Heat pop up everywhere you look – but it’s all carried off with brashness and momentum by a director who genuinely seems to be having a blast.

The film’s pleasures are simple – soaring landscapes, old-school DIY adventure and some sweet performances by the child actors. It makes for a charmingly old-fashioned family adventure.

Anyone with a beating heart will be forgiven for allowing it to break during this unflinching and thoughtful account of the life and death of the soul singer Amy Winehouse.

Structurally, it could be compared to Kurosawa's Rashomon for its subjective cross-examination of Nola's loves; but this delightful low-budget comedy, with its all black cast and black humour, is 100 per cent Lee.

Efficient enough as a thriller, but what makes this mandatory viewing is the return of Pacino. There are isolated scenes as good as anything he's done, and if the role is less demanding than Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon or Michael in The Godfather, his presence lifts the production in the way De Niro lifted Midnight Run.

This also marks what may be Allison Janney’s funniest performance to date: her cheerful, outspoken drunk next door is an absolute hoot.

U.N.C.L.E. has enough style and smarts to make it an amusingly louche summer movie: a cultivated mix of action and wit, suits and cities, that feels refreshingly analogue in a digital world.

Not a lot to it, certainly, but the acting and performances combine to produce an obliquely effective study of the effect of landscape upon emotion, and the wry, dry humour is often quite delicious.

His film is the product of tough-love, arresting, unexpected and worth your time.

The film's quietly angry plea is for compassion, understanding and more than one eye open on this modern horror.

A candid, often shocking documentary portrait of the great photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

The Fits is abstract and atmospheric, intense and surprisingly emotional. There are few explanations in this short tale. It’s hard to pin down, but guaranteed to leave a mark.

With Dolan, you feel you're in the company of a truly original voice and one unafraid to make his mistakes right up there on the screen.

Still, it’s one of the terrorist's wives (Melissa Benoist) who carries the film’s most riveting and provocative scene.

Unique and intoxicating, an art movie that grips like a thriller.

Berberian Sound Studio is like nothing before – and whether or not it ‘works’ seems almost irrelevant. In this era of cookie-cutter cinema, Strickland’s deeply personal moral and stylistic vision deserves the highest praise.

What makes this more than just a punishing, fearful, expertly crafted thriller focused on one man’s endurance is heavily down to Emmanuel Lubezki’s attractive, thoughtful photography.

But while she's thoroughly committed to serving both the rom and the com (the film is genuinely sweet, and at times very funny) Scherfig somehow never falls into any of the obvious traps.

Where Antonioni's images made you think, De Palma's merely make you blink, and the baroque plot confuses as often as it frightens. Still, plenty of style, a modicum of thrills, and a suitably s(l)ick ending. Collectors of character performances will enjoy Lithgow's right-wing nut.

It’s a teasing celebration of outsiderdom without being a full-on endorsement

It’s an authentic celebration of the timeless delights of country bike rides and skimming stones. Absolutely lovely.

Its encouragement to let ourselves be captivated by everyday humanity as well as the old masters is both richly illuminating and quirkily endearing. Time well spent.

Pawlikowski’s film may be bleak and unforgiving, but it’s also richly sympathetic and deeply moving.

Hyena is startling, claustrophobic and penetrating in its analysis of the blurred lines involved in doing good.

No one watches Gone with the Wind for historical accuracy. What keeps us coming back is four-hours of epic romance in gorgeous Technicolor.

Hogg displays a welcome desire to draw on global film influences and ignore the unwritten rules of what British cinema should or should not seek to achieve, especially in the realm of films about the monied and unsympathetic.

Danny Says doesn’t break the rock-doc mould, but it’s a must for fans of noise and nostalgia.

The story is fictional, yet it builds up a chastening picture of divisive separate political and religious agendas holding sway over common humanity, and leading the country deeper into chaos. A striking, tough-minded achievement.

‘Bodies’ gets under your skin and stays there. And the gospel handclapping soundtrack feels like it’s drawing you into a dream.

The plot is impossibly dense and the characters – perhaps appropriately – feel like little more than cyphers, but for sheer mind-expanding sci-fi strangeness this is hard to beat.

Cameraperson’ is a thoughtful examination of the role of the documentary-maker, showing us how it feels to be that person behind the camera.

Lau’s astute performance is rather like the film as a whole – at first you think it’s underdone, but it’s actually cannily judged to favour genuine feeling over pushy sentimentality.

