Phil de Semlyen

[Villeneuve] has nailed it where, in different ways David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowksy and Ridley Scott all floundered. His Dune is sprawling, spectacular and politically resonant in its critique of colonialism and exploitation.

More than just another franchise reset, Mutant Mayhem wrestles with its own cultural relevance (or otherwise) in interesting ways.

Many actors hold their secrets and their craft close; Kilmer throws his out to the universe.

Like Aftersun on a gallon of SunnyD, this warm and freewheeling comedy-drama about a girl connecting with the dad she’s never met proves that working-class stories don’t have to be all misery and angst. Sometimes, that kitchen sink can be filled with bubbles.

One token racism subplot aside, it juggles big ideas of social justice with more intimate moments of family life beautifully.

Genre fans will admire the ceaseless mayhem of this rare Indian entry to the carnage canon. It’s not The Raid, or even this year’s Monkey Man, but it’s got some slick moves of its own.

Immaculately composed yet skittish, edgy and surprising, this impressive debut by writer-director Michael Pearce emanates a chill that will have you hugging your sides.

In a world of portentous blockbusters getting ever darker, it’s a joy to see one throwing on the disco lights.

It’s a compelling, edgy story of exploitation with no easy answers.

Patricia Clarkson steals the show, but everyone in Potter’s gifted cast gets their moment to shine in a sharp-edged, claustrophobic parlour piece that puts the boot into middle-class mores.

Ozon’s latest is a twisty-turny post-War mystery — think ‘A Very Long Bereavement’ — that boasts a kaleidoscope of quiet emotions. It unfolds slowly, but rewards patience with strong performances and a swooning third act.

As the tragedy unfolds, there’s a strange solace in seeing this captivating enigma somehow emerging intact.

The result is an empathetic, emotionally candid treat – Pixar’s own brains trust back at full capacity.

With The Fall Guy, stuntman-turned-filmmaker David Leitch and his bang-on-form stars, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, have nestled a frisky, winsome romantic comedy inside the framework of an old-school, full-throttle action movie and conjured up a pretty perfect Friday night at the movies in the process.

You’d need an army of flying monkeys to find a Wicked fan with a grumble about this film.

A mostly CG-free, witty, grown-up drama that revels in strong, propulsive storytelling? Sometimes they do make ’em like they used to.

Apart from the confetti-cannon finale, this isn’t the hackneyed stereoscopic where things burst through the screen, but an immersive front row and on-stage spot at Billie Eilish’s 2025 world tour.

Smart storytelling and snappy editing elevate the jokes and enrich the emotions.

Like a hollow-point shell, David Fincher’s slickly enjoyable assassin thriller is explosive but empty.

Instead of a study of alienation and solitude, News of the World is about connection – about two traumatised people finding silent comfort in each other. About the promise of healing. It’s a long road, cautions this elegiac film, but it’s always easiest when travelled together.

Hive is never quite a feelgood film – the deep trauma that underpins it militates against any jaunty Calendar Girls vibes – but there is a tangible sense of joy as Fahrije begins to lead her fellow, long-suffering widows to a place of healing and the promise of better times ahead. And the comeuppance one or two of the menfolk get is definitely mood-enhancing.

For a man so singular, the film’s chronological approach feels conventional and there’s little of the spark or fantasy he infused into his work in evidence.

There have been better animated sequels and more epic ones, but has there ever been a fluffier follow-up than this bouncy, buoyant caper starring at least half the nature world?

It’s a vicarious pleasure to let The Dig’s warm, gauzy light wash over you. Blanketed in defiant optimism and soaked in summer sun, it’s definitely one to watch with your nan. When you’re allowed to, obvs.

There aren’t too many surprises in the journey – especially if you’ve seen La Famille Bélier, the 2014 French film that Coda reworks – but writer-director Siân Heder’s deep affection for the Rossi clan is infectious.

Journeyman may be intimate but it never feels small.

It always keeps you in on the joke – and it’s a killer joke.

The story isn’t wildly original – think ‘Leon’ with throwing stars – and it’s overlong, but the action is unrelenting, thrillingly staged and occasionally even flat-out hilarious.

It definitely demands patience ... but it rewards it with a similarly narcotic effect.

