Jim Loach swore he would never follow his father Ken into film-making. He worked on the Granada documentary series World in Action before switching to such small-screen staples as Coronation Street, The Bill, Casualty, Holby City, Bad Girls, Shameless and Waterloo Road. But the lure of cinema eventually proved too much and he has now made a solid feature debut with Oranges and Sunshine, a laudably restrained account of the Australian child migration scandal that was adapted from Margaret Humphreys's devastating 1994 book, Empty Cradles.

Eight years earlier, Humphreys had been a Nottingham mother of two and a social worker with a typical caseload. But, when she was approached by an Australian woman asking for help in tracing her family, she began delving into the records and was appalled to discover that between 1869-1970 the Westminster government and its colonial counterparts had conspired to deport some 130,000 British children to homes around the globe.

Faced with a growing number of requests for assistance, Humphreys founded the Child Migrants Trust - which was initially supported by her local county council before it became a registered charity with offices in Melbourne and Perth - and she not only succeeded in reuniting countless family members, but also in shaming the British and Australian authorities into issuing apologies. But, even then, these were only forthcoming from Kevin Rudd and Gordon Brown in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

With Emily Watson making a quietly determined Humphreys, Loach chronicles the early days of the Trust with a steady mix of docudramatic reconstruction and domestic soap, as husband Richard Dillane (who is also a social worker) backs his wife's crusade to help Federay Holmes find barmaid Kate Rutter and newly reunited siblings Lorraine Ashbourne and Hugo Weaving track down the mother who seemingly never wanted to give them up in the first place.

But the narrative becomes a bit more fragmented and predictable once Watson begins to spend more time Down Under and finds her claims being challenged on radio talk shows and denied by institutions like the Christian Brothers. Indeed, her insistence that the home at Bindoon was built by child labour leads to a couple of attempted nocturnal assaults. But she finds willing backers in Weaving, cleaner Tara Morice and cocky self-made businessman David Wenham, who initially pours scorn on Watson's methods and then becomes her staunchest ally after she locates his long-lost mother.

Loach occasionally places Watson's work in a wider context by showing the impact her prolonged absences have on her own children. But she is encouraged to carry on by both Dillane and boss Kerry Fox and is rewarded for her sacrifice by poignant encounters with both Holmes and Rutter and Ashbourne and Weaving and by a moral victory over the Bindoon brothers, after Wenham (who is one of the home's biggest benefactors) invites her into the refectory and she reacts to their graceless hospitality with defiant dignity.

Indeed, Watson excels as she overcomes doubts about her suitability for such an arduous task to rise to the challenge with a mix of compassion, conviction and pluck. But the performances are universally admirable, with Weaving movingly conveying the emotional emptiness of a son who has never experienced the cherished love of a devoted mother and Wenham hiding his pain behind a façade of macho cynicism.

Denson Baker's largely handheld camerawork and Lisa Gerrard's discreet score are also notable, while, as in her script for Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird, Rona Munro laces the action with an undercurrent of outrage. But the measured direction takes its tone from Watson's bureaucratic efficiency and ensures that this feels more like a polished teleplay than a gritty slice of social realism. Consequently, while it exposes the iniquities of the migration programme and the mental and physical abuses endured by the defenceless youngsters, it too often tends to follows the lead of Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence (2000) in being tastefully aghast rather than trenchantly irate.

Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski started his career around the same time as Loach, Sr. Having trained at the Lodz Film School, he collaborated with Roman Polanski on the script for Knife in the Water (1962) before making a series of strikingly innovative and boldly autobiographical films across Europe. The success of his British outings The Shout (1978) and Moonlighting (1982) led to a brief stint in Hollywood. But he abandoned film to concentrate on painting and only returned with Four Nights With Anna in 2008.

Much of the action in this estimable, but little-seen thriller took place within the confines of a single room. However, Skolimowski broadens his canvas with Essential Killing, which makes imposing use of an implacable landscape. Ostensibly the story of an Afghan prisoner escaping brutal US custody to endure the vicissitudes of a Polish winter, this near-wordless parable could represent any individual's struggle against an imposed ideology during 72 year-old Skolimowski's lifetime. Consequently, poetic truth is prioritised over plausibility, as a lone fugitive's desperate bid to evade murderous man and survive pitiless nature evokes memories of Jews fleeing the Nazis, dissidents eluding Communists and insurgents avoiding foes in any number of recent conflicts in the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East.

