Kevin Harley

A meditation on repressed desire with deep secrets, Thelma throbs with hypnotic intensity: it burns slow, but its magnetism holds right up to the teasing climax.

Ragnarok is both the MCU’s funniest outing yet and its clearest beneficiary of a playful, character-ful director’s voice since Guardians.

Lowden and Findlay excel in their roles, but Mark Gill’s Moz-movie needed more: both more music and more “people who are young and alive”.

In Soderbergh’s self-aware hands, it’s a character-centric, director-driven, genre-savvy invitation to take pleasure in a job well orchestrated, right up to a judicious closing shot that leaves you wanting to linger awhile with its motley crew.

Shipp Jr. thrills, but a busy script blurs too many nuances.

What keeps gratuitousness at bay is Zhangke’s controlled style and empathy for the have-nots

Gadot is a godsend, Pine charms, and Jenkins delivers old-school thrills with heart and conviction.

Violence seems inevitable but Von Horn plots cause and consequence with patient precision.

Dudok de Wit and Ghibli have birthed a pan-continental marvel: a fable-cum-fantasy of a life adrift, aching with tender beauty and awed by nature’s extremes.

Dagg keeps things simple, but his jogging camera whips up the urgency and he’s well-served by Sutherland’s rangy physicality.

With the scares stealthy, Gavin’s parable draws power from the heart’s shadows: the climax may alienate some, but its audacity is earned.

“Prepare for Gar-mageddon!” Or worse: more Smurfs films.

A genre-blender imbued with style and substance. Magnetic and elusive, Stewart matches her director.

Even the devout, surely, will warm to Dormael's alt-gospel: one of compassion, oddball fish gags and cheerier skylines.

Subtexts about grief and revenge help anchor the plot, though the more decisive clincher is Lowe’s guiding imprint – a mix of scathing vernacular wit and genre savvy.

Kijak finds poignancy behind the pomp as he builds to a fist-pumping finale.

A satire of capitalist can-do thinking lurks in The Wrestler/Turbo writer Robert D. Siegel’s script, yet Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks) lacks the stomach to do full justice to its vision of the American dream plummeting into a nightmare.

Gibson returns to film’s frontline with a ferociously felt anti-war movie, while Garfield invests his Doss with tremendous conviction.

Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov stresses spectacle over subtext – and, effectively, leaves the cast floundering fast.

Mackenzie goes western in satisfying style, while Bridges, Pine and Foster bring true grit to Sheridan’s tight script.

The drama gets overwrought but Shults stages the fallout artfully, stressing choppy montages and a nerve-rattling sound mix as tensions erupt.

Right from the first frame the urgency rarely wanes as Lee juggles fireworks, firearms and feminism.

If the final third’s sudden, Twilight Zone-lite genre relocation seems desperate, the hollow climax confirms suspicions: vital supplies of narrative oxygen are lacking here.

Prepare to be spirited away. A brain-scrambler to make hearts swell, Shinkai’s giddy romance brims with emotion and invention.

Noirish touches flesh out the wispy plot, yet it’s the old-school animation that engages most: lending clarity to the emotions at stake, ensuring our sickly hero’s resilience tugs on the heart.

Style is substance in Ford’s second film. Unlike many puzzle-piece movies, it thrills on every level.

Torn between mountains and karaoke bars, Tharlo looks as lost as his lamb: a parallel delicately developed in this warm, wise fable of uncertainty.