Tense, kinetic, intelligent and real – as if Paul Greengrass had remade Vera Drake.

That feeling you have as you leave the cinema - that buzzing in the fingers and lightness in the heart - is called joy.

A rich, understated character drama that gleefully exposes the petty playground politics at the centre of one of the internet-era's most bitter court cases.

Gripping throughout, with an impressive central performance, this is like a Dogme 95 redo of a Chuck Norris film - by heroic effort, the good guys find and kill a bad guy. How you feel about that is something Bigelow leaves you to decide.

Powerful art cinema that challenges political and social unity in Iran.

A dazzling spy thriller that’s still amazing.

The fact that Miyazaki and his team hand-draw the images before they're digitally coloured and animated gives them an artistry that has been woefully lacking from so many recent American features.

A scintillating piece of filmmaking, the kind of movie you look forward to seeing again even as you're watching it, and an extraordinary response to both the Dogs-Is-Overrated brigade and the He'll-Never-Top-His-Debut sceptics.

The most literally exciting film you will see this year. Forget the off-putting banner of another Iraq movie -- go, watch, marvel, endure and book in the palliative of a stiff drink afterwards.

To call WALL•E Pixar's best film would potentially denigrate films that deserve no scorn. But this is their most ambitious undertaking since "Toy Story" and storytelling of such charm and visual wit that it can stand proudly alongside the studio’s best. Absolute heaven.

Has a vigour, a commitment and an intelligence that is absent from too much modern cinema.

Brilliantly observed characters are becoming second nature to Payne and Taylor, and the performances here are uniformly terrific. This is wonderful, original stuff.

A moving look behind the curtain of a rarely-explored community.

Those who have walked beside these heroes every step of the way on such a long journey deserve the emotional pay-off as well as the action peaks, and they will be genuinely touched as the final credits roll.

Ramirez's outstanding performance and Assayes' superb skill in storytelling make this a mini-series not to be missed.

Michael Haneke's Palme D'Or winner is uncomfortable, uncompromising, unflinching... and utterly unmissable. Old age may not be a reality you wish to confront, but you must see this film.

An intriguing and absorbing movie, reeking of class and quite packed with powerhouse performances.

Overall this film is truly a triumph, its greatness being revealed in its tiny moments - the close-up of a swastika badge that introduces Neeson or the bungled defiance of Fiennes at his hanging.

Rarely has a film bared itself to simple majesty...it feels epic yet runs barely over and hour and a half. [22 Oct. 1997]

A poignant reflection on what it means to be alive and, visually, a true cinematic experience.

Superbly played and realised, this stays with you.

Uncompromising, intelligent and searing cinema. Along with The Assassination Of Jesse James... and No Country For Old Men, this is the best batch of Western-set dramas in decades. John Huston would have been proud.

A kids’ movie for grown-ups. A grown-up movie for kids. Exactly what you’d expect -- and hope for -- from the latest, and we’re guessing final, Woody and Buzz adventure.

With a debut film, Katalin Varga, shot entirely in Hungarian, Strickland isn't one for the easy option. This excellent follow-up plunges into equally unusual terrain with similarly pleasing results

Poetic, provocative and unstoppably powerful. But, depressingly, it probably won't change a thing.

Fascinating, funny, wicked and to the point, this is an excellent film about a week every Briton over the age of 15 will remember vividly.

If hell is in the details, Roman Polanski has captured it here in his disturbing portrait of falling into psychosis.

A bravura documentary which balances the personal and the political as it peers into the First Lebanon War, its animated approach never feeling like a novelty. Astonishing, unforgettable: you have to see it.