Simran Hans

There is about as much jeopardy as you’d expect from an action thriller about an obscure land dispute; a tense encounter with an angry polar bear and a phantom hot air balloon are highlights during the endless plodding across the frozen wilderness.

Letts gives thoughtful context to the way he was able to straddle the racially delineated worlds of dub reggae and punk rock, drawing parallels between the merging of subcultures in 1970s London, and the intersection of hip-hop and rock’n’roll in 1980s New York.

Poehler, herself a gifted comedian, doesn’t include her own voice in the film, though we still get a sense of her feminist perspective.

Basholli understands that healing is possible, even if closure isn’t.

Despite the inherent silliness, the actors play it straight. There’s an earnestness to Rylance’s performance, which encourages us to find inspiration in the underdog.

Diallo utilises the visual language of horror – red lighting, empty shower stalls, a gnarled hand that emerges from under the bed – to express the terror of racism and the rot of its legacy.

The latest film from horror director Ti West (The House of the Devil), about a porn movie shoot gone wrong, is ripe with playful winks and nudges.

Zoë Kravitz is a highlight as cocktail waitress turned cat burglar Selina Kyle.

Ostrochovský’s camera emphasises the constricting architecture of both church and state, with its black and white morality and a claustrophobic central courtyard, frequently portrayed via stiff, judgmental God’s-eye shots.

The film’s message is a beautiful one: to integrate our real-life vulnerabilities with the persona we project is to become all the more powerful.

When Fine encourages him to elaborate, Wilson isn’t especially articulate, but his emotional responses to the individual songs are often lucid and revealing.

Hadjithomas and Joreige thoughtfully explore trauma while remaining joyful, animating Maia’s photos, which fizz, crackle and dance to life on screen.

Adams is a vivacious screen presence with a twinkle in her eye, and Jordan can’t quite match her, unable to draw out any real inner turmoil in a character who is respectable to a fault.

Kenneth Branagh’s unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.

The film is obsessed with deconstructing good screenwriting, the way a line lands, and ensuring clear character motivation.

The smug asides plastered on screen, and the hyperactive inserts of nature documentary footage do nothing to raise the film’s real-life stakes.

Jóhannsson teases the possibility of a monster, but waits to reveal his hand. When he does, there’s more than a touch of gallows humour. I laughed out loud at his audacity, and had nightmares later.

The film is best when it sticks to children’s caper mode, jostled along by gentle toilet humour, bad-tempered barnyard animals and a scene of two kids driving a van across Manhattan.

This thoughtful documentary about Arthur Ashe, the first African American man to win Wimbledon in 1975, understands that representation is only one step towards equality.

The film is a utopian riff on the apocalyptic source material, a Technicolor reimagining flooded with light and optimism.

The film has a cold, abstract beauty.

The film can’t resist revelling in a conservative conclusion outside Buckingham Palace, with a victory banner fluttering against a smattering of St George’s flags.

The film’s bluesy woodwind score has a teasing, goading quality that feels tinged with melancholy; the spectre of Aids hovers around the film’s edges.

Film-maker Jamila Wignot pays particular attention to the specificity of Ailey’s black influences: the church, blues music and his southern upbringing, all of which informed his best-known work, Revelations (1960).

Refreshingly, Farhadi is ambivalent towards his “hero”, and his control over the film’s tone is masterful; what begins as funny and almost farcical, soon shifts into something much sadder and more sobering.

MacKay is muted; his character is teased for his reserve, a quality he shares with the film. Niewöhner gives the sparkier performance, as a passionate German nationalist whose loyalty has flipped.

Simon Kinberg’s film feels aggressively focus-grouped for the girl-boss crowd.

It’s a bouncy, grin-inducing romp through Caribbean takeaways, designer boutiques stacked with Moschino streetwear and one ill-advised trip south of the river.

The story is a little flat, but the gorgeous, hand-crafted puppets and sets give the film dimension.

What’s interesting and unexpected is the film’s subtle acknowledgement of culturally specific generational trauma and displacement.

Alexandra Shipp is a grounding presence as Larson’s girlfriend, Susan, while Garfield fizzes with energy and outsize emotion. He’s a fabulous crier and pitch-perfect as a shrill, preening narcissist who manages, against the odds, to remain resolutely likable.

In theory, natural light is more forgiving than its artificial counterpart: in photographs, it makes the subject look less harsh. Less so here.

Sudanese film-maker Amjad Abu Alala’s radiant drama dares to wonder if death could inspire courage rather than fear.

