Barry Hertz

Leave it to a robot to break our puny human hearts.

If you can appreciate the simple concept of nourishment – of the stomach, and of the soul – then you will walk away delightfully stuffed.

The evolution of Colin and Ray’s relationship is traced with a steamy kind of sensitivity. Lighton, in his feature directorial debut, never treats the BDSM scene as an object of fetishistic curiosity, but rather a culture rich with yearning, compassion, jealousy – the entire gamut of romantic life.

Blanchett, as always, is flawless as the seductive and secretive Kathryn, but it’s Fassbender who reveals a different side of himself.

This is meticulous, beautiful filmmaking that is rich in meaning and fat with detail. Surrender to Park’s smoky, dangerous romance – vengeance can wait.

The Fabelmans contains reels’ worth of beauty and wit, all delivered with the honest and enthusiastic drive to entertain that has become Spielberg’s signature. But you will learn more about Steven Spielberg by watching almost any other Steven Spielberg film.

Balagov displays the cinematic skills of an auteur at least twice his age, and both lead actresses are captivating – an especially remarkable feat given that neither had acted on-screen before. Yet as Balagov peels back the layers of Iya and Masha’s stories, Beanpole feels less like a deep cut and more like a scratch.

The result is hallucinatory and puzzling, but never anything less than captivating.

At times, this cinema-vérité approach results in a claustrophobic and engrossing viewing experience. But its construction also frequently, and curiously, lacks urgency, and the few characters the filmmakers keep returning to never quite stick.

By focusing on the old men and their dogs who spend their time in the woods of Northern Italy searching for the prized fungus, Dweck and Kershaw operate on a level of gentle, removed observation.

In its thin conception, shaggy form and muddy execution – and in its glee in coasting on a perceived aura of cool whiz-pow-bang energy – the film is as much a comic-book movie as they come.

Koreeda takes his usual languid pace to allow the story to breathe, and along the way comes across a quiet number of delicate epiphanies, each more satisfying than the last, and all aided by a strong Abe performance.

Shot entirely in the director’s home country with a largely amateur, untrained cast, the film blends a striking sense of street-level realism, political commentary and poetic nostalgia for the naive innocence of youth.

Still, once the end credits rolled – including superfluous “bonus” scenes wrapping up various narrative threads – I couldn’t help but empathize with that talking spork. Freedom, sweet freedom! For now.

As with other Miranda properties, In the Heights is designed to charm you into submission – and charmed you will be. You might even get up and dance. And whether that’s in the company of strangers at a theatre or in front of your indifferent pets at home, there is something to be said for a movie that can make you move.

While Dosa has a talent, and perhaps a fascination equalling her subjects, for illustrating the hidden beauty of the natural world, she ultimately crafts a film that is too neatly packaged.

Disturbing and taut, Eggers’s direction is almost without fault. His only mistake lies in the film’s final 30 seconds, where all the implied horror of the family’s plight becomes just a shade too explicit.

Alternately deploying twisty monologues and quick back-and-forth exchanges, Montague and Sanger are clearly having a ball. They’re not only riffing on obvious inspirations like Orson Welles’s "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast and "Twilight Zone" mastermind Rod Serling, but also the modern ubiquity of podcasts, and their propensity for devolving into audio fabulism.

The film is a slight but sweet ode to a particular flavour of Britannia that will leave its target audience in sentimental shambles.

Set against the high-tension strings and jarringly funky synthesizers of Greenwood’s score, the film is transformative and transfixing.

Led by a magnificent Viola Davis, the cast is ridiculously stacked. The action is tremendous. And the ultimate message – that nothing comes for free in America – is devastating in its swift brutality.

Politicians are craven and driven by all the wrong reasons, and though the pair uncover a handful of hopeful voices – especially Ben Feinstein, a compassionate and committed idealist – you will likely exit the world of Boys State as cynical as you entered it.

It is immersive, engaging and dizzying filmmaking.

Whereas the directors’ last project, the Oscar-winning free-climbing doc Free Solo, chronicled an open-air kind of anxiety, The Rescue is a claustrophobic exercise in tension, expertly assembled for maximum emotional impact.

Universal Language is a film flooded with sorrow and spirit, discombobulating surrealism and comforting sentimentality.

De Palma is a true visionary, even if you might not quite agree with what that vision is. Either way, a trip through his wild and hugely influential filmography is mandatory for any film fan, and that’s just what directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow offer in their new documentary.

Chastain and Sarsgaard find all the pieces of Franco’s Memory worth saving, and proceed to connect with one another to build something that is new, remarkable, affecting. Hard to forget, even.

Although sometimes dizzying and disorienting, the visual language of Between the Temples is relentlessly alive, with the camera never considering-slash-allowing for the possibility that its audiences’ eyes might wander.