Kevin Maher

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.

Winstead, in her most fruitful role since 2012’s Smashed, is a powerhouse, while Monroe, though never camp, is frequently and fabulously boo-hiss.

It’s mostly a dirge, but the younger Day-Lewis has an artful eye and his indecently talented dad is clearly crying out for better material.

In the end Good Fortune is perhaps too ambitious, and indulges in too much sermonising, especially when Gabriel also joins the human workforce and, like Jeff, experiences financial hardship. Reeves is good value as the clueless angel but an unfortunate sense of repetition sets in.

Sweeney is also surrounded by a plethora of ace character actors, especially Merritt Wever as Christy’s sanctimonious mother Joyce, who compound the sense of a lead protagonist trapped within a hopeless, claustrophobic milieu. It’s a proper movie.

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 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.

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.

Fall is an instinctive visual storyteller, the two leads have a winning chemistry, and the location shooting in Istanbul is vivid and authentic. Just a shame the film is less so.

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

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

I’m not sure if it’s Anderson’s masterpiece, and though Penn is funny in the role of the crazed colonel, he frequently veers towards cartoonish and almost ruins his scenes. Still, it’s an easy best picture Oscar nomination in the bag.

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.

It’s a discomforting film and a potentially eerie experience for all viewers. The villain appears to be personal compromise and the moral lapses ignored on a daily basis in the name of getting by.

It just coasts, with breathtaking laziness, on the power of nostalgia, and it seemingly hopes that the sight of our beloved trio gathered together, mostly on chairs and improvising badly, will be enough in itself.

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.

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.

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.

In short, Yorgos, move on.

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

It’s not going to rock everyone’s world and neither is it a patch on Carol. But it’s competent, sometimes clever, film-making with ideas and lots of heart.

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.

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

The film bounds ambitiously through fifteen years of the Baranov-Putin alliance.

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

It’s all too obvious that The Smashing Machine has been conceived, among other things, as another Safdie-branded career boost for a pair of charming, charismatic actors who could do with a dash of Oscar magic. It’s just a shame that their film is a fugazi.

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

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