It’s such a torrent of universes, ideas and styles that it should collapse under the weight of its own creative payload. But it all works – brilliantly.

Jackson's film is distinguished by the intensity of the girls' secretive relationship. If the busy camera movements used to convey the heady exhilaration of their early encounters are irritating, the sense of claustrophobic immersion in private mysteries is palpable. Acted with conviction, and directed and written with febrile vibrancy.

McKellen is a marvellous demon king: unctuous, snarling, taking the throne like Hitler at a Nuremberg rally. A seamless, high-octane thriller of power and politics, one for today and tomorrow.

The tugs of docudrama, emotionalism and sheer timing produced a major work of surprisingly downbeat romanticism.

For Powell and Pressburger, the personal and the political—much like their distinctive mix of high and low artistry—weren’t separate bedfellows: Even a marvelously entertaining tale of repressed abbesses on the edge could explore, with enduring resonance and profundity, an empire losing its grip.

Anyone who saw The Killer will have a fair idea what to expect, from the intense male bonding to the hyper-kinetic editing style. What's new here is a rich vein of anarchic humour (will they evacuate the maternity ward before the hospital blows up?) and a bluesy back-beat of philosophical musings on a cop's sad lot.

Provocatively, the film suggests that winning small battles was victory enough; Saigon natives, also interviewed, were left behind to endure death camps.

With a blue and moody Mingus soundtrack and steel-grey photography, it's still a delight.

Somewhat tonally inconsistent; following the social comedy of Monte Carlo and suspense of Manderley, the pace slackens in the crime procedural of the final half-hour, which is all tell and no show. Still, Hitchcock shows superb technical control and attends to his trademark motifs, from monstrous mother figures to the fetishisation of clothing (strong foreshadowings of ‘Vertigo’).

A difficult and, at times, harrowing watch about an important subject, de Araújo’s unflinching eye and great care has a tonal precision the gravity of the events shown warrant.

On purely formal grounds (the ones on which the genre lives or dies), Kent is a natural. She favors crisp compositions and unfussy editing, transforming the banal house itself into a subtle, shadowy threat.

If [it] doesn't feel quite as revelatory as Keep the Lights On (2012) or the heartbreaking Love Is Strange (2014), it still impresses you with its quiet, confident maturity.

Never quite shakes its sitcom-ish setup. The director alternates incident-laden storytelling with penetrating character moments that her terrific cast acts to the fullest.

Uneven but entertaining World War II escape drama, which even when it first appeared seemed very old-fashioned. Worth seeing the last half hour, if nothing else, for one of the best stunt sequences in years: McQueen's motor-cycle bid for freedom.

You could hardly ask for a more beautiful vision of souls in transit.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams feels stuck in a middling zone of too much conjecture and not enough scholarship.

Martel’s forensic doc shatters any sense that, for her fellow Argentinians, the colonial burden has been lifted. It’s an intimate pinhole camera capturing an IMAX-sized story.

This is arguably the high-water mark of Hollywood’s love affair with the infinitely slippery possibilities of the English language.

The movie has the proportion of a fable but the scope of a mythical lifetime.

Boorman's autobiographical film about family life during the Blitz is subversively light on the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice, and a joy throughout.

The true value of the film is universal: These kids study the knotty viral science, pressure doctors into taking daring, inventive steps and make their cause a global emblem.

Like its thematic companion, Orlowski’s 2012 doc on melting glaciers "Chasing Ice," the sober and urgent Chasing Coral is thankfully far from discouraging. Instead it’s a motivating wake-up call that makes one want to drop everything and join the onscreen crew, rebelling against today’s political priorities

From Certain Women to First Cow, Reichardt has delivered some deep and powerful storytelling, and seeing her commit more fully to her lighter side is both refreshing and slightly frustrating by comparison. Still, Showing Up is an amiable watch that has something to say about power dynamics, the art world and our relationship with animals – who are used for all their symbolic worth.

What enchants, really, is the relationship between Nick and Nora as they live an eternal cocktail hour, bewailing hangovers that only another little drink will cure, in a marvellous blend of marital familiarity and constant courtship, pixillated fantasy and childlike wonder.

