Nikki Baughan

In their scenes together, Clear and Duggan spark beautifully, navigating their characters’ emotional highs and lows with a mix of caustic wit and often moving vulnerability.

Eternal You acts like a modern day Wizard Of Oz as it lifts the curtain on the intricate processes of bringing the dead to life.

The chemistry between these three is the film’s greatest strength, and Good Grief plays best as a love story between friends.

Part cringe-comedy, part diagnostic study of the modern pandemic of male loneliness, Friendship has several inspired moments, and strong performances from Robinson and Rudd. Ultimately, however, its determination to straddle both camps means it stretches itself rather too thin.

Successfully mining the awkward humour of the adolescent experience, Karen Maine’s coming-of-age feature makes the most of a strong central performance from Natalia Dyer.

The Devil Wears Prada has become something of a modern classic, thanks largely to its eminently quotable, whip-smart observations about the world of fashion and its enduring sense of style. It’s unsurprising, then, that this sequel (again directed by David Frankel) is cut from exactly the same cloth, deliberately designed to be a narrative retread – albeit with a few Gen Z updates – that should delight existing fans.

While the film is contemplative, intimate and visually arresting, its deliberately slow pace lessens its dramatic impact.

A moving exploration of the realities of growing old, Maite Alberdi’s documentary effectively blends documentary with dramatic elements to charming, if not always transparent, effect.

This is an undeniably moving story, and Winson — who died in 2015 aged 106 — a man worth honouring, but One Life comes across as an orchestrated tearjerker.

This remake of the 2022 Danish-language chiller maintains much of what made the original so effective but, in swapping that film’s shocking ending for a more audience-friendly take, loses some of its bite. Nevertheless, a striking performance from James McAvoy keeps things interesting.

The Convert promises the potential for plenty of fire and brimstone but, despite some committed performances, lacks the dramatic passion that would have really left a mark.

As was the case with the source material, however, glamorous visuals and a kitschy vibe aren’t enough to paper over a threadbare plot, thinly drawn characters, obvious dramatic beats and an ill-advised central conceit.

Sean Byrne’s third feature is a messy mash-up of creature feature and serial killer movie whose psychological posturing and gory effects can’t hide the fact that it’s propped up by tired horror tropes.

There are some fun moments in Sharper, not to mention its attractive production and costume design, and Moore is clearly having a blast with a character who is sexy and smart in equal measure. But with the story broken down into obvious individual character-focused jigsaw pieces, viewers won’t need many of their own wits about them to guess where this tale is headed.

This earnest drama wears its politics very much on its sleeve — and makes no apologies for doing so — although its intimate take on an overwhelming moment in history can make for some compelling drama.

It remains a superficial exercise in creepy fun, but – like so many horror sequels – retreading familiar ground proves an exercise in diminishing returns.

While that familiarity is Scream VI’s major strength, it has also become its fundamental flaw. The location may have changed, the kills may be increasingly inventive, but underneath all that window dressing it’s the same as it ever was.

The Fox doesn’t go far enough, its sombre tone muting its fantastical elements, its weirdness not nearly weird enough to overcome its flaws.

While this story of a mermaid who gives up her enchanted life to follow her heart onto the land has been given the full cutting-edge CGI treatment, the slow pacing, often-overwrought emotion and undeniably outdated story mean that it fails to make much of a splash.

Get Away attempts to blend Withnail-like irreverence with Wicker Man-tinged folk horror but, while some of those elements hit their mark, the film’s tonal swerves undermine its more original aspects.

As with all Stephen King stories, there are resonant universal themes running through Pet Sematary; guilt, grief and trauma fuel this tale of a family who move to the countryside and become embroiled with an ancient evil. Yet these are buried deep under a mudslide of horror cliches — jump scares, creepy kids, expositional newspaper headlines — that reduce this to just another run-of-the-mill horror remake.

Perhaps unsurprisingly – and intentionally – Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is a much gentler affair, intended to affectionately lampoon those ageing musicians who struggle to retain their creative spark and trade heavily in nostalgia. There is plenty of that here – the film essentially retreads old ground and gags – but the sharp wit of the original is sadly lacking.

Despite a fantastical premise and some truly eye-popping effects, The House With A Clock In Its Walls suffers from post-Potter fatigue; there’s simply nothing here, visual or thematic, that hasn’t been done before.

Essentially a four-handed chamber piece of sorts, this adaptation deals with powder-keg themes of the colonial psyche, racial tensions and retribution, but ultimately proves too stilted and stagey to pack much of a punch.

Rather than lean into the increasingly gothic elements of this spiralling yarn (which reach a fever pitch worthy of Poe’s own work) the film takes itself far too seriously as a character study of a tortured man.

This Running Man could have been a powerful anarchist fable for our turbulent times but fun as it is, it runs out of steam before making any lasting impact.

While The Boogeyman — based on the 1973 Stephen King short story about a closet-dwelling stealer of souls — is as narratively generic as its on-the-nose (and oft-used) title may suggest, British director Rob Savage brings an innate humanness and playful spirit that lifts this otherwise-rote monster movie.

Freud aside, this is a fairly straightforward boy-to-man narrative, but that it plays out during such a turbulent time in Austrian history brings additional texture.