James Mottram

Despite the slightly uneven pacing, Wright’s sturdy performance keeps things on an even keel. The result is a fiendishly sharp poke at questionable notions of Black representation in the modern world.

Full of ear-pleasing lines and obscure R&B tunes, it’s colourful, casual and full of flavour. An unexpected treat.

The finale, as Ai's Twitter tirades lead to a serious human-rights breach, will make your blood boil.

Writer-director Rian Johnson’s script isn’t quite the perfect box of tricks. It’s fairly tenuous that Blanc would turn up for this puzzler – apparently at the behest of Mila Kunis’ local cop. But it’s hard to punch down on a movie with such a riotously entertaining cast.

Devised by Brutalist composer Daniel Blumberg, the songs are spirited, and Mamma Mia! star Seyfried invests fully. But with characters often reduced to making declamatory statements, it becomes an increasingly vexing exercise.

The final act doesn't quite pay off, with characters' motives left frustratingly opaque, but the film is blessed with cast-iron performances, especially from Graham and Boon.

Like an inoffensive light ale, the result slips down more pleasantly than you might expect.

Sublime and stupendous. Beautiful, bold and remarkably executed, this is Gray’s masterpiece, driven by a career-best turn from Pitt.

Not the promised insider’s peek but Assayas and Binoche are still a potent combo, nailing the fragility of an actress facing the ageing process.

Madness and death hang over Herzog’s Wagner-scored vision like a black cloud, while Kinski adds much poignancy to Dracula, the lonely immortal.

Director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) tells this pandemic-era David-and-Goliath story energetically.

Powerful drama, driven by a powerhouse performance, Selma is this year’s Lincoln. For Oyelowo and DuVernay, it’s a career changer.

Riotously told and enthusiastically performed, Hustlers is hugely entertaining. Edgy, provocative and full of ker-ching

MacKay is marvellous, delivering lines with a Lear-like intensity, in what becomes a fascinating meditation on myth and madness.

What results is a film that both works as a finely-tuned thriller and a meditation on the Church’s place in today’s society.

Assured, adult filmmaking from a writer/director who knows her way around the ups and downs of relationships.

Different by name and different by nature, A Different Man is one of the most original films of the year. Not since the days of Charlie Kaufman, with his brilliant scripts for meta-movies Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York, has there been anything this bonkers.

It’s a tender – and sometimes affecting – portrait of the artist, one that hopefully will allow modern audiences to remember the contributions Lorenz Hart made to popular culture.

Perhaps it's hyperbole to call the film del Toro’s masterpiece – especially a story that has been told countless times. But this is a work that is the accumulation of three-and-a-half decades of filmmaking knowledge. Gory and grim it may be, but it is a tragic tale told in a captivating manner.

While director Ceyda Torun lets the focus meander too much, it’ll leave you, ahem, feline good.

This is an assured, blackly funny, and outrageous horror that will leave you roaring with approval.

The cumulative effect is overwhelming. Poetically shot by a dozen DoPs, including Christopher Doyle, a powerful portrait of horror, hope and humanity emerges.

Perkins ensures everything services a story that comes armed with at least one almighty twist. Measured in pacing and tone, his film also feels extremely moody thanks to the overcast skies captured by cinematographer Andrés Arochi.

Maverick director James Toback (Fingers) and Alec Baldwin front this frequently hilarious insider doc.

Aronofsky’s maternal horror is the most out-there studio movie of the year. You won’t believe your eyes.

This is a fine, fitting finale for the movies’ greatest mutant.

Like all of Bay’s work, it’s over-the-top, brash and exhausting to watch. But like the lifestyle its characters aspire to, there’s an allure too.

Astounding. With a director, DoP and cast at the top of their game, The Revenant is a filmmaking triumph.