Fionnuala Halligan

The Cured is at its sharpest when drawing acute political parallels. As a zombie film, the shocks are few/

So lush with gorgeous detail it’s like a piece of highly-textured haute couture, there’s also a sharp social message behind the elaborate seams.

The thin story plays out in a hail of bullets, zombies and action-laden sequences.

The Latasters rarely put a foot wrong - from their static opening shot in the town of Hapert to the final frames of Miss Kiet in her classroom, this is a beautifully-judged piece.

Layering the life of Irish folk singer Joe Heaney through a flickering lens and leaning on the natural, unadorned voice of the sean nos [old style] singer, this doc/feature hybrid film isn’t perfect, but it is quite perfectly-made.

Jacoby delivers an adroit portrait of the artist at work in a technical package which wraps itself smoothly around this intense, surprising story.

Long and detailed and frequently terrifying, Alex Gibney’s documentary about a 1994 massacre in a pub in Northern Ireland is investigative journalism at its rigorous best.

Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series is comprised of page-turning, airport-blockbuster Scandi crime potboilers; Alfredson scorches the seventh, The Snowman, with such art-house intensity that it eventually melts into an exhausted puddle.

Goodbye Christopher Robin doesn’t just lack authenticity, it appears to scorn it.

It’s a long, long road cluttered with clichés and stalled in softness, pot-holed by its self-serving use of Alzheimer’s as a narrative convenience.

Served up with star turns from Emma Stone and Steve Carell, Battle Of The Sexes slams a crowdpleaser across the net.

Anchored by a funny, foul-mouthed performance from McDormand, McDonagh’s daringly-structured dark comedy is rich and layered and often laugh-out-loud funny but trips over constant tonal shifts.

Director Juan Carlos Medina (Insensible/Painless) fails to muster Golem’s many moving parts, and tension leaks from the film like the blood from one of its many savaged corpses.

Darren Aronofsky’s churning fever dream mother! is a devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that’s like the lancing of a boil, releasing a torrent of despair and disgust for the greedy chaos of society today as well as a self-loathing portrait of the artist as an emotional succubus.

Suburbicon is a solid, pleasing piece, even if it never quite reaches the bleak heights its set-up promises.

Guillermo del Toro channels all the streams that make him unique into The Shape Of Water, pouring his heart, soul and considerable craft into an exquisite creature fable.

It’s the right film at the right time, a cathartic moment in which audiences will shed tears for a little machine made of silicon and aluminium, wrapped in tin foil and running on less computing power than our smartphones, yet which will outlive us all – perhaps by billions of years.

There may be money on the screen, but cash alone can’t guarantee this kind of pulsating, cinematic magic, delivered by a director at the height of his powers, mustering the very best at their craft.

While the running time can weigh heavily on some of the sub-plots, the overall effect is as strong as Hui intended and the title underlines the bitter irony of the history involved.

Although this doc is slender, it’s also fascinating, playing into nostalgia and current-day politics in equal measure.

It’s engrossing every inch of the way, with casualties, infighting, character flaws, war mongering, and some delicious grandstanding from Harrelson.

Those who can’t understand the tangled battle zones or tragic recent history of Iraq may take some comfort from Nowhere To Hide’s revelation that ordinary citizens of that country don’t understand any of it either.

Watching it is akin to witnessing Maggie Smith’s The Van slowly rear-end Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill: a cringing slow-mo car crash best viewed between your hands.

Everything about The Mummy strains solely towards setting up a franchise in a world which only makes sense to its writers.

Weisz shows her Oscar-winning talents by hitting precisely the right notes throughout My Cousin Rachel: from warmth to guile to chilly practicality.

To say the performances are authentic is clearly stating the point, but the Blackburn family opens up to give an easily intimate portrait of themselves.

&t does effectively plunge the viewer back in those choppy seas for an object lesson in how politics can rapidly inflame a situation to dangerous levels, even when both countries had agreed the best place for him was Cuba.

Italian artist Yuri Ancarani’s mostly-silent travelogue captures the Arabian peninsula without comment, its repetitive, dreamy imagery providing an insight to an age-old sport which plays out within the trappings of extreme wealth.

It’s a long, flat, no-frills journey which struggles to engage despite its many bloody shocks.

Whitney Can I Be Me delivers yet another tragic lesson in the toxic mix of fame and talent and children: it should be required viewing for all those who seek to follow this diva’s path to fame and fortune.

Walk With Me is a slip of a film, at turns worthy and profound, yet also soporific and uneventful, an occupational hazard of spending three years embedded in a Zen community, no doubt.

Preposterous, nonsensical, but fun nonetheless, Unbroken frustrates as much as it entertains.

Tramps is a good-natured little film.

It’s all glossily camped-up nonsense with an amusingly inappropriate title, but luridly – and ludicrously – entertaining nonetheless.