It all makes for a joyous, energetic and inclusive experience – one that will have you singing Elvis on repeat, and demanding more.

Despite being the subject of nearly every shot in the film, Hoss maintains an air of mystery, simultaneously projecting severity, sensitivity and sensuousness throughout.

Godly as the monks are, they are still human-which makes their ultimate sacrifice all the more devastating.

With its weird landscape of dusty, derelict towns and verdant highways, stunningly shot by Burnett Guffey in muted tones of green and gold, it has the true quality of folk legend.

Shindô concocts a stylistic mix of odd experimental flourishes, female nudity, Soviet-style close-ups and baldly sentimental melodrama to emphasize the toll this disaster took; its cup may runneth over, yet the stark vibe is impossible to shake.

Although it’s impossible to fault the euphoric dance sequences and ultra-melodic tunes, the dramatic scenes linking the big numbers all fall flat and the illicit affair at the film’s core remains fatally underdeveloped until its fudged finale.

It’s a vividly personal work, full of tough memories translated into neon nightmares, with an arresting visual palette and occasionally abrasive sound design that may put off the less adventurous.

Not a bad setup for a cops-and-robbers thriller, and in the hands of action-movie maestro Johnnie To, the result comes very close to greatness.

If Marcello Mastroianni’s character from "La Dolce Vita" hadn’t stepped off the sweet-life treadmill, this is exactly who he would have become.

Saks takes Neil Simon's play pretty much as it comes, but with Lemmon and Matthau to watch, and a generous quota of one-liners, who needs direction?

Great verbal gags and non-sequiturs, fast-paced action, and a thorough irreverence for all things deemed respectable - politicians, policemen and magistrates included - make it a lasting delight, not least when the lady finally gives birth...to sextuplets.

Diwan was BAFTA nominated for the film, and it was richly deserved, while Vartolomei makes a luminous heroine full of gritty determination. Their collaboration makes for an atmospheric, gripping drama with a poignant contemporary relevance.

As a study of power, neither Coppola's script nor Schaffner's direction are precise enough to merit the praise that has been heaped upon them. As an exercise in biography, however, Schaffner and Coppola's character study of General George S Patton is marvellous, especially in its sideways debunking of the American Hero.

The Lost Daughter expertly juggles tone, hopscotching between timelines and slipping from tender to tense and back again, always challenging the viewer’s judgments and preconceptions in unexpected ways.

Director Showalter does a beautiful job of twining Nanjiani and Romano’s similar slump — you smile at what a perfect almost-father and son they already are — and he steers Hunter to a rapprochement of uncommon complexity and grace. And we thought we were watching a Judd Apatow film.

No performances stand out, which is a shame given Affleck's track record with actors. Ultimately, it comes down to a chase to the airport, with a scary Revolutionary Guardsman at the gate.

As brightly alive a movie as the season will offer.

I'd trade much of The Master for one extraordinary moment played by the ever-improving Amy Adams, in front of the bathroom mirror with Hoffman.

Stellar stuff.

Visually, it's a treat, a perfect marriage of hi-tech graphics and the traditional Disney virtue of strong characterisation and colour. The script crackles with wit and life. Williams' Genie is matched by Freeman's malevolent Jafar, and by Gottfried as Jafar's wisecracking parrot Iago. The only disappointments are the wet Aladdin and his sweetheart Jasmine and five rather ordinary original songs.

Andersen makes humorous hay out of the stark home designs of Richard Neutra — only suitable, it seems, for drug dealers.

It’s a slowly unfurling film, full of words and recriminations in the manner of Scandi master Ingmar Bergman, but with a good deal more dark humour.

Despite Robert Towne's often sharp script - about two veteran sailors detailed to escort a young and naïve rating to prison, and showing him a sordidly 'good time' en route - and despite strong performances all round, one can't help feeling that the criticism of modern America hits out at all too easy targets in a vague and muffled manner.

The plot takes a timely turn toward homegrown terrorism, and even as cinematographer Alexander Dynan amasses ominous clouds, the film’s break from head-bound matters is a tonic.

The recreation of the murder and the subsequent investigation uses the techniques of an American thriller to gripping effect, though conspiracies are so commonplace nowadays that it's hard to imagine the impact it made at the time.

