Dan Jolin

A superb thriller and a worthy biopic of a real hero. It’s also simultaneously an encouraging follow-up for Headhunters’ Morten Tyldum, an impressive debut for screenwriter Graham Moore, and a big-screen career highlight for Benedict Cumberbatch.

Sharp, dark, satirical and bone-rattlingly thrilling, with a career-peak turn from Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s this year’s "Drive."

Like a good butcher’s cleaver, it’s weighty, solid and sharp — an effective matching of director and star in what is hopefully the first of a new film series.

A fascinating and visually impressive intellectual helter-skelter ride, but the lack of narrative coherence lets down its promising sci-fi concepts and satire.

As much as Guardians largely thrives through its lovably scuzzy style, it cannot avoid the immense tractor-beam pull of The Big Marvel Studios Final Act.

With Hercules, Brett Ratner and Dwayne Johnson are out to entertain you — no more, no less. And that is just what they do.

A playful and frantic science-fiction twister which mimics the best (Aliens, The Matrix, Groundhog Day) while offering something fresh and — most importantly — thrilling.

While Miyazaki’s two-hour-long, historical-melodrama swansong is destined to be his most divisive film yet, it is also his most adult and interesting, and never less than visually breathtaking throughout.

Inventive, ambitious, brutal and beautiful: a potent mythological epic. But also wilfully challenging, as likely to infuriate as inspire, whether through its unmitigated Old Testament harshness or its eco-message revisionism. If only more blockbusters were like this.

It may climax with an overly formulaic splurge, but The Winter Soldier benefits from an old-school-thriller tone that, for its first half at least, distinguishes it from its more obviously superheroic Marvel cousins.

A tender, nostalgic and warm ‘family’ drama which also quietly seethes with the threat and tension of imminent danger. Labor Day shows a new side to Jason Reitman as a filmmaker, and we like it.

Inside Llewyn Davis throbs with melancholy, hunches under heavy skies, revels in music history's unsexiest scene and unapologetically leaves you dangling. It is also beautiful, heartfelt and utterly enthralling.

Patchy and in need of a rigorous edit, but amid all the weeds there is some ripe comedy (satire, even) for the plucking.

Bitty and frustrating, its bigger laughs are set against some off-balance storytelling and crude comedy. Not one to take your nan to.

Both Greengrass and Hanks are on award-deserving form in a riveting, emotionally complex and hugely intelligent dramatisation of a real-life ordeal.

Writer / director team Kureishi and Michell add to their partnership with an insightful look at life-long commitment.

Violent, silly, embarrassing, clumsy, confusing, juvenile, occasionally offensive, occasionally a little bit fun.

A decent, cogent, greyly atmospheric thriller with something to say about War-On-Terror America.

Ruddy hilarious. Just what big-screen comedy needed.

Polley’s fearless personal journey is a huge achievement, a genuine revelation — but the less detail you know beforehand, the better. Go in cold, come out warmed.

A solid, straightforward biopic about a fascinating individual and his destructive relationships, with strong performances and a healthy sense of naffness.

It aches for more depth and warmth and humour, but this is spectacular sci-fi — huge, operatic, melodramatic, impressive. It feels the right Superman origin story for our era, and teases what would be a welcome new superfranchise.

A bold, intelligent, 21st century take on Mark Twain — with added occult tendencies.

All the boys might love Mandy Lane - discerning horror fans, however, will not.

As beige as an old PC, but beneath the surface the blood pumps bright scarlet. An intelligent and emotionally charged spy drama.

A confident, ambitious and action-rich Brit thriller, albeit one whose characters and clarity suffer from the frantic intensity of its pacing.

Another strong, sparky and bloody entry in the QT canon. Although, creaking under its running time, it's not quite as uproariously entertaining as his last pseudo-historical adventure, "Inglourious Basterds."

The Hobbit plays younger and lighter than Fellowship and its follow-ups, but does right by the faithful and has a strength in Martin Freeman's Bilbo that may yet see this trilogy measure up to the last one. There is treasure here.