In a year of underwhelming new films, Arrival was almost impressive. The director, Denis Villeneuve, makes intelligent thrillers about big universal issues. I first came across him with his film Incendies, about war and violence, set in a place that could be Lebanon.

Arrival is about language and time. About how we are shaped by the language we use. (We build things and then they control us.) And about how we perceive time. In this story there’s a mixing of anticipation and memory. It’s very clever till the end, which should be more subtle.