Godzilla Minus One review – a thunderously entertaining prequel

A failed kamikaze pilot, one furious radioactive lizard and a Japan devastated by war collide in Takashi Yamazaki’s unashamedly redemptive action thriller

The Three Musketeers: Milady review – Eva Green seduces in swashbuckling second instalment

Green captivates as the treacherous Milady de Winter in part two of Martin Bourboulon’s breathless Dumas adaptation

Best films of 2023 in the UK: No 7 – Saint Omer

Alice Diop’s award-winning courtroom drama doubles as an unsentimental study in empathy with one of the year’s most mesmerising performances

Best movies of 2023 in the US: No 8 – The Boy and the Heron

Addressing loss and grief, Hayao Miyazaki’s dazzlingly surreal animation has the tender, solemn air of an artist reflecting on his own spellbinding legacy

Joram review – gritty Indian chase thriller

A migrant labourer goes on the run after his wife is murdered in Devashish Makhija’s survival story with a background of political unrest

Trenque Lauquen Parts 1 & 2 review – beguiling mystery holds its secrets close

Laura Citarella’s lengthy romantic conundrum refuses to tie up its many loose ends but her film-making language ensures that cult status beckons

We Dare to Dream review – Waad al-Kateab’s uplifting portrait of Olympic refugee team

The For Sama director’s documentary follows the IOC Refugee Olympic Team to the Tokyo Games, and finds athletes as charismatic as they are courageous

Tótem review – exquisite Mexican family drama of joy and heartbreak

Writer-director Lila Avilés’s tender film, told largely through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl, is a minutely observed ensemble piece in which grief and celebration go hand in hand

Fallen Leaves review – Aki Kaurismäki’s almost feelgood romance is a droll delight

Two lonely souls connect in a rain-lashed Helsinki in this unexpectedly uplifting drama from the Finnish master of melancholy

Lost reels: 15 directors pick great films you won’t find on UK streaming

Many films – even classics such as Eraserhead and Chungking Express – remain surprisingly unavailable online to UK audiences. We asked film-makers from Martin McDonagh to Charlotte Wells to pick their favourites

The Shadow of the Day review – old-fashioned romantic drama with war lurking on the horizon

As Italy succumbs to the fascists, a war veteran and small-town restaurateur falls for a beautiful stranger in Giuseppe Piccioni’s robustly made and excellently acted prewar melodrama

‘They had no idea if their beloved ones were kidnapped, dead or missing’: Ari Folman on filming the Israeli hostages’ families

The Oscar-nominated director of Waltz with Bashir talks about the hypocrisy of the UK’s response to war, his project to help the relatives of those taken hostage by Hamas and why he’s still hopeful of a solution

20,000 Species of Bees review – lovely, heartfelt Spanish trans drama

An eight-year-old struggles with her gender identity one long, hot summer in Basque director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s beguiling debut feature

12th Fail review – Indian exam yarn offers hope on overcoming corruption and poverty

This semi-true story of a young farmer who uses his grandmother’s life savings to sit police officer exams in Delhi fosters the idea that success is possible through effort alone

‘There’s an urge to kill that I can’t explain’: director Gessica Généus on the dangers of film-making in Haiti

The Haitian actor and film-maker kept her cameras rolling through the deadly upheavals of 2019. Now she’s starting on a new film, and little has improved – but that’s why she is determined to carry on