Donald Clarke

What we really needed was something in the vein of the second Scream film – a sequel that, rather than just deconstructing classic Disney tropes, satirised emerging conventions of the streaming sequel.

Perhaps Gray’s best film so far.

Aftersun’s greatest achievement is to gradually reveal the imminence of a tragedy that, though never explicitly confirmed, feels inescapable by the already celebrated final shot. It is hard to think of another film that has pulled off this trick so effectively.

Coogler and his team have pulled together a functional time-passer in difficult circumstances. As before, the costumes are a gorgeous exercise in Afrofuturist chic. The music neatly works ethnic elements in with triumphant orchestral swirls. And the actors are consistently strong.

In some ways it is Cartoon Saloon’s most “normal” film, but, stuffed with visual elan and powered by good nature, it confirms the studio’s desire to stretch in hitherto unexplored directions.

The two lead actors are strong. The conversations around the museum amusingly tease out tensions between factions in the LGBT community. But Bros fails to satisfactorily map out its own space. Passes the time well enough. Doesn’t quite pull down the barriers.

For all the plum-on-the-nose satire, Östlund does not, however, fall into the trap of making every target a monster.

Gleeson and Farrell play off one another in a perfect complement — sulky gorilla opposite enthusiastic puppy — that, as awards season kicks up a gear, has been entertaining premiere audiences on both red carpets and inside the auditorium.

Astonishingly, Black Adam does seem to have once had ambitions to say something big and important about the world. But any parallel with current unhappiness is drawn and then quickly dropped like the truly scalding potato it is.

Nobody could mistake All Quiet on the Western Front for anything other than an anti-war film, but the deafening, careering action — shot in predictably desaturated tones by James Friend — still works to create an unhealthy surge in the viewer.

Sadly, Prince’s estate refused the rights to the audio of Nothing Compares 2 U. That could have been a big problem, but her famous version’s status as the ghost that didn’t come to the feast adds mystery to an already hugely engaging film. For fans and the uninitiated alike.

You will learn something of Agojie, the all-woman Dahomean army, from The Woman King, but this is largely popcorn-friendly fantasy pitched at maximum volume.

Strickland has expressed a passion for This is Spinal Tap and Flux Gourmet has much to do with how close confinement causes creative types to claw out one another’s eyes. The characters here are every bit as cleanly drawn as the members of that fictional rock group and, even if they generate less open affection, they also encourage one to take sides.

Nobody could deny that Dominik layers sympathy on Monroe, but the reduction of her life to a catalogue of torments betrays the complicated, intelligent and — God forbid this were acknowledged — funny person we knew her to be. Defining her solely by misery feels like more postmortem abuse.

The costuming and production design are so crisp one can often overlook the vacuum within the packaging.

The jokes land with satisfactory regularity. The locations are lovely throughout. But a middle-ranking Working Title rom-com – more Wimbledon than Notting Hill – may not be enough to revivify a spluttering genre.

See How They Run is not quite so self-regarding as Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, but See How They Run is a delightful, shamelessly affectionate deconstruction of ChristieLand that outstays not a second of its welcome.

The picture doesn’t reach out and grab you. It doesn’t fling viscera in your face. It hangs around outside your house, half hidden in shadow, and gradually insinuates malaise. So, no, not comfort food.

Miller has, as directors often will, followed up a succès d’estime — this is his first film since Mad Max: Fury Road — with something of a personal folly. Better that than bland boilerplate, but Three Thousand Years of Longing grates as often as it charms.

They don’t make them like this any more. To be fair, they never made them quite like this. Passes the time very nicely (and occasionally horribly).

We bounce from one adventure to another without settling into anything like a rhythm. But the nuanced acting and characterisation elevate a film that feels securely connected to a particular place and time. The Bronx has rarely been so affectionately evoked.

The directors do good work in conjuring up a remote era and teasing out still extant racial tensions. One does, however, end up yearning to hear a little more about how the legal team went about their work. A good complaint to have.

A perfect late-summer diversion.

Embarrassingly for a film that actually features a star of Pulp Fiction, Killing Field is still harbouring an undignified passion for early Tarantino.

[Peele] may never again make a film so elegantly structured as Get Out (who has?), but the ferment of interlocking ideas here is so diverting it hardly matters that the film is more at home to a meander than steady ascent.

We are left with a properly entertaining drama that gets across the technical details with great efficiency. A good job of work by a reliable Hollywood professional.

Sadly, the thing is so chaotically exhausting it proves beyond the talented actors’ saving. It plays like the last 20 minutes of a much-better action film stretched out to the length of a biblical epic.

A lovely comedy of the most serious hue.