The evocative sense of impressionistic subjectivity is bogged down by a heavy-handed, clichéd story. Kevin is not a character but an obnoxious, predictable caricature. The condescending way Ramsay portrays the staff at the travel agency Eva works at is equally jarring. Paranoid Park strikes me as a similar, and much better, attempt at using the disjunction of time/sound/image to represent a psyche racked with guilt.

The fearless and outstanding performances from Fassbender and Mulligan are what really propel the movie. In transitioning to a more straightforward narrative after the impressionistic tendencies of Hunger, I get the feeling McQueen is still trying to hone his abilities as a storyteller. Still, McQueen remains an exciting talent and Shame is impressively bold filmmaking.

This strikes me as the film that Lying maybe wanted to be. A deeply evocative and profoundly disturbing work with some of the most beautiful outdoor photography this side of Kelly Reichardt, as well as an ambiguous, dreamlike atmosphere that brings to mind Picnic At Hanging Rock. And while we've all heard terms like "star-making performance," I'll just say Elizabeth Olsen is on track to have a damn good career.

Trying to classify Drive with a mouthful like existential action gangster thriller-noir is pointless. I'll just say that I think it's the punchiest cinematic-pop cultural milkshake this side of Tarantino, and the most vivid love letter to the eerie dreamscape of nocturnal Los Angeles this side of Mulholland Dr., as well as having the most gnarly head smashing this side of Irreversible. It covers all the bases.

I was ready to love it - but I just cannot help but see it as a minor work. By disclosing the ending so early, the inevitability becomes almost sadistic, and then just boring and predictable. Dunst won the Best Actress award, but it really is Gainsbourg that does the heavy lifting. Antichrist (with which it shares some visual/thematic similarities - a new trilogy perhaps?) strikes me as ultimately more successful.

Fassbinder's flamboyant style fits the sci-fi genre surprisingly well. As with any film of this length, the second part lags a bit, but it's still a stunning and amusingly retro plunge into the modern quandary of virtual reality (which makes it kind of amazing that it was made decades before The Matrix supposedly innovated such ideas).

I have to hand it to Aronofsky, this’ll probably be the most wacked-out Oscar frontrunner ever. It’s almost like he was told this was his last film and threw everything in it he could – Cronenbergian body horror, Dardennes-esque hand-held realism, Polanski-style psychological unease, not to mention some All About Eve/ Showgirls- style camp thrown in for good measure. Did it all gel seamlessly? Not really. But it’s worth seeing for his ballsiness and Portman’s equally fearless performance.

Two amazing performances in an okay movie. I had such high hopes for this, and for the first hour meets them with moments of pure sublimity, but is ultimately weighed down by its own gimmicks.