Some will find Camille too self-absorbed, yet writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve (Father Of My Children) conjures poignancy, grace and a feel for symbolic seasonal change that's positively Renoir-esque.

A couple of scenes are perhaps too on the nose, but the naturalistic performances are faultless, the righteous anger controlled, and the bleakness dotted with moments of humour and small acts of kindness. I, Daniel Blake is, first and foremost, a deeply humanistic film.

Nolan reaches for the stars in spectacular fashion, delivering a mesmerising sci-fi epic that, despite a testing running time and few too many flights of fancy, is grounded by an on-form McConaughey.

Come for the wild ideas, stay for the warm wisdom in the Daniels’ heartfelt carnival of chaos. Yeoh aces every curveball.

With a quality cast (which also includes Lena Olin as Winton’s wife and Jonathan Pryce as his friend), this is a finely crafted film that unfolds with great care, building towards a cathartic climax.

Baker controls the narrative with real aplomb, crafting a time-bomb mix of physical comedy and high drama. Better still, the final third alights on real pathos.

With few words and the odd squint, Cruise hard boils all of his charisma into a clenched fist, but is more than happy to let a dynamic Smulders take the lead in many scenes.

OK, so the ‘Nam firefights are more routine than we’d expect from Lee and the treasure hunt element almost feels it belongs to a different film, but this is a frequently fierce, fascinating picture. The world needs it right now.

While it shares plenty of DNA with the first two films, it has its own distinct character. It's a compelling and moving watch.

Gosling and Cooper use their star currency to power a slow-burn, heartsick drama. "Blue Valentine" director Cianfrance is a serious talent.

Lovely animation evokes a world made from Fuzzy-Felt and Play-Doh.

Breathlessly tense, thrillingly orchestrated and intellectually complex, this damn fine piece of rigorous, meticulous filmmaking enhances Kathryn Bigelow's status as one of her generation's most accomplished directors.

The beauty of Alice Springs offers a profound contrast with the ugly acts committed by its inhumane colonists.

Noirish touches flesh out the wispy plot, yet it’s the old-school animation that engages most: lending clarity to the emotions at stake, ensuring our sickly hero’s resilience tugs on the heart.

The Frighteners is not just Fox's most entertaining picture since Back To The Future, but one of the slickest comedy-horror movies you could hope to see.

Every second is earned in Macdonald's long, generous and rigorously detailed Bob doc. You might wish for more live material but what's here is stirring, probing and moving.

Be sure to make family time for Bird’s flawed but dazzling sequel. “Superheroes suck,” says Violet. No, they most certainly don’t.

You root for them as they bond, bicker and endure grim dangers – gangs, traffickers, police – but Quemada-Díez doesn’t play soft, and the stinging climax really sticks with you.

The filmmakers stay back, observing, for a restrained, intimate and poignant result.

Kenneth Branagh finds interesting ways to grease the wheels of this new take on the oft-filmed novel.

Not only has director Christian Petzold assembled a fascinating hill of beans, but there's a moonlit scene that almost alone justifies his Silver Bear win at Berlin.

This is a clever, all-ages charmer.

Not quite magnificent but certainly Fuqua’s best since "Training Day" and a rare remake that actually delivers. Yee-haw!

A Hidden Life is the most soulful war movie since "The Thin Red Line": elegiac, emotional and exquisitely shot. Malick’s back!

Hail, Caesar! is a love letter inked in arsenic, at once celebrating the artistry of Hollywood and cringing at the crass commercialism and rampant phoniness of it all.

Far better than we had any right to expect. Thrilling set-pieces, spine-tingling iconography and a Han/Chewie bromance to savour.

Warm, witty, and occasionally wild, Waititi’s bush-bonding romp is a kind, generous-spirited winner.

Fukada contrasts understated realism with haunting, dreamlike images. Unsettling and morally complex.

Wingard and Barrett’s surprise – and surprisingly strong – sequel earns its scares. An effective follow-up to a film that can’t be matched.

Cumberbatch fits Doctor Strange like a pair of snap-tight surgical gloves, in yet another MCU triumph. Beautifully designed, brilliantly executed.

Nosferatu delivers a relatively straight re-telling of this classic gothic tale. It looks and sounds stunning and is packed with vampiric horror. It doesn't push many boundaries but if you wanted the classic Dracula narrative feeling exactly like it’s directed by Robert Eggers, you're going to love it.

Fizzy, funny, heightened – Hit Man is a damn good time at the movies that will leave you buzzing.

In his feature debut, Swiss director Baran bo Odar counterpoints the tranquillity of the landscape with the mental torment of everyone involved, and what could have been just another serial-killer whodunit becomes a complex study of grief, obsession and the persistence of guilt.

Magical and melancholy, tender and robust: rippling reserves of theme and style compensate for wobbly pacing in Keiichi Hara’s adaptation of Hinako Sugiura’s manga Sarusuberi.

Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher) directs with a slow and steady hand, taking time to explore both Rona’s moments of solitude and those in which she encounters others.

Drawing affecting performances from a fledgling cast, Defurne's film is a poignant snapshot of square-peg adolescent desire, vibrantly set against a colourful backdrop.

Green fashions a slow-burn charmer that’s a million miles from Pineapple Express in tone, pace and content. But just like that film, the odd couple interplay is beautifully judged.

This is the anti-Heat: no sheen, no shimmer, no obsessing over highly grandiose themes and precise compositions; just grime and desperation.

Kobayashi's films frequently puncture the legend of the ever-obedient samurai, scrutinising the value of such a rigid feudal system without completely dispensing with the adrenaline-soaked fun of a good old-fashioned sword-fight.

Leaner, meaner, and far superior to 2010's Clash cock-up. From top-grade 3D to a multitude of monsters and a welcome influx of acting talent, this is pure popcorn pleasure.

The tale is better than the telling – and the soundtrack's better still – but music this monumental demands its moment. Now go and buy the album.

Here is a film where every frame feels individually designed, with saturated colour and symmetry reflecting the texture and natural wonder of the environment.

Steeped in the bitter political divisions of the Civil War, Spielberg's thrilling film about hardwon freedoms is immersed in its own time, but speaks eloquently to ours.

Even a disappointing villain can’t detract from a bold, satisfying climax to Daniel Craig’s time in the tux.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation might have its hi-tech gadgets, but it's a pleasingly old-fashioned affair.

With writer/director James Gunn off to DC and some of its stars signalling they’re done with their characters, there’s an inevitable air of finality – not to mention contractual obligation – about this third instalment in Marvel’s Guardians series. If anything, though, that’s more a strength than a weakness, all involved being seemingly intent on going out on an emotionally affecting, thematically audacious high.

Apatow's return creates a pleasantly sprawling, perceptive study of mid-life angst that never lacks for laughs. Promoting Rudd and Mann from Knocked Up's margins to centre stage proves to be a shrewd move.

The result is a shrewd look at classroom etiquette and an achingly sad study of grief-stricken solitude, built on ace performances by Fellag and the kids-especially 11-year-old scene stealer Sophie Nélisse.

You’re left marvelling at London’s capacity for renewal and reinvention.

Rude, crude and packed with more laughs than Jay’s had lovers (6,004, apparently), Inbetweeners fans will lap this up. All this, and a killer twist at the end.

Even in a crowded AI-movie market, Edwards’s stellar sci-fi is a terrific achievement. See it on the largest, loudest screen possible.

Between a fallen king and a rising threat, Marvel’s cinematic Phase 4 ends on a tender and – mostly - triumphant high.

What keeps gratuitousness at bay is Zhangke’s controlled style and empathy for the have-nots

The toe-tapping beats of this full-throated biopic will be familiar in more ways than one but Baz Luhrmann, like Elvis, knows how to put on a great show. Butler’s Best Actor chatter starts here.

Barker’s approach starts simplistic but gathers in complexity, insight and moral force with each story.

It’s flawed, yes – Frances is frustratingly underwritten, her psychological fault lines spoken of but never shown – but it’s also swaggeringly cinematic. And it has Tom Hardy vs Tom Hardy.

Romance doggy style, beautifully drawn by the best animators Disney could muster in 1955, and a true classic.

It’s a welcome spin on the once-dominant genre that now struggles for oxygen. It’s also less brutal a viewing experience than Mortensen’s punishing directorial debut, with plenty of shoots of hope, and an abundance of natural beauty.

A gripping, grimy and sensational street-level detective story, the Dark Knight’s triumphant return is exactly the fresh start needed after a decade of diminishing returns.

Filmmaker Jonathan Olshefski illuminates the rich, strife-filled lives of these extraordinary people.

It’s a relief to discover that the Lady Bird/Little Women director’s tale of a dress-up doll is profound, silly, moving, smart, existential and, to use Ken’s word, SUBLIME! (shout this (K)energetically, please).

Tiny Furniture announces Dunham as a talent to watch.

By swapping gaudy satire for introspection (without losing any of the franchise's trademark flamboyance), Wake Up Dead Man brings Knives Out back to its roots and makes for a sequel that's almost on a par with the original.

An animated film like no other, Loving Vincent is a staggering visual achievement.

Succeeding against the odds and adroitly blending its disparate elements, this is a fine entry into the Eurodirector-gawps-at-America subgenre.

Despite the warmongering title, focusing on the action would be doing The Battle Of The Five Armies a disservice. Even at its most talky, it's compelling stuff, reaping the rewards of characters built-up over two-and-a-bit movies (sometimes more), all of them flawed and with a convincing agenda.

