Colm Tóibín’s bitter-sweet novel of the Irish expat experience brought impeccably to the screen by Crowley and Hornby, with Saoirse Ronan excelling herself in the leaf.

The Double Life of Véronique makes the familiar seem extraordinary and memorably conjures up the sense of metaphysical forces guiding its characters’ everyday lives.

This phantasmagorical fantasy really does represent old-school MGM filmmaking at its best – sets, make-up, costumes and music combining to quite stunning effect.

The horrors, like Cage himself, are largely kept off-screen for much of the movie’s duration. Yet with its eerie soundscape and sepulchral visuals, Longlegs nevertheless succeeds as a deeply disconcerting experience, one that burrows into the brain as insidiously as the innocuous means its villain employs to disseminate his evil.

A lunatic vision, as hilarious as it is hellish. And some of the greatest action ever put on screen.

Peachy keen. A luminous, sun-kissed Italian love story brimming with warmth, passion and feeling. This is utterly unmissable.

Rowling’s universe just got bigger and more complex, but Yates never forgets to sprinkle stardust on top.

Much of The Tree Of Life’s beauty is in its yearning and wonder. It’s an extraordinary grasping stretch – across space and time – to touch what will always be just out of our reach. It’s a captivating, unmissable experience.

Tenet is a practically perfect (re)introduction to the big screen. Whether audiences are ready – where safe – to return to cinemas en masse is another question entirely. Certainly, Tenet’s a more challenging film than some may be comfortable with after a five-month absence, but this is an all-too-rare example of a master filmmaker putting everything on the table with, you sense, not a modicum of his vision compromised. The stakes have never been higher, but Tenet is exactly the film cinemas need right now.

Between hidden depths and dazzling surfaces, home truths and virtual wonders, Hosoda’s tale of teenage anguish, connectivity and emotional salvation enraptures.

Wells has crafted a feature that gets its hooks into you before you’ve had a chance to work out what it’s doing.

Uncomfortable viewing, then, but also engaging, unbridled cinema that will prompt discourse and divide opinions.

A small film that hits big, Sound Of Metal is a gem you’ll want to bang the drum for.

FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), brainiac cannibal Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and tackle-tucking serial killer Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) make for one of cinema’s great ménages à trois.

It's a visual feast, from the moody, horror-flick style opening which hovers over the gates of man-made mountain Xanadu, to the opera-house scene when we levitate hundreds of metres from Susan's awful stage debut to the workmen flinching in the rafters.

A truly cerebral fear flick, edgy, brooding, packing the power to freeze your bones and claim your sleepless thoughts at two in the morning.

The heart-stopping climax offers no answers: just the lingering unease of uncertainty.

Full of shivers and subtext, this is scarily good. One of the films – horror or otherwise – of the year.

A hugely powerful, moving study of a small village's stand against overwhelming state power. Despite all the suffering and injustice, the final message is one of optimism that feels neither facile nor tacked-on.

The Coen brothers on top sardonic form with a winning tale of an incorrigible loser. Hits the right note on every level, from period vibe to performance (human and feline).

Taut and sprawling, riveting and haunting: firing on all cylinders, Nolan tackles world-changing history with fearsome force and focus.

A stunning space saga that takes off for new technical frontiers without leaving its humanity behind.

Sublime and stupendous. Beautiful, bold and remarkably executed, this is Gray’s masterpiece, driven by a career-best turn from Pitt.

For all its Swedish trimmings, the long, syrup-slow takes are unmistakably Tarkovsky’s, and it’s these that provide this arthouse disaster movie with its mesmerising power.

A deeply affecting and intimate tale that rings right through the nerve-ends.

A timely, inspiring parable of protest, directed with sinewy style and driven by Braga’s rock-solid lead performance.

Directed by John McTiernan, it’s an ’80s classic full of still-thrilling action, quotable one-liners (“Get to the chopper!” “Stick around!”) and sly digs at Uncle Sam’s penchant for unwinnable jungle wars.

Haunting, thrilling and emotional, Dunkirk is a prestige pic with guts and glory that demands multiple views. Especially in IMAX.

Pulled from the news but punched up to fever pitch, Sicario represents the perfect mix of cerebral and visceral thrills. Star, director and screenwriter all bring their A-game.

The three leads are on outstanding form, while Jack Nitzsche's score shimmers with foreboding.

It plays like Frankenstein meets Blade Runner via Hitchcock haunted by the ghosts of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, in a film that’s both highly literate and steeped in tense cat-and-mouse chills. Thematically epic – it demands to be seen at least twice and should fuel hours of debate — structurally it’s as lithe as Ava’s perfect mesh frame.

You may not be sure what you've seen, but you've sure seen something. With neither a petticoat nor a wideboy in sight, this is one of the most original and exciting British movies in some time.

