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.

Madness and death hang over Herzog’s Wagner-scored vision like a black cloud, while Kinski adds much poignancy to Dracula, the lonely immortal.

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

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

Part war story, part endurance test, this harrowing portrait of a young boy’s loss of innocence is gripping, gruelling, grown-up fare. That said, some judicious trimming wouldn’t have hurt.

Refusing to become a cautionary tale, How to Have Sex explores the pitfalls as well as the pleasures of teen-holiday hook-ups; it also brings an admirably fresh, female POV to the subject of sexual consent.

A loving, very funny valentine to undead pleasures, with Swinton and Hiddleston on top form.

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

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.

This blend of tongue-in-cheek exoticism and desire so strong it makes crocodiles melancholic amply rewards your patience.

Not quite the intimate parable of the first movie nor a balls-to-the-wall battlefield extravaganza, Dawn is pitched somewhere in the middle, with much of its two hour-plus running time powered by the simmering, expertly sustained tension both between and within the two species.

Riotously told and enthusiastically performed, Hustlers is hugely entertaining. Edgy, provocative and full of ker-ching

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.

MacKay is marvellous, delivering lines with a Lear-like intensity, in what becomes a fascinating meditation on myth and madness.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis excel in a well-crafted drama that’s sure to bring the late August Wilson’s words to a much wider audience.

Keep The Lights On feels lopsided in its focus on Erik, with Paul remaining a strangely remote object of the former's romantic devotion.

The resulting pickle may seem alien to many, but Yaron’s navigation of Shira’s struggles make it tangible.

Korean maestro Bong Joon-ho’s (The Host) playfully off-kilter Hitchcockian thriller refuses to play by genre rules, stir-frying slow-burn menace and Freudian drama into unpredictable combinations.

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.

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

It suffers an abrupt ending and, compared to the creativity displayed in Coppola’s other biopic, Marie Antoinette, is a more muted affair.

A rich rumination on the immortal link between artist and subject.

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

A gutsy, first-rate, full-blooded ghost story, as elegant as it is eerie and brilliantly realised. Blending terror with tenderness, Guillermo Del Toro has crafted something both traditional and original: a sun-kissed gothic horror.

Assured, adult filmmaking from a writer/director who knows her way around the ups and downs of relationships.

It’s heartening to find Fox so fearlessly unhumbled by his condition and the mobility problems that come with it. One of the star’s stipulations before consenting to this film was that it would have "no violins". By its end you’ll be happy to give him the whole flipping orchestra.

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

Twists and betrayals add spice to a familiar cat-and-mouse tale, while director Kim Jee-woon handles spectacle and drama with equal aplomb.