Kevin Maher

The film is consistently gripping and harrowing, while including delicate moments of optimism, where Abraham and Adra enjoy quiet conversations (sometimes beautifully shot by Szor) over a hookah pipe at night. And then, inevitably, it is back to violence, conflict and hate.

Very occasionally a movie appears that understands the potential of cinema so deeply that it changes the medium for everyone.

A wonderful movie from one of the world’s best independent directors.

The performances are savagely good, with Pearce and Brody both on awards season form. And it’s shot on rarely seen 70mm film stock, which means that it looks like something beautiful, haunting and strange, but always from the long-forgotten past.

Schilinski is in such control of every frame, every cut, prop and camera move that it’s often breathtaking just to witness the emergence of this grandly interlaced tapestry of grief.

There are gruesome gunfights, car chases, savage beatings and the sense by the closing frames that Safdie has delivered the narrative equivalent of an unstoppable plummet down an especially precipitous flight of stairs. You’ll emerge battered and bruised.

Past western, part romance, part philosophical treatise, this Sundance Film Festival stunner also feels like the greatest Terrence Malick film that Malick never made.

Towards the end, that mood changes devastatingly. Another film might have needed a murder to send these chills but Donaldson is in such control of the tone, and her cast are on such exquisite form, that a single sentence has massive reverberations.

It’s a sobering riposte to the clickbait era.

There is, initially, some heavy slapstick here (the first murder is a calamitous mess) but the bite of the film resides in the richness of its characters and how it delves into the protagonist’s home life.

His legal ambitions are thus stymied at every turn by missed appointments and disinterested power players, resulting in glacial narrative pacing and a miserably predictable outcome. It is, at best, vaguely Kafka-esque but also, for the viewer, quite the trial.

Soderbergh knows his spy movies and so is careful to inject the film’s more cerebral proceedings with just the right amount of lore and giddy genre hokum.

It’s a testament to Nayyef’s ingenuous performance and the mesmerising sense of place that the film is always compelling and sometimes bleakly funny, although there are no happy endings.

The ending’s a bit iffy, the action so-so. And yet the genre-mashing audacity (part horror, part historical epic, part musical) is so assured, the characters so rich, and the flights of fancy so ambitious that it’s impossible not to be moved.

This is original, explosive (literally — you’ll see!) and ovation-worthy, cinema.

Up there with Blow-Up and Alfie as the definitive Swinging London movie, this Julie Christie breakout has somehow acquired more gravitas over time than those two.

The ending, set in the Globe during a production of Hamlet, is harrowing, meaningful and magnificently sad. You might want to yell out, “Make it stop!” This is, instantly, the essential Shakespeare movie.

Arguments will rage about how much of this is staged and how much captured. The film-makers have labelled the film “a documentary fable” and that works for me. It’s that place where Ken Loach and David Attenborough meet. In the best possible sense.

It’s an exquisite portrait of a musical genius at work. And Yoko Ono.

I’m not convinced that we have the moral right to watch some of these scenes and to witness a tiny traumatised boy at his most bereft and alone. Still, it’s an outstanding, provocative film that is bound to inspire debate. Watch it and discuss.

The director Joe Wright’s roaming camera gives every exchange an unexpected urgency.

MacKay and Turner acquit themselves handsomely with many silent stares, tortured looks and grimaces. Like all Jenkin’s films, it looks extraordinary and the deliberately “tinny” post-sync sound only adds to the sense that you are watching something ancient, meaningful and quite magical.

It’s not often that films get better on a second viewing, but this dense, challenging and intellectually rigorous documentary about “Hitler’s favourite film-maker” Leni Riefenstahl is one of those exceptions.

Ending with uncertainty, and a sense that Brazil is never too far away from another military dictatorship, this is sobering, essential viewing.

Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous.

Where to start with this utterly gorgeous, commanding, terrifying and masterful suspense thriller? Firstly don’t believe the hype — it’s not a horror. It’s bigger than that. Not a slasher, a creeper, a spooker or a demented killer movie. It’s better than that.