It’s most fascinating when dealing with the fallout from her divorce from first husband Petter Lindstrom and very public affair with director Roberto Rosselini – a reminder of how much gossip, scandal and public opinion were at the heart of Hollywood long before Twitter.

Thankfully, the film’s final third over-delivers massively.

There is surely a sly attack here on the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s suppression of liberal values and demonisation of the LGBT community. As the tension escalates, there are some poking between the ribs questions too about free speech and facts in the post-truth era.

Exhibition succeeds in making us feel deeply uncomfortable for peering into other people’s lives.

As ever with Jarmusch, as the five sequential stories proceed toward their unexpectedly poignant conclusion, there's a touch of the experimental at play; but it's also a film of great warmth. Character prevails throughout, and with the exception of a miscast Ryder, the performances are terrific. Though it may take a while to get Jarmusch's gist, hang in there; by the time Tom Waits growls his lovely closing waltz over the credits, Jarmusch has shown us moments most film-makers don't even notice.

Nicely performed by a strong cast, especially Field and Leibman, it's often mawkishly soft, but surprisingly touching.

Writer-director Anna Muylaert’s observations on family relations and invisible-but-firm class barriers are always acute.

This tense New York drama from the co-directors of Bee Season and The Deep End is sensitive and almost unwatchably perceptive about dysfunctional families – and it’s acted with knife-sharp precision.

Don’t watch this doc for a lesson in the crisis. Maidan is hard work, with no voiceover or interviews and just the odd scrap of information written on screen to guide you through.

The painterly camerawork shows the sheer sophistication possible these days with digital technology. The only conventional note in a highly distinctive film touched with wry humour is the too-safe choice of a Mozart music cue.

Cameraman and director Michael Heineman has created a riveting story of how, with awful inevitability, power always corrupts.

Writer Abi Morgan ('Shame', 'The Iron Lady') and director Sarah Gavron's ('Brick Lane') tough, raw, bleak-looking film makes the suffragettes' dilemma feel immediate and real.

Archipelago confirms Hogg as a daring and mischievous artist, and a major British talent whose next move will be intriguing.

A masterclass in how the most local, most hemmed-in stories can reverberate with the power of big, universal themes.

The film is touching, but more than that it’s wise, witty and thought-provoking.

The Lovers and the Despot is compelling as a Cold War-era thriller, but it also offers a small window on life in the higher echelons of power in North Korea at that time.

With gorgeously crisp photography and pitch-perfect performances from the two leads, this is one of the most intriguing and thoughtful American films of the year.

Coppola's rethink of his Vietnam War epic is intriguing, but no significant improvement. Some of the added footage is fine, some redundant.

What a ballsy film and honest too.

Every emotion is bang-on; every scene unfolds grippingly and naturally; and by the end, these characters feel like people you know.

Art, the film suggests, is about first noticing then communing with the world around you. In that sense, it’s another wise, wonderful Jarmusch movie about the importance, in this sad and beautiful world, of friendship and love.

Notwithstanding the fairytale set-up, this is not exactly a children’s film. ‘Kaguya’ demands patience and open-mindedness. In return, it offers an achingly nostalgic meditation on what it means to love, age and depart from this world with dignity. A fitting farewell.

Let yourself go and be rewarded by the sight of a hero running home to victory through clouds of fire.

Eastwood's first film as director, and first exploratory probe for the flaws in his macho image as outlined in Siegel's The Beguiled. A highly enjoyable thriller made under the influence of Siegel (who contributes a memorable cameo as a bartender).

It will drive some viewers up the wall, but fans will feel the rush of discovering a unique new director and, in Richard,a gawky yet captivating screen presence.

Nicole Holofcener has a reputation for making Woody Allen-ish chick-flicks. Which sounds like a snidey compliment. Enough Said is her best yet.

This low-key charmer of a movie packs an unexpected emotional punch once the brothers finally manage a rapprochement of sorts.

There’s much to ponder in a brave, defiantly idiosyncratic film that’s as mesmerising as it is unexpected.

A gorgeous, amusing ode to the pleasures of stretching your wings a little.

The struggle for LGBT rights in Uganda might sound like a dry or distant subject. It’s the achievement of Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s shocking, moving, enthralling and enraging doc to make it lively and urgent.

First-time director Sophie Hyde’s mazy, impulsive but sympathetic approach is always true to her characters’ exasperating but ultimately affecting pathway towards hard-earned self knowledge.

Brand is a winning – cuddly even – bridge between his film’s ideology and the wider world.

