Ian Freer

Better in conception than execution, Spies In Disguise never really gets the best out of its James Bond Is A Pigeon high concept. The result is entertaining while it lasts, but won’t lodge itself permanently in your memory bank.

A feminist horror flick that lacks nuance in its feminism and thrills in its horror. But it should be applauded for reinterpreting rather than just retreading the original.

Anchored by great performances from Liam Neeson and especially Lesley Manville, Ordinary Love is alive to the feelings and moments other hospital dramas overlook. Its accumulation of details form a shattering whole.

Beautifully played — especially by Wang Jingchun — So Long, My Son is sprawling, audacious, sometimes bewildering, ultimately moving. It tests your patience but it’s worth it.

The Two Popes shouldn’t work, a two-handed conversation about Vatican minutiae. But with great writing, smart direction and late career-high performances from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, it’s a high-end treat. Send up the white smoke, we have a winner.

An affectionate portrait of a remarkable woman that loses its grip when it bites off more than it can chew.

An interesting, well played and well made attempt to reframe Shakespeare’s most famous play through a feminist lens, Ophelia ultimately doesn’t have the boldness to deliver on its resonant idea.

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary starts as a blast but as the journey progresses, becomes ever more slippery: Is Szeles tricking Berman? Is Berman bamboozling us? The answer is entertaining and frustrating in equal measures.

An urgent rebuke to a country losing its conscience, The Report is rigorous but riveting. And Adam Driver — once again — emerges as one of the most watchable actors working today.

Midway is a big, bold, brazen attempt to detail one of World War II’s most significant moments. But in a post Saving Private Ryan-Dunkirk landscape, it feels astonishing anyone is still making war movies like this.

An enjoyable if routine period crime picture with good performances from Jason Sudeikis and Lee Pace, but it lacks a personality and style of its own.

The title might sound like something from Marvel Phase Six, but The Aeronauts is an exhilarating period flight of fancy, occasionally weighed down by backstory, but buoyed by Redmayne and especially Jones.

If it’s a hard film to like, Monos is ridiculously impressive filmmaking, savage and surreal, immediate but timeless. If Hollywood wanted to do a darker, grittier take on The Goonies, Landes is their man.

Not even the considerable talents of the ever watchable Naomie Harris can elevate Black And Blue above the broad and generic. The result is sadly aggressively formulaic.

By The Grace Of God lives in the present, a fast-paced, exciting, beautifully played film that matches Spotlight as a searing portrait of modern heroes who stood up.

Western Stars is not only a concert film presenting 13 Springsteen bangers, plus one great cover. Showcasing his charisma, wit, thoughtfulness and vulnerability, it emerges as a telling portrait of one of music’s modern greats.

All modern life is here — the good, the bad, the insufferable — and it’s glorious. Non-Fiction is Olivier Assayas in a lighter register and he wears it well.

Official Secrets is a timely, ambitious if broad take on a complex subject, but remains engaging and entertaining. anchored by Keira Knightley on great form.

Of course, Scorsese delivers a stunning, gangster flick but The Irishman is so much more, a melancholy eulogy for growing old and losing your humanity. Savour every one of its 209 minutes, you won’t regret it.

It comes on like an Unsolved Disappearance Movie but American Woman morphs into something more interesting, a portrait of a woman gradually finding her place in the world. And Sienna Miller is stellar.

It’s a small, lightweight picture but Good Posture is alive to the messy realities of becoming a grown-assed adult, becoming more charming and involving as it goes on. It also suggests a bright future for writer-director Dolly Wells.

On paper, Don’t Let Go’s premise — a supernaturally flecked crime story with a hint of time travel — should be exciting but it is let down down by workaday writing and routine filmmaking.

Hotel Mumbai benefits from strong filmmaking and an unflinching gaze, yet it lacks dimensions, both in its characters and take on its subject matter. Still, it’s a punchy, promising debut.

As a last hurrah for a once great action icon, Rambo: Last Blood is a damp squib. Put your headbands at half mast and remember him from his glory days.

Anchored by a dazzling turn by Samara Weaving, Ready Or Not brilliantly fuses thrills, satire, laughs and horror. Don’t count to 100 — just go and see.

Liam Gallagher: As It Was lacks the narrative shape and drama of previous Oasis doc Supersonic, but provides an interesting snapshot of an artist in transition, both professionally and personally.

