Nicholas Barber

The Order is a sombre, steadily paced, conventional drama. It's superbly acted by its charismatic cast, the locations and the period are evoked beautifully, and, best of all, the violent robberies and shoot-outs are staged with a nerve-jangling ferocity that recalls Michael Mann's Heat. But it isn't quite as gripping as the events deserve.

The lurching rhythm of their relationship keeps you on edge, but it's also moving to see how tearful and confused Romy can be, and it's darkly funny to see how she bluffs her way through her double life. Ultimately, though, Babygirl comes to seem genuinely romantic, because Romy and Samuel are fumbling their way towards a deeper understanding of each other. As uncomfortable as the film may be, it's clear that Reijn loves and respects her damaged characters, even if they're not sure of how they feel about themselves.

Throughout the film, various people draw a distinction between "Maria" the woman and "La Callas" the superhuman diva. Its title notwithstanding, Maria is definitely about "La Callas".

The nicest surprise is that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is that rare thing, a big-budget comedy which is actually funny. The screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar is packed with knock-out punchlines, and Burton's visual gags manage to be hilarious even while pushing the boundaries of how eccentric and macabre a Hollywood blockbuster can be.

As cluttered as it is, though, Blink Twice is stylish and savage enough to gain a cult following. And it is undoubtedly the work of a skilled writer-director, rather than an actor who is having a go at directing.

Bloated by two or three elements too many, it isn't a "perfect organism", to use the phrase coined by Ian Holm's android character in Alien, but it's as close to perfect as any entry in the series since Aliens in 1986.

Twisters isn't bad, but a braver film might have admitted that addressing the causes of extreme weather might be more useful than throwing nappies at it.

Directed by Kelsey Mann, Inside Out 2 glimmers with diamond-hard truths about the complex business of being a human being – especially a teenage human being – but it's still a fast-paced and playful comedy adventure with even more jokes and more puns than Inside Out.

Overall, The Kingdom is a rivetingly credible and vivid portrait of organized crime in an area with a long tradition of banditry.

The film is fun enough in its chaotic, grungy, rough and ready way. It may not propel Smith back to the top of the A-list, but it proves that he can get through a B-movie. At this stage in his career, that counts as a win.

Anora fizzes with energy and laugh-out-loud moments, but it isn't recommended for anyone with high blood pressure. It builds into the kind of hectic farce in which not just one person is stressed: everyone is stressed.

It is universal and emotional enough to hypnotise anyone who has been alone in a city, or been spellbound by a film on the subject.

For some viewers, this frenzied finale will be reason enough to treasure The Substance; for others, it will be reason enough to steer well clear. But no one who sees Fargeat's film will forget it. If she had taken it to its magnificently tasteless extreme 15 or 20 minutes sooner, it would have been a cult classic.

They're all beautifully performed, and they all sparkle with Lanthimos's deadpan genius: in his world, everything is just off-kilter enough to be funny, but just real enough to be horrifying.

Anyone fascinated by artistic follies will take an academic interest in its excesses, and it's certainly loopy enough to build a cult following. But this pretentious, portentous curio will test the patience of everyone else.

With all due respect to Miller's bonkers vision, and his incredible ability to put that vision on screen, Furiosa seems like one of those spin-off graphic novels that plug the gaps between two films in a franchise, but which don't quite match up to the films themselves.

Like the first Road House, it's a guilty pleasure, but it's not as pleasurable as it should be.

Parts of Dune: Part 2 seem just as monumental, lavishly bizarre and downright disturbing as anything that Jodorowsky and Giger can have had in mind.

The one Vaughn trademark that Argylle is lacking is the director's usual adolescent offensiveness. He's taken out all the sex, gore and swearing, which may be a sign of belated maturity, but which leaves Argylle seeming all too close to Ghosted, Shotgun Wedding, Freelance, Murder Mystery, and the other sort-of action, sort-of romance, sort-of comedy films which have been dumped on streaming services over the last couple of years. They're all vapid, anonymous blocks of content, but at least the others offer something vaguely glamorous to slump in front of in your living room when you can't settle on anything more nourishing to watch. Argylle, on the other hand, is being released in cinemas, so the shoddy and derivative nature of the enterprise is harder to forgive.

There is nothing in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom that's fun or thrilling or moving enough to make you wish for any further sequels.

Nothing exciting happens. There are no challenges to meet, no obstacles to overcome, no Death Stars to destroy.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget doesn't just reach the standards of its high-flying predecessor, but it soars above them.

Overall, then, Wonka seems to be straining every sinew to be the best possible family entertainment at cinemas this Christmas.

It feels like a tantalising trailer for the longer and presumably richer and deeper film that is still to come.

If you see it as a lurid pulp fantasy rather than a penetrating satire, then Saltburn is deliriously enjoyable. It's the dialogue and the performances that clinch it.

And so it is that a film that was shaping up to be an intelligent and respectful homage to The Exorcist descends to the depths of a cheesy, straight-to-streaming rip-off. Viewers should do what Victor advises, and leave.

There is no denying that The Creator is a major new sci-fi adventure. If you're partial to such things, Edwards' ambitious, immersive film should prompt the intoxicating awe that you might have got from The Matrix and Avatar – the feeling that you're seeing a rich vision of the future unlike any that has been on the big screen before.

Perhaps the film could have done with a little more conversation and a little more action, but it's still a quietly affecting, sympathetic tribute to the kind of person who is a supporting character in most biopics.