On the surface, one expects My Brother The Devil to be yet another East London gang-banger affair, with the typical callous romanticising of violence and thuggery. In fact this film proves to be much, much more than that. With superb central performances, dynamic characters and decent cinematography, My Brother The Devil doesn’t quite do enough to be brilliant, but it certainly is an outstanding piece of British cinema.

Grassroots is the true story of Grant Cogswell’s 2001 campaign for a seat on Seattle’s City Council. Basing his campaign around a desire to expand the city’s monorail system, Cogswell became a serious challenger to incumbent Richard McIver by targeting an untapped zest for change that lay dormant amongst Seattle’s young adults. Grassroots is admirable in its purpose, but a little out of step in the wake of Barack Obama’s successive victories in the war for the White House.

The story of a pathological liar who discovers that he has a half-sister and a nephew, People Like Us shows off the gargantuan acting abilities of the entire cast. Charming, genuine and flawed, the sweet and the funny is offset with some odd choices at the start and a pedestrian ending. However sceptical, this heart-warmer will win you over.

Whether you call it Desire to Kill or Enemy at the Dead End, this film is still about two nearly-dead men in a hospital ward trying to kill each other without the nurses noticing. You could roll a wheelchair through some of the plot holes, but this absurdist South Korean thriller is a true original.

Thomas Vinterberg’s latest is a troubling meditation on the damage done by a single lie, upending a rural village and unearthing some dark truths at the heart of its close-knit community. Mads Mikkelsen won Best Actor at Cannes for his performance as Lucas, a nursery teacher who becomes a pariah when he is wrongly accused of terrible crime.

Jacques Audiard’s latest is a meandering melodrama that finds the emergence of companionship and perhaps love in people broken emotionally and physically. Starring Marion Cotillard alongside relative unknown Matthias Schoenaerts, Rust and Bone is a bruiser of a film that ultimately fails to pack an emotional punch.

Winner of the Palme d’Or for 2012, Amour is a film that truly lives up to its name. Casting aside the fiery passion that most of the rest of cinema is obsessed with, it takes an uncompromising look at a love so deep and enduring that it becomes a prison. Never contrived or manipulative, Amour will wrench something deep inside you and not let go. Bring tissues and bring a lot. You’re going to need every last ply.

Five time Oscar nominee Paul Thomas Anderson is back with 2012’s most anticipated film (that doesn’t feature a comic book hero or James Bond). But is his controversial take on Scientology up to scratch? The Anderson stamp gleams back at you from every polished frame, but beneath all the style there’s something missing from The Master‘s heart.

No matter how much the phrase “art house” appears on the back of the DVD, or the flimsy references to “philosophie” in the director’s biography, this film’s intent is clearly to titillate. This it does not.

One of the most buzzed-about films of the year is finally here, and its reputation as magical, realistic, liberal, conservative, sentimental and hard-skinned is well-earned. Hard to pigeonhole and even harder to dislike, Beasts of the Southern Wild is an engaging swamp romp that has given the world a star in six year-old Quvenzhané Wallis.