Phil de Semlyen

This visually epic, but monotonous collaboration between James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez is less than the sum of its slick parts.

It falls short of enchanting but it's never less than fun and likable. Watch it through the eyes of your inner teenager and you’ll have a blast.

It's a film that bores straight into your soul and leaves you shattered, but somehow richer for having seen it.

There are also juicy supporting roles for Shirley Henderson and Midnight in Paris’s Nina Arianda as the comedians’ long-suffering wives, Lucille and Ida. The film may be called Stan & Ollie, but it’s never more alive than when the four of them are onscreen.

There are memorable cameos from collaborators (Josh Homme take a bow) and a triumphant coda, but most of all, the rather melancholy sense of a visionary struggling to stay relevant.

Sure, some of the plot twists are a bit labored, and there’s maybe a henchman too many—but, trust me, you’ll be too busy rooting for the superhero with a snout to care.

The resulting film is beautifully crafted and, despite what Hitch might say, definitely cinematic.

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

While his bandmates are happy to fade into the background, Martin – part puppy dog, part jack-in-the-box – is a magnet for the camera. He’s restless, funny, insecure and likeable – often all at the same time.

As with his first directorial effort, the ace meta-horror The Cabin in the Woods, Goddard has a blast toying with genre expectations, although here the payoff is a lot less satisfying.

The Sisters Brothers may be a violent movie but it’s not an especially graphic one; the bad guys are coolly dispatched from a distance and with minimal Peckinpah-ish splatter. The one genuinely stomach-turning moment comes at the hands of a surgeon, not a gunman. Prepare yourself.

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.

The authenticity is immersive, even if the historical exposition occasionally feels like prep for an exam no one’s warned you about.

Richly entertaining and blackly funny but told with sincerity and heart, the half-dozen Western tales packed into The Ballad of Buster Scruggs show the Coen brothers loading up their six-shooter and firing barely a blank.

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

The most harrowing revelation of all comes during two of Macdonald’s many interviews with friends, family and associates. It’s a piece of digging that adds investigative weight to the film and a hard-hitting coda to his exploration of the fragile psychology of stardom.

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.

Granik builds her engaging, sympathetic characters in subtle increments.

For all its sombre revelations, A Cambodian Spring exudes a powerful sense of possibility. In these days of popular protest, it makes for an enthralling case study.

This fun, pacy addition to the dino disaster franchise doesn’t do much that’s particularly new – though what it does, it does with a fair whack of panache.

Director Nora Twomey’s film is about the ways we try to cradle each other from the harsher realities of life. This is a day-to-day survival story that stirs the heart and fires the imagination.

Veering from blaxploitation spoof to undercover thriller and ending with a no-punches-pulled real-life coda, it’s riotous fun one minute, savagely biting the next.

The Polish filmmaker has conjured a dazzling, painful, universal odyssey through the human heart and all its strange compulsions. It could be the most achingly romantic film you’ll see this year, or just a really painful reminder of the one that got away.

It’s not that you can’t see what Von Trier is getting at, it’s just you wish he’d get there quicker and without all the desecrated bodies. For most of its hefty runtime, The House That Jack Built is just a slog.

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

Ron Howard has come through with a frisky space caper that zips along like a speeder on a bed of air. It’s far from perfect, but it’s much better than it has any right to be.

It’s not a bad movie, by any means, but it strains to turn a seriously introspective story into something cinematic.

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.