Ian Freer

Director Bong’s on song for his dark debut. A little rough around the edges, Barking Dogs Never Bite still delivers the blackest comedy lightened by some thrilling filmmaking, a clear calling card for Parasite. Caninophiles beware.

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.

It may not scale the heights of his Paddington duo, but Paul King’s Wonka is a beguiling way to spend 116 minutes, perfectly anchored by Chalamet’s benevolent dandy. All together now: Oompa Loompa, doompety doo…

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.

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.

Graced with great performances from Garfield and Stone, The Amazing Spider-Man is a rare comic-book flick that is better at examining relationships than superheroism. If it doesn't approach the current benchmark of Avengers Assemble, it still delivers a different enough, enjoyable origin story to live comfortably alongside the Raimi era.

For its first half, Thirteen Lives feels like it is treading water, waiting for its big final act. Thankfully, the second half is a riveting depiction of a daring, foolhardy, inspired rescue.

Mothering Sunday just falls short of a great movie; a radical attempt to shake up period-picture staidness, shot through with strong performances, impeccable craft and a strain of sadness, but it’s never enough to tug vigorously at the heartstrings.

Young Ahmed might be major filmmakers in a minor mode, but it is still a riveting, beautifully made character study that provokes compassion and controversy in equal measures.

It cleaves closely to the familiar, but Finding The Way Back scores points by finding different beats within the formula and from a great Ben Affleck performance.

A holiday romance perfect for the dark nights with the added bonus of a flashback structure that builds genuine intrigue into the outcome. It also includes a use of Rod Stewart’s ‘Sailing’ that guarantees its place on your 2020 movie playlist.

It still feels old-fashioned rather than timeless and even on its family entertainment terms, it just doesn’t quicken the pulse-rate.

Last Flag Flying is a thoughtful tally of the cost of war on ordinary lives that also manages to be a funny, moving men-on-a-road-trip movie. It’s that rare thing: a sequel, albeit 44 years late, that is worth catching up with.

An upgrade from Prometheus, Alien: Covenant amps up the thrills but doesn't deliver a memorable crew member or the full-on onslaught of the series at its height.

It may not scale the heights of Heat or The Insider, but this is riveting stuff and reconfirms Mann's status as a master of the medium.

In The Fade manages to be absorbing character study, courtroom nailbiter and vengeful woman flick, all the while taking the temperature of neo-Nazism in Germany. It’s flawed but powerful, mostly down to a revelatory performance from Diane Kruger.

It’s horror hokum told with unswerving commitment.

What The Phantom Of The Open lacks in ambition or dramatic oomph, it makes up for in easy-going appeal. Anchored by an impish Mark Rylance, it takes its cue from the story’s hero: a bit ramshackle, very amiable, always watchable.

Black 47 lacks the seriousness and rigour of other displaced Westerns like The Proposition and Sweet Country. But Lance Daly’s film is gripping enough to suggest Ireland’s tragic backstory is a frontier full of resonant riches.

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.

Marie Antoinette is gorgeous, giddy, gilded filmmaking.

Shorta is a Molotov cocktail of a movie. For co-directors Ølholm and Hviid, it’s a Hollywood calling card. For the rest of us, it’s a tense actioner, anchored by powerful performances from its leads, who add layers to good cop/bad cop clichés.

The Eight Hundred bites off more that it can chew but it consistently serves up gripping filmmaking on the biggest canvas.

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.

Payne’s lm is full of invention, wit, great scenes and big — if not fully realised — intentions. Downsizing may be about a small world, but it is an audacious, out-sized peach of a picture.

Despite some inventive photography and decent gore for its day, its uneven pace renders it a curio for Coppola fans.

A serious, well-intentioned slice of WWII naval history full of compelling detail and good action but lacking the dimensions and dynamics to make you truly feel it.

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.

Let Him Go starts languid and builds to a tonally at-odds finale, with its stars looking curiously unengaged. This is what happens when slow burning never really catches fire. Still, Lesley Manville is on fire as a memorable backwoods-y crime boss.

It’s a visceral experience; part survivalist drama, part slash-and-stalk thriller, filled with intensity and dread, all amplified by wild editing strategies (flash cuts, jump cuts, abrupt cuts to black) and strobe effects to stoke up the atmosphere.

It might be a minor work from a major filmmaker but François Ozon’s remix of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic has its pleasures, chiefly strong performances across the board, especially from Isabelle Adjani and the immense Denis Ménochet, embodying the German maverick without ever descending into impersonation.

Love And Monsters is a blast, an unassuming, immensely winning monster movie filled with great lo-fi creatures and a likeable cast. As a template for making a leaner, less bloated summer movie, Hollywood could do a lot worse.

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.

Edwards’ film boasts great filmmaking, noble intentions and cracking monster action. Yet it never reconciles its B-movie origins — preposterous premise, clichéd characters — with its solemn, Nolanised tone. This Godzilla stomps but very rarely romps.

A triumph of painstaking technical prowess and stunning visuals over storytelling and dialogue. See it for its nuanced take on a huge cultural figure and to applaud its astounding audacity.

