Kim Newman

Not perfect, but a much more satisfying Earth-in-ruins film than Oblivion or After Earth. It is a little more conventional than District 9 (what isn’t?), but confirms Blomkamp as one of the potential science-fiction greats of this decade.

Sharper than a stake in it's genre references, The Monster Squad appeals to cinephile as well as teen sensibilities.

A good-looking and entertaining British horror film.

Not a sequel to the bland film of Jacqueline Susann’s trashy best-seller, this is more like a demented remake, alternating modish psychedelia with deliberately square moralising.

A pick-up after the second film, if not as assured as the first. Rapace sets a high watermark for Rooney Mara in David Fincher's remakes.

Even if this is less satisfying overall than Skyfall, there are sequences that rank with Bond’s best.

New Orleans looks as photogenic as ever but ultimately Johnny Handsome never quite leapfrogs over its fundamental cracks.

This is a must-see film for its unashamed romanticism, its breathtaking visual delirium, the excellent performance of Cusack as the only rational person in the county and the sheer spirit with which the fundamental daftness of the plot is served up.

There’s quite a bit to admire in Motherless Brooklyn, but mostly in detail work — the hats, the cars, the join-the-dots conspiracy theory — but it doesn’t really catch fire as either a private-eye mystery or a study in Tourette syndrome savantry.

The later stretches, which are forced to become oblique and symbolic in the absence of any hard evidence about what really happened to the sailor, showcase some of Firth’s best screen work.

It's an intelligent, well-written, excellently played movie, with top flight gore/horror effects, perverse humour and a provocatively bleak vision. Also, it has the world's first true zombie hero in Bub, who listens to Beethoven and eats people.

Top-flight muscleman entertainment that is not afraid to have a brain or two in its head.

A worthy — if chilly and difficult — addition to the sadly extensive filmography of American mass murder. The soundtrack from Canadian singer-songwriter Maica Armata adds some much-needed heart.

Nothing is taken seriously, and there’s a nice mix of old groaner jokes delivered with a visible wince and genuine, sneakily erudite wit.

And then, of course, there was the music, better music than any film had had for many years.

The filmmakers try to solve the problem of turning an experience which merely consists of a series of fights into a story by... ignoring it, presenting a film which merely consists of a series of fights.

After the fizzle of the later Roger Moore Bonds, The Living Daylights brings in a new 007 in Timothy Dalton, who manages the Connery trick of seeming suave and tough at the same time, and tried to get away from the weak comedy in favour of proper international intrigue.

In 1956 audiences flocked to The Searchers precisely because it was a John Wayne western, and lapped up its mix of Injun-fightin' action, rough comic knockabout and intense, emotional storyline. Seen now, it is all that and much, much more.

Very of its time but enjoyable for all that.

Like 2001, Star Wars and Jurassic Park, it ups the special effects stakes and gets closer to putting on screen the images you've had in your mind while reading epic sci-fi.

Average example of MadMaxploitation.

This Neil Simon-scripted pastiche of an array of much-loved detective characters is surprisingly charming.

Well-acted, it lacks the standout performances or star presences which propelled the tonally-similar Ex Machina to more than cult success. While it will play to fans of cerebral science fiction, it may be less grabby for general audiences.

The effects, arguably the best of the year, only add to the thrill.

This subject demands a Godfather Part II, but Stone and collaborators have turned in a Godfather Part III. There is a lot of good material, but LaBeouf nearly sinks it and we could use much more of the old Gekko brimstone.

A notable, unusual existential thriller that is psychologically acute without the need for Oscar-clip self-pitying speeches, it’s also terrifically suspenseful with a provocative punchline.

Okay, so it’s Cujo with a chimp and a pool instead of a dog and a car – but Primate delivers good, gruesome business and has a sense of fun. Solid horror hokum.

Like all sieges, this offers moments of choppy terror and excitement followed by dull sit-it-out-and-starve spots. Straddled between uproarious schoolboy tosh and serious historical movie, this still offers enough dismemberments, royal tantrums and portcullis-rammings to make for a lively Saturday night out.