Phil de Semlyen

It’s often thrilling, occasionally improbable, sometimes confounding, but like its director, Ad Astra is never bound by the gravitational pull of the ordinary. Strap in.

A bold, honest film about family life that showcases a terrifically unpeppy turn from Bejo.

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

The interviews are as entertaining as the slick interplay on the ice.

A few flaws keep Black Widow a rung or two below top-tier Marvel, including a sluggish final act, some generic villainy and yet another overlong runtime – seriously people, two hours is fine – but if you’re after a big, expertly-crafted, self-aware chunk of blockbuster entertainment to watch on the big screen, Marvel, as usual, has your back.

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.

A motorsports movie you don’t need to be a petrolhead to enjoy. Rev up those whiteknuckle thrillride clichés, you're going to need them.

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.

Most of all, it’s a colourful journey lit up with great tunes and a deep love of music – an ingenious, infectious new spin on the music doc.

Can a movie leave you with a comedown? If it’s as raucous and unruly as Kneecap, a nonstop blizzard of beats, bumps of white powder and punky defiance of the British and Belfast’s sectarian past, the answer’s a firm ‘yes’.

20 Days in Mariupol can’t match For Sama for a Hollywood ending. That film sought to cut its bleakness with a whisper of hope – a new baby born in a shelled maternity ward – and a sense that something might, just might, survive the horror. Chernov has nothing as optimistic as that for us, just a fly-on-the-wall account of an unfolding atrocity. And it’s devastating.

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

The story is a complex and potentially ongoing one – Simmons has since moved to Bali, which has no extradition treaty with the US, while Reid has offered an apology of sorts – but its takeaways are much easier to parse: women like Dixon must be believed, empowered and supported. On the Record isn’t an easy watch but it’s an important one.

Funny and wistful, this celebration of Swedish auteur Roy Andersson is a treat for movie lovers.

An unusual and richly enjoyable love letter to a fellow artist and Chilean, Neruda further marks out Larraín as a director of serious range and ambition.

If Frozen was about coming to terms with who you are, Frozen II is about transformation. Does it offer further evidence for those who saw "Let It Go" as Elsa’s covert coming-out anthem? Sadly not, though she remains an intriguingly elliptical canvas on which to project genuinely groundbreaking ideas about empowerment and identity.

Like the musical style it’s named after, it plays slowly. But hang in there and you’ll find an enthralling requiem mass to a dying breed of hardscrabble gangsters and dirty cops that boasts a clutch of juicy performances.

Playwright-turned-fillmaker Florian Zeller continues his one-man war on the world’s tear ducts with another hard-hitting portrait of domestic life in extremis.

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

Meirelles injects enough visual snap to remind you that he once made City of God. If the second half gets a little sidetracked by flashbacks, another meaty Vatican scene is never too far away. Watching these two actors chewing over big issues—God, aging, loneliness, celibacy, abuse in the priesthood—under the vast ceilings of this gilded palace is a joy.

Finally, someone has returned to The Damned United’s cunning formula for a good football movie: don’t show any football.

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.

It’s weird, in the year 2025, that it seems timely to point out that the Nazis were bad. But Nuremberg, an old-fashioned and satisfyingly complex morality tale in the guise of a courtroom drama and spy thriller, does that job in impressive style.

Are its cultish mysteries for everyone? Undoubtedly not. But if there’s a place in your heart for dark, folky mind-benders that plug into the cosmic energy of remote, oceanic terrain (ie your favourite film would be a cross between The Wicker Man and The Lighthouse), you should take a trip across Jenkin’s freaky landscape asap.

It’s beautifully observed stuff – its fractured but tender family dynamics and depiction of parental pain reminded me a little of Ang Lee’s "The Ice Storm" – as it gradually lets you into a world of well-heeled suburbia that’s carefully shorn of all the usual Sydney landmarks.

It’s a story of dehumanisation, children in cages, and the blurting, vote-craving policy-making of government by id – and it’s shattering to experience.

Whether it’s the filmmaking pair’s insider/outsider dynamic working to keep the story accessible to non-Aussies or just the depressing universality of Goodes’s experiences, The Australian Dream echoes far beyond national boundaries. So, in a much more positive way, does the man himself.