Admittedly, the film’s oddly paced, elliptical middle section may leave you scratching your head. But then the twisty third act pulls it all together, sending shivers down the spine.

The style might cause whiplash, but it’s worth it for the thrilling momentum Chazelle brings to his revisionist filmdom fantasia.

"Dunkirk" has a rival in the intensity stakes. Expect Bigelow’s deep-cutting drama to be part of the conversation come awards season.

Showing a keen, compassionate eye for human observation, Özge reveals how each of his character's lives is as gridlocked as the cars on the bridge.

Ben Wheatley’s strangest movie yet: mysticism, mystification and magic mushrooms in a English Civil War setting. Often confusing, occasionally infuriating – but audaciously original.

Boasting great music cues, vivid 35mm lensing (by, of all people, Avatar actor Giovanni Ribisi, who here makes his classy debut as director of photography), and engaging gender politics that establish Mollner’s interest in more than just the thrill of the chase, Strange Darling is a slick game of cat and mouse.

Informed, balanced and deeply humane.

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.

James Cameron mobilizes on all fronts for an imperfect but imposing blockbuster: dazzling, supersized, rippled with currents of sincere feeling.

Aronofsky’s maternal horror is the most out-there studio movie of the year. You won’t believe your eyes.

Shot with doc-style immediacy, it expertly builds to a shocking climax.

Mostly, this is fantastic fun: a two-hours-plus blockbuster that doesn’t bog down in exposition or sag in the middle. There are reversals and rug-pulls galore, most of them executed with whiplash skill.

Tarr risks self-parody with recurring scenes of the pair tucking into scalding potatoes, but if you've got the stomach for it this is an intoxicating vision of life at the end of its tether.

Among the blood, sweat and (ahem) salty tears are musings on desire, family and emasculation, but this is Kim at his most mischievous, the laughs drowning all.

Both visually and in the action stakes, Jupiter Ascending could give pretty much any space movie a run for its money.

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 Terminator story recharges with a post-apocalyptic jolt of energy. Frantic and full of welcome ties to the past, it also ploughs new ground with purpose.

Arduous yet always absorbing, Cristian Mungiu’s first full-length feature since 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is inspired by a real-life case of a tragically botched exorcism in rural Romania.

Utterly assured, breathtakingly executed and riotously funny, this is a delight.

It may not be a perfect movie, but in a word, it’s pretty super.

Writer/director Gilles Legrand’s study of fraught father/son relationships builds the tension, helped by a fine cast...while the vineyards of Bordeaux offer a deceptively serene backdrop.

Both revealing and good-natured, its a very inviting exploration of one of the 20th Centurys major artists.

Herzog's tapestry testifies to life's light from death's darkness. Its honest humanity and sideways-on character bare his illuminating imprint.

It’s Ant-Man, not pants, man. Marvel passes its biggest test in years with flying critters… plus wit, flair, top-notch casting and some good, gratuitous size gags.

A simmering pressure cooker of a thriller, Prisoners is an unforgiving but emotionally rewarding experience sustained by powerhouse performances, taut scripting and Villeneuve’s tonally assured direction.

Splashes of overstatement aside, the ambition intoxicates.

Bigger and broader than before, Ron’s return occasionally feels like autocue’d sequel-making. But it spikes old news with enough fresh comic zip to keep you hooked through the self-indulgent stretches.

Drawing on revealing clips from Panahi's previous films, TINAF reveals not only the realities of artistic censorship, but its firework-laden finale shows how cinema thrives on spontaneity.