Eugène Green’s (The Portuguese Nun) direction favours symmetry over emotion, while the impassive performance style recalls French auteur Robert Bresson. It lacks the profundity to fully merit that comparison, but earns its uplifting ending.

Alain Gomis’ film paints a lacerating picture of a raucous, dangerous city.

Don't overlook this film. It doesn't have the must-see pull of a Mars Attacks! or a Fierce Creatures, but it's a fine, convincingly played drama, and a superlative adaptation of Mr Miller's play. (Married to Marilyn Monroe, he was. Makes you think...)

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

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.

Theron is astonishingly good, giving a subtle, vanity-free performance.

An Oscar-aimed turn from Gary Oldman anchors this WW2 portrait of Churchill at his most beleaguered.

Interviewing key figures in his life, they build an anecdote-rich bio.

Filled with cherry-blossom gorgeousness and sentimental homages to small-town Japanese life, it's a film of quiet, telling moments, even when big revelations surface.

There’s a bumpy, wholly unexpected dip into melodrama along the way, but the film’s commitment to its characters, and its sheer emotional heft, carries you along regardless.

A whip-smart blend of savvy parody, elegant slapstick and zinger-packed dialogue makes for the year’s most rewarding character comedy so far, and McCarthy’s best showcase to date.

True, John Wick: Chapter 2 doesn’t quite hit the heights of the original – partly because the element of surprise when it comes to the fight-work is gone, partly because it lacks the emotional pull of Wick avenging his wife’s memory. But as badass B-movies go, this really gets the blood pumping.

Here, the working-class milieu invites imagination, adventure, and camaraderie rather than a Ken Loach-style crushing of hope, while a climactic confrontation on divided streets is framed like a thrilling showdown in a black-hat-vs.-white-hat western. But it is the child’s- eye view, the wit, and the generosity of spirit on show that elevate Branagh’s Belfast.

Comprising archive footage and first-hand accounts, Claire Ferguson’s film feels vital in sharing harrowing stories of life in concentration camps.

Taken as speculative fantasy, however, Civil War is never less than vividly, chillingly authentic.

Directed with straightforward economy, The Invisible War sheds much-needed light on a very dark secret.

A once-in-a-lifetime subject, sensitively brought to the screen, the Angulos’ story makes the strange seem ordinary and the ordinary, insane.

The ending stumbles, but not enough to tarnish this study of life lived under society’s radar.

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.

Mostly, it’s a study of an analogue ghost turned digital star; yet because Maloof is vested in building Maier’s reputation, the film leaves some uncomfortable questions about the ethics of posthumous fame.

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

Singer has refreshed the series with blasts of his original entries’ X-factors: vim, levity, clarity and a sincere, soulful grip on the emotional stakes involved.

What holds everything together and stops the film from sliding into a winking spoof is the intensity of newcomer Kansara’s performance. Her obsessive Ria drives the movie’s frantic pace with sheer willpower and scrappy physical courage

An entertaining, if frenetic, vehicle for Arnett’s Bale-inspired Bats that packs plenty of laughs.

Amy Schumer is a force to be reckoned with – but despite some belly laughs Trainwreck doesn’t quite transcend the romcom formula like the best of the genre.

DuVernay captures the universal experience of loss: the regrets, the suffocating sorrow.

Despite the candid vérité stylings, art-dance powerhouse Grace Jones remains a magnetic enigma in Sophie Fiennes’ docu-study.

Every bit as compelling as any Hollywood political thriller.