Time Out

The sustained pressure it keeps you under.

Scale, imagination and the sense of the extraordinary.

How quickly the story moves scene to scene.

How much of the story is withheld and unravelled.

How much it is built to unsettle or frighten.

Physical momentum — chases, combat, set pieces.

How bleak the tone and subject matter run.

How much it is designed to move you.

How often it is genuinely funny, by design.

How much attention the structure and ideas demand.

How central love and intimacy are to the story.

Filmmaking quality — direction, writing and recognition.