Tsai’s work sees generational defiance as a symptom of the ennui felt by their young subjects as they drift into adulthood, and Rebels’ unusually sharp focus on that theme makes it an accessible primer for the elements that would inform the more oblique masterpieces to come.

Director Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) has always enjoyed thumbing his nose at stuffy cinematic conventions, and while he’s obviously enchanted by Hardy’s text, his movie is fun because he’s keen not to give it too much respect.

Spacek and Lemmon are fine as the missing man's wife and father, but what makes the film so overwhelming in places is its unending night-time imagery of a society coming apart at the seams. Costa-Gavras underpins his campaigning content with all the electric atmosphere of a paranoid conspiracy thriller, and ensures that Missing will remain the cinematic evocation of a military coup for years to come.

Enormously enjoyable.

It really packs a punch (bet you saw that one coming).

A taut kidnapping drama, this ferocious Australian export leaves no doubt about the limitless potential of a handful of characters in close quarters.

If you can roll with Almereyda’s free-form vibe, you’ll find the docu-essay’s cumulative effect goes a long way toward proving his thesis

Bitter-sweet and very charming.

A quiet, sneaky sense of dislocation vibrates through Chad Hartigan’s indie comedy, which contains so many ideas about race, child-rearing, fatherhood and accidental exoticism, that to call it a mere coming-of-age movie would be a shame.

A remarkably committed portrait of NYC homelessness in which Gere—grizzled and often topped in a wool cap—hunkers destitute. Call it an actor’s stunt if you must, but that would be overly dismissive of an indie with a serious mission of social awakening on its brow.

Surprisingly successful sequel to the delightful, Dashiell Hammett-based comedy-mystery, The Thin Man, with Powell and Loy as charmingly witty as ever as the bibulous sophisticates Nick and Nora Charles, revelling in sparkling dialogue as they solve a murder.

Well worth visiting, not least for its similarities to The Third Man.

Even as the trio heads into a complicated dance of multiple infidelities, In the Shadow of Women never villainizes any of them.

With its intensely-felt performances, haunting winter lighting, and seemingly inescapable claustrophobia, it leaves a mark.

Sombre and claustrophobic photography, an intelligent script, and Peckinpah's clear understanding of a working platoon of men, are all far removed from the monotonous simplicity of most big-budget war films.

It’s the goriest film you’ll see this year that involves no guns, axes or zombies, but its gross-out/empowerment duality acts as a metaphor for a whole host of less visible social and emotional taboos.

The film doesn’t quite cut loose to hit emotional high notes, but Regina Spektor’s velvety cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” poignantly completes a sweet, generous film.

A gripping, chastening study in what it’s like to spend your entire life behind enemy lines, A Fantastic Woman offers uplift, too – as well as the odd surreal touch.

At first glance, actor-turned-director Philip Barantini’s Villain looks like a box-ticking exercise in Laandan gangsterism. But it’s not. By playing it completely straight, it avoids campy Guy Ritchie clichés.

And then, Robert Duvall appears—or, should I say, insinuates himself out of the muck. Cagily, his character wends his way into the story, played by the one American actor who might best understand the limits of bluster. “It’s foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these,” he mutters in the Duvall twang, the weather and indignity beaten into him, and The Road suddenly feels major.

What’s interesting about Revenge is that it’s told from a female perspective – and by a female filmmaker.

If awards season gets up your nose, with its self-congratulatory speeches and luvvie back-patting, this playful and wildly entertaining Spanish satire on the filmmaking process is the perfect antidote.

The film makes a compelling case for the damage wrought by business-funded feel-good activities that turn attention away from the disease, as well as using funds for endless drug research while ignoring the toxic environmental factors.

It’s often thrilling, occasionally improbable, sometimes confounding, but like its director, Ad Astra is never bound by the gravitational pull of the ordinary. Strap in.

Herzog’s latest, ostensibly about the internet, is divided into 10 sections, each taking on a blend of awe and uneasiness at a radically changed world that’s increasingly lived online.

Harris Dickinson steps behind the camera for a bruising, brilliantly strange debut that channels veteran auteurs like Jonathan Glazer and Andrea Arnold, while carving out a distinctive voice all its own.

Names get checked, baby-faced future celebrities like Vincent Gallo and Steve Buscemi make cameos, and various cross-pollinations between below–14th Street mavericks are clarified.

See it, then go home and wipe your hard drive.