For Sama powerfully mixes the personal and the political to thought-provoking, emotional ends. The result is one of the best documentaries of 2019.

Despite the formidable talents of Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave, Mrs Lowry & Son doesn’t really get under the skin of the artist or the man, resulting in a film as dreary as Pendlebury’s colourless skies.

Despite an imposing performance by Renée Zellweger, Judy never exposes the dark heart of Garland’s last years, creating an enjoyable backstage drama movie while failing to get under its protagonist’s skin.

Pain & Glory might see Almodóvar working in a minor key but it is a major work, graced with career-best work from Antonio Banderas.

In the Insta age, this paean to body positivity and living your own truth is more than welcome, but you just wish UglyDolls’ message could be more charmingly argued, adroitly assembled and just plain funny.

JT LeRoy is a decent telling of a fascinating, resonant true story. If it never really fulfils its promise, it’s worth it to see two major talents — Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern — in full flow.

There is the odd funny moment, but The Art Of Racing In The Rain relies too heavily on the charms of its golden retriever. It might be built on the notion that dogs are the wisest of us all, but the end result winds up stupid.

Combining both the universality and specificity of Springsteen’s music, Blinded By The Light is an exuberant anthem to the importance of music, the need to be seen and the hope of new possibilities.

Moving beyond the confines of the app’s premises, The Angry Birds Movie 2 starts slow but flourishes into breezy, colourful fun.

Photograph is decidedly old-fashioned and the outcome is never in doubt but the craft is impeccable, the performances low-key and likeable plus there is something persuasive about Batra’s gentle worldview, his faith in people and love restorative.

The Chambermaid is a poignant portrait of one of life’s have-nots, sensitively played by Cartol as a woman slowly sinking into non-existence.

If it’s not top-drawer QT, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is at once an engaging buddy comedy, an intoxicating fact and fiction mash-up, gorgeous filmmaking and a valentine to the movies that delivers geek nirvana.

The title Varda By Agnès is apt, a portrait that is both expansive and personal, intellectually sharp but full of fun and heart. A film that is both an entertaining gateway and fitting eulogy to a giant talent.

Despite good performances and an interesting milieu, The Wedding Guest doesn’t deliver as an exciting genre piece or thought-provoking drama. Michael Winterbottom is a master in many areas but the thriller seems beyond him this time.

The 50th anniversary of the moon landings has brought a welter of reminiscences and Armstrong, while entertaining enough, does little to distinguish itself from the pack.

The film soft-peddles any sense of controversy but what emerges is an entertaining portrait of a generous, funny, larger-than-life figure. And the music is sublime.

If Never Look Away is no The Lives Of Others, it is also a cut above The Tourist. A strongly crafted, ambitious, occasionally absorbing dissection of a fascinating period in German culture, it is perhaps too middle-brow and broad for its own good.

Apollo 11 isn’t a film about the facts and stats of the mission to reach the moon. Instead, it’s about how it feels to be in space and on the ground as history is made. Stunning, stirring stuff.

Although sometimes it gets bogged down in the details of drilling, The Hummingbird Project extracts enough entertainment value from an unpromising premise, greatly helped by Jesse Eisenberg finding the humanity in his hustler.

Scorsese is the Bob Dylan of cinema – poetic, truthful, idiosyncratic – and Rolling Thunder, despite some longueurs, is an important document of a major artist – by a major artist.

It sounds like Big Brother on a boat, but The Raft is an absorbing portrait of a bold (or foolhardy) historical experiment that hits many of today’s hot-button topics, dominated by a compelling and complex central figure.

Better than Last Stand or Apocalypse but never hitting the heights of X2, Dark Phoenix thrives when its heroes are front and centre. If this is the end, it’s a solid rather than spectacular goodbye.

There should be something fun in watching Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer drop C-bombs and go apeshit. Instead, Ma is an ersatz, misjudged exercise in psycho-horror that lacks the courage of its B movie convictions.

A film as much about its form as content, Madeline’s Madeline is a difficult-to-watch but heady mixture of raw emotion, big ideas and cinematic fireworks. If for no other reason, see it now to be on the ground floor at the unveiling of a new star: Helena Howard.

