Inception, though, is no "Avatar"--instead, it’s the movie that many wanted "Avatar" to be. In a roaringly fast first hour, we’re introduced to a new technology that allows for the bodily invasion of another person’s dreamworld.

Making use of locals instead of professional actors lends authenticity to this impressive look at a group of otherwise innocuous teenage lads in a boring northern French town (Bailleul in Flanders), driven to violence by a mixture of boredom, jealousy, macho pride and ingrained racism.

Eva Green’s full range of skills have rarely been so thoroughly showcased.

What’s past is prescient, and what it all means is beside the point. Let’s just say Bujalski has made a prankishly out-of-time movie about that other AI: mankind.

Hitchcock is reluctant to follow the subversive premises of the story through to their outrageous logical conclusion; the dialogue's sexual innuendoes now seem coy and awkward; the male leads are wooden; the ending too complacent; and the discreet style stranded by that dreaded British restraint so dear to the director.

Gun Crazy is a magnificently enjoyable film, distinguished by Joseph H Lewis’s restless, catch-all directorial style.

The situation in Myanmar remains tense and ethnic cleansing continues, yet Snow Hnin finds grace notes of optimism to offset the bitterness of the film’s backdrop. It makes Midwives a thoughtful, empathetic and powerful insight into the region – and its women.

Tarkovsky remains as much a metaphysician as anything else, and Nostalgia isn't an entertainment but an article of faith.

Tomboy may add little to conversations about gender or sexuality. It has everything to say, however, about that period of childhood when identity is at its most malleable.

Director Christian Carion (Merry Christmas) establishes a low-key yet threatening atmosphere right from the start, and gets terrific performances from Kusturica and Canet.

The film flows like a Joy Division song: moody and ethereal until it escalates into a burst of sonic violence.

Motel Destino never deviates radically enough from that tried-and-tested Postman template to throw up too many surprises. The result is frisky but fleeting.

[Villeneuve] has nailed it where, in different ways David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowksy and Ridley Scott all floundered. His Dune is sprawling, spectacular and politically resonant in its critique of colonialism and exploitation.

The problem here, though, is that the movie often feels fat instead of lean. A terribly purple folk score by Kate and Anna McGarrigle hypes the spiritual aspects of the Inuit way of life; you’ll die laughing on the tundra.

Miller’s ace in the hole is the hulking, regal Harper, whose round face vacillates between childlike mirth and lung-stomping sadness. His casual charisma not only commands our attention and affection, it sidelines every social or thematic concern to this singular, tentatively aspiring life.

Don’t expect Austen-style humour, though: ultimately, you may be frustrated by a narrative that punishes its pleasant protagonist so thoroughly. But credit to Brizé and crew for an impressive piece of filmmaking with a refreshingly contemporary approach.

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

The movie leans on symbolic imagery that’s alternately tired and ridiculous: Hunt’s impatiently flicked cigarette lighter (yes, he’s a candle waiting to be lit) or a black-widow spider crawling up the stands of one particularly dangerous course. These are classic frenemies; their tale deserves more gas in the tank.

Suleiman can be criticized for failing, ever so slightly, at crafting an overall structure-his latest, based on his dad's diary and other memories, is an autobiographical story of exile and return that skips like a stone over water, fleetly but not so deeply. Still, this is a welcome example of kitsch wedded to serious indictment.

Here, as elsewhere, one senses that the images are being asked to carry rather more metaphorical weight than they are able to bear.

This antibullying advocacy group could not be more well-intentioned or needed, but suddenly, the sneaking suspicion that you've merely been watching an extended PSA for the grassroots organization starts to take hold.

Sturges' remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is always worth a look, mainly for the performances of McQueen, Bronson, Coburn and Vaughn.

It never feels as if we're watching a brand-name cash-grab, but instead as if we're participating in an endlessly imaginative afternoon of play.

It describes itself as ‘a coming-of-age story that explores friendship and loyalty while America is poised to elect Ronald Reagan as President’. Considering that’s exactly when Gray himself was going from child to teen, this sounds like it could be his most personal film yet.

In the film’s second half, the two characters have roughly swapped social positions — Mindy is about to get married — but their sexual attraction (never fully expressed) remains a palpable thing. Try this one.

More than just another franchise reset, Mutant Mayhem wrestles with its own cultural relevance (or otherwise) in interesting ways.

The visually icy Disobedience lacks the absorbing emotional pull of the filmmaker’s best but packs a rare kind of generosity in its attentiveness to complex customs, navigated without judgment.

His rock music gets a decent airing, but you wish more of the man’s perversity came through: his intimidating ego, the way he could exhaust his bandmates. And seriously, where is “Valley Girl” and his amazing kids? Not bitchin’ at all.