As ever, it’s Zellweger that provides the secret sauce.

Moving, complex and brutal, it's an outstanding film about men at war.

That’s a lot of years to wrangle into one biography – even before you take in the rags-to-riches, zero-to-hero-to-popular-villain arc of his life – but this snappy and searching doc makes a very solid fist of it.

Director Bienvenu, who also voices helpful robot Mikki in the French version, has crafted a family film that’s offbeat and full of heart.

An Alpine study of ageing and creativity that’s as fresh and bracing as the mountain air, although occasionally just as chilly.

Society of the Snow is careful to memorialise the dead in a moving, meaningful way.

Rather than a bruising marital wipeout drama, Is This Thing On? is a film about how new purpose and a new tribe can help you re-evaluate what was there all along (the title, of course, refers to the marriage as well as the mic). It might make you think about relationships differently; it probably won’t make you want to take up stand-up.

It’s wonderfully creepy and unnervingly familiar, like Alan Partridge by way of The Exorcist. If that doesn’t automatically enter it into the pantheon of classic midnight movies, I don’t know what does.

You’ll find yourself scouring the frame for this malign force in the tiniest refraction of light. Whannell knows you’re doing it, too, and lets scenes go on so long, you start to doubt your own eyes. There shouldn’t be any doubting the magnetic Moss, though: she’s the real deal.

And Pattinson? He’s solid enough, but the role seems to neutralise his greatest strengths, stifling his edgy, eccentric charisma under a morose, dutiful shell. He’s just another ever-searching crusader in a shadowy world. Hopefully next time he’ll be able to find the fun.

The snoozy summery vibe will suit anyone looking for undemanding viewing for their little ones. With Pixar, though, you always come expecting more.

See it, then go home and wipe your hard drive.

It's the exuberant yin to the stately yang of Jackie Kennedy biopic Jackie, Larrain’s last film, and it’s full of the pheromones of sexual discovery and the piss and vinegar of toxic relationships.

This riotous, arcade-game-inspired sequel powers up with fresh ideas and some brilliantly-executed pastiching.

Occasionally soapy on the homefront but cataclysmic in combat, this is a worthy addition to the WWII canon. Garfield underpins it all with skill, showing that sometimes, war can be humanising too.

You can tell Ryoo loves Hong Kong action cinema. His camerawork is nimble and elastic, and his starchy diplomats are unexpectedly great at martial arts. But the character scenes are well-handled too, and there’s a smart critique here on a divided country that can’t even be truly unified in a shared crisis.

Where the movie truly comes into its own is in its boldly framed, heart-wrenching coda.

A woolly family caper with a nostalgic flavour, The Sheep Detectives conjures flattering comparisons with Babe.

It’s the visuals, though, that really soar. With master cinematographer Roger Deakins again lending his eye as consultant, the camera weaves in and out among photo-real flora and fire-breathing fauna.

This enjoyably mean-spirited black comedy set in a grand country house will have you wondering who your real friends are – and what they really think of you.

It’s a sensitive, careful film with real emotional intelligence, but no less gripping for swerving dramatic fireworks in favour of quieter, more observational moments.

The two parallel stories never quite gel, more often pulling focus from each other just a major revelation seems to be in the offing.

It’s defiantly cheesy and very hard to resist.

Newcomer Fonte is terrific in the lead role, communicating Marcello’s meek protests with a twitchy physicality that grows slowly into a sketchy defiance.

McQueen isn’t questioning the courage or endurance of the city and its people through these brutal days. But he is probing our relationship with this over-lionised period of our history, though, and finding it hopelessly romanticised. Maybe it’s time, his flawed but hard-hitting film suggests, to lift the curfew on looking it afresh.

From sombre Islamic prayers to café-touba-fuelled socialising, Banel & Adama is stitched beautifully together from the fabric of rural Senegalese traditions.

A mockumentary as sparky, big-hearted and entertaining as its cast of bright-eyed kids and the wannabe thesps who coach them in the ways of ‘turning cardboard into gold’. The affection for musical theatre is so sincere, it’ll win over even the most Sondheim-averse.

While watching a bunch of Nazis get offed in a variety of grisly ways offers some midnight movie thrills, the stakes only get lower and lower.

