Ian Freer

The French Dispatch is a designed-to-within-an-inch-of its-life delight. If it lacks a compelling story, only one filmmaker could have made this film. And, in these cookie-cutter-director days, it’s a vision to be cherished.

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.

Understated performances and unflashy filmmaking coalesce into an absorbing mixture of the personal and the political. It may take its time but, given the circumstances of its making, this is an extraordinary achievement.

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.

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.

It’s horror hokum told with unswerving commitment.

If it’s not God-tier level Kore-eda, Broker explores the toughest themes — emotional and physical abandonment — with the gentlest touch. Treat yourself.

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.

Maestro never truly gets under its subject’s skin, but it’s mightily impressive, full of brilliant filmmaking, many memorable scenes and a superb Carey Mulligan walking away with the entire movie.

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.

A well-made Euro pudding, Alone In Berlin, like The Book Thief, can’t find the depths, darkness or daring to stand out.

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.

After a gentle engaging start, The Book Of Henry makes an ill-judged move into thriller territory. But the performances, especially from Jaeden Lieberher, are strong and it delivers that rare cinematic treat: a real surprise.

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.

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Portrait’s staid approach doesn’t always cohere into a gripping yarn but it is detailed, boasts a real feel for the fiction and, in-between the two men’s rampant viciousness, emerges as undeniably poignant.

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.

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.

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.

Dream Horse is predictable and manipulative to a fault but, sparked by Toni Collette, there is a strong sense of sincerity and commitment to the subject matter that helps it across the finishing line.

Creed II is to Creed what the Rocky sequels are to the original: a more generic, less textured take on familiar boxing movie tropes. The difference, it seems, is Coogler.

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.

A potentially trite tale of an unlikely relationship is lifted immeasurably by Sophia Loren and is best viewed as a testament to the true power of the movie star.

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

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.

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.

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.

If it doesn’t hit the Top Gun: Maverick heights of legacy sequels, Jurassic World Dominion is scattershot but entertaining, delivering fun, familiar set pieces. Come for the delight in seeing Neill, Dern and Goldblum together again, stay for the bit where a bloke on a scooter gets eaten.

The Occupant is a slow burn of a thriller that never catches fire. Looking to skewer the pursuit of perfection during late capitalism, it misses both its satiric targets and a sense of kitsch fun.