This is a movie that’s as difficult to watch as it is to forget. It’s a sensory blitz, a percussive nightmare and a relentless assault on the soul.

It is deliberately punishing material, channelled through unapologetic, galvanising film-making. Politicians should see it. Decision-makers should see it.

Gosh, I hope that Ralph Fiennes’s back is OK. Because the 63-year-old certainly did a lot of heavy lifting in this latest instalment of the long-running zombie franchise. I mean that metaphorically, of course, because in this movie it’s up to Fiennes to provide the emotional, intellectual and comedic fireworks.

It delivers first giggles, then twists and gasp-inducing rug-pulls, courtesy of standout performances from a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Glenn Close and a never better Josh O’Connor. Not just that but Johnson’s probing script also explores the biggest conundrum of them all: God, faith and religion.

The film, alas, and it pains me to say it, is not very good. It’s overwhelmingly, unfortunately, self-serious, and thus accidentally very Monty Python. There’s little dramatic tension and the music is close to agony.

One of the many classic movies from “the greatest of all years”, 1939 (see also The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and Stagecoach), this epic gangster flick dares to provide psychological back stories for the characters.

So why two stars? Because it’s inoffensive and criticising it feels like punching down. And because Martin Clunes, playing a grouchy landlord, is really quite good.

It’s difficult to overstate the reach of this Amy Heckerling teen standard.

Jackman’s tendency towards camp is hidden by glitzy outfits and silly stylings of his stage persona, while Hudson is positively unleashed by the demands that Claire places upon her. She has been quite rightly nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, and is a credible best actress Oscar contender.

The ending, like the best BDSM experiences (they say), is slightly contrived but very satisfying.

It is highly likely that Macdonald is making explicit connections between the US military industrial complex and the system of consumer-based capitalism that supposedly dulls the masses and funds the wars. But, sheesh, does it have to be such a drag?

Jacobsen is an instinctive stylist and the film sometimes slips into cottagecore territory, complete with chunky knitwear and crepuscular lighting. Yet the truth of the family’s situation always surfaces, making the beauty hollow and the loss more keenly felt.

You can’t lie in a close-up, which is lucky for Stewart. Because her lead actress, on camera throughout, expresses the kind of deeply moving primal agony and preternatural resilience that never once feels false, and ultimately compensates for the ostentatious nonsense around her.

One of the most committed performances of Ethan Hawke’s career is cruelly undercut by some ridiculous “shrinking” tricks in this biopic about the Broadway songwriter Lorenz Hart.

It is not the greatest Frankenstein ever. It’s not even an especially good one. It’s just, in the end, serviceable.

It looks nice and, at best, it’s tapping some vague sexual anxiety about marriage-wrecking shaggers with big moustaches. But really ...

Ryan Gosling on charisma overdrive and buckets of deadpan irreverence are enough to power this otherwise familiar sci-fi story to the highest possible entertainment orbit.

It’s not quite vintage Jarmusch (for that see Night on Earth and Broken Flowers), but it is light and compassionate.

It’s a classy, glossy production that’s frequently bathed in stunning crepuscular light (the Canary Islands’ tourist board should be thrilled). And thankfully it’s one that refuses to patronise the audience.

Personally, I gorged myself silly on the esoteric references, and appreciated profoundly the way that this ersatz Belmondo, just like the real thing, rubs his lower lip. But I’m not convinced that everyone else will.

It would be funny if it weren’t so dull and so strangely played by Malek, an actor who seemingly believes that a complex internal life is best illustrated by hyperactive facial muscles and the blinkless stare of a sullen zombie.

It’s more funny peculiar than funny ha ha and, alas, doesn’t always work.

The film rarely draws breath. It barrels bleakly, with effortless aplomb, to the end. You might need a stiff drink.