The Friend is a poignantly affecting watch that mostly earns its emotional payoff, delivering gentle laughs along the way.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is one of those nice surprises, a so-called legacy sequel made with love and executed with flair. Think Top Gun: Maverick with better hats.

Imagine Pedro Almodóvar directing Sicario and you’re close to the tenor of this exuberant cartel-thriller-stroke-musical – which, as if those elements weren’t heady enough, comes with a tender trans twist.

The new Dev Patel is taking no prisoners in this slice of Mumbai mayhem, announcing himself as a filmmaker with possibly the most ferocious mainstream action movie since The Raid, and as an action star by sticking a knife into a goon’s neck. With his teeth.

Watching this sturdy, sensitively acted Old West drama, it’s easy to wonder how many westerns Viggo Mortensen would have made if he’d been kicking about in the ’50s and ’60s.

What happens when you haul all the trappings of a genre rooted in post-war cynicism and lay them out raw for modern-day moviegoers? You end up with something like Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, a heady, fleeting pleasure that prioritises craft over moral complexity, with themes of class friction and fraudulent spirituality that would once have landed like haymakers packing much less punch today.

This moving, surprising documentary offers a tale of Hollywood pigeonholing that feels particularly timely.

Empathetic, funny and myth-busting – there are 300,000 children and adults living with TS in the UK alone whose condition will be better understood for this film – it gives you permission to laugh at the situation while feeling only compassion for the man.

This analogue noir set in central China evokes satisfying memories of Bong Joon-ho’s great Korean crime thriller Memories of Murder.

It takes a lot for a movie to out-bonkers Cage on this kind of form. Color out of Space manages it in style.

Censor wears its genre influences on its sleeve – The Shining, Cronenberg, Carrie and Peter Strickland’s similarly themed Berberian Sound Studio – but it’s very much its own thing.

If there’s one thing Rocketman does have in common with Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s a commanding central performance.

For a study of human connection at its most honest and affecting, with two remarkable lead performances, Dragonfly is a powerfully striking experience.

A treat for cricket fans who'll thrill to this nostalgic look back at one of sport's greatest teams.

Sorrentino explores these heavyweight themes with his usual wit and high style – as well as a standout soundtrack of haunting classic cues and Eurodance bangers. Surreal, comedic touches also prick the pomposity of La Grazia’s cloistered world.

By keeping the camera in the vehicle, hauntingly lit with the blur of passing houses and the glow of the mobile phone, Hallow Road invites you to fill the scene at the other end of the line with a shadowy menace that the final stretch really delivers on.

It has a scrappy, throat-grabbing energy and a sincerity that never feels hectoring.

Christopher Nolan’s frosty espionage sci-fi delivers visual intensity but little heart.

An unapologetic, impassioned biopic, The Birth Of A Nation begins quietly but ends in a howl of rage. It might not be perfect, but it’s powerful enough to stay with you.

The third part of Berg’s unofficial Americans-in-crisis trilogy will play better for US audiences than overseas, but it’s still a pacy and often enthralling disaster movie.

Amirpour’s career to date offers a triptych of stories of women navigating men’s worlds, and needing all their nous and resources to survive in them – and this is her most straight-up enjoyable survivor tale yet. It’s a feminist parable that may not linger as long as in the mind as her more provocative debut, but it’s irresistible fun in the moment.

If this is the end of the road for a British filmmaking great, it’s a thoughtful, heart-filled finale. British cinema’s old oak still stands tall.

Still, if his doc is as toothless as Cookie Monster 2.0, it’s still a nostalgic treat to spend time with the man who gave us Kermit, Big Bird and the Goblin King.

Greengrass’s heart lies in exploring the ways a nation processes such a horrific, unexpected event, but Breivik’s odious ideas also get a comprehensive airing along the way. It makes for an uncomfortable, challenging watch.

Life in The Damned Don’t Cry is brutally unfair, and Boulifa offers no easy answers. But thanks to the compassionate filmmaker and his two impressive leads, it’s a compelling watch.

If a subplot showing Orwell writing ‘Animal Farm’ as he becomes persuaded by Jones’s evidence doesn’t entirely work, there’s plenty in this thoughtful journalism drama that does. And not a single scene in a car park.