The result is a supercharged piece of fun unlike any motorized choreography since John Landis destroyed a fleet of cop cars in "The Blues Brothers."

Vincente Minnelli’s 1952 movie about the movies wears its golden-era confidence as big and bold as Kirk Douglas’s shoulder pads, and it’s pretty close to film heaven.

How can a movie so steeped in post-Katrina imagery eschew even the smallest comment about social responsibility? Maybe that was deemed too earnest, a decision that makes zero sense when a twinkling score is ladled on like instant pathos. Real people aren't beasts, nor do they require starry-eyed glorification. Bring your liberal pity.

A first-rate piece of forensic filmmaking.

The attention to visuals is above and beyond what most vérité is capable of; doing double duty as the film's cinematographer, Fan demonstrates a pitch-perfect photojournalistic eye.

Not an easy film, but an infinitely rewarding one.

Marlene's best movie away from Sternberg, it's relaxed, funny and charming.

It explores love, both romantic and familial, with no trace of drama or sappiness, and without ever feeling slight. It’s a balm of a film and another glorious showcase for the director’s light touch when dealing with complicated emotions.

With humour blacker than black bean noodles, the film is a masterful work of cinema which might well be Chan-wook’s masterpiece. And given this is the man who directed The Handmaiden that’s saying a lot.

Culkin, just as motor-mouthed and f-bombing as Succession’s Roman Roy, but here with an extra slug of despair, is the manic yin to Eisenberg’s neurotic but compassionate yang. It’s an inspired on-screen pairing that plays to both actor’s strengths and finds space for melancholy amid some deeply awkward laughs.

The narrative's a bit perfunctory, but is neatly overbalanced by the joyously rule-breaking sequence of a boy, a bus and a time bomb.

The shimmering light and colour, the conflict of cultures, and the emergence of semi-mystic sexual forces in the desert landscape make this as Roeg-ian a film as The Man Who Fell to Earth or Bad Timing.

Diop tackles serious issues in the framework of a touching and romantic drama with intriguing sways into genre territory, leaving the viewer much like Ada: a little confused, but oddly bewitched.

Push any guy long enough with alcohol and aggressive masculinity, the film suggests, and you'll find an XY-chromosomed predator lurking behind the mask.

Lowery wittily interprets the original text, adding a sexual dimension and a better ending, and only once strays close to Python terrain (when the ever-brilliant Barry Keoghan pops up as a lolloping scavenger). It’s close to a cinematic holy grail.

It’s a film of stark, superbly judged and beautifully sustained contrasts, the soundtrack hopping confidently from Tammy Wynette to Chopin as Bobby and his waitress girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black) travel from the lusty, sun-baked south to the cerebral, rainswept north to pay final respects to Bobby’s dying father.

The film is anonymously directed, functionally paced and hysterical at times, though it seduces as a hot-blooded spectacle that stitches emotional detail onto the epic canvas of history.

The final Harry Potter movie, above all others, supplies Radcliffe with the gravitas of not just an epic story come to completion, but some real dramatic heft. Not so bad for a Hogwarts dropout.

Nichols has said that the idea for the film emerged from a free-floating anxiety that he sensed in the world at large, the feeling that everything we treasure in life could be lost in an instant. That sensation permeates this strikingly original movie - especially its enigmatic mind-fuck of a finale, which will haunt you for several lifetimes.

At just over an hour, Diop’s strange, captivating and rigorously intellectual film leaves a mighty impression well beyond its compact length.

A horror film with the power to put a rascally grin on the face of that great genre subverter John Carpenter (They Live), Get Out has more fun playing with half-buried racial tensions than with scaring us to death.

The movie skips along episodically; it's not quite as sharp as a war narrative needs to be, even if its nightmarish psychology feels spot-on.

There’s a touch of diet Brando about Elgort’s reformed bad boy-turned-lovebird, but Zegler brings a lovely brand of innocence and conviction to Maria. And don’t be surprised to see Moreno winning another Oscar. Or, for that matter, Spielberg.