The writer-director Runar Runarsson makes a virtue out of this narrative simplicity, however, and delivers the equivalent of sweetly moving “slow” cinema, where we get to luxuriate in the characters for long, long, sometimes wordless takes, and to find in the exemplary performance of the relatively new and untested Hall a heartbreaking expression of hidden grief.

It’s always compelling, and a powerful first feature.

Hollywood finally delivers a worthy successor to The Wizard of Oz with this musical adaptation, starring the superb Erivo as Elphaba and a startlingly good Ariana Grande as Glinda.

All this is window dressing that might have been less conspicuous had the film been in the possession of a thundering narrative core. Yet the debut writer-director Laura Piani relies so heavily on hopeless Bridget Jones clichés — lots of pratfalls — that the surrounding locale eventually takes centre stage.

There’s lots of fun here, some of the one-liners are exquisite and the helter-skelter finale is delightfully overstuffed. Frustratingly, it’s still second-grade Pixar.

The film builds to a magnificently sad climax, with Clooney breaking the fourth wall and delivering probably his best screenwork ever.

Far too much time is spent with the tedious off-camera histrionics of the brattish co-star Shia LaBeouf, and the admission that Figgis was hand-chosen (“invited”) by Coppola for the documentary renders it slightly toothless.

All of this, to be clear, is hilarious. Emotionally desolate, but hilarious.

He may have developed, produced and directed just one movie — this boisterous Robert Pattinson sci-fi comedy — but, yikes, has he packed a lot into Mickey 17.

Nothing here resonates and its slavish adherence to recent Pixar formula is ultimately deadening. Yes, Elio, you are unique and wonderful. Your flaw is your gift. Now, please, can we all go home!

It’s visually appealing, obviously, because Guadagnino does not make ugly films. But it’s difficult to convey how little, dramatically speaking, is happening here.

In short, Yorgos, move on.

It’s Hugh Grant, returning as the ageing, inveterate “ladies’ man” Daniel Cleaver, who steals the show.

Nothing has dramatic impact. Nobody seems to believe anything they’re doing. Lawrence and Pattinson, two innately charismatic performers, are strangely self-conscious, and so many of their scenes seem like experimental improv or half-cooked rehearsals.

Arguably the most heroic character in the film is the city. And Blitz is, instantly, one of the great “London Movies”.

In these intensely moving moments it feels as if the two artists — Joyce and Almodóvar — are connecting across time, desperate to express the ineffable, and keen to capture a creative moment that honours both the living and the dead.

Thatcher’s performance is mostly a marvel. She’s instantly sympathetic, the most deliberately “human” being in the film, and yet the genius of her characterisation as a robot is in the way she slightly over-enunciates her dialogue and walks with the odd shuffle of a Thunderbirds marionette.

Still, Norton’s great. It should’ve really been the Pete Seeger story.

There’s only one thing worse than being trapped in a theatre watching a badly staged play: being trapped in a cinema watching a badly adapted stage play. And so it is, frequently, with this Ibsen update that’s pulled in too many directions at once by its ambitious director, Nia DaCosta, and the producer-star Tessa Thompson.

Yes, the canine element is structurally paramount, and yes, Apollo the Great Dane, as played by Bing, is adorable and regally sad throughout. But this is pedigree material.

It is difficult to overstate Streep’s importance, and how deeply she inhabits a role that, for any other actress, would certainly be cartoonish — the outfits, the glasses and the whispered catchphrase “that’s all”.

The songs are often exquisite, the duets heartbreaking. The performances are trophy bait, Saldaña’s especially. And the go-for-broke direction belies the notion that a septuagenarian like Audiard should be making movies of autumnal wisdom. This is a vivid, high-energy film, one of the year’s best.

There’s a hint of repetition in the mid-section and a schmaltzy third act courtroom scene. But all flaws are overcome by Aramayo’s technically precise and heart-rending turn. It’s astonishing.

Fans are calling this the Brothers Grimm meets The Substance but it’s better than that sounds. And certainly harder to watch.