Poverty and poetry, delinquency and deluxe wonder… this child’s-eye view of lives on a knife-edge is terrific.

Extraordinary in form, ‘ordinary’ in content, Boyhood is ambitious, intimate and unforgettable. It might just be the apex of Linklater’s life’s work.

The H2O theme fits in with the main feature, its tale of a clownfish searching for his son constituting Pixar’s most effective amalgam of comedy, artistry and emotional pull.

Adapted from the hit Broadway musical, Funny Girl exudes class - there's a terrific array of song and dance numbers, a tear-jerking storyline and a bevy of colourful costumes. Quirky, charming and very funny, Babs screams talent.

Visually astonishing and touchingly told, Kubo is utterly wonderful.

If ever there was a film that epitomised the saying ‘no pain, no gain’, this is it. Packs a real wallop.

Could have been a grand folly but instead it’s just grand. Will make audiences break into grins like its characters break into song.

Everything from the masterly opening sequence to the ambiguous final shot indicates that this is the work of a prodigiously talented director.

Del Toro’s Valentine to boundary-crossing love pours from the screen in ravishing torrents of feeling and style. And Hawkins is sublime.

Losey creates an atmosphere of deepening claustrophobic menace shot through with episodes of savage black humour.

It’s ambitious, artful and unique. As for Bowie… what a star, man.

A worthy tribute to Bogdanovich's idols, Orson Welles and John Ford.

A gloriously entertaining thrill-packer of truly epic proportions.

A brilliantly played, stone-cold '70s classic.

Marches to the beat of its own drum… Lands with a bang… There just aren’t enough musical clichés to describe Whiplash. A masterclass in technique, power and rhythm, it stings and sings like nothing else.

Witty, menacing and steamy (in every sense), The Beguiled is an intelligent update and Coppola’s best work to date. Oscars await.

A joyful, trippy new incarnation of Spider-Man that you didn’t know you needed, brimming with wit, soul and jaw-dropping visuals.

An expert blend of world building, humanity, and the magical strangeness of Final Fantasy. Best of all, you don't need to know anything about Final Fantasy to love it.

Adam Sandler is off-the-scale good in the Safdies’ latest: a scuzzy shot of adrenaline into the crime pic’s heart.

Do not throw away your shot at watching Hamilton’s original cast both make and recreate history. ‘Satisfied’? You will be.

It's clear Wassung and Trachtenberg just get it. Somehow, they're able to push the sci-fi envelope and offer up fresh images and ideas the series has yet to see, while also appealing to diehard fans with Easter eggs.

What emerges is as riveting as it is revelatory.

Iñárritu ditches time-hopping bleakness for a linear, if loopy, satire that buzzes with brio. If Mel Brooks, John Cassavetes and Terry Zwigoff co-directed a superhero movie, this might be it.

A film to make your blood run cold, Nemes’ first-person account of life, and death, in a concentration camp contains horrors you can’t – and shouldn’t – unsee.

The Daniel Craig era comes of age with a ballsy Bond that takes brave chances and bold risks. Guess what? Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Magnificent. A multiplex-friendly critics' movie in the stripped-down Blood Simple/Fargo style, but with a more restrained hint of Raising Arizona slapstick. A crime-sex-drugs-kidnap-bowling-nihilism mystery of the highest order.

Carried aloft by the remarkable performances of her two young leads, Clio Barnard’s poignant, unflinching slice of hard-knock-life grips tight and lingers long. Britain’s definitely got talent.

A stylish black-and-white prison romp with a sense of humour as offbeat as its perfectly cast stars (John Lurie, Roberto Benigni and singer Tom Waits).

An exquisitely crafted sequel that stands shoulder to shoulder with one of the greatest films ever made. Everyone involved is operating at the height of their powers.

The Shining buzzes madness and malevolence from every frame.

Whether you think it's pretentious or profound, you can't deny that Space Odyssey is a significant landmark in the history of cinema. It's also, as the original posters proclaimed, "the ultimate trip..."

If there’s a risk of the Marvel ‘formula’ becoming stale, there isn’t any evidence of that here. Civil War isn’t just a damn-near-perfect popcorn crowd-pleaser; it doesn’t offer any easy answers for its combatants, or the world going forward. Team Cap or Team Iron Man? The real winner here is Team Marvel.

Conceived on an unprecedented scale in ambition and technique, Otomo’s rich visuals and awe-inspiring action depict a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the threat of feral biker gangs is dwarfed by the rise of an uncontrollable psychic.

Alluring and unnerving, Lynch’s horror-show reminds us how much cinema misses him. Watts is electric, too.

