A wide-reaching crime drama from the director and star of intimate relationship study Blue Valentine seems an unusual prospect on paper, but in practice the transition isn’t as big as you might expect. Bold and sweeping as The Place Beyond the Pines may be, it still revolves around family – it’s just a shame Derek Cianfrance tries to spoil his child a little too much.

A bleak look at the unravelling life of a New York sex addict, Shame showcases brave work by director Steve McQueen and his second time collaborator, Michael Fassbender. Expertly shot and powerfully acted, the film takes an affliction often the subject of ridicule and uses it to tell an affecting story of vice and isolation.

If he was teaming up with Fearne Cotton we’d still be excited

With Emily Watson in the lead role, Oranges and Sunshine tells the true story of hundreds of thousands of children who were deported to Australia by the British government, and the struggle of one woman to reclaim their identity. Managing to move rather than manipulate, this emotional powerhouse of a drama is undoubtedly the best film I’ve seen in years.

Director Rafi Pitts chose himself as lead in a very biased bit of casting for The Hunter. Too bad it didn’t pay off, as his taciturn presence makes the potentially tense cat and mouse narrative drag.

Bleak and haunting, desolate and devoid… It’s grim up north in Scottish filmmaker Ruth Paxton’s award-winning take on rural isolation and nerve-wearing home care. Great performances and a disquieting underbelly elevate this short above the format’s usual one-note fare, and mark Paxton and Malone out as ones to watch.

Henry’s Crime is a film about robbery, redemption, love and Chekov. Not as highbrow as it sounds, Keanu Reeves stars in this new dramatic comedy about a man wrongfully imprisoned who decided to commit the crime for which he served the time, aided and abetted by James Caan and Vera Farmiga

As a convenience store robbery/ frat boy prank goes horribly wrong, Adam (Trevor Morgan) decides that he really doesn’t want to join Sigma Zeta Chi after all, he’d much rather join a sorority. Far less violent. Until the chocolate goes missing that is.

Moments that made you cry with joy, weep with laughter or go out and punch the universe because what you just saw was just too epic to believe. Here are the Top 20 Most Awesome Moments in Film! (Serious Spoiler Alert!)

A confident distilling of a brilliant novel, Never Let Me Go manages to capture the haunting beauty of Kazuo Ishiguro’s creation without ever giving in to cinematic indulgence. Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield give mesmerising performances as lovers forced apart by tragic circumstance, and even Keira “act from the chin” Knightley gives that emotion thing a whirl.