Mickey 17 is funny and charming from the get-go, building out a fascinating sci-fi world from its central conceit that ends up speaking to powerful and timely concerns through humour, satire and exhilarating genre elements. Bong Joon-ho's best English movie to date and arguably Robert Pattinson's best movie ever.

An excellent middle chapter bursting with wit, wisdom, emotion, shocks, old-fashioned derring-do, state-of-the-art tech, and stonking set-pieces.

Isabella Rossellini’s singer Dorothy is a heart-rending open wound, Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth one of cinema’s great nutjobs, and Lynch’s control a thing of nightmarish beauty.

Dear everyone – stop whatever you’re doing and go see Dear White People. One of the freshest, funniest and most vital films of the year.

The ghosts of Scorsese’s past can be found in these gaunt GoodFellas. An engrossing and, yes, haunting epic.

This is the flip side to his samurai films, an introspective, naturalistic contemporary drama combining progressive social criticism with a universal humanist message.

The film’s power lies in its use of archive footage, voiceover and even Ebert’s computerised speech translator to keep the writer’s voice alive.

The plotting is elliptical and the sweep intoxicates, but the contrast between De Niro’s meditative Vito and Pacino’s soul-starved eyes brings piercing focus to Coppola’s resonating study of corrupting power.

From the pitch-perfect characterisation to John Williams’ soaring score to the magical effects, it’s every bit as good as you remember. [2002 re-release]

Visually astonishing, emotionally daring, this spectacular sequel has enough wit, imagination and thrills to fill several worlds. But prepare to be left hanging till the sequel hits screens.

After 30 years of gestation, Mank emerges one of the great films on the machinations of Hollywood

One great British artist pays tribute to another in a lengthy but rewarding homage that boasts a titanic turn at its centre. Rarely has watching paint dry been so fascinating.

A heist movie with serious bite, Widows is both brilliantly tense and strikingly relevant.

In its precision, perversity and stinging wit, Sunset Boulevard still has mighty sharp teeth.

Moving ever-onward from the sequels years, Pixar gets right back in the zone with Soul. Deep, witty, and fast on its jazz-loving feet, it doesn’t miss a beat.

Rosi offers a simple, stark contrast between quiet moments of everyday life and tragedy as mass fleeing results in sunken boats, horrific injuries and death.

Wonderfully whimsical children’s fantasy about a young boy’s journey through the space-time continuum in the company of six cantankerous dwarves.

A Different Man is in essence a meta-movie, one that cunningly examines issues surrounding beauty and artistic creation.

If you're a Wicked fan, it's hard to imagine you could want anything more from this thrillifying film adaptation. Ariana Grande's and Cynthia Erivo's performances as Glinda and Elphaba will have you defying gravity.

Sensitive, subtle and heartfelt, Jenkins’ genre-buster is a significant work that will knock you out.

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh create their own sizzle as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in a lavish four-hour epic that juxtaposes scenes of jaw-dropping majesty – that aerial shot of the Confederates’ wounded, for example – with moments of elegant intimacy and playful verbal jousting.

A spiky, pithy, and unconventional delight.

Astounding. With a director, DoP and cast at the top of their game, The Revenant is a filmmaking triumph.

Refracted through Holly’s naive, emotionally flat narration and Malick’s poetic visual style, this familiar tale is transformed into something strange and oddly beautiful. [29 Aug. 2008]

With potent performers and poetic visuals, Anderson has made the boldest American picture of the year. Its strangeness can be hard to process, but this is a shattering study of the impossibility of recovering the past.

A masterpiece of animation and imagination.

Garland’s bold, original version of what horror can be when it swaps tired old tropes for visceral, visionary thrills is an absolute game-changer.

Told with economy, and evading any easy genre classification - it’s part romance, part fantasy, part thriller, and more besides - it’s a very moving piece of work, and a testament to the power of love.

This is a challenging and troubling film that asks a lot of the viewer, before sending them away with a great deal to consider. There won’t be many films this year that you’ll turn over more thoroughly in the hours, days, and weeks that follow.

More character study than comic book movie, and anchored by an Oscar-worthy Joaquin Phoenix, Joker is a bravura blockbuster that proves you don’t need superpowered scraps to dazzle.

Francis Ford Coppola went into the jungle to make his surreal ’Nam epic and almost lost his mind during one of the most protracted and accident-prone shoots in history. Thankfully the hallucinogenic results justified the means.

With stellar songs by French singer Camille, a highly original score by Clément Ducol, and striking choreography by Damien Jalet, Emilia Pérez shifts effortlessly from musical extravagances to a gritty underworld milieu.