Paul Thomas Anderson's bravura comic satire is a serious film of the year contender, and one of the best studio movies in years. An instant classic.

So damn charming it makes your heart twinkle like Redford's eyes.

A horror film that will haunt your waking hours for weeks. Every frame of It Follows is stamped with nameless dread.

Time hasn't dulled the agonising richness of the songs, the toe-stiffening stupidity of the on-stage concepts, or the endless pith of Tufnel and St Hubbins' wisdom. Even if you've seen it an unhealthy number of times, have another go.

Macdonald leaves no stone unturned in this tremendous look at Houston, one that sheds real light on the singer’s psychology.

While some might have preferred this story with its edges unsmoothed, The Fabelmans is better viewed as the tale of how Spielberg’s personal values inform his every artistic decision, and how he became who he is: The Greatest Showman On Earth.

Playing the mental-hospital firebrand who rebels against monstrous Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), Nicholson seduces in an anti-establishment classic with a gut-punch exit.

A more-than-worthy, expectations-exceeding chapter in one of modern cinema’s finest love stories. As honest, convincing, funny, intimate and natural as its predecessors.

Stunning fights and creepy CG come wrapped inside a blade-sharp story, as the swordsman vows to hunt the killers of a young girl’s parents. Truly epic.

Part Two is an inarguable marvel technically, almost leaving its Oscar-grade predecessor for dust.

A touch too long, yet never slack, at three hours, TWOWS benefits from independent funding, Scorsese’s brass balls and an A-grade cast’s turbulent improvisations to emerge as an epic, boldly broad screwball comedy about the state of America, then and now.

It's a warm, tender movie underpinned by the gentle tug of melancholia.

Prepare to be spirited away. A brain-scrambler to make hearts swell, Shinkai’s giddy romance brims with emotion and invention.

But it’s the precision-tooled plot fashioned by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond that holds it together, creating the perfect farcical playground. Brilliant performances, wondrous comic timing and the greatest pay-off line ever written: this one’s still red hot.

As Scrooge, Michael Caine rises to the challenge and helps find the pathos beneath the puppetry.

Between the vast exteriors and candlelit interiors, the expressive authority of Kubrick’s direction is breathtaking.

The electric, forthright How to Blow Up a Pipeline excels as both truly riveting entertainment and an energizing call to action, in part through the cleverness of its genre conceit: what could be a better fit for a story about collective action and fighting the system than a heist movie?

A sweet, evocative throwback that delivers all the feels – in the most delightful way.

Malcolm & Marie is a film of the moment, powered by Covid, BLM and #MeToo – but good enough to stand the test of time.

An exquisite portrait of Hiroshima before the bomb that conjures a powerful sense of what – and who – was lost.

Utterly gripping. Aided by two punchy lead turns, an Oscar-worthy script and stunning in-car footage, Howard’s race film delivers top-gear drama. A piston- and heart-pumping triumph.

One of [Hawks'] finest pictures: a swoony saga of fatalistic flyboys and the women who try to keep their feet on the ground.

Creepier than "Catfish" and as cinematic as "Man On Wire," this is an unnerving story immaculately told and a strong contender for documentary of the year.

A 25th anniversary restoration of Giuseppe Tornatore’s ode to moving pictures and puppy love.

The ambition is bracing, but critical hindsight obscures how exciting Malle’s noir thriller is on its own terms.

Like the Toy Story trilogy, Inside Out is about leaving childhood behind. It’s not quite as moving as those films but it is A-grade Pixar, full of Sadness and Joy.

I don’t want people to dislike me. I’m indifferent to if they dislike me,” says Jobs. Well, this won’t be for everyone but it dazzles. Markedly better than Ashton Kutcher’s Jobs…

Detractors may carp that Cronenberg is showing us nothing new, but Maps is so flawless in its execution, it vividly refreshes the subject matter. Never overcooking the setting, it’s a story right in his wheelhouse; a very human look at characters barely clinging to their humanity.

Largely lensed in the window between sunset and nightfall, it’s a magic-hour masterpiece. [26 Aug. 2011]

Weaving the Tulsa race riots, the KKK and the Masons into its tapestry, Scorsese’s opus questions the misdeeds of America in the last century while linking them to the pressing issues of today. Addressing racial violence, nationalism, the continued epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and even our lurid obsession with true crime, Killers of the Flower Moon paints a robust picture of a moment in history that invites viewer introspection.

Let it be said that it’s such a fearless, fierce, menacing turn that comparisons with Jack Nicholson don’t come into it. This is the definitive Joker.

Will Richard E Grant ever get a better role than bitter thespian Withnail? Has anyone devised a more iconic comic notion than the Camberwell Carrot? Has any screenplay combined so many quotable lines with such tear-jerking pathos or blatant homophobia?