Fionnuala Halligan

Glassland is impressive, although Barrett struggles to give this carefully crafted narrative a coherent resolution.

As with all its cinematic precedents, there’s a race to a destination, many people involved, and at times the going can be uneven. The payoff, though, is worth it.

Solondz’s latest is morose and jaundiced and, although uneven, a relentlessly clever little film.

John Carney’s 1980s-set Sing Street is like a barnstorming tribute group. It’s crowd-pleasing, heart-warming, hits all the right notes, and is eager to please.

Markees Christmas is an appealing, sensitive find as Morris, with Robinson striking all the rights notes as his struggling father.

The remarkable, magical thing about this film is that, at 85 minutes, it’s so whole. With its fully-formed people and changing places, Little Men is a film a viewer can live in, and think about while they’re there.

It’s not that [Krasinski] fails, or that his film isn’t desperately charming as it goes about its business, but this is very familiar American indie territory, and The Hollars stops well short of innovation.

Its running time may make it more digestible than some of Weerasethakul’s more ambitious pieces, although it straddles the line between full-feature and his short films and experimental work quite beautifully.

Kenneth Lonergan’s deeply moving return after the travails of Margaret shows what a rare storyteller he is, measuring out his narrative beats in a world which crackles with life, guiding Casey Affleck’s magnificent performance, instantly recognisable as a career-be

It’s authentic without being grim; moody and tentatively hopeful. There’s a British verite influence at play, but King Jack’s heart is positively American.

The Fencer plays an entirely predictable match right down to its final bout, but the period Soviet Block setting gives the game an interesting hook, and DoP Thomo Hutri’s muted location shots prove atmospheric.

Krampus, when he eventually shows his cards, is a dark delight, but this film has more to offer than a single monster – Dougherty has a few puppet side-shows, including elves, a clown which comes right out of Poltergeist’s closet and some stuffed animals which are the satanic mirrior images of our Toy Story friends. Ho, ho, ho, indeed.

Fluid, shifting and tense, the action here easily outstrips the film’s basic set-up (man tests himself against nature, is humbled), which can feel like unconvincing filler between surges of effects work.

There’s a jazzy air throughout and the sound of the dance halls resonate.

A Nazi Legacy – What Our Fathers Did comes to a climax in Lviv, but the film is a layered examination of brutality, self-deception, guilt and the nature of justice which is compelling throughout.

Bond has seen it all before, this team has done it all before, and the production juggernaut hits every beat with a carefully calibrated precision which can be deeply satisfying but also risk coming across as rote.

For a film about the music business, it’s interesting that Kill Your Friends sticks so faithfully to one note throughout; it’s as if Niven fears any glimpse of humanity might risk the project’s integrity, but the lack of human empathy ultimately becomes this project’s biggest handicap.

A cult item par excellence, Bone Tomahawk does for the Western what Gareth Edwards did for Monsters. Long, slow and low-budget, Bone Tomahawk is also disturbingly tense, hyper-violent, and destined to attract an adoring fanboy following.

Hitchcock Truffaut is of undeniable appeal to those with even a passing interest in the history of cinema. There’s nothing rarified about the air the project breathes, either – this features passionate people who have made their own iconic cinema talking about two giants of our film age with an enthusiasm which is infectious.

John McKenna and Gabriel Clarke have been assiduous in tracking down the participants and their descendants, and deserve recognition for the effort they have put in to raising Le Mans for a new generation of fast car enthusiasts and Hollywood buffs.

Working with writer (and co-editor) Amy Jump again, Wheatley wades into the prescient 1975 text, delivering a complex, fluid interpretation which is respectful and almost-faithful while still being its own beautiful, crazed beast.

In the slim but powerful documentary He Named Me Malala Davis Guggenheim attempts to colour in a shy, yet deceptively stout-hearted schoolgirl and her symbiotically-close relationship with her father, indicated by the film’s title.

For all that it promises the thrill of high-speed racing, the crush of the peloton, and the drama of disgrace, The Program works best when it deals with this fascinating case of investigative journalism which saw Walsh doggedly pursue his target through 13 years and the temporary loss of his own reputation.

Ethan Hawke delivers an intense, committed performance as the hopelessly drug-addicted trumpeter Chet Baker in the odd, erratic Born To Be Blue, written and directed by Robert Budreau as a bumpy free-form improvisation on the hopeless-wreck-makes-musical-comeback biopic.

Hiddleston’s intense performance lends a little frisson to an otherwise familiar, if gorgeously-mounted tale about a troubled musical genius who is inevitably, gruellingly, felled by his demons.

Suffragette’s strength lies in the fact that, even though some of the characters and events depicted seem archetypal, and they’re certainly composites, they turn out to be more than that.

It’s easy to buy Hardy’s dual performance, and it doesn’t get in the way of the film – although some actor-ly exuberance in the delivery of Ronnie can sound an off-note, with Hardy using some facial prosthetics around the jaw line which aren’t particularly subtle.