Against all the odds, Stake Land director Jim Mickle has cooked up a controlled, affecting ‘companion piece’ that honours the Mexican original while deepening its themes.

More than ever Payne allows the humour to rise up gently from his story rather than burst through it.

Hard to Be a God is an endurance test for its protagonist and audience, yet the reward is an unforgettable cinematic experience and a timely insight into the need to remain human in a world of carnage.

It's a spare film, muted in colour and unflashy – and it's all the more powerful and urgent for it.

This hugely entertaining oddity could never be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker.

The Gift will have you triple-locking the doors and rushing to pull the curtains.

It’s a small, successful sketch of now-great lives.

The documentary twists and turns like a guy getting his armpits tickled, but its driving force is Farrier’s personal determination to reveal the manipulation of the athletes involved. It’s unexpected and brilliant.

A startling examination of how artistic principles translate into real-world actions, and a moving portrait of a genuinely, unexpectedly brave man.

‘Childhood’ is not always a subtle film, and some of the writing and acting feel like a bit of a slog. But its very spooky mood leaves a strong impression.

Props should go to director Klaus Härö for making such a predictable premise feel fresh and his cast of characters – from a suspicious, disapproving headmaster, to the foil-swinging kids – feel engaging.

Any film that teams up gruffer-than-thou icons Shepard and Johnson is bound to go heavy on the testosterone, but Mickle undercuts all this strident manliness with a rich vein of self-mocking wit and paternal angst.

What makes The New Girlfriend special is that is has something to say about sexuality (feminine, masculine, gay, straight, and everything in between – it’s complicated).

If self-aware, ultra-arch arthousery isn’t your bag, give it a miss. If you’re looking for a good, weird, often very funny time, don’t miss it.

The film is not without its problems – Michelle Williams is an elusive lead, and a wide array of characters come at the expense of depth – but it’s a knotty, thoughtful piece of work nonetheless.

Dunst handles her sidekick role with a mature ease that’s new to her, but it’s the men you remember: Mortensen in psychological freefall and Isaac always tough to read and hiding something behind a handsome, controlled exterior. It’s a gentle and smart blast from the past.

Sleek and quite fun all the same, with SPECTRE holding the world to ransom after stealing a couple of nuclear bombs, Bond almost getting his in the villain's shark-infested swimming pool, and a cleverly choreographed underwater battle to provide the icing on the mix.

Kormákur creates such a convincing world – the craft of this film is astonishing – that you’re willing to forgive its less delicate touches in favour of its totally compelling depiction of what it must be like to ascend into a place that’s heaven one moment and hell the very next.

You want to know more about what Aisholpan is thinking behind that shy determined smile. But that’s not her way. You can imagine her as the gutsy heroine of a Disney animation.

What will take your breath away is how viciously Armstrong crushed and humiliated anyone who dared to make allegations against him, and that includes former teammates he’d doped with.

A messy, troubling and strangely enjoyable film.

It’s raw, funny and incredibly moving.

There are other good performances to enjoy – notably from Koteas and Alba – but it’s Affleck who justifies the price of your ticket.

Newcomer Florence Pugh is like a lightning bolt, totally electric as Katherine, who’s up there with Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina in the literary heroine stakes.

Dreamcatcher is harrowing.

Once you get past some bumps in the road of believability, Our Kind of Traitor turns into a brisk, energetic drama, with Anthony Dod Mantle’s photography adding interesting layers to a fairly straightforward plot.

This punky adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Filth is a glossary of grimness, a dictionary of darkness. But it also dishes up humour that’s blacker than a winter’s night in the Highlands and unpolished anarchy that’s true to Welsh’s out-there, frighteningly frank prose.

It’s taut, creepy, compelling and sexy. And, apart from the location, it’s very much a Dolan film, focused on people testing the limits of their love for each other – and themselves.

Don’t be put off by the jock-ish ‘extreme sports’ subject matter, this is an insightful, deeply affecting journey of emotional discovery beyond the thrill of speed and the roar of the crowd.

The medical side of things is shown in documentary detail, and it’s fascinating.

The cliché-averse will doubtless resist, but the laughter and tears here are never less than fully earned. A lovely film.

As filmmaking, X+Y is unassuming and not entirely remarkable, but the relationships play so sweetly and memorably.

The story is a bit predictable and rough around the edges. But it’s heart-on-the-sleeve sweet.

Sissako’s methods are confrontational, yet never to the point that you feel you’re watching sacrificial lambs instead of people caught in a horrible situation. In this terrible context, madness and death are blessings. It’s living that’s the curse.