On the positive side, Threapleton, the daughter of Kate Winslet, is sensational. Quietly commanding, but always glowing with charisma, she is the discovery here.

It’s loud and diverting and very young children are sure to be entertained. But it’s also utterly dead, right down to its hollow, greedy, cash-grabbing core.

La grazia is wonderful. It is slow initially and sometimes difficult but it gradually, seductively seeps into you and becomes near impossible to shake.

Mostly newbie director Malcolm Washington puts his trust in Wilson’s words, the play’s complex characterisations and the phenomenal performances from his never better cast.

The film is fun for a while, and it’s certainly the most commercial project that the experimental Canadian director Guy Maddin (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs) has delivered. But it’s also pretty tedious and not half as smart as it might have been. Plus it’s very lazy, and smug.

Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys deliver a concentrated burst of parental trauma in this propulsive psychological thriller that’s set almost entirely inside a Land Rover late at night. It’s like Tom Hardy’s Locke but more intense.

In a project that took a full year to edit, with unfettered access to the Orwell estate’s entire archive, Peck proves impossibly adept at layering in seemingly disparate clips, quotes and footage without ever once losing sight of his central message. Much like Orwell, in fact, it’s the clarity of his polemic that impresses most.

A thrillingly tense game of kill-or-be-killed.

In the end the most radical element of this revamped Marvel entry is its suggestion that the problems of the world can’t be solved by a super-powered punch to the face, but by a heartfelt group hug. Sappy and saccharine, perhaps. But possibly the movie we need right now.

There’s an unashamedly “enthusiastic” cross-promotional quality to the film, like a two-and-a-half-hour Formula 1 commercial, that never quite gels with its hoary central story.

This is all good fun but at about the midway mark (see the chunky running time) it begins to lose its vitality, ceasing to be a new Heat and becoming more of a reheat.

This is nearly two and a half hours of eye-gouging spectacle with jabs of heartfelt emotion, deftly orchestrated by the relatively inexperienced writer, director and animator Jiaozi (remember the name).

There are glimmers of intrigue, as well as quirks and curios.

The film ends far too neatly and with a speedy pass over the failures, but there is much here to savour.

And then, saving the best till last, literally (of the entire franchise), there’s a helter-skelter biplane chase along South Africa’s Blyde River Canyon that’s simply one of the most extraordinary and apparently death-defying stunt set-pieces that anyone, let alone an A-list megastar, has ever attempted to put on film. And for this, Tom Cruise, we salute you. Mission accomplished.

In the end, though, the pairing of Edwards with Koepp is the complementary master stroke. They are camera and script in harmony, deftly entwined for a franchise that is finally, after thirty years, worthy of rebirth.

We are simply beaten into bored submission — yes, we get it, he’s maaaaaaad! There are also glaring plot holes and contrivances aplenty. By the closing-reel murder it’s almost impossible to care.

The London kids are all right, and then some, in this sun-kissed love letter to teenage angst, human frailty and the uncommon beauty of the capital city.

It’s a testament to Binoche and Fiennes that the heat they create on screen is intense enough to solder any cracks. Their scenes together are riven with pain and resentment yet bound by love. These are two of the greatest living actors nailing two of the most iconic roles in Western culture.

It has its moments, mostly in the initial set-up. And Armstrong still lands a few zingers.

The film, written by Julian Fellowes on autopilot and directed by Simon Curtis (in a trance?), climaxes with a scene that is simultaneously grossly saccharine and deeply cynical.

Sweeney proves here, after Christy, Echo Valley and Reality, that she’s a performer of versatility and, crucially, staying power.

It’s unashamedly derivative but also entertaining. Butler and Kravitz are charming together and dripping with chemistry.

Majors plays the central character, Killian Maddox, with subtlety and sensitivity.

It’s loud, multicoloured and garish, like sticking your head inside a giant tin of Quality Street while someone whacks the outside repeatedly with a polo mallet. Only this time, for once, it’s slightly more pleasurable than that sounds.