Oscars 2017: Every Best Picture Nominee - Ranked From Worst To Best

One of the most brutal films on this list, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By The Sea hits you like an emotional sledgehammer to the gut.

Lonergan's third movie as a director sees Casey Affleck's Lee forced into caring for his nephew back in his old hometown, after his brother suffers a fatal heart-attack. His screenplay is a particular triumph, imbuing it with just enough humour that it isn't overly bleak, and structuring the story so that the full measure of what's happened to these characters carefully unspools over the course of the movie.

What follows is a quiet rumination on grief, which occasionally explodes into complete devastation and anger. Affleck gives a career-best performance here (by some distance), a hollowed-out man carrying far more despair than you initially realise on his shoulders.

Able support comes from Lucas Hedges as nephew Patrick, who is at turns cheeky and cocky and then distraught and broken, and the always brilliant, often underused Michelle Williams as Lee's ex-wife Randi. She's not in it much, but leaves a huge impression, and her big scene with Lee - the one that made it onto the posters - is one of the most heartbreaking movie moments of recent years.

It's a haunting snapshot of these people's lives, and a rare movie where, even after 137 minutes, you're left wishing it was longer.