Winner of Best Film Award: A Prophet

When Malik, a young French Arab, finds himself in prison with no friends or allies, he goes out of his way to be useful to the dominant Corsican gang and its leader Cesar Luciani. After a gruelling rites-of-passage murder of a new friend, he builds, by slow degrees, a power base of his own. This astounding prison drama is Sight & Sound's choice because of the visceral intensity of its conception and delivery. At present no Hollywood director can match Jacques Audiard's vice-like grip on character-driven action cinema. Time rips by in fingernail- biting anticipation of Malik's brutally authentic travails. His irrepressible nature is brilliantly incarnated by Tahar Rahim, whose impact is equally matched by Audiard regular Niels Arestrup as the Corsican boss. More exciting than Mesrine, more enthralling than Public Enemies, this is undoubtedly the crime drama of the year.

Nick James