Full of committed performances, particularly from Elba and the impressive young actor Abraham Attah, Beasts Of No Nation is a project of considerable integrity which makes for a consistently-engrossing, if over-long, viewing experience.

Consistently off by a beat, Hitman: Agent 47 fails to ever click into gear.

[A] depressingly inept comedy.

A surprisingly demented delight; a crazy, spirited, if simplistic fusion of off-beat adult humour blended with the sensibility of an anarchic toddler.

Arcevedo is certainly as preoccupied with image as he is content and it is perhaps the individual frames and tableaux which linger on past this resolutely-downbeat, emblematic story.

It’s a sad, sad film about the tragic loss of a generation, but the thought of Brittain moving through the generations to deliver her message afresh is somehow a consolation in its final, rallying cry.

Sicario is an ambush, a low-slung film about a dirty drugs war with Mexico which challenges and engages in equal measure. It moves with grim tenacity, confounding expectations until its very final sequence.

A good cast including Sam Rockwell and Jared Harris wander around sincerely in what feels, at times, almost a shot-by-shot remake, and at others, an obstinately wrong-footed exercise in dabbling with the narrative.

Amy is a cautionary tale - she was the Janis Joplin of our age, and as it’s the media age, we get to see the full price of fame this time as a fragile talent self-combusts. It’s not a pretty picture.

Pleasantly entertaining, Pitch Perfect 2 scrabbles for a raison d’etre, however, hoping that goodwill from the first show, coupled with a few raunchy gags and cameo appearances, will be enough to get by in the post-Glee age.

Ride is at its best and most authentic in its final chapter and an inconclusive resolution, but not so sure-footed in how it gets there.

Nguyen’s documentary certainly leaves the viewer wanting more.

A strangely lacklustre, unconvincing attempt to tell the story of the Heineken kidnapping.

Timoner’s often-compelling documentary, which is neither an apology nor a hagiography, is an intriguing personal take on a man who turns out to be endlessly intriguing, no matter what you think of his antics.

It’s a title to be admired, certainly, but for all its visual fireworks, Far From The Madding Crowd doesn’t truly ignite an emotional spark.

It’s joyous, it’s crazy – cars skydive out of aircraft in Azerbaijan, no less - it’s exhaustively long, and, still, it’s clunkily lovable.

While there are admittedly some jarring notes, Lost And Love is an ambitious and assured debut, and sounds a note for Peng as a name to watch.

A muddled bid for political relevance has led the film-makers to drag on The Gunman’s primary mission: to entertain.

American Animals requires many cuts and perspectives which are second-nature to an accomplished documentarian, yet the drama here also seems effortless and seamlessly integrated.

It’s confusing and heavy and bears down hard until a third-act swerve throws in colours and movement and spins the viewer out of the theatre in wonder. It won’t be forgotten.

It’s an excoriating story told with gentle sympathy; a lashing tale about the abuse and marginalisation of women at the hands of a dark establishment in a sun-filled resort.

A love-all crowd-pleaser for the most part, more Borg than McEnroe thanks to an arresting performance from lookalike Sverrir Gudnason.

The Children Act is a cerebral piece, for sure, and a disturbing one by the end, but Thompson’s performance brings life to the complex moral questions it attempts to examine.

An almost unbearably-tense, no-holds-barred drive through the nightmare of domestic terrorism, Custody is a can’t-look-away hybrid of gruelling reality and heightened cinematic technique. The mix is jarring, as intended, and this wrenching, heart-stopping film illustrates domestic violence and obsession in a way that makes the fear real.

[A] clearly well-intentioned, attractive, wistful-to-the-point-of-inertia film.

Choe has taken a slim scenario and used to touch on universal themes and thoughts of escape and second chances in life.

Cole, best known for a supporting role in the TV series Peaky Blinders, gives everything to this role. It’s a physical transformation in which he convincingly plays a beaten, battered-to-a-pulp boxer who learns the rules of Muay Thai, but also a deep internal reach to deliver a complex, defiantly self-sabotaging character with depth of understanding.

While it’s a consistently entertaining and often poignant film which addresses a wide range of issues under the stealth cover of humour, I, Tonya also gives Robbie the chance – her first, really – to show her full range as an actress. And she shines.

Loveling relies on the charm of its chaotic central family (an overweight son who insists on carrying a giant tuba around with him, for example) and the warmth of Teles to seduce and dazzle audiences into submission.

Where some see coincidence, Wardle finds a true-life conspiracy, and pursues it all the way to conclusion after gripping conclusion.

As the story of the mysterious Cordona plays out, the persuasive personalities of the three women both then and now strike a chord.

Wilde’s mighty struggle with himself, with his heavenly talent and earthly lusts, and the meaning of it all resonates so strongly with the direction and performance that The Happy Prince is easily elevated past period Victoriana (and that wallpaper) to move and engage in equal parts.

With a terse 85-minute running time, The Guilty illustrates Möller’s confidence with the craft of film-making.

This story of a homesick college freshman, played affectingly by Raiff himself, doesn’t break any new ground - it doesn’t even try - but his film is still an appealing charmer.