If the formula feels familiar, the girls’ personalities obliterate any chance of tedium, with Broadway producer-turned-director Amanda Lipitz providing sensitive insight into their home lives while capturing the toe-tapping with joyful aplomb.

Al-Mansour carefully dodges easy uplift, but her message of hope to future generations of Saudi women is clear.

An intelligent, eloquent and stirring sci-fi that grips from start to finish, Arrival is up there with the year’s best movies.

Overall, Cregger’s twisted fairytale is not only the best horror movie to come out of an already impressive year for the genre, but Weapons is a positively terrifying, heartwrenching look at a struggling community.

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

Guileless performances, understated direction and bucolic Belgian scenery combine to create a quiet gem of a film.

If the result is unlikely to leave audiences bawling, it’s still a well-observed study of life and loss.

One of the princes of arthouse cinema, Miguel Gomes here uses his status to push form and stretch boundaries. Very long but very much worth it.

Funny, foul-mouthed and frighteningly on-the-money, Top Five is relentlessly amusing even while it’s super-indulgent and selfabsorbed. Rock on.

It may lack the ingenuity of their finest outings, but this is Pixar’s best film in ages. Visually splendid, frequently emotional and culturally nourishing.

Political intrigue abounds as Spielberg grippingly recreates a famous real-life spy-swap case of the Cold War, with both Hanks and Rylance on top form.

A hypnotically disturbing triumph for Miller and his cast. Bruisingly intimate and psychologically nuanced, its spiral into savagery lingers like a bad dream.

Volumes one and two are especially captivating, as Gomes himself appears onscreen to tell of how he charged a team of researchers with scouring Portugal in search of tales.

Portman’s Oscar-worthy work crowns an unconventional study of an icon, while Mica Levi’s score is sublime.

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

One of the strangest films you’ll see this (or any) year, it unsettles, bores, elates and amuses in equal measure. Not for everyone, but there’s plenty to chew on.

If not quite on a par with PTA’s best, this is still a richly intoxicating brew of humour, violence and melancholy.

Its shuffling pace and basic animation all add to the heartbreak as the protagonists slowly unravel, even as they fight to keep a grip.

Despite the slightly uneven pacing, Wright’s sturdy performance keeps things on an even keel. The result is a fiendishly sharp poke at questionable notions of Black representation in the modern world.

The results – achieved through small cameras clipped to nets, masts and the crew – will hook some and induce seasickness in others.

“We have to find a product that’s appealing to people!” says Garcia Bernal at one point. And that’s just what Larraín’s created with this Latin spin on "Mad Men."

The strong supporting gallery - including Gillian Anderson and Martin Compston - feels underused, but Meier and her ace DoP Agnès Godard make shrewd use of the dramatic alpine locations.

Tarantino's three-hour feast of Southern-fried trash cinema might be too much – and too bloody – for certain constitutions, but the rewards are plentiful. Be sure to hunt it down.

Equally cool and cruel, stuffed with subtext, this ‘Iranian fairytale’ weaves its spell to a flip, hip ending. Amirpour is one to watch.

Peele doubles down on his genre love with a flawed but full-bore frightener, ripe for debate. Nyong’o is incendiary.

Coupled with the extraordinary lush visuals and fluid camerawork – moulding the ocean’s many moods and textures till it’s practically a character – Moana essays a rich, vivid feel. It might not be a whole new world, but it’s a fantastic voyage.

Full of ear-pleasing lines and obscure R&B tunes, it’s colourful, casual and full of flavour. An unexpected treat.

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.