Like Hawks, Altman feels rather than thinks his way into a subject, with a special interest in how people relate to one another in moments of crisis. In the process he shows more of what's happening in America than most newsreels, coaxes jazzy and inventive performances out of his actors (Prentiss and Welles are particular treats), and asks for a comparable amount of creative improvisation from his audience while busily hopping from one distraction to the next.

None of this is pushed into comic relief—the filmmaker lets his drama play out with gentleness — and you smile at the many evolutions.

Lone Scherfig directs it all as if it were a breezy lark, so a third-act tonal shift makes for an incongruous, excessively moralistic fit with everything that’s preceded. Most insulting, though, is the way in which the climactic passages miraculously tidy up every frayed edge of Jenny’s life.

Very little gets in the way of Lebanon's apocalyptic mood; if it turns its audience even slightly away from barbarism, it might have done its job.

It’s an enjoyable primer for audiences who haven’t seen any of her films, while those more familiar with her work will take great pleasure in listening to her musings.

Beguiling and resolutely ominous, this hallucinatory voyage has two more distinctions: as the only movie with both a deaf-mute garage hand and death by fishing-rod, and as one of the most bewildering and beautiful films ever made.

Close Your Eyes builds up slowly, deliberately, allowing ample breathing room to supporting characters who were, once at least, elemental in Miguel or Julio’s lives so we can paint a picture of who they are as artists and as people.

Though infuriatingly difficult to categorise, the film is bold, inventive, stimulating and extremely entertaining.

Eighth Grade is lovely work, lifted up by a timeless piece of indie wisdom: Keep it real, as cringe-inducing as that can be.

That rarest of art documentaries, one that actually leaves viewers with a better sense of the gifted versus the phony.

It's a witty, exciting and deeply moving masterpiece.

An epic brilliance conjures up impossible monumental castles, shadows and monstrosities, with exciting action marvellously orchestrated across the CinemaScope frame.

A wonderful achievement, a dark film with a generous heart in the shape of an extraordinarily touching performance from Hoskins.

Ford's flamboyantly Oirish romantic comedy hides a few tough ironies deep in its mistily nostalgic recreation of an exile's dream.

The Cold War is over, but director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) and his collaborators have brought those suspicion-fueled days to vivid life in this masterful adaptation of John le Carré's beloved 1974 spy novel.

First in the wondrous series of B movies in which Val Lewton elaborated his principle of horrors imagined rather than seen, with a superbly judged performance from Simon as the young wife ambivalently haunted by sexual frigidity and by a fear that she is metamorphosing into a panther.

Almost as an afterthought to the ringingly true performances--and Marco Bellocchio’s unusually approachable direction--comes a deft analysis of fascism, likened to lovesickness, insanity and a gust of orchestral strings. It’s all of that and more, not to mention a lousy matchmaker.

With more than enough witty, well-observed details, it's a little charmer.

Sokurov, who also acted as director of photography, films the character and his surroundings with the eye of a newly arrived visitor to another world.

A brave British melodrama from 1961, one of this country's first explorations of gay life on screen.

Exciting and tautly directed – the lengthy robbery scenes are exemplary – it’s moody to the dying frame, emphasised by Harold Rosson’s lighting of trash-filled back-alleys and half-lit clip joints and Miklós Rozsa’s haunting theme music.

The slow pace and persistent solemnity reduce tension, prefiguring the portentous nature of Stevens' later work. That said, the cast is splendid, and both the emotional tensions between Ladd and Arthur, and the final confrontation with Palance, are well handled.

Food is a gift of love here – and romance courses through this delightful film.

At 134 minutes, the film may seem challengingly long, but the strength of its ensemble cast and unusually evolving narrative results in a satisfying watch that’s reminiscent of tucking in with an engrossing book.

The story passes from summer to winter, seasonally and tonally, and Hall’s chief allies in bringing her smart script to screen are Edu Grau’s stunning black-and-white photography (reason alone to see the film), Dev Hynes’s piano jazz score and two extraordinarily thoughtful central performances from Negga and Thompson.

The main reason to commit to this movie’s tough story of orphan loneliness is the screenplay by Céline Sciamma, herself a major French talent devoted to tales of youthful resilience. (Her 2014 film "Girlhood" is breathtaking.)