The blend of stunning music and innovative visuals make this a true festival of the senses.

Defying all boundaries, Martyrs relentlessly dishes the visceral pain and emerges as a work of not just ceaseless terror but also gravity and beauty.

McQuarrie brings grace and grit, and Cruise brings it, period. This quick-witted, fleet-footed franchise shows no sign of flagging.

The story itself is more satisfying, while the power of the jolts is boosted by the immaculate sound and sneakily effective subliminal extra frames. See it and shiver. [2000 re-release]

Apocalypse Now Redux is a reassuring rarity. It's an extended, re-edited version of Francis Ford Coppola's 'Nam masterpiece, with 49-minutes' worth of extra material spliced in, and the result is a genuinely stronger film. That's right - one of the best movies ever made just got better.

Paul Schrader’s best for 20 years. A stunning study of one man’s flaws and an apocalyptic vision of mankind’s fate.

The Long Walk is not for the faint of heart, but it is one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made, and one of the best dystopian sci-fi movies to hit the big screen in a really long time.

Anchored by a truly sensational performance from Gleeson, this unexpected blend of passion play, detective story, rural comedy and serious inquiry into faith is destined for classic status.

An intelligent, eloquent and stirring sci-fi that grips from start to finish, Arrival is up there with the year’s best movies.

Fuelled by Cammell's whacked-out erudition and lensed with tyro brilliance by Roeg, this hallucinogenic deconstruction of identity writhes with sex, substances, ultraviolence and good ol' rock'n'roll.

Driver and Johansson face off to stunning effect in Baumbach’s finest feature to date. So good it hurts.

A prize-winning page-turner becomes a moving, harrowing and redemptive drama about the ties that bind a mother to her child. Be warned: one box of tissues may not be enough.

A truly distinctive epic, blending brutal violence, powerhouse performances and otherworldly imagery into its volcanic rampage of revenge. Unmissable.

Bong has once more proved what an exciting filmmaker he is, and Parasite is strong contender for Oscar Best Picture.

No cynicism, just on-point sentiment and scintillating set-pieces. Top Gun: Maverick scores a direct hit on its twin targets of nostalgia and adrenaline.

A riot of saturated colour and delirious imagination, Ang Lee's adap radiates spirituality. But it's also a simple, thrilling and gently uplifting tale of a boy, a boat and a tiger. Take the plunge.

The Avengers latest stand feels well worth the wait. It’s not perfect, but it goes to a place most tentpole movies wouldn’t dream of, while retaining the scale, excitement, and humour you’ve come to demand from an MCU movie.

An astounding spectacle, vast in scale and ambition. Prepare to have your breath snatched away.

De Niro is brilliant, as are the then-untried Pesci and Moriarty, and Scorsese pulls out all the tricks (slo-mo, visceral sound effects, twitchy editing) for a truly extraordinary modern classic.

A complex film that sidesteps every cliché. Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert are at the top of their game.

Anderson crafts another classic of obsession and strange love, played by dynamite leads: Day-Lewis retires in style, Krieps is revelatory.

Dean's profoundly influential sullen charisma is still captivating.

Ozu's is a cinema of distillation: no jagged cuts and tracks, just a serenely still camera allowing a purity of emotion to trickle free. The result is a quiet, devastating poignancy that gently envelops you en route to an absolute tear-streamer of an ending.

With lush visuals, intelligent performances and a lingering lyricism, this is an instant classic that cements Hunnam’s star power.

Riddled with post-war despair, The Third Man is one of the great British movies. The zither music, the noirish cinematography, the taut writing and the raft of excellent performances combine in an engrossing thriller that matches America's finest.

It explores two of the filmmaker’s pet themes – the impossibility of true communication, the futility of art – and is set against the Vietnam War. Extraordinary.

Zoë Kravitz makes a phenomenal debut as director with this heightened, gripping thriller.

The best sci-fi movie since "Moon." The best time-travel yarn since "12 Monkeys." And one of the best films of 2012. You'll immediately want to see it again.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is not perfect nor could it ever be. But for every niggle...there are 10 things that are exactly right, and it says much that no one will leave disappointed despite going in with hysterical levels of expectation.

Rogue One might trade heavily in nostalgia but it's bold enough to take risks, and will leave you stirred, fired up and raring for more. Now, if only there was a follow-up we could go away and watch immediately…

A tour-de-force turn from Toni Collette powers one of the most affecting horrors in recent memory. Genuinely unsettling in a way few genre efforts are: you’ve been warned.

