Patrick Peters

Brimful of glorious sounds, this affectionate fan letter says as much about Pops Staples's artistic and political evolution as it does about his devoted daughter, one of the all-time greats.

Refocused on the hoof after the catastrophic 2014 earthquakes, Jennifer Peedom's film pulls no punches in exploring the culture and work of this unheralded group, as well as their frequent exploitation by Westerners.

Has its moments of spectacle and danger, but offers too few genuine insights or rite-of-passage epiphanies.

The tone is pseudo-Sopranos at times, but the oppressive ambience is grippingly sustained.

A gripping and unheralded story that doesn't quite get the telling it deserves.

While the Norman vistas are glorious, the storytelling lacks wit and charm.

This reflection on isolation, technology, creativity and desire brilliantly blurs the lines between perception and voyeurism, the objective and the subjective.

A decent cast gives it more credibility than it deserves.

May be contrived and overlong, but it is also technically distinctive and utterly compelling in its analysis of Swedish attitudes towards race.

As passionate and wide-ranging as you'd hope, but disappointingly mistrusting of its audience's interest in the finer points of the case.

Beautiful to look at but lacking a strong point.

Intimate, delicate and delightful.

Paced with steady assurance, this gentle bildungsroman is a impressive debut from director Daniel Patrick Carbone.

Touching and funny. Waters fans should sign up now.

Hogg stages some scenes with a sure sense of composition and dramatic tension but too often the film feels self-conscious and ponderous.

A satisfaction conclusion to the trilogy.

The premise is slightly bizarre but there's enough wink-and-a-nod charm in the performances to earn it a pass.

A frustratingly ungraspable movie collage compiled with real visual flair.

Indigestible Christmas stodge.

Like Spinal Tap's more seriously older brother, Jay Bulger's fond but unsparingly honest film is a treat for fans and music lovers. A juicy slice of rock history.

It features more weed than a pot-warming party at Bill & Ben's but offers little more than spliff-glazed promotion for Snoop's reggae reincarnation.

A hit in Berlin, the Taviani siblings' documentary has plenty of wit and punch, although compared to the best of the medium - "Man On Wire," for instance - it sometimes comes off as guileless and clunky.

This barely conceivable story of neglect and loneliness is given heartbreaking new life by Morley, with Zawe Ashton standing in effectively for the tragic young singer.

Unsparing in its portrayal of the seedier side of French society, only Polisse's loose focus keeps it from matching The Class for emotional punch. It's still a worthy companion piece to TV police procedurals like Spiral.

An Oscar nominee at this year's Academy Awards and for good reason, Falardeau's film is moving, smart and sensitive. Terrific stuff, in short.

A fascinating insight into the disparity between rich and poor, and powerful nations and their less muscle-flexing neighbours. And, unless you're a fish, it's also pretty darn scary.

A compelling story told with Morris's usually flair. Still, hard not to think of it as a disappointment by the director's exalted standards and a missed opportunity to explore society's dysfunctional relationship with its media.

An eerie and unsettling adaptation of Judy Pascoe's novel that impresses more for its atmospherics than its narrative.