Tara Brady

As ever, Zhao Tao puts in the best performance you’ll see this year.

As the implausible romance gives way to boardroom shenanigans, House of Gucci grinds to a dramatic halt with still more than an hour of run time to go. There’s nothing luxe about the shoddy stitching and sackcloth.

The most magical moments are the most ordinary, as Claire Mathon’s camera sneaks up on the two little girls in peals of laughter as they make a mess with pancakes or divvying up the parts in the script for (a fantastic-sounding) murder-mystery.

The entire ensemble is remarkable. The drama is so engrossing, it knocks the jaunty Beatles song right out of the viewer’s head.

Afterlife is fine. It passes the time. But somewhere between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man recycled as hundreds of Tribble-alike menaces and Muncher, a fatter variant of Slimer, one finds oneself wishing that studios might use their vast resources for something more than the repackaging of old rope.

Adapted from a section of Pál Závada’s 2014 novel, from the first wintry opening shot in which hunters hack away at a dead deer, Natural Light is a chilly, unknowable film, one that repeatedly evokes brutality and the more desolate tableaux found in Andrei Tarkovsky’s work to deadening effect.

The Card Counter – executive produced by Martin Scorsese – revisits Schrader’s twin preoccupations with despair and salvation, powered along by tart political urgency, a magnetic central performance from Isaac, and no little style.

Watching Andreas Fontana’s wildly impressive first feature, co-written by the director and writer Mariano Llinás, is a little like being Warren Beatty in The Parallax View.

Heartfelt performances from such terrific actors as Keri Russell and Scott Haze fail to turn this hotchpotch of competing themes into cohesive drama.

Dragon 2 feels like a proper film, not just a cartoon.

We’ll say one thing for Boss Baby 2: its untidy, unpredictable, and unmannerly form does, indeed, evoke the exhausting, mucky business of baby tending, albeit with nothing like the familial rewards.

Has Denis Villeneuve succeeded where others – most notably Alejandro Jodorowsky – have floundered? Given the extensive runtime, it’s impossible not to think of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s alleged assessment of the French revolution: “Too early to say.”

As with its frantic copyright-countdown predecessor, Venom 2 is, by any metric, a bad movie. But, gosh darnit, it’s going to be the baddest bad movie of the year.

The emotional pyrotechnics that scaffold most cancer dramas, give way to something that is as honest as it is understated.

Two directors and four credited screenwriters signed off on a lazy screenplay that a starry cast and an Oscar-winner can do little to enliven.

If you have ever experienced acute anxiety, panic attacks or any other nervous disorder, then watching Anne at 13,000 Ft – presumably through your fingers – will bring a sense of representation and horror in equal measure.

Just as Youri fashions outsider art – or survivalist dreams – from his doomed banlieue, Liatard and Trouilh craft an imaginative debut feature from the rubble.

It’s certainly something to see – especially Malgosia Turzanska’s costumes and Jade Healy’s production design – and plenty to mull over but both the viewer and the film-maker should have guessed from the offset that there can only be one Barry Lyndon.

There’s enough drama to hold the film together for the uninitiated, although many fleetingly introduced characters suggest that – for all David Chase’s protests against streaming – we’re watching a pilot rather than a truly standalone project.

O’Connor, who caused a stir with his breakthrough turn in God’s Own Country, and Catalan actor Costa, share an easy and natural chemistry. They don’t blaze up the screen: they simmer and charm.

The director and star deftly juggles social commentary, genre tension, spookiness and some fabulous period costumes (courtesy of designer Maïra Ramedhan Levi).

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, for all its razzle-dazzle, never loses sight of its northern working-class roots.

Technically impressive and anchored by two terrific turns, Copilot walks a fine line as it attempts to delve into the humanity under extremism.

A lively, coming-of-age fable featuring Rockwell’s family – including wife and former Fresh Prince star Karyn Parsons, daughter Lana and son Nico – Sweet Thing has been described by Tarantino as one of the most powerful new films to emerge in years. It’s certainly memorable.

At times, Here Today feels like looking at a tableau vivant or courtly fool antics. No matter: Crystal is still the jester to beat.

Working from a libretto by the cult band Sparks, cult director Leos Carax’s English-language debut is unlikely to please mayonnaise mainstream tastes. But for those seeking surprises, spectacle, and shadows, Annette is a marvel like no other.

Co-written with Blomkamp’s District 9 collaborator Terri Tatchell, the film has agreeably creepy blurred ideas about the human experience and the simulated experience. And it’s never dull.

Jude Law channels swaggering disquiet, resembling both the tormentor and tormented of a Harold Pinter play.