Eastwood is in good, if not great form, Bridges steals the whole show, and Cimino displays a sense of unpretentious fun and appealing grasp of character.

H Is For Happiness has more on its mind than most kids’ flicks and delivers its ideas in an attractive, if familiar, package. And who can resist a film with a character called Douglas Benson From Another Dimension?

Not as strong as the original, Rams is perhaps best described as a feature-length version of one of Sam Neill’s social media shorts; funny, a little bit rambling, winning.

A simple, effective thriller, Copshop doubles down on pulpy, ’70s-styled fun. It proffers little that is novel but has enough vim and vigour to compensate.

A Boy Called Christmas is by-the-numbers Yuletide storytelling buoyed by a strong Brit cast, inventive filmmaking and a heart in the right place.

It may lack the fine-tuned inventiveness of Toy Story or the knowingness of Shrek, but it still delivers solid laughs and thrills wrapped up in an infectious sense of character.

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.

An affectionate bloody valentine to both romcoms and horror, Heart Eyes is a like a Hinge date from hell. Smart, funny, intense; swipe right.

In a concrete Russian military facility, no-one can hear you scream. Sputnik offers obvious time-honoured sci-fi/horror shenanigans with a few fun tweaks to the formula.

A fun diversion for the kids, but you feel Attenborough could have packaged these often beautifully produced images with more rigour and insight in under an hour.

More interestingly, it paints the Bolshoi as a microcosm of Russia, in thrall to tradition but beset by greed, backstabbing and corruption.

With Soderbergh now only on cinematography duties, this one takes all of the original’s surface — chiefly the hip gyrations — and none of the substance, interesting character arcs or charms.

A darker middle act, Fear Street Part Two: 1978 lacks the verve of 1994 but still delivers enjoyable summer camp-based bedlam. Next up: 1666.

Neither a splendid phoenix from the ashes nor a complete failure, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is erratic, occasionally inspired, occasionally dull, but shot through with a grandiose sense of ambition. Plus, Driver and Pryce add some magic along the way.

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.

Plot-wise Ocean’s 8 cleaves closely to the tenets of Heist Movie Lore but does little to enliven or tweak the formula. It lacks the jazzy swagger of Soderbergh’s trio but delivers a fun, likeable romp built on the charm and charisma of its cast.

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

It’s messy, with a middle section that sags, but Birds Of Prey has vibrancy, anarchy and balls to spare. Harley and Joker are dead. Long live Harley Quinn.

It works better as a weird relationship movie than a murder-mystery but See How They Run is the whodunnit as hoot, with lots of laughs, oodles of style and played with verve by a quality cast. It also reconfirms Saoirse Ronan as a comedy god.

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

The story is programmatic and the indie stylings feel tired but Handsome Devil is a winning, enjoyable call for individuality. And Nicholas Galitzine and Fionn O’Shea show promise for the future.

Stillwater mashes up quest-for-justice, father-daughter dramatics, fortysomething romance and mid-life introspection for a refreshingly adult drama. It doesn’t coalesce completely, but Damon and Cottin keep it engaging.

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.

It’s a short-film premise at a feature-film length, but few films take as many chances or go for broke as much as Jumbo. Wittock is an exciting new talent to watch, and Merlant spins something potentially laughable into a rollercoaster — or at least, waltzer — ride of emotions.

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.

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.

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.

It’s a sad, emotive, important subject but it deserves a more detailed, heartfelt film than this.

A strong cast and impressive action sequences can’t find subtleties or surprises to enliven a rote period disaster movie. It hits the right points, but mechanically.

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.

It doesn’t all land, but The Night Before is largely a salty, sweet jingle ball.

Zoo is the antithesis of edgy, an overlong, all encompassing experience that despite Crowe's integrity and lightness of touch doesn't deliver the emotional experience of, say, "Jerry Maguire" or "Almost Famous." Still, it is good to have the righteous dude back.

It’s a potentially mid-’90s B-movie premise, but director Patrick Vollrath and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt keep it taut, tense and classy. Just a shame it doesn’t stick the landing.

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.

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.

In depicting the Johnson County War of 1892 (immigrants versus cattle barons), Michael Cimino delivers soaring ambition and scale, but always syringed with a deep sense of regret.

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.

If the film never completely coheres into a satisfying whole, Days Of The Bagnold Summer has a lot going for it: a nicely judged sense of character, an eye for detail and strong performances, especially from Dolan. It also suggests Simon Bird is a filmmaker worth watching.

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.

The astonishing true life story of The 33 deserves a better movie than this. Trite above and below ground, it is not suitable for miners. Or anyone else really.

A familiar tale of a quirky childhood is delivered with little in the way of freshness or truth. Still, the performances by Larson, Harrelson and Watts rescue it.

Slightly better than its predecessors, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 works hard to entertain — it has the odd bright moment — but overall lacks surprise, freshness or anything to set the heart racing. It’s a Saturday-morning cartoon writ long.