Robert Altman tore up the filmmaking rulebook in the mid-'70s with this satire on the American country and western scene, for which the cast composed their own songs. It juggles the fortunes of two dozen characters and presciently explores how politics has become another form of showbusiness.

One of the most dynamic and radical British films ever made.

If you've never seen Alien on the big screen, this is a must-have cinematic experience that will leave you shivering and adrenalised. And even if you have seen it, the same holds true. It really is that damn good. [2003 re-release]

Political intrigue abounds as Spielberg grippingly recreates a famous real-life spy-swap case of the Cold War, with both Hanks and Rylance on top form.

Watch this 4K restoration of Scorsese’s ’76 masterpiece, its colours a seeping virus, and marvel that he originally planned to shoot on black-and-white video.

Proves The Witch was no fluke. Dafoe and Pattinson dazzle in a luminous exercise in maritime madness.

Philosophically complex, spiritual but anti-religious, harrowing yet hopeful.

Under Haynes’ sure hand, Blanchett and Mara deliver a love story to melt to. Every glance means something, no strain shows: it’s filmmaking as natural as breathing.

A peerless example of Hollywood studio moviemaking, director Michael Curtiz turning the Warner backlot into a gloriously romantic vision of WW2-era Morocco crammed with real-life European exiles and larger-than-life character actors.

Defiant, determined, Vega delivers a star-making performance in a drama of embattled grief, directed with heart.

McDormand is an unstoppable force in a fiercely intelligent, profanely poetic movie that shifts tonal gears at breakneck speed.

Hilariously infectious and full of hope, Spider-Man’s return to Marvel couldn’t be more welcome.

A funny, sad, bawdy, beautiful concoction that will haunt and provoke in equal measure.

The Holdovers is a loving testament to the power of the human spirit, albeit one that favours subtle, melancholic grace notes over any need to shout. Though tinged with sadness - be prepared to shed a tear - it’s sure to become a feel-good, festive favourite.

“YOU RIPPED MY FAVOURITE SHIRT!” Cage loses it in a bloody, druggy, superbly crafted revenge thriller. Astonishing.

Mellow and rich in ironic humour, the film carries an undertow of gentle melancholy; as so often with Ozu, its ultimate message is that loneliness is the human condition.

Fearless, relatable and beautiful, this is one of the year’s best. Holding you so close for so long, you won’t want to break free.

As the film glides towards its climax, Song dismantles your heart with the cool proficiency of a bomb-disposal expert.

Running from entertaining to tense as hell, Layton’s docu-drama heist flick grapples with something that most capers can’t even begin to compute: consequences.

A World Cinema Dramatic prize winner at Sundance, Hogg’s best film yet is an instant British classic.

A smart, stirring spectacle that faces down impossible expectations to pull off a hugely satisfying end to business.

Strikingly original, brilliantly acted, this serio-comic masterpiece constantly swerves expectations.

This is a Marvel movie that knows when to embrace the ridiculous and when to puncture any pomposity, and it's a delight from start to big finish. And yes, you do need to stay to the very very end of the credits.

You won't find a more bone-jarring set of fight scenes than the ones on display here, while Mifune's blood-letting drifter offers a masterclass in justice-dispensing cool.

Overall, Cregger’s twisted fairytale is not only the best horror movie to come out of an already impressive year for the genre, but Weapons is a positively terrifying, heartwrenching look at a struggling community.

Whilst there is plenty of swordplay involved, it's the war of words and ideals that really captures the imagination here.

Jamie Foxx is on awards-worthy form.

Writer/director Christopher Payne paints a credible portrait of life as a professional hoofer. But the leads struggle with an undernourished script, and there’s a cheapo televisual vibe throughout.

From niche subject matter, Fletcher's crafted a movie that's both universal but also unashamedly, gloriously British. Very funny, genuinely moving and endlessly good-natured.

Heartfelt and inventive, this documentary from exiled director Ali Samadi Ahadi chronicles Iran's abortive Green Revolution during the summer of 2009.

Fleet, funny, impeccably orchestrated: whimsical Wes returns on top of his game. Non-fans might call it over-familiar comfort cinema but with the craft so loving and new elements so well-integrated, his singular pitch remains a thing to cherish.

The stalk ‘n’ slash sequences, though decent, can’t match Craven’s mastery of mood and mechanics, but the new guys understand that Scream movies are sick as well as slick.

The breakneck pace leaves little room for meaningful character development... But there’s imagination, spectacle and thrills to spare.

Devastating and uplifting in equal measure, this emotionally draining film makes good on Shults’ early promise.

Powerful drama, driven by a powerhouse performance, Selma is this year’s Lincoln. For Oyelowo and DuVernay, it’s a career changer.