Even if it doesn’t fully probe the socio-political realities of the prison experience, Wasteman succeeds as an emotional survival tale. Here’s a film that proves that sometimes, the most terrifying part of prison can just be who you’re locked up with.

Part meditative exploration of grief in the wake of the sudden loss of her father, part exhaustive detailing of the process of training a complicated and challenging creature, the film adaptation hews closely to the same description.

There’s something oddly appealing about the fact that Rebecca Zlotowski’s understated thriller, A Private Life, stubbornly refuses easy definition – other than as a modest romp that allows Jodie Foster to perform in another language. And if you’ll watch Foster acting in anything, you’re gonna love watching her do it in French.

Empathetic, funny and myth-busting – there are 300,000 children and adults living with TS in the UK alone whose condition will be better understood for this film – it gives you permission to laugh at the situation while feeling only compassion for the man.

Everything is wrapped up a little too neatly by the final act. But with the epidemic of loneliness only growing larger, maybe, every once in a while, a sweet, hopeful ending is exactly what audiences need from cinema. To feel seen. To be reminded that it's going to be okay.

This is simultaneously the nastiest and most soulful of the franchise to date – and the most probing.

From the opening moments it is clear that The Extraordinary Miss Flower is the work of two artists utterly in command of their vision, and fully trusted and embraced by their collaborators.

For brain-free Friday night viewing, you could do much worse than spend 90 blood-soaked minutes with not-so-gentle Ben.

Sure, it’s a somewhat honeyed portrait that lacks voices to put the other side across. But as the flimsiness of the case against Assange is laid bare, so too is a system that tried to suffocate, torture and crush him to protect its interests.

When the foot comes off the gas, the cracks become apparent.

As in her Oscar-nominated documentary The Four Daughters, Ben Hania refuses to let the audience look away.

Marty Supreme is a stunning achievement, a breathless yet precisely controlled joyride full of vivid characters, hairpin turns and did-that-just-happen moments – and a modernist fairy tale about big ambitions colliding with grubby street-level realities and capitalism’s seedy imperatives. This is a film that’s built to last.

A delightful premise never fully comes to life in this sweet romcom, which is a real shame because it gets off to such a strong start.

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.

There have been better animated sequels and more epic ones, but has there ever been a fluffier follow-up than this bouncy, buoyant caper starring at least half the nature world?

Ultimately, though, there’s not enough story to fuel a three-hour musical stretched across nearly five hours. What once was brisk and bright becomes a bit of a slog. Fans will be obsessified; everyone else, ossified.

Not every performance is assured – though Nina Ye is consistently impressive – and the script includes perhaps one twist too many. Yet Left-Handed Girl remains a sensitive and affecting drama that avoids sentiment in favour of more grounded emotional truths.

It’s weird, in the year 2025, that it seems timely to point out that the Nazis were bad. But Nuremberg, an old-fashioned and satisfyingly complex morality tale in the guise of a courtroom drama and spy thriller, does that job in impressive style.

Although the quips aren’t always sharp enough and the sleight of hand a little lacking, it takes a hard heart not to cheer as a few young victims of a broken system carve out their own little bit of magic.

It’s a movie that got up on the wrong side of the bed and compensated with four quadruple espressos.

For a study of human connection at its most honest and affecting, with two remarkable lead performances, Dragonfly is a powerfully striking experience.

Measured rather than playing to the gallery, The Choral is Brassed Off in a minor key – an elegant, Yorkshire-set exploration of music as a spiritual morale-boost in the darkest times. With Ralph Fiennes gravely essaying the controversial choirmaster at its heart, it does a lovely job of swerving the obvious notes but misplaces its stirring crescendo.

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is a peach of a picture. At once miniaturist yet epic, it’s an exquisite film that touches on every human emotion – agony, ecstasy, discovery, surprise, togetherness, loneliness – without contrivance or strain.

This is Sweeney’s film. Christy is a career-best turn, sure to draw favourable comparisons with Hilary Swank (who, funnily enough, gets a namecheck in one scene, as Million Dollar Baby was released during the movie’s timespan). She may not be a problematic dude, but she’s certainly Michôd’s most impressive lead performer yet.

It cleverly pulls at the supposed laws of the series in a way that makes it more interesting without diluting the fearsome nature of the title character. Trachtenberg is making the franchise richer with every instalment. And if the film’s final shot is any reliable indication, he’s far from finished.

Relay is an old-school thriller with a drum-tight script and real style.

Like Nomadland, another film that maps out rocky terrain with impressionistic grace, Hamnet is a deep-felt ode to loss and resilience. Zhao doesn’t just tell you about the healing power of art, she shows you. Prepare your tear ducts accordingly.

There is so much talent behind and within Nia DaCosta’s provocative adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler that it’s easy to embrace as an inventive artistic experiment.