Animated with exceptional depth and beauty by co-directors Jennifer Yuh and Alessandro Carloni (and given epic new heft by Hans Zimmer in the orchestra pit), it's a rare ’toon franchise that can grow up so quickly and still giggle at its own butt jokes.

Entertaining, engrossing and at times genuinely unnerving, Bruckner’s bad trip is one for horror fans to relish.

Burton's finest, freshest film in ages is a welcome homecoming. You'd call it patchwork pastiche, if it weren't so zapped with energy, feeling and imagination. It's alive!

Another work that could really only come from Anderson’s relentless imagination: exquisite detail, eclectic storylines, superb cast.

Enjoyably acted by a fine ensemble cast, it crisply skewers the hypocrisies of its left-liberal, middle-class characters.

There's much to relish here: a script which mixes pungent humour and tension, the pervading atmosphere of corruption and obsession, and a perfectly judged, tragically stoical performance from the sleepy-eyed Mitchum, not to forget Nicholas Musuraca's suitably shadowy cinematography.

A stark, sinister chamber piece built on atmosphere and performances. Morfydd Clark is a revelation.

What could be better than watching Doris Day reprise her signature role, whip-cracking away in buckskin as the deadwood stage comes a-rolling in over the hills?

Deliberately paced and expertly acted by a weathered ensemble including Hugo Weaving, Mystery Road also boasts some of cinema’s most gorgeous magic-hour photography even if, elsewhere, light is in perilously short supply.

Park Chan-wook brings operatic finesse to generic material in his tight-wound, wickedly weird US debut. And Mia Wasikowska nails it.

A fabulous first live-action effort, combining R-rated hilarity with skilled storytelling as it slips some real heart into the stuffing of a toy bear.

Scorsese blends his twin religions of Catholicism and cinema to considerable effect.

A minor-key appraisal of modern marriage that manages to be funny, sad and, sadly, true – just don’t watch it on your anniversary.

The plotting is tangled, the emotional undertow slight, but the action keeps on coming, including a blistering multi-player sword fight on speeding bikes.

Like many an auteur filmmaker’s passion project, it’s a huge swing that doesn’t always fully connect, and one that undoubtedly peaks too soon. But at a time when safe-bet sequels, franchise extensions and movies built on brand recognition are more prevalent than ever, the fact that something so singular exists and succeeds on its own terms is something to be celebrated.

Brave, brash and exhilarating, but lacking the insight and impact of the Korine-scripted "Kids" (1995). Too much fun for social commentary, this is what you wish school was like.

This funny, touching adap of Shrabani Basu’s 2010 biography has its own chemistry, withering wit and unsentimental message of acceptance. A royal treat.

True, Cooper’s film could do with a tighter edit, especially in the second act, where it has a tendency to drag. But all told, A Star is Born is a big achievement: raw, romantic, tragic, and tumultuous.

Hugely charming if somewhat cluttered, Burton’s horror-spiked YA freaks-and-a-geek fantasy proves a Home run for Asa Butterfield.

Juvenile? Weird? Gross? Yes. But also the best flatulence-themed indie-comedy-musical-drama you’ll see this year.

Whimsy with a capital W that unleashes Anderson’s arsenal of quirks. Truly marvellous medicine for fans, but could be a broken record for those who aren’t.

Violent, gripping, darkly funny and deeply human… everything, in other words, you’d expect from a Sopranos story.

Crucially, while there’s plenty here that fans of the famously enigmatic pair may be learning for the first time thanks to Wright’s exhaustive access, it’s a documentary that doubles as an accessible, breezy introduction to a band you may never have heard of, and a springboard to further explore their celebrated back catalogue.

Peele is three for three. You’ll spill out into the night jawing with your friends and gazing at the stars.

Part horror, part love story, part morality tale, Age Of Ultron is a smart superhero smackdown that raises the bar once more.

Strickland’s nuanced, atmospheric, ambiguous movie transcends genre.

[Bertrand Tavernier] pays heartfelt tribute to the directors, stars and composers who ignited his passion.

A thoroughbred origin story and rollicking good adventure in one, led by an excellent Ralph Fiennes. It’s a hoot.

An intergenerational family drama, a search for self, and a big, bouncy comedy sure to entertain.

It’s hands-down Disney’s best and punchiest prequel yet, one whose playful perils make for a deliciously rowdy ride.

Moore admits he’s out to “pick the flowers, not the weeds” and the end result is witty, moving and brimming with passion and purpose.

Is Furiosa as magnificent as Fury Road? No, though not because it’s the first Mad Max movie without Max, whose absence barely registers. At 140 minutes minus credits, it’s a touch unwieldy, while its lament for the inevitability of war and the emptiness of revenge feels hollow given the giddy excitement it stirs from just these things. But what can’t be disputed is that Miller, the Mad genius, has done it again, once more refusing to simply repeat himself and instead choosing to kick up dust rather than gather it as he forges a new path through the Wasteland in often spectacular fashion.