Connery extends the film’s appeal with enjoyable sequences depicting how the game was run back then – extravagantly be-whiskered golfers would push and shove their way around the course, casually moving balls while being followed by unruly, whisky-swilling crowds.

Editing is clearly complex given the variable footage, but each emergency call and every character is successfully individualised and identifiable, and several arcs snap into the overall narrative drive.

While Schwarzenegger is solid – almost literally, his face like granite and his movements stiff – and McNairy is completely committed in this tragic two-hander, Lester’s film is resolutely one-note.

Jon Nguyen’s carefully-calibrated ode to Lynch is in itself Lynchian, an essential picture for the director’s legion of fans.

All This Panic has a refreshingly light touch. These girls can make heavy weather of routine situations yet shoulder enormous responsibilities with grace and good humour.

I, Olga Hepnarova struggles with its difficult central character, always spiky and occasionally psychotic but never really as intriguing as the filmmakers clearly believe.

Even if it tells the age-old story of the filthy rich getting richer and the poor going nowhere, Betting on Zero is still rather shocking.

Phillips’ collaborators work in harmony with the natural, nuanced acting; credits across the board are stylish and smooth, with lensing a standout. Also of particular note is the design; a rich, forest-driven colour saturation which suits the hooded houses and shadowy driveways of these traumatised teens.

Childhood is a mystery we endlessly come back to and a place the Leydens have never fully left; Ní Chianáin gives the viewer an intimate view of it in this unusual little story.

More than a quarter of a century later, Beauty and the Beast enchants again as a swirling blend of live-action story, stage, screen and sheer, rococo-spun fantasy.

The film is called, and certainly contains, cries from Syria but in itself Afineevsky’s documentary is more of a shout, a piercing scream.

If the film belongs to anyone, it’s creature designer Carlos Huante. Kong is expressive and impressive, both in hair and full-body movement, and his interaction – with water, humans, other animals – is consistently fluid.

Crowds will be pleased, tears will be shed and audiences should rally to the passion and drama onscreen. The stakes are high in Step.

The film is visually arresting, but narratively stale.

Some zinging dialogue and pungent photography are complemented by the two young leads and the late Anton Yelchin in support.

Debut director Geremy Jasper has said Patti is part-modelled on his own life, and there’s a real empathy on display here for her internal and external struggles, a gift which Mcdonald makes the most of in her own debut.

Lee’s love for this hard land and the boy trapped in it – so fully embodied by young British actor Josh O’Connor – is unexpectedly moving and rich.

Sad, proud, loud, funny, energetic and affecting, Kiki the documentary reflects accurately the spirit of kiki, the scene.

Soft and sweet, Kirsten Tan’s bright and airy debut is also quietly eloquent, speaking of a loss and regret.

Wind River can be thrilling and it owns the ability to surprise and shock throughout.

It’s a beautiful, supremely touching performance from Chalamet which gives this surprisingly safe story its moving purity.

All of The Big Sick’s power has gone into its script and performances.

There are touching moments...that could only have come from real life, and the film is all the better for them.

These troubled, lovable, prickly, obsessive entertainers, supported by brother-son Todd, invite the viewer into their rackety lives – bright, lived fully in the spotlight, chin-up and completely unsinkable.

The extent of Kroc’s greed is The Founder’s unique playing card, and John Lee Hancock delivers it with a depressingly special sauce.

Uncle Howard begins as a slightly tentative film about a nephew’s quest to discover more about his adored film-maker uncle, Howard Brookner. But it grows into a perceptive, poignant documentary which looks at many things.

This is a muscular story about the fight for freedom which is rich and vibrant and authentic. However, Bilal’s beefy approach also extends to scenes of torture and bloodthirsty battle sequences.

While Bob does slink around some predictable narrative beats, this is still a slyly subversive film with a social point to make as it highlights James’s isolation in a cold, hard-faced London which responds better to animals than its hopeless humans.

National Bird shows that there is indeed a horrible reckoning, but it mostly comes from within. This is a personal film about guilt.

Koepp has managed a brisk adaptation, although some of the dialogue can feel very forced, particularly when it comes to the clue-solving set-ups. Still, Howard keeps the viewer constantly occupied, Felicity Jones is an engaging sidekick, and there’s clearly a lot more mileage left for Tom Hanks in this franchise’s tank.

Jackson’s film is best enjoyed for the quality of the performances and the typical richness of Hare’s screenplay.

If Saroo’s story seems out-of-this world, the team behind this film have risen to meet the challenge it sets. There may be a sense of inevitability about Saroo’s ultimate destination, but what counts here is the journey.

With Spurlock and Takal throwing every horror trope on the screen, Rats is a delectably awful experience which, grimly fun though it may be to watch, hopefully won’t lead to a Cockroach sequel.

