Kevin Maher

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.

Soderbergh, as proved with his Ocean’s franchise, is a veritable heist-meister. Yet this is possibly the genre’s loosest, least rigorous entry, a film that instead opts for existential inquiry and complex character portraiture.

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.