A sci-fi thriller starring Robert Pattinson suggests that Claire Denis has gone all mainstream. But High Life is the filmmaker at her most dark, a mesmerising, patience-testing, violent exploration in the darkest reaches of outer and inner space.

Even if it doesn’t quite go beyond the bubblegum, Corbet’s fusion of A Star Is Born melodramatics with art-house stylings is cold, raw, dark filmmaking. And Portman, like her quiff, is an acquired taste but immense.

Seemingly wishing to start another Conjuring off-shoot, this will be lucky to get out the gate. Without an original or fresh bone in its body, The Curse Of La Llorona smacks of unelevated horror for the very easily scared, not to mention pleased.

Finding laughs in the current global political quagmire is a tough ask. But Long Shot manages to spin a winning mixture of warm-hearted fantasy and comedic edge. And Rogen and Theron shine.

Styx is a gripping sea adventure that mixes thrills and spills with thoughtfulness and compassion. The MVP here is Wolff, who superbly etches emotional disintegration alongside amazing physical prowess.

Jia’s grip slackens slightly at the end but, especially in its middle section, Ash Is Purest White is engrossing, surprising and affecting, held together by a towering performance from Tao – her gaze alone should carry a licence to kill.

The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot is a strange but enjoyable mishmash of genres and ideas held together by the gravitas and class of Sam Elliott.

Mid90s is funny, observant and true. If the Wu Tang Clan and Ren & Stimpy references don’t resonate, the portrait of finding your people and them schooling you in the world will. Swear-y and lovely in equal measures.

Happy As Lazzaro is s-l-o-w and its narrative twist will alienate some. But this is deliberate, singular filmmaking, at once poetic and down-to-earth, from an unsung talent. Let’s be clear: Alice Rohrwacher should cherished.

Wonder Park has some fun bits (a narcoleptic bear) and a worthy sentiment around the value of going through tough times but it’s too hectic and untethered to land its loftier ideas. It aspires to be Inside Out but falls way short.

An interesting, challenging mess. The White Crow offers lots that’s impressive — Ivenko as Nureyev, the dance sequences, a knuckle-whitening last 20 minutes — but can’t render it in a dramatically engaging way.

Ray & Liz is undoubtedly a difficult watch, a searing portrait of a family that has come apart at the seams. But, creating an astute sense of atmosphere and detail that come together to make meaning, Richard Billingham marks himself out as a filmmaker to watch.

Small-scale and slow, The Kindergarten Teacher works best as a showcase for the brilliance of Maggie Gyllenhaal. Adding another complex character to her resume, it’s another reminder she is among the best actors working today.

Triple Frontier is engaging in parts with well-mounted action. But the characters lack definition and you can’t help but think an old timer like Howard Hawks or Sam Fuller might have done it better in half the time.

Serenity is a genuine headscratcher, baffling on almost every level. Badly scripted, strangely acted and poorly pitched, there is so much to pick over it’s hard to know where to begin. Sometimes the best of bold intentions are just not enough.

Isn’t It Romantic had us at hello but loses its spell when it has to develop its plot. Not as smart or sharp as you’d hope, it still delivers a lot of fun for those who can’t resist a bad Katherine Heigl flick.

A typically taciturn turn from Neeson is surrounded by a colourful cast, gallows humour and complete disrespect for cinematic stereotypes. A little bloated, maybe, but deserves kudos for joining the road not Taken.

Jellyfish is a familiar but compassionately drawn portrait of hardscrabble lives, centred by a terrific performance by Liv Hill.

It goes nowhere fast and Kechiche’s camera consistently ogles his female cast but he remains a terrific director of actors, the intimacy and authenticity conveying a real lust for life to sweeten the hefty running time.

With two astonishing child performances, Capernaum is a real heart-breaker. It can make Ken Loach look happy-go-lucky but it’s a gripping, sympathetic cry for the dispossessed.

For all its formula, Instant Family is a winning confection, unafraid to go to unexpected dramatic places and elevated by Byrne’s gift as a comedy foil and Moner’s lively but subtle turn.

Escape Room is like The Crystal Maze with more death. It’s fun at the start then loses its way, but it’ll do until ‘Flossing: The Movie’ comes along.

On Her Shoulders is a compassionate, level-headed portrait of a remarkable woman. What it lacks in filmmaking fireworks, it makes up for in the sheer magnetism and moxie of its hero.