Terry Gilliam's epic 1991 fable has both admirers and detractors: it now seems ambitious, unique and charming. The superb Jeff Bridges is a burned-out DJ who's at first irritated then revitalised by oddball visionary tramp Robin Williams and his hallucinatory Arthurian quests. The latter's hyper-babbling (like the director's flourishes) holds because Bridges is so magnificently solid and believable.

Smart, educational survey of two decades of alt.country

The versatile Stephen Frears merits much praise for presenting a side of London life which is usually swept under rugs. Illegal immigrants work demeaning jobs round the clock to stay afloat, and are routinely exploited—right down to their internal organs. The heroic Chiwetel Ejiofor and an arguably miscast Audrey Tautou lead this worthy, intriguing drama with a macabre twist.

Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki's maverick reputation is built on a series of inspired, lugubrious comic gems, but this latest film—about a coma victim who wakes up with no memory of his past life—suggests he's in need of a new direction. The film looks terrific, but the gags are mannered and the story twee. Not so much deadpan as dead dull, it's a film about an amnesiac that's appropriately forgettable.

Utterly demented female assassin action from Korea's Je-gyu Kang, who comes across as the bastard son of John Woo and Luc Besson (without the flair of either). Kang chucks in a load of contemporary political context, which is interesting, but falls victim to the current vogue for assembling your final cut half an hour too long. Enjoyable but overlong and confusing.

When '80s Northern boys hooked up with a pair of disco and hip hop gods

This sequel to 2001's The Fast And The Furious delivers the same brand of out-and-out nonsense as the first instalment without ever pausing to miss Vin Diesel or Rob Cohen, the breakthrough star/director combo who went on to deliver the less entertaining XXX. Shaft director John Singleton is on hand to whip up some hip hop flavour. Enjoyably brain-dead tripe.

What 10cc did before they became 10cc

This strange, haunting film follows a middle-aged man who arrives in a remote Mexican village where he plans to commit suicide. Heavily indebted to Tarkovsky, the film strains for arthouse credibility with pretentious religious symbolism and achingly slow pace. Still much of the imagery is arresting, and its glimpses of rural life are raw and underpinned by an earthy comedy.

From Shohei Imamura—one of several 'legendary Japanese masters' none of us have ever heard of—comes a genuinely surreal fable of a man searching for hidden treasure who finds a complex erotic gush-out with a lonely young woman who's turned on by water. It's often beautiful to look at, though the orgasmic writhing sections are unintentionally hilarious.