John Nugent

Cleaner has good people behind it but this British attempt at a Die Hard ends up just being a bit of a mess. Yippee-ki-nay.

It doesn’t quite successfully balance its warring tones, but a winningly grumpy performance from Tom Hanks — and a winningly sunny one from Mariana Treviño — ensures for a very watchable take on the ‘giving life another shot’ subgenre.

It’s nonsense — but at the very least, well-meaning nonsense.

More family-friendly than for-all-ages-friendly — but lively work from the thriving Sony Animation makes this energetic Lin-Manuel Miranda musical mostly worth your time.

Killer Of Killers looks the business and comes with all the gory kills and human heroes you’d hope for, but like most anthologies it is a little hit-and-miss.

Thoughtful, emotional and often surprisingly funny, Terence Davies offers a rich if inconsistent portrait of a unique poet long deserving of a big-screen study.

If you liked Enchanted, this is a dependably familiar serving. In an era where Disney is constantly raiding its archives for intellectual property to remake, this is a sequel that feels unusually original by comparison.

It’s hard not to get swept up in some evocative, gorgeously staged filmmaking here. But Empire Of Light often seems a little confused about what it is trying to achieve.

Madder than a bag of cats. Quentin Dupieux’s latest is even more absurd — and more pointless — than his film about a sentient car tyre. But it’s cheering to know he is still being allowed to make this sort of bollocks.

It’s never quite as satisfying an experience as Schitt’s Creek — but thanks especially to a sparky trio of actors, Daniel Levy’s directorial debut is strong when it comes to the heartache of grief and the importance of friends.

A feverish, quietly sad exploration of longing and infatuation. Its lack of focus stifles the experience, but Daniel Craig has rarely been as compelling a watch.

A visually arresting new entry in the Dracula canon; if only the satire was as biting as its unlikely vampire star.

The rare teen movie that recognises crushes are never as important or powerful as BFFs — and one that marks an intriguing new direction for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison productions.

With some genuinely shocking moments, this is a fascinating, frightening —  if frustrating — account of masculinity in crisis.  

Anyone looking for a revelatory portrait of an iconic artist might be a smidge disappointed. But as conventional as it is, this is still a strikingly well-made musical drama with pitch-perfect performances. Don’t criticise, as Dylan once sang, what you can’t understand. 

Jacques Audiard’s outlandish musical thriller is a little jumbled, and a little misjudged in the treatment of its characters. But you can’t doubt its audaciousness.

A fitting — and frustrating — end to an extraordinary career. Ken Loach’s powerful, poignant storytelling is occasionally stymied by his less subtle impulses.

Ron Howard’s genial account of the legendary Muppeteer plays it safe, with a fairly traditional documentary-making approach — but it still manages to be adequately inspirational, celebrational and, yes, even Muppetational.

It doesn’t always land, but it dares to be different, from the title to the team-up. Fresh and thoughtful in a way recent Marvel efforts haven’t always managed.

This is a bold, unusual and gorgeously realised take on the very familiar slasher template — even if it doesn’t quite live up to its innovative promise.

Gorgeous to look at — but this is simply not looney enough to stand alongside the Looney Tunes greats of old. Needs more anvils.

At once awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, eye-rolling and head-scratching, this is animated cinema on a scale rarely seen. It doesn’t always hang together, but on its box-office achievements alone, Ne Zha 2 has earned a place with the immortals.

This welcome spotlight on a lesser-known civil rights hero doesn’t escape the usual biopic clichés — but Colman Domingo’s impressive, deeply layered performance does this corner of history justice.

Van Sant’s previous historical fictions have been more incisive, but this is a tense crime thriller, with a solid new addition to Bill Skarsgård’s rogues’ gallery of scumbags.

Solid, but understated to a fault. Causeway’s biggest appeal is seeing Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry act up a quiet, powerful storm.

A strange brew. While the family dynamics and capitalist satire work a little better than the outlandish spectacle, White Noise at least appears to herald an ambitious new phase in Noah Baumbach’s career.

All Of You might only work for some of you, but the easy, insatiable fire between Goldstein and Poots is undeniable. 

A bit of an odd one, an action-comedy throwback that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Still, it bodes well for Pierce Brosnan’s new phase as a grey-haired action star.