Antonio Banderas as an ageing director looking back; Almodovar's autobiography.
A Navy SEAL platoon in Ramadi in 2006, reconstructed in real time from memory; Garland and Ray Mendoza.
Greta Gerwig's Alcott, told in two timelines with Saoirse Ronan as Jo.
Zendaya between two tennis players over thirteen years; Guadagnino and a techno score.
Kristen Stewart as Diana over one Christmas at Sandringham; a fable, not a biopic.
Brad Pitt as a veteran driver back in Formula One, shot at real Grands Prix.
A woman with a titanium plate has sex with a car and hides as a missing son; the Palme d'Or that shocked.
Cate Blanchett as a conductor whose power comes apart in Berlin; Todd Field's return.
Nicolas Cage as a truffle hunter whose pig is stolen; not the revenge film it looks like.
The last week of middle school for an anxious girl who makes YouTube videos; Bo Burnham's debut.
A Korean family starts a farm in 1980s Arkansas; Youn Yuh-jung's Oscar as the grandmother.
A family stages a wedding so they can say goodbye to a grandmother who does not know she is dying.
Branagh's childhood in 1969 Belfast in black and white, with Van Morrison.
Ethan Hawke as a pastor losing his faith over climate change; Schrader's Bresson film.
A surgeon must kill one of his family or a boy's curse takes them all; Lanthimos' Greek tragedy.
Joaquin Phoenix dances down the Bronx stairs; a comic-book film that won the Golden Lion.
Nine years later, Jesse and Celine walk through Paris in real time; "baby, you are gonna miss that plane".
Twin brothers open a juke joint in 1932 Mississippi and vampires arrive; Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.
A woman remembers a Turkish holiday with her young father through camcorder footage; Charlotte Wells' debut.
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga; "Shallow" sung live for the first time.
Shakespeare's wife and the death of their son, and the play that came from it; Chloe Zhao's Maggie O'Farrell.
Natalie Portman studies Julianne Moore for a film about her tabloid marriage; Todd Haynes.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson divorce between LA and New York; the argument scene.
A man stops being his friend's friend on an Irish island in 1923, and starts cutting off fingers.
Guillermo del Toro's lifelong dream with Oscar Isaac as Victor and Jacob Elordi as the Creature.
Adrien Brody as a Hungarian architect in postwar Pennsylvania, in VistaVision with an intermission.
Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, ending with twenty minutes of Live Aid recreated.
A teacher, a student and a cook stuck at a boarding school over Christmas 1970; Paul Giamatti.
Two soldiers cross no man's land to stop an attack, in what looks like one continuous shot.
Tom Cruise back in the cockpit thirty-six years later, with real jets; the film that reopened cinemas.
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