John Bleasdale

Chaplin’s humour is shot through with darkness, loneliness and violence, like chili pepper in chocolate.

Last Breath makes for a very decent entry into the survival genre of films like Touching the Void with the added appeal of the submarine movie and all the claustrophobia and intensity that comes with that.

Aïnouz has eschewed the post-modern fun of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite for a much grimmer, darker vibe. This is the kind of film where torches most definitely gutter and men call out directives “on the orders of the king!” But for all the weighty gravitas of Simon Russell Beale as a conniving bishop and Eddie Marsan as a conniving noble bring to bear, the story never takes the history seriously enough either.

Irony has a wearying effect after a while, ultimately leading to a flattening of the ethical landscape so that by the end of it we can’t help but feel they’re all as bad as each other.

This isn’t a film about sexual assault as a rare aberration, but about a culture which collectively diminishes any notion of consent and encourages a rush to experience.

With this near-perfect midnight movie, [Glazer] has given us a work of unsettling and riveting brilliance.

There are moments when Garrone’s vision strays too close to the fable in its narrative even as its images portray a brutal reality. However, Io Capitano doesn’t lose its humanity.

Linklater’s Hit Man is an Aperol Spritz with enough fizz and prosecco to cover the taste of the strychnine. This could be one of the brightest dark comedies of recent times.

Kröger manages well with moments of pure cinema in between, and a particularly out-there moment of noise and mayhem which threatens to crush the film and the audience in an audiovisual avalanche. There’s an immersive strangeness that only David Lynch has snuck into mainstream cinema.

Green Border is a powerful and necessary film.