Caryn James

At times it's as if the film itself was stitched together from the parts of other movies, but collecting all those bits and pieces is a sign of Gyllenhaal's huge scope and ambition.

Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Emerald Fennell's new take on the classic romance is far from faithful to the original book – but it is "utterly absorbing" in its own right.

The film’s first-person approach and dynamic visual style make it more engaging and livelier than you might expect such a well-researched documentary about this serious subject to be.

Josef Kubota Wladyka, the director and co-writer, shifts from poignant emotion to comedy to surreal scenes that take us inside Haru’s fantasies just as gracefully as the dialogue shifts from Japanese to Spanish and English.

The film is lovely in the graceful way it executes its unsurprising content, and the actors make it soar even at its most predictable.

Marty Supreme has such scope, ambition and humour that its flaws, as with those off-screen Timmy exploits, are easy to overlook.

This film is as slick and shiny as Glinda's lip gloss, but it may also be just what its many fans want.

The Lost Bus doesn't have to bludgeon viewers with a message or with its timely resonance. Greengrass lets us feel it.

Its humane message is potent even though it comes in the offbeat package of this gleeful, violent but entirely successful dark comedy.

American society, in all its strengths and missteps, has been a major theme for both Pynchon and Anderson, and it grounds Anderson's dazzler of a film, giving it an emphatic, unmistakable political charge.

A ghostly story that’s not exactly a ghost story, Rose of Nevada is a typically imaginative film from the director Mark Jenkin.

With its Gothic atmosphere and deeper themes, Wake Up Dead Man has a darker tone than the previous Knives Out films. Yet it is also the funniest and most playful so far.

Caught Stealing is an anomaly, a dark soap bubble of an entertainment. And that weirdness makes this unlikely film sparkle.

Throughout, Colman and Cumberbatch's performances make the dialogue much funnier than it sounds in print.

A mystery about retirees who solve cold cases for fun, it is as gentle as a game of Clue and as cozy as an Agatha Christie novel, but its glittering cast and a touch of self-awareness make up for that lack of originality. This modestly entertaining film is uncool and filled with stock tropes, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything more.

Without for a minute undermining Ride’s importance, this clear-eyed film doesn’t sugarcoat her sometimes prickly personality.

The film approaches its action tropes with an effective sense of absurdity, but it’s the stars’ kinetic commitment to the bit that makes this relentlessly silly film work.

Moving on from its cynical beginning, Materialists takes the long way around to an ending that is decidedly hopeful. It offers an unblinkered, earned romanticism that suits this moment, and bolsters Song's reputation as one of our most astute observers of relationships.

Mountainhead may seem to be an argument for fast-turnaround films, but few writers and directors could do it with Armstrong's sharp eye and intelligence, as he entertains us with these heartless, all-too-convincing megalomaniacs.

Together, Garland's virtuosity and Mendoza's first-hand experience create a masterful technical achievement that is, more important, emotionally harrowing.

That interplay between work and life gives the project its distinctive perspective and offers the most acute revelations. The lack of talking heads commenting on her enhances the intimate feel.

Under its crowd-pleasing surface, though, the film's theme of political power, of who wields it and how, is strong and purposeful, even if Scott cagily weaves it into the colourful show.

There is more of Fuller’s memoir that might be a source for other adaptations. It is hard to imagine any would be more beautifully realized than this.

Coppola depicts their lives with sympathy but also with clear-eyed honesty about the dreams they never achieved and the youth that's impossible to reclaim.

Leigh's strategy of taking us into his characters' world without prelude or explanation, letting the revelations and backstory waft out, help make his films feel authentic. He seems to have a magical ability to make the everyday captivating to watch

This is a fresh, unsentimental yet touching story.

Walker and her editors have created an absorbing narrative, so the film never feels as cobbled together as it actually is.

The movie star Taylor is the one who most often comes through in the film, but that is engaging enough.