There’s something touching about seeing the 91-year-old Eastwood in such a reflective mood.

What could have been a disaster in the hands of a less sensitive film-maker ends up an extraordinary feat of care, collaboration and creativity.

As far as the plot is concerned, almost nothing happens, and yet Andreas Fontana’s sinewy debut teems with unseen threat. He crafts an atmosphere of grubbiness despite all the polished surfaces.

It’s satisfyingly gross – there’s plenty of black bile, crunching bones and half-chewed bodies. Russell, best known for her radiant portrayal of a domestic abuse survivor in Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress, is clever casting too.

Hall emphasises the moral grey area by shooting in black and white, an ingenious choice that allows her to light Clare as black or white.

The debut feature from animation studio Locksmith is cute but familiar.

In an improvement on the film’s predecessor, director Andy Serkis dispenses with detailed explanations and instead amps up the humour, leaning into the goofy, flirtatious dynamic between Venom and Brock.

A more conventional director might have chosen to focus on their most famous member, Reed, but Haynes smartly structures the film as a group show, giving space to the women in the ensemble.

Though Brühl is an affable and witty screen presence, there’s no getting round the fact that the film is a vanity project.

[A] tender observational documentary.

Alexis Louder holds her own as the heroine of (and sole woman in) Joe Carnahan’s lean, mean, 70s-inspired action thriller.

The director treats the film as an empathy exercise, hoping to complicate and humanise a terrorist. Yet this is undermined by the obvious red flags that she plants in each section. Saeed’s flight path becomes a foregone conclusion.

The film’s abrupt tonal shifts are jarring.

The journey is a nice excuse to paint Tom into a cheerily cosmopolitan portrait of the UK.

Though this stolid drama, based on a true case, begins as a procedural, about systems, processes and deadlines, it is most absorbing when it zeroes in on one man’s moral arc.

The overall tone is one of wry knowingness, which is DaCosta’s achilles heel.

Whishaw’s intensity is gripping to watch but the character remains opaque; whether we’re meant to read Joseph as experiencing psychosis or simply suffering the unforgiving conditions of city life under capitalism is ambiguous.

Though the film is teed up as a kind of John Wick-style revenge bender, Cage’s star persona is soon smartly subverted.

The fuzzy plotting is balanced by Hall’s brilliantly controlled performance as the caustic, sceptical Beth, whose grief has pushed her to the knife edge of sanity.

From his cheesy narration (“Nothing is more addictive than the past,” Nick solemnly opines) to the movie’s double-crossing femme fatale and nocturnal, neon-lit setting, the director has great fun playing with genre tropes, but it’s unclear whether she’s going for heightened camp.

[A] sensitive, frequently harrowing observational documentary.

Rarely does a half-hour TV show successfully stretch itself into a 90-minute film. It’s a nice surprise, then, that the popular BBC mockumentary works as a feature.

The film is a meticulously, perhaps even cynically crafted crowd-pleaser. Even those alive to its tactics might find themselves wiping away a tear or two.

Indecision and miscommunication, it turns out, are timeless. Sexiness less so, with Jones and Rizwan not quite able to summon the smouldering chemistry of Woodley and Turner.

The ratcheting tension is sadly punctured by unintentionally hilarious scenes of ambitious “research” by journalist Amy (Valene Kane), mostly involving frantic Googling and YouTube tutorials on “how to look younger”.

Directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), this is a thoughtful, knotty character study, albeit one nestled inside a polished, and less interesting, action thriller.

The film is understated rather than mawkish.

The film’s second half suffers from frantic pacing and overstuffed action sequences.

Dujardin plays it ingeniously straight, embarking on a violent rampage set to French lounge music.

The cartoonish tone of the relentless violence feels at odds with the otherwise sombre, apocalyptic mood.

James’s natural charisma should allow the film to soar but he’s bogged down by an avalanche of distracting cameos, from Gremlins to Game of Thrones.

Writer-director Jeremy Hersh tackles the intersection of race, sexuality, class and disability with rare nuance in this wry indie drama, which observes sharply the trappings of millennial entitlement and liberal hypocrisy.

Alma Pöysti is luminous as Jansson, bringing to life her playful, pleasure-seeking artist’s spirit.

Merlant’s performance is committed, and the film takes her romantic and sexual fixation with the ride seriously, immersing the viewer in her dazzling, neon-lit world.

