Cath Clarke

Here’s a tale of chest-puffing courage and one-dimensional heroism from Russia during the second world war: an old-fashioned patriotic epic with slo-mo action scenes, intestines spewed on the battlefield and a soppy sentimental romance.

The real chemistry here is with the four-legged ass, not the human one.

Miller is at the heart of the film; her natural and believable performance touches so many emotions, and makes them all look so real.

The result feels a bit like being fed a plate of arthouse vegetables, a collection of not always easy-to-watch films, randomly connected and with a total running time of 58 minutes that, to be honest, is a bit of a slog.

The denouement when it comes is meant to be shriek of pure sci-fi horror; but really, you’d find better entertainment – and more energetic acting – watching a fish tank.

Ben Hozie makes his feature debut with this semi-insightful, uncomfortably funny indie drama about a man who becomes obsessed with an online sex worker. It’s a film with a slackerish mumblecore vibe, and Hozie is refreshingly grown up about sex. But it’s hard to see how his film adds much to the conversation about intimacy in the internet age.

It’s a preposterous plot, with a damp-squib ending, and like an episode of Dallas, the dialogue gets phonier and phonier.

Compassionate and honestly told, it is a real empathy machine of a movie.

Dyer’s intelligent and sensitive performance does wonders for a character who, on the page, looks like a male fantasy: a cool-girl psychiatric case, fun-loving, free-spirited and up for anything.

Robin’s Wish is not a wide-ranging documentary about Williams’s life. It only briefly sketches in his career, from early ambitions of serious acting at the Juilliard drama school in New York to standup stardom (“he drained every scintilla of laughter out of the crowd”) and Hollywood.

It’s a throwaway film that perhaps I shouldn’t have enjoyed as much as I did, but Mandy is such a deliciously sour character.

There’s nothing to fault in the performances, but the characters are filo pastry thin and slightly bland-tasting – like less complicated, less interesting versions of actual people.

What the film does very well is show how doping became so normalised. It’s as much a part of the team’s routine as a post-race rubdown.

In the end the story is told rather blandly, the edges sentimentally smoothed down.

What an engrossing film – and the gender reversal of a male muse inspiring a female painter has got to be one small step for art-world equality.

More like 92% generic.

Semen cocktails, broken testicles and dancefloor laxatives are among myriad reasons to avoid this grim grossout comedy.

You could just as easily picture this film playing on the white walls of a gallery as a cinema – if either were open.

It’s a forgettable film, with a fair few gags that strike a depressingly sexist note.

It’s a film that may be a bit sugary for some tastes, but it’s made with real care and craft.

It’s intense but not unwatchably painful, and so much more than an issue film or portrait of a victim. I really hope Knight finds a place in the film industry; with her terrific performance here she’s earned it.

A fascinating film.

Tragedy and slapstick run through the film and it is very funny.

It’s all very spectacular – but nothing much happens in the second half, and back on Earth, the movie’s message about loss and the power of letting go feels over-sweetened, more Disney than Disney.

An intriguing, somewhat abstract drama about a country descending into chaos.

This documentary makes a pretty convincing case for the admission of the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint into the boys’ club of abstract art, alongside Kandinsky, Mondrian et al.

It is a personal film – and political, too. There is emotion and urgency in that familiar soothing voice.

Becky’s crazed kills get more and more gimmicky, and there’s nothing in the script to indicate what has turned her into a pint-sized death-dealer.