Neil Smith

The leads make sweet music in an affecting four-piece that, if not note perfect, plays well to their individual strengths. A marked improvement overall on this year’s other Quartet.

Populist fare from across the channel that will amply repay those ready to put the time in. The scenery, meanwhile, makes you want to run out and buy a timeshare.

An all-too-familiar story is told with empathy and vigour in a film arguing for tolerance, activism and change.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis excel in a well-crafted drama that’s sure to bring the late August Wilson’s words to a much wider audience.

Zootropolis is a witty, creative and entertaining romp with literally endless sequel potential and the biggest collection of four-legged critters this side of Noah.

A brief cameo from producer Benedict Cumberbatch provides some additional mid-film star wattage. Yet who needs it when you have Comer, a force of nature to rival any city-swamping deluge?

Chastain and Sarsgaard make a riveting duo in a film that – like Franco’s Tim Roth double Chronic and Sundown before it – is in no great hurry to elucidate its mysteries.

An intense and gripping dramatization that, a few liberties apart, does justice to a disturbing true story.

A master filmmaker mines cinema’s glamorous past in a nostalgic neo-noir you don’t so much watch as surrender to.

While the style seems familiar, the material feels fresh: a testament not only to how Nichols lovingly crafts a fictional story around the photos Danny Lyon took for his seminal 1968 book The Bikeriders, but also to the flesh his actors put on the bones of the archetypes who populate it.

A superlative slice of ’70s social realism.

With it comes admission into a stunning world of majesty and savagery; shame about the overbearing Philip Glass score.

Breakfast At Tiffany's still exerts an enduring charm, not least because of the poise and waif-like beauty of the bewitching Hepburn. [Review of re-release]

Squeezing every drop of tension from wet-ink recent history, Phillips only falters when making its protagonists mouthpieces in a broader geopolitical debate. Otherwise, it’s full steam ahead to the Oscars.

The director of The Square gives a new shape a whirl with hilarious, scathing and sometimes jaw-dropping results.

Soderbergh lets his hair down with a frank, funny dramedy that bulges with humour, heart and smarts as McConaughey gives it everything he's got, in a potentially gong-grabbing turn.

Part war story, part endurance test, this harrowing portrait of a young boy’s loss of innocence is gripping, gruelling, grown-up fare. That said, some judicious trimming wouldn’t have hurt.

With a massive ensemble to play with and new characters to introduce, it’s inevitable that some cast members (Brie Larson’s Agency operative Tess among them) get a little shortchanged. But with Fast XI on the cards for 2025, there’s still time to shine as brightly as John Cena does here as Brian’s genially protective uncle: a retooled part that fits him far better than the nefarious one he took in 2021’s F9.

Marvel’s man with the mallet does all that’s required of him in a breakneck sequel that’s never dark for long. Next time, though, we’ll have more Loki and fewer elves.

An outlandish high concept is a recipe for hope and humour in a film that bears viewing more than once.

Wildly inventive, unpredictable, and unhinged, Riley’s genre-bender stands out from the comedy pack.

Marvel’s Phase Four makes up for lost time with an origin story that richly entertains when it’s not pushing boundaries.

The breakout stars of the Despicable Me franchise seize the spotlight in an enjoyably demented off-shoot that is guaranteed to send their young fans bananas.

Jillian Bell goes the distance in an inspirational comedy that’s funny, fresh and feelgood.

Overlords has its share of clunky moments yet nonetheless proves, like Monsters before it, what can be achieved when you’re short of cash but rich in imagination.

Nods to "Hostel" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" make for a cine-literate affair further buffered by a smart cameo from erstwhile Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy.

A lot of thrilling, dazzling, sometimes frightening fun.

Guileless performances, understated direction and bucolic Belgian scenery combine to create a quiet gem of a film.