“Soderbergh is channelling the same balance of get-the-job-done proficiency and genuine, elegant artistry that Hitchcock managed in his prime, and it’s a pleasure just to go with its groove.”

“Conversation is the lifeblood of Hamaguchi’s filmmaking, here rolling easily and thoughtfully across such subjects as shared memory, isolated heartbreak and the complex, compromised politics of courtship.”

“The piercing precision with which the characters are pinned down and anatomised is eased with frequent comedy, the laughs coming largely from our recognition of the precarious nature of the human ego.”

“Top honours must go to Penélope Cruz, on very watchable form as a warm and likeable woman who makes some rather outrageous choices…”

“She’s so fatale that at times she’s barely femme, a kind of super-charged avatar for duplicity, with shades of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon and Ann Savage in Detour all in the mix.”

“But sound design is not ultimately what the film is about, in its bones: the themes are time, death and and intergenerational memory.“

“A study of magnetic human connection that isn’t necessarily good for either party — but then, magnetic human connection rarely thinks that way, or thinks at all.”

“Biology here is both fact and fiction; malleable, strange and changeable, but also the source code writing undeniable vulnerabilities into the flesh-and-blood vehicle in which we find ourselves embodied.”

“The most intimate people-watching happens inside our own heads, as we go back over our own memories — revelling in them, rewriting them, torturing ourselves, scrutinising ourselves, and trying to figure out who we once were.”

“The ancient Icelandic bones of the rural territory that the characters inhabit give a robust foundation to a fantastical tale, keeping the story earth-bound, despite its fairytale qualities.”

“Mike Mills doesn’t trade in sitcom-style hugging and learning: his characters’ breakthroughs are hard-won, earned through hard conversations, patient listening and occasionally (okay, often) fucking things up.”

“House of Gucci is never knowingly underacted, and that’s a good thing … its chief asset is a cast that knows exactly what degree of too much is just right.”

“The triumph of this extraordinary film is that it evokes this limbo half-life without itself feeling like purgatory, instead allowing us to gently observe without judgment and come away enriched.”

“A crucial distinction keeps Procession, rattling as it is, from crossing the line into exploitation. Robert Greene uses his lens not to capture or steer his subjects, but to enable their own possession of their narrative.”

“At once a work of great sensitivity and high, hilarious camp, less interested in identifying the ‘real’ Diana than in building a living, breathing character in the space between costume, iconography and everything we’ve always assumed about her suffering.”

“Rebecca Hall translates Nella Larsen’s novel to the screen with the tact and grace it requires — but also the cutting emotional candour of someone who knows how these issues wound and weigh on the soul.”

“Dune never breaks the tension with a smart aleck remark. As a sand-worm rampages towards a mining vessel, you will hear someone say, ‘It’s a big one,’ but you will not hear someone else reply, ‘Hey, size ain’t everything!’”

“Fundamentally, ear for eye feels more alive than most stage-to-screen translations, and goes beyond an adaptation into a whole new hybrid form of work.”

“Watching this old favourite again for this 25th anniversary re-release, I was struck less by the multiple references to other horror movies — although they are still a lot of fun — and more by what a neatly constructed whodunnit it is”

“Played with raw-nerved fearlessness by Deragh Campbell, Anne is a woman whose need to be in mid-air makes perfect sense: it’s the only place she doesn’t feel friction with absolutely everything and everyone around her.”