Tracks

The taped crusader: VHS nerds, media scholars and archive enthusiasts will appreciate this documentary about the African-American activist who recorded 30 years of TV news.

Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio’s bravura gangster odyssey dramatises the extraordinary real life story of the first major Mafia boss to turn state’s informant.

This eye-popping portrait of great American choreographer Merce Cunningham celebrates the centenary of his birth.

The matriarch of the Marcos dynasty hopes to see her maternal delusions validated and political power restored, while Philippine activists fight for transparency and democracy, in this captivating study by Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles).

James Norton stars as Welsh journalist Gareth Jones whose 1930s visit to Soviet Ukraine uncovered the truth of Stalin’s state-sponsored famine and reputedly inspired George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Timothy Spall brings to life beloved British artist L. S. Lowry, as he struggles with his relationship to his bed-ridden, bitter and overbearing mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

Nina Hoss is superb as concentration camp survivor who assumes a new identity, in Christian Petzold’s intricate post-WWII thriller.

If you only see one Iranian vampire western this year, make sure it’s this one. A female vampire stalks a ghost town in Ana Lily Amirpour’s arresting debut.

In 1916, a British soldier and two Bedouin boys embark on a treacherous journey across the desert, in this stunningly shot Arabian western.

Amid the seething hormones and turbulent emotions of an all-girl school, a mysterious fainting sickness takes hold.

Ruth Rendell provides the source novel for this delicious tale of deception and identity, from the master of mischievous melodrama, François Ozon.

Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton star as ageless, blood-drinking lovers in Jim Jarmusch’s clever, funny and sexy vampire tale.

Richard Ayoade’s stylish and sinister adaptation of Dostoevsky’s story stars Jesse Eisenberg in a dual-role as a timid office clerk confronted by his confident, scheming doppelganger.

Scorsese’s epic meditation on spiritual strength, with Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as missionaries on the search for their missing mentor.

Adam Driver excels in this effortlessly charming tale of a bus driver poet in New Jersey, filmed with typically groovy elan by Jim Jarmusch.

Lady Bird creator Greta Gerwig steals this hit comedy about an awkward girl and her complex passions, a critical smash hit for its star and her director, Noah Baumbach.

Sam Pollard's resonant exploration of the US government's surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lenny Abrahamson (Room, Frank) directs this Gothic mystery, with Domhnall Gleeson as a doctor helping the heir of a haunted stately home (Ruth Wilson).

Amma Asante (Belle, A United Kingdom) presents this rites-of-passage story of a bi-racial teen struggling for survival in Nazi Germany.

Merab’s world is turned upside down by the arrival of a new dancer in this impassioned Cannes-nominated love story.

Life on the nudist colony is fairly routine for handyman Patrick (Kevin Janssens), that is until the mystery of his missing hammer sets in motion a hilarious quest of self-discovery.

In this unnerving live action adaptation of the classic tale, wood carver Gepetto (Roberto Benigni) crafts a wooden boy named Pinocchio who magically comes to life.