Unintentionally cornered in a cave by stoner contractors Zach Cohen and Iftach Ophir and their soldier escort Ramond Josey, Vincent Gallo kills them with a rocket launcher and is captured by an American patrol after being stunned by a helicopter missile. Gallo could be a member of the Taliban or just a frightened man in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he has been deafened by the noise of the explosion and is unable to hear interrogating officer David Price's questions. As a result, he is waterboarded and beaten before being dressed in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed and hooded and bundled into a plane and then a convoy taking him to a secret detention centre in the Polish countryside.

The vehicle carrying Gallo crashes after swerving to miss a pig in the road and he manages to slip into the darkness undetected. He quickly comes across a detached SUV and dispatches both occupants before driving into the night. Next morning, wearing a change of clothes and armed with stolen weapons, Gallo presses on and just manages to stay ahead of his pursuers, even after he steps in an animal trap and has to remove his boot to get free. However, having sent the chasing sniffer dogs in the wrong direction by tying his bloody sock to a stray mutt, he again evades capture and even purloins a white camouflage suit from a dead tracker.

As the patrol closes in on an innocent hunter, Gallo presses through the snowy fields, scrambling up slippery inclines and eating bugs and tree bark to keep him going. Eventually, he clambers on to a logging truck, only to become trapped under a fallen tree in the woods and slays lumberjack Dariusz Juzyszyn with his own chain saw to escape. Badly wounded, but desperate to keep moving after nearly being entrapped by ravenous dogs, Gallo steals a fish from fisherman Geir Marring and breast milk at gunpoint from nursing mother Klaudia Kaca, who has skidded off her bicycle while carrying her baby.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, he staggers into a farmyard and is given sanctuary by mute Emmanuelle Seigner, who protects him from a patrol and tends to his injuries. Next morning, however, she packs him off on a white horse before her husband returns and the film ends with Gallo nowhere to be seen and the bloodied beast grazing on tufts of grass poking through the snow.

Throughout his ordeal, Gallo recalls the promises made to Muslim heroes and flashes back to indistinct incidents that may have provoked him into committing to jihad. But his motives are never made clear, as Skolimowski seeks to induce the audience into accepting him as quarry rather than a terrorist or even a human being. Yet Gallo is never defenceless and his readiness to kill suggests he is anything but prepared meekly to accept martyrdom for his cause.

Switching chillingly from fear to ferocity, Gallo delivers a compelling physical performance, which earned him the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival. Adam Sikora's visceral (and often subjective) photography, Réka Lemhényi's acute editing and Fiadhnait McCann's evocative sound design are all equally accomplished. But, while Skolimowski makes magnificent use of his desert and rustic locations, his refusal to contextualise Gallo's initial situation leaves the action reliant on dramatic contrivance and allegorical abstraction. Nonetheless, this still merits mention alongside such harrowingly suspenseful studies of desperate flight as Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966), Joseph Losey's Figures in a Landscape (1970) and Rafi Pitts's The Hunter (2010).

Scripted by James Walker and directed by Ed Boase, Blooded seeks to cover similar terrain. Unfortunately, an intriguing concept is undermined by uncertain execution. Purporting to tell how the pin-up boy of the hunting lobby was coerced into recanting his beliefs by the Real Animal League, it's an ambitious exercise in style that not only exploits an emotive issue, but also the promotional potential of the internet (where the project first appeared as a viral). But, for all his ingenuity, Boase fails to blend the talking-head reminiscences, dramatic reconstructions and propaganda footage into a persuasive whole.

In October 2005, having taken such a provocatively public stance against the ban on fox hunting with hounds that he has received death threats, Lucas Bell (played in `life' by Neil McDermott and in the dramatisation by Nick Ashdon) decides to lay low on the Isle of Mull with four close friends: brother Charlie (Mark Dexter & Oliver Boot) and his African-American girlfriend Eve Jourdan (Sharon Duncan-Brewster & Tracy Ifeachor); best buddy Ben Fitzpatrick (Adam Best & Joseph Kloska); and old flame Liv Scott (Isabella Calthorpe & Cicely Tennant). However, after a day of stag shooting - which saw Eve `blooded' for her first kill - the mood sours after Liv ruins Lucas's plan to propose by informing him of her pregnancy.

But much worse is to follow, as each member of the quintet wakes next morning in the freezing wilderness in their underwear. Disoriented and bemused, they attempt to find their way back to the cottage, only to be shot at by hooded RAL activists determined to teach them how a petrified animal feels when it becomes quarry. Eventually, Eve and Liv make their way home and hide in an outhouse. But a failed attempt to steal a car leads to them having to follow Ben and Charlie in reading a statement on camera apologising for their inhumanity. However, Lucas refuses to co-operate, as he realises how much damage his confession would do to his cause and he pays a high price for his intransigence.