A Family Affair is by turns fascinating and futile, running the risk that by exposing the heartbreak of one family it will repel all those with their own unresolvable family sadness.

It’s a beautiful odyssey with strong spiritual undertones.

If nothing else, Deepwater Horizon makes a case for going back to basics with action films. It’s classically framed, executed, and feels like the real deal, and while it clearly boasts some fine effects work, it manages to lose the cartoonish aspect of so many recent tentpoles.

The first half of Age of Shadows feels muddy as momentum builds; the latter stages boast a cinetic energy - cutting a violent melee to classical music (in this case Ravel’s Bolero), may be a tribute to John Woo, but it’s stunning nonetheless.

In its own deja vu way, Bridget Jones Baby is intermittently entertaining, mainly thanks to Zellweger’s performance.

Hacksaw Ridge returns to the themes which have professionally and personally motivated 60-year-old Gibson for his entire life; he’s never been subtle, but he’s certainly effective when it comes to delivering his heart-felt message.

As a screenwriter, Ford has made some brave choices in a difficult, complex adaptation. As a director, though, he veers between delivering far too much, and yet not quite enough.

Arrivals becomes an unexpectedly moving rumination on life’s bigger questions by its end. While it looks to other worlds, its main pleasure turns out to be the most intimate of questions.

As a drama, this is less nourishing than the heritage it pays tribute to. But for Chazelle, the story is just a slight rib around which he builds a modern rhapsody.

As more information is dispensed - much of it in a rush in the final shots – the strength of Owen’s screenplay becomes clear but the issues it raises are largely left un-examined.

By focusing on the touring footage, Howard’s picture distinguishes itself by allowing us to remember them as they started out while emphasising their skill as musicians (there’s an interesting comparison with Schubert and Mozart) and the endearing closeness of their unit.

For a film industry determined to open itself to a diversity of voices, this is very much a safe, back-to-basics play for British audiences in need of some reliable comfort food.

For all that it bounces off a lot of contentious issues about children and the internet, where Carrie-style bullying has moved into the unsupervised zone of cyberspace, Nerve frustratingly stops short before eventually falling in on itself in the third act.

It can feel as if London Road is making the same point throughout, and in the same way – some thematic depth might have added bolster to the film’s dazzling artistic heft.

Amidst an orgy of cameos and spiked with more than a few stinging gags, the further travails of Patsy and Edina as they battle irrelevancy is bright, light entertainment, even though it never quite makes a convincing case for itself cinematically.

Resurgence doles out the action and effects work in carefully calculated, incremental doses, which give the film a cumulative tension. Even if it’s hokey and jokey, this is a loud, effects-driven piece, with a driving score. For fans of Roland Emmerich disaster movies, this both hits all the marks, while delivering nothing new.

It’s a rich and complicated film.

Ronde, who clearly identifies with the teenage perspective, has delivered some gorgeous sequences, nonetheless. Formerly a documentarian, his debut could be seen as a delicious experiment, tantalising audiences as to what he might do next. Or it could be dubbed chaotic and indulgent, an awkward misfire.

Neighbors: Sorority Rising turns out to be an uneasy watch, awash with unconvincing performances, unfunny stereotypes, and dubious gross-out gags.

While McGregor and Harris convincingly portray a couple in trouble, and Lewis’s odball spook is an uneasy fit, it is Skarsgard’s dynamic performance which saves the day.

This is an idiosyncratic hop around Fassbinder’s life by his Danish film historian friend Thomsen.

Bastille Day is fun, for the most part, but the biggest take-home here is how easily Elba could slip into Bond’s shoes.

Bouquets all round: Stephen Frears goes broad in Florence Foster Jenkins, and the appeal should be wide.

Although the seams may show on a narrative level, and some may find it over-cooked, this is a luxurious slide into female neurosis.

Vroman follows up The Iceman with a competently-made film, featuring solid production design from Jon Henson (Testament of Youth) and some good, gritty chase sequences, particularly at the film’s onset.

If judged by fluid effects work, Atwood’s stunning costumes, and the fun of watching Theron and Blunt reach new heights of arch camp, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a triumph. By any other measure, though, it’s a far more qualified prospect

Gorging on bombast and self-importance, swamped by its own mythology, Batman v Superman is loud, sprawling, and distracted. The action jumps around almost as fast as a man can fly, but nowhere near as smoothly.

Even given that lazy stereotyping is the point of her schtick, Vardalos’ broad routine hasn’t aged well, her heavily-(and widely-) accented ‘oily’ Greek family an uncomfortable, almost retro fit for today’s global sensitivities. Apart from that, the gags just aren’t that funny.

Cote’s film is consistently interesting without making the self-involved Boris’s plight in any way compelling.

Long, shiny, and treading a lot of water.

Apart from being a series of comic vignettes, The Meddler is also framed partially as a romance, and a very endearing one at that.