Cannes Film Festival — A–Z of films

The long wordless opening of 2001 remains one of the most beautiful sequences on film.

Truth is found in detail and gesture.

It should come as no surprise, given the kitsch and extravagant props and costumes, that the film has been co-produced by Pedro Almodovar and his brother Augustin.

Measured but naturally emotional recollections dovetail with the more impressionistic animated segments to scrutinise the psyche of war.

Wittily scripted and inventively directed.

Joe Penna's thriller is as lean and spare as life up in the Arctic wilderness.

Higashide will no doubt attract most attention, impressive in his ability to inhabit two very different characters, yet it's Karata who is the power at the heart of the film.

They say it's the hope that kills you and Dvortsevoy lets enough light in to emphasise her plight.

The look is as unforgettable as the power that drives your emotional response.

Green's richly detailed documentary is a portrait of a remarkable woman, a love letter to early cinema and a fascinating detective story all in one.

The film revolves around a simple plot, superbly executed.

The Big Blue is pure cinéma du look.

The rituals set in motion at the start, also tune us into the wavelength of portent, so that a heron's feet on a rug or the sound of locusts carry at least as much threat as the site of a loaded gun.

This emerges as a piece of bravura filmmaking that tackles huge themes with style and intelligence while providing a compelling narrative drive.

An original and highly ambitious premise that maintains its grip your attention and imagination.

Lee works the narrative with an ambivalence that borders on the inscrutable

You might notice the elegance of composition while knowing that the place contains so much human suffering.

Beautifully shot and articulated.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau has taken the spirit of Edmond Rostand's play and filled it to overflowing with energy, rumbustiousness, eloquence and panache.

Many of the stories are very similar but they are all compelling.

The film carries a message about the importance of tolerance, love and a healthy dose of silliness in the face of the darker elements of modern life.

Nemec knows that, in the real world, most people's trains of thought don't move steadily from one place to another like a teleplay but instead flit about, throwing up a murmur of a memory here, the whisper of a fantasy there.

Because Simone is so one-note, it's hard to fully swallow the lengths Marcello ultimately goes to in order to shield him.

Each successive scene hits you over the head with the ferocity of the action.

While Farhadi certainly knows how to spin a web of intrigue, deceit and suspicion, the narrative has a tendency to leap from strand to strand, often leaving the audience stumbling in its wake.

Drink in the imposition of expressionism through ergonomics, gaze up, craning at shots considered anew.

Touching and brave.

Smoczynska remains one to watch. She has a signature style and an ability to generate a sense of odd estrangement from virtually nothing.

Directed with admirable understatement and restraint.

The plot is thin... but the highly choreographed songs make up for it big-style.

Newcomer Tardiolo is splendid in the lead.

Dillon makes a fair fist of the role of Jack.

Elusively impenetrable stuff that only loosely can be described as cinema.

Patrick Orth's cinematography gives this a beguiling warmth but it's really Löw's performance that makes it work.

This isn't the kind of film that's destined to win mainstream awards but Paradis' performance deserves to be remembered.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was that it balances its study of Will with an exploration of Tom’s coming of age, while never making Will’s decision to drop out morally clear-cut.

Glavonic, who has a background in documentary, has crafted a moody and broody piece, built less on onscreen incident than the oppressive atmosphere and offscreen imaginings.

This is immersive cinema, designed to be experienced rather than just watched.

If only Zanasi and co had put a little more faith in the psychological elements of the screenplay rather than worshipping at the altar of cheap laughs.

The film only lives up to about 80% of the promise whereas I wanted 150%.

Gilliam’s script cannot quite stand the excesses of his own imagination.

Thumbs up here for graphics that are colourful, inventive and always interesting.

The insightful and intimate interviews Wenders conducted with the Pope are interspersed with footage of his extensive travels that show the meaning of his words.

Showing a keen understanding of the nature of sex work and of life on the streets, Vidal-Naquet carries us through several days in Léo's life in a observational, non-judgemental way.

Like Bergman's work, it might initially seem dry, but it's as rich in wit as it is in insight.

Playing a game for your life is a beautiful metaphor. Of course, it wouldn't have been the same in a squash court.

The exchanges all have the ring of truth.

Some may be dissuaded by the painstaking pace yet the tone manages to be both humorous and heart-rending at the same time.

The training sessions begin to pall - for the audience as much for the participants - but once the action moves to Norway, the pace and the scenery pick up considerably.

Solo is an exercise in retroactive continuity, and its ability to create peril is itself imperilled by what we know to follow after.

Honoré handles the strands with considerable agility and admirable lack of cliché or sentimentality employing camerawork that is clean and uncluttered.

Offering the comfort and reassurance of a Seventies children's TV programme, it takes us into the heat of darkness in a bumbling, offbeat way.

It's a heartbreaking film. I look at Tokyo Story, and I see moments of my own life, or potential future life reflected.

There are just too many movie references and homage to the likes of David Lynch in this noirish thriller to make it anything other than an over-derivative exercise in style over substance.

My pick for the greatest film ever made.

More than Aretha, more than anyone, she became the figure of change for the black community

Landscape and music and everyday objects are used to splendid effect.

This is joyful, beautiful, up-lifting - and bleak too, a clarion call to direct climate action at the personal and the political levels.

Shawky allows his characters to sit firmly in the driving seat.