Heavily reliant on the over-written and rather awkwardly delivered testimony of Dexter, Duncan-Brewster, Best and Calthorpe as the `real' victims of the ordeal, this never gains the dramatic momentum necessary for the mix of polished re-enactment and rough found footage to convince. Moreover, much of the reconstructed action is melodramatic and often feels overly staged and composed, while the discussion of animal rights and extremist tactics lacks trenchancy. But cinematographer Kate Reid's format switches are accomplished, Ilan Ishkeri contributes an evocative score and the debuting Boase demonstrates enough audiovisual ambition to suggest he is a talent to watch.

The great outdoors proves equally sinister in David Keating's Wake Wood. As the first feature produced by Hammer in three decades, this Irish-set chiller is assured of its place in screen history. But, while this hybrid of Don't Look Now, Pet Sematary and The Wicker Man is eminently watchable, it's too cosy to shock and lacks the knowing humour to elevate it to cult status.

Still mourning the loss of nine year-old daughter Ella Connolly (who was savaged by a mad dog), vet Aidan Gillen and pharmacist wife Eva Birthistle leave the city and relocate to the rural hamlet of Wake Wood. She runs the chemist shop, while he takes over Timothy Spall's practice and is soon delivering calves on the local farms. However, Birthistle is spooked by the eccentric behaviour of Amelia Crowley's visiting niece Ackfe Meagher and shocked when the teenager informs her that her daughter is happy and has a lovely singing voice.

Determined to leave, Birthistle insists on Gillen taking her to the station in the dead of night. However, the car breaks down and they are forced to trudge through the woods to Spall's place for help. But, on getting no answer at the front door, Birthistle ventures into the backyard and sees the assembled villagers watching Spall presiding over a waking the dead ritual and she flees before she's detected.

Having said nothing to Gillen, Birthistle asks Crowley about Meagher and discovers she is her resurrected daughter. She begs Gillen to consent to summoning Connolly for three days of new life so they can say their goodbyes and finally achieve closure. He agrees and they consult Spall, who tells them they will need something personal for the rite to work and seeks their assurance that Connolly died within the last 12 months. Moreover, he also warns them that they must never let the girl cross the village boundary and that they are now committed to serving the community in perpetuity.

Clearly lying about the exact timing of their child's death, the couple proceeds to rob her grave to procure the necessary item and their chance to be reunited comes soon afterwards when Ruth McCabe's farmer husband is fatally crushed in a bull pen and she agrees to the use of his corpse as the host for Connolly's rebirth.

The delivery goes without a hitch and Gillen and Birthistle have a blissful day with the daughter they thought they had lost forever. However, McCabe suspects that something wasn't right about Connolly's reanimation and she quizzes the girl after she comes to the farm for a pony ride. Connolly reacts angrily to the questioning and runs away. But, in her distress, she crosses the village boundary and her parents watch in dismay as she begins to re-suffer her death agonies before Gillen carries her back into Wake Wood.

Realising they are trapped and that Connolly will be taken from them next day, Birthistle is close to despair. She is determined not to surrender her baby, but pays a heavy price for trying to renege on her baleful pact.

Atmospherically photographed by Chris Maris, this taps effectively into the pagan tradition of British Isles horror, while also exploring grief, the natural cycle, the occult and the clash between town and country mores. Keating wisely avoids examining the ghoulish ritual or its rules in too much detail and this sense of acceptance sweeps the audience along. Yet, while Spall proves avuncularly sinister and Connolly contributes an impressive display of corrupted innocence, the action is rather predictable and pedestrian. Moreover, neither Connolly nor the villagers are sufficiently malevolent to arouse genuine dread. Thus, this feels more like an episode of Hammer House of Horror than a throwback to the studio's heyday.

The missing macabre wit is evident in spades in Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern's Louise-Michel, a scurrilously wicked tale about the female workers at a cash-strapped Picardy toy factory, who decide to liquidate their absconded boss. Having once offed a bank manager and a frequent killer of straying pigeons, Yolande Moreau is the natural choice for ringleader and she collects a $30,000 fighting fund to hire hit man Bouli Lanners. However, this trailer park security manager is singularly unsuited to the task and he sub-contracts his cancer-riddled cousin, Miss Ming. But no sooner has the dirty deed been done than Moreau discovers that the factory is actually owned by someone else and she sets off with Lanners to track them down.