If writing is a democratic art and social leveller, Marcello indicts the celebrity author as a sellout, steamrolling their way to success.

The film spends scant time exploring the implications of these darker themes, and doesn’t attempt to understand the root of Dreykov’s god complex. Instead, it’s more comfortable in comedy mode.

Pontecorvo seems particularly interested in conveying the gravitas of Lúcia’s spiritual burden, which is anchored by Gil, who is full of quiet intensity and impressive conviction.

Footage of recent concerts and meet and greets is included to showcase both her imperious glamour and how far she’s come, yet we never really get a sense of where she’s been, let alone My Life’s musical and cultural context.

Prior acquaintance with the eight previous instalments of this colossal action movie franchise isn’t necessary for enjoyment of this one – the film’s muscle cars and maximalist approach continue to serve it well.

Von Horn understands the gap between Sylwia’s authenticity online – mediated through the safety of a screen – and the intimacy her followers feel entitled to in real life.

The frenetic pacing, intended to sweep the audience along, can’t draw attention away from Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh’s platitude-riddled script.

To suggest Krasinski is only interested in surface thrills feels at odds with the seriousness of his craft. Judicious pacing, clever cross-cutting and visceral sound design build tension, but there’s an absence of soul, and no satisfying sense of what the monsters might be a metaphor for.

Wright is sympathetic and believable, but we never truly get a sense of Edee or her desires outside the bounds of her loss.

With its hero’s journey structure, punchily edited racing scenes and warmly drawn oddball community (a widow, Maureen, is obsessed with Tunnock’s Tea Cakes), the film is shamelessly predictable and thoroughly feelgood.

Crawford is brilliant and bitter as a soon-to-be divorced dad unable to accept his fate.

To call the film meditative would be to undersell Kosakovskiy’s instinct for drama and tension.

For a film about magic, there’s little sparkle to spare.

It’d be easy to mistake the director’s deadpan observation for mocking, but the space he holds for the darker aspects of his characters’ individual stories helps to puncture any cultivated cutesyness.

Unfortunately, the second half is over-reliant on flashy disaster set pieces, blazing towards a predictable, melodramatic conclusion.

Valadez’s expressionist images give texture to the abstract emotions of rage and pain.

Shanley has an Oscar and a Pulitzer (he wrote the sublime Moonstruck, and the stage and screen versions of Doubt). Here, that’s easy to forget, given the cartoon accents and overblown metaphors about horses destined to jump the fence.

The film retains a warm sense of humour about technology’s grip on society.

Levine’s playful deconstruction of tortured genius is a witty and provocative send-up of tyrannical directors, diva-ish actors and over-invested voyeurs alike.

Kawase’s frequent use of handheld camera gives parts of the film a quasi-documentary feel, but it’s the lyrical touches . . . that hit the hardest.

There’s just enough magic and mystery to tease out a supernatural reading of the film, though Petzold encourages viewers to find pleasure in puzzling out his femme fatale for themselves.

The styling is at odds with the otherwise straightforward courtroom narrative. The prestige procedural elements work better; the real-life story is enraging, and it’s fun to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s morally conflicted military prosecutor lock horns with Foster’s icy human rights lawyer.

The spectacle is more involving than the plot, especially the dazzling image of Kong floating skyward, serene and surrounded by purple glowing rocks.

Rosi’s broader critique of violence is implied through footage of a play performed by patients in a psychiatric hospital, and of a children’s art therapy class. He is more interested in the reverberations of conflict than the source, focusing on those who have suffered its effects directly.

There is an incandescence and a buoyancy to the animation that elevates the formula.

The comedy doesn’t work quite as well this way around, though Fowler is extremely likable as a sweet-natured slacker, channelling the endearing guilelessness of Murphy’s original Prince Akeem. Still, there are enough in-jokes and returning characters to keep fans happy.

Maslany is magnetic, her coiled fury and sexual energy threatening to erupt as her placid partner plods along beside her.

Favier is smart on the mechanics of abuse, and the sobering inevitability of her heroine’s downhill skid.

These self-consciously upbeat moments clash horribly with the wider redemption narrative.

The sci-fi stuff is tedious, but Wiig and Mumolo are bawdy and brilliant as ever, their effortless chemistry bolstered by years of collaboration.

Perhaps wisely, Ryan White’s slick documentary chooses not to mine the bizarre scene for comic potential. Instead, he spins the arrest of Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong – economic migrants from Indonesia and Vietnam respectively – into a parable about political corruption.