Knight of Cups is writer/director Terrence Malick at his most lyrically esoteric. If his last film, the atmospheric, if claustrophobically nondescript saga of love and woe To the Wonder was the acclaimed filmmaker’s attempt to pick away at cinematic convention, it is with this one that he abandons traditional narrative constructs entirely.

While this story is smothered in tragedy, there is something poignant and cathartic about what Saul is attempting to achieve, all of it speaking to a form of spirituality and faith that crosses religious barriers to become something universal and timeless.

[45 Years] is a tale with no heroes, no villains, just one filled with life, loss, understanding and, most of all, love, Kate and Geoff’s journey towards their anniversary party as universal and as human as any that has ever graced the screen.

High on the list of words I never thought I would write in 2015? How about something along the lines of proclaiming a sequel/spinoff to 1976 Academy Award-winner Rocky, a movie that’s already had five proper sequels, one of the year’s best motion pictures?

McCarthy makes this investigation personal, universal, its intimate vivisection of this complex, destructively abhorrent tale impossible to turn away from. But the real glory is how the filmmaker shapes things into a chronicle of inspiration and hope, Spotlight giving center stage to unsung warriors for truth who understood telling the story right, without embellishment, without melodramatic editorial excess, was the greatest victory of them all.

The movie is a trick, of that there is no doubt, Schipper’s storytelling precision coupled with cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s detailed handheld camerawork beyond impressive. But if it were only this trick, only a visual device utilized to get curious cinemagoers inside the theatre, then the movie would be good, maybe a bit better than that, but not extraordinary, and that is exactly what Victoria (2015) is.

Sicario lives up to its title, this Mexican slang for a hitman aiming its gunsights at the viewer, leaving those of us who watch broken and battered into a reinforced shell of regret and understanding we might not be able to emerge from anytime soon.

If you think you know where The Gift (2015) is headed from there you’d be dead wrong, Edgerton taking things into far more disturbing and devastatingly insidious psychological terrain than anything I could have anticipated beforehand.

Shaun the Sheep Movie is a delightful, family-friendly, stop-motion sensation that gets better and better as it goes along. A priceless gem about friendship, family and sacrifice, it’s a consistently witty marvel filled to the brim with ingenious sight gags, endearingly original comedy and sublime characterizations – all of which are accomplished without any dialogue whatsoever – I absolutely adored. In short, it’s sheer perfection, and I’m not at all sheepish trotting out such an obvious pun as that in order to say so.