The cinema closest to us is still under renovation, so we are unlikely to get a cinema pass this year although rumour has it, it’ll reopen in a few months. In the mean time, I rely on the CE for discounted tickets, because full price tickets in this town are unaffordable…!

01 | The Danish Girl – touching and thought-provoking, Redmayne shines in this movie so I look forward to more movies with him in it [8/10]

02 | Les Innocentes (The Innocents) – a hard movie to watch where belief and faith were shattered under violence and shame [8/10]

03 | The Assassin – uhhh… errm… well… it’s not my kind of movie, wuxia or not, and the storyline was flat for me too [2/10]

04 | Brooklyn – I reminisce of Wexford and Ireland through Eilis, as her old world clashes with her new life in the US [10/10]

05 | Sea of Trees – a beautiful movie of love, and where I learned about the “suicide forest” of Aokigahara [8/10]

06 | Café Society – it’s a light-hearted romantic comedy set in the 1930s, nothing more, nothing less [6/10]

07 | Julieta – a complex mother-daughter relationship plays across a series of events which rendered them with guilt and shame, waiting for a chance to make reparation [7/10]

08 | Our Kind of Traitor – a gripping spy thriller with an amazing cast, it kept me hooked from the start to the end [9/10]

09 | Finding Dory – a follow up to Finding Nemo, it’s nice to find familiar favourites and follow their adventures [8/10]

10 | Florence Foster Jenkins – it’s an incredible learn about the socialite Florence Foster Jenkins who had great singing aspiration [7/10]

11 | Genius – an exploration of the relationship between Thomas Wolfe and the writer Thomas Wolfe whom he nurtured like a son [8/10]

12 | Stefan Zweig, adieu l’Europe (Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe) – a beautifully framed movie about the exile and the end of Zweig’s life [8/10]

13 | L’Économie du couple (After Love) – what do you do with a property after love ends, where one partner paid for it and another worked on it? [6/10]

14 | Frantz – a beautiful B&W movie depicting a soldier seeking forgiveness from the fiancée of a soldier he killed at war [8/10]

15 | Juste la fin du monde (It’s Only the End of the World) – family reunion can be wrought, but while bearing a secret makes things even more difficult [7/10]

16 | L’Odyssée (The Odyssey) – my first exposure to the famed diving pioneer, Jacques Cousteau [7/10]

17 | I, Daniel Blake – life is not easy for the working class and the system stacked against them can only make things worse [8/10]

18 | The Girl on the Train – a great and true adaptation of the book, which I also love very much [9/10]

19 | Mademoiselle (The Handmaiden) – officially an erotic psychothriller, two words to describe this movie: very disturbing [4/10]

20 | Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – major love for this magical world years ahead of Harry Potter’s admission to Hogwarts; when is the next installment??? [10/10]

21 | La fille de Brest (150 Milligrams) – based on a true story on the discovery of side effects of Mediator, with very visceral scenes! [8/10]

22 | In the Mood for Love – not what I would call mainstream Asian movie, although what kept me watching was the parade of beautiful cheongsam wore by the leading actress [6/10]

23 | Allied – intriguing and conflicting when a spy falls in love with an agent and builds a home, but out of cards that can topple at any moment [9/10]

24 | Sully – the story of Captain Sully and his landing in the Hudson was incredible when I read about the incident in 2009, and still incredible now on screen [8/10]

25 | Premier Contact (Arrival) – interesting sci-fi drama with non-chronological scenes, a subtlety I missed as I saw the movie in French… [7/10]