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Although teetering on the brink of soppiness in places, and treading a well-worn path, the soft in the middle script is lifted immeasurably by towering performances.

The mixing of fiction and reality, as well as a lot of aesthetic choices, make for an interesting echo of the Yugoslav Black Wave aesthetic.

Hellcat is an unforgettable ride.

You’re unlikely to see anything quite like it any time soon.

The final twist comes across as amateurish and lazy.

Aïnouz is at her best in the moment with Selma, whether it's when she's lost in erotic thought at the beach, during first go at sex or gazing at herself in the mirror.

Hostel is, on one level, your standard slice-and-dice bloodbath... but it's also a startlingly brazen attack on America's sense of entitlement.

House of Sayuri plays like a peculiar rather than fully accomplished movie

This kind of layered story construction is a difficult thing to pull off and it makes the film shine.

Unfolds as an epic poem in which the fiction alternates with documentary inserts and strange, dreamlike hallucinations.

Young love has no currency compared to dirty currency and freedom is a dream rather than a promise.

This slice of southern gothic is deep fried in almost every cliche you could mention from the last 50 years - and served up with an unfortunate side order of snakes.

Hant and Borodachyov's neatest trick is the way that the two men's awfulness to one another - a sort of no-holds-barred bitter-off - paradoxically stokes our sympathies.

Cynics may find it been there done that but for the target audience, this is wish-fulfilment romance to the max.

In the end what makes this a classic is the direction – stately and assured, with a keen eye for a telling image.

In less adept hands this could have become a clash of content but Václav keeps all his elements in balance, managing to celebrate the beauty of opera on the one hand while showing us uglier mini dramas playing out at the front and back of house.

You can’t help thinking that West would have made a better (and perhaps more genuinely unsettling) film if he’d focused more on the inner demons of his young protagonists

I did laugh a few times.

A timely and well-executed thriller

For the most part this is a lyrical and lightly handled odd couple road movie that achieves a subtle resonance, although it is almost scuppered by a sudden major tonal shift in the film's final act.

Tonya's story is a blinder. You walk away with your heart bruised and your eyes swollen

Winans is at his best in the visual realm, and the early sections of his film, in which supernatural entities are seen wordlessly working their nightshifts, prove highly effective examples of narrative economy.

The neat trick of Aakeson and Moland is to balance the humour with unexpected moments of poignancy and humanity as fathers from both sides of the criminal tracks share the common ground of parenthood.

Buttons are pushed, emotions manipulated.

Monaghan and Fessenden are cast perfectly and have a great onscreen rapport, reminding me of a re-vamped Abbott and Costello.

Its play with lighting effects, colour gels and jarring camera angles makes everything - both on earth and below - seem an off-kilter nightmare.

As all the thematic strands of the film's first half are brought violently together in a symmetrical set of revenge stories, the viewer is left to pass divine judgment as to who is in the right, and who is in the wrong.

A kitsch nightmare.

If the past is another country, exploring it can be a dangerous endeavour, affecting more people than you know.

There's a can-do attitude about the production which is very endearing but doesn't always succeed in producing something watchable.

Between fragments of formal experimentation, the relationship between the two siblings and their father's struggle with melancholia deliver a muddled but tender summer chronicle.

Although there are no truly outstanding performances, neither are there any weak ones in what is essentially an ensemble piece.

As Kumiko’s journey takes her deeper into Minnesota, the breathtaking ‘Americana’ landscapes and intriguingly surreal score work together to suggest a heightened state, or a fable.

What might easily have been a dry historical drama is delivered as a gripping action film complete with brutal battles and inventive chase scenes.

Subaru gives a brilliant performance - including some excellent vocal takes - as an amnesiac whose only link to the world is his singing.

The performances are powerful, unforgettable, like ice in the wind

Lin Clifton carries the film. She is haunted, haunting.

Set against a perpetually snowy background the film paces itself perfectly with a gathering sense of an impending implosion.

The whole thing is beautifully shot in far higher resolution than most viewers are likely to get the benefit of.

Pirozek knows exactly what she is doing and while this film will likely attract loud and widespread cries of #NotAllMen from the less fair sex, women will understand very well what is happening here.

The humour is the key – it’s not subtle but it’s definitely original.

Along with Vladimir Gojun’s progressively rhythmic editing and Julij Zornik’s subjective sound design, the filmmaker takes us right into the protagonist’s, and therefore any and every teenager’s head.

You don't need to be a fan of board sports to enjoy the latest documentary from Joe Berlinger, but if you are you'll certainly get plenty of added value

What Longlegs has in mind worked better by implication.

The film comes into its own because of Gyllenhaal's non-judgemental perspective, even sympathy, for the small suffocations of motherhood.

There's no doubt youngsters will enjoy the trippy and exuberant visuals of this film.

A polished film that acknowledges its place in the canon of American mysteries and makes a worthy contribution.