As Moreau and Lanners hurtle from Brussels to Jersey, the madcap action briefly threatens to go off the rails, as Delépine and Kervern amuse themselves with some surrealist escapades that provide choice cameos for Benoît Poelvoorde (as a demented conspiracy theorist) and producer Mathieu Kassovitz (as an innkeeper with a passion for the environment). But this is eminently forgivable, as it's the anarchic vigour that makes this gleefully tasteless romp so enjoyable - right down to its dedication to the eponymous 19th-century social anarchist and its post-credits twist.

Essentially playing a wicked variation on Séraphine, Moreau delivers another memorable performance, with her interaction with workmates cast from unemployed textile workers being particularly engaging. Lanners does well to keep pace with her, as the story increasingly comes to resemble a Monty Python tribute co-directed by Aki Kaurismäki and Takashi Miike. Expertly photographed for maximum disorientation by Hugues Poulain, this is relentlessly iconoclastic, furiously funny and directed with a deceptive blend of dynamism and precision that is quirkily reinforced by the use long takes, off-screen space and the music of American maverick Daniel Johnston.

The humour is darker and infinitely more elusive in Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955), a masterly tale of the unexpected that was adapted from the Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac novel Celle qui n'était plus and has been reissued complete with its famous final frame appeal not to give away the ending. In an age when thrillers and chillers alike come with a barrage of twists, it's good to see a picture that trusts in the ingenuity of its storyline and places as much emphasis on character interaction as narrative contrivance.

Paul Meurisse runs the Delassalle boarding school in Paris with a rod of iron and a parsimony that makes the wealthy, but sickly Véra Clouzot wonder what her husband does with all the money she gives him. Rotting fish is served up for meals and Meurisse humiliates his wife by making her eat it so as not to shame him in front of the boys. Pitying the fragile Clouzot, fellow teacher Simone Signoret is appalled by Meurisse's behaviour. But her own is far from beyond reproach, as she has long been his mistress and the action opens with Clouzot inquiring about the black eye he had given her.

As they sit in the playground, Signoret asks Clouzot why she simply doesn't divorce Meurisse. But the ex-nun still takes her Catholic faith seriously and says she couldn't contemplate committing a mortal sin. However, when Clouzot accompanies Signoret on a weekend break in Niort, she calls her sadistic spouse and informs him that she has contacted a lawyer. Knowing that Meurisse would take the bait and come to the remote house to intimidate Clouzot, Signoret has packed a tablecloth and a large trunk and her murderous scheme goes like clockwork as tenants Thérèse Dorny and Noël Roquevert complain about the late-night use of the bath, not knowing that it contains Meurisse's drugged and drowned corpse.

The following day, the women return to the school and pass unsuspecting gatekeeper Jean Brochard and deposit Meurisse's body in the swimming pool, so that everyone will presume he drowned there. But, when one of the students loses a ball in the water, Clouzot decides to drain the pool and is horrified to discover that Meurisse has disappeared. Shortly afterwards, her fraying nerves receive a further jolt when his suit is returned from the dry cleaners and one of the boys complains that the headmaster has confiscated his slingshot. And, as if she didn't have enough to worry about, retired inspector Charles Vanel has begun asking some very disconcerting questions.

Henri-Georges Clouzot had quite a career. Fired by a German studio for befriending Jewish producers, he survived a prolonged bout of tuberculosis to earn the ire of his contemporaries by writing scripts for the pro-Nazi Continental Films and questioning the spirit of France in the notorious poison pen drama, Le Corbeau (1943). Yet, after the postwar film-making ban imposed by the government was lifted, Clouzot embarked on a string of exceptional thrillers that included Quai des Orfèvres (1947), The Wages of Fear (1953), Les Diaboliques and La Vérité (1960), which was released shortly after his wife Véra died of a heart attack.

In truth, Quai des Orfèvres was more satisfying whodunit, The Wages of Fear was more consistently suspenseful and La Vérité was more intricately plotted. But, for sheer audacity, none can match Les Diaboliques, which makes a virtue of its convolutions to ensnare the audience and coerce it into suspending disbelief just one more time. Armand Thirard's photography, Léon Barsacq's sets, Madeleine Gug's editing and Georges Van Parys's score are all first rate, as are the respectively icy and brittle performances of Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot. But don't overlook the contribution of Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel, whose bumbling detection methods has often been cited as one of the inspirations for Lieutenant Frank Columbo, alongside Fedor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment character Porfiry Petrovich and GK Chesterton's clerical sleuth, Father Brown.