Stephen Dalton

This sprawling epic is lavishly mounted and richly layered, sometimes to its own detriment. But it is also a visually ravishing, boldly ambitious, unapologetically high-camp celebration of queerness, artistic creation and sexual liberation.

Theo Rollason's found-footage documentary paints an intimate, absorbing, timely portrait of radical gay film-maker Derek Jarman during a stormy political period. Queer Edward II is scrappy and disjointed in places. That said, it gathers force into an intimate, humane, politically engaged film that partly plays like a time capsule of ancient history but sometimes feels like it could have been made yesterday.

Consistently great, occasionally sublime, it bounces along on big laughs and knockout performances, most notably from John Malkovich in a rare return to peak form.

Bucking Fastard is maybe not a future cult classic, but it is certainly a commendably ambitious work for such a seasoned screen heavyweight, and pleasing proof that Herzog still has a few surprises in him.

Juggling slapstick humour, political critique, trigger-happy action and surreal tangents, Dead Souls does not always hang together comfortably. Cox has made better films, but this offbeat frontier fable is still a charmingly eccentric, mischievous late-career effort with an impressively strong authorial voice.

Minor quibbles aside, Pawlikowski has delivered a gorgeous poem of a film, a mournful meditation on national identity, private and public tragedy, the dangers of trying to remain apolitical in deeply political times, and the enduring cultural riches that can offer small but crucial solace in apocalyptic times.

Originally teased with the droll but less marketable title Colin You Anus, Wheatley’s sporadically amusing semi-farce has a lively rhythm and some fine performances, but the baggy screenplay never delivers the emotional grace notes and knockout revelations it promises.

The second English-language feature by Berlin-based Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz (Futuro Beach, Motel Destino, Firebrand) is shallow and lurid and not entirely coherent. Even so, it is loaded with enough visual brio, acrid wit and WTF plot twists to hit the target as a surreal, salacious guilty pleasure.

Stylistically limited by its strict adherence to Lerner’s vintage footage, Newport & the Great Folk Dream does little fresh with the music documentary format. But behind its deceptively austere, artless, hand-held aesthetic this deep dive into musical history is actually slickly edited and elegantly structured, with a strikingly clear, cleaned-up audio soundtrack.

Köln 75 is an enjoyably off-beat blend of biopic, historical pageant and music-geek lecture from US writer-director Ido Fluk.