Laura Venning

As absurd as their story is, it’s hard not to be won over by Lightning & Thunder. You will have Sweet Caroline stuck in your head for what feels an eternity afterwards, though.

It’s a real pleasure to be whisked across the world by Baumbach, but perhaps this cinematic glass of Prosecco goes down rather too easily.

A genuine disappointment from an intriguing, potentially even subversive premise. It’s another commanding performance to add to Monroe’s oeuvre, but this Cradle is more frustrating and forgettable than it is thrilling.

A decidedly grown-up thriller that will surely be torn to pieces by teens on TikTok, this feels like a slight wobble for Guadagnino, but is still a sharply entertaining and intense watch.

Maybe this would hit the spot for a Sunday-night sofa slump but it’s more patronising than perceptive when it comes to portraying ageing. As disappointing as a stale scone.

It’s sometimes clumsily communicated but there’s something affecting about the reminder that it’s all worth the risk, or maybe it’s just that this writer has attended four weddings this summer.

Engaging turns from Anderson and Isaacs can’t elevate a narrative that ultimately goes nowhere, although it might make you want to get the tent out of the attic at long last.

Occasionally clunky and retrograde but in the same manner as a story told by a grandparent, The Alto Knights reminds us that De Niro will always be cinema’s greatest gangster.

Entertaining if inconsequential, Companion is buoyed by solid central performances from actors that seem keenly aware that it’s all just a bit of bloody fun. Viva la robot revolución!

Another deeply flawed, tech-forward endeavour for Zemeckis in which glimmers of human emotion only occasionally break through. Like Cloud Atlas for baby boomers experiencing late-middle-age malaise.

If you like your satire incisive you should perhaps look elsewhere, but the state of the world looks even more laughably absurd through Maddin and the Johnsons’ wickedly warped lens.

Timestalker lacks a little humour and insight into obsessive love to make it truly sing, but it’s an admirably ambitious fable that could be destined to become a cult oddity.

Although sometimes baggy and uncontrolled, The Outrun is a sensitive, non-judgemental portrayal of addiction and mental illness, anchored by a typically transcendent performance from Saoirse Ronan.

Repetitive insults do most of the heavy lifting for this comedy, but any time spent with actors as skilled as Colman and Buckley is time enjoyably spent.

Adapting a relatively uneventful short story was always going to be tricky, and despite some strong performances and wry observations, Cat Person’s disastrous ending takes everything else down with it.

On the more inoffensive end of Netflix’s original output, Heart Of Stone is a perfectly watchable and often daft bit of fun, but its mission to supersede Ethan Hunt might prove to be impossible.

As twee as its title, Harold Fry probably won’t win over anyone immediately turned off by its premise. Broadbent and Wilton are as reliable as ever, but this tear-jerker mostly feels removed from real human emotion. It might inspire you to go for a nice walk, though.

As demonstrated by the film’s final third, Atef evidently has a skill for crafting humane, sometimes contradictory characters and for drawing out compelling performances. And yet as interesting as the interpersonal drama should be, it might just leave you, as Monty Python would say, pining for the fjords.