Tara Brady

With its lurid libidinous action and over-the-top murders, Pearl is a jokey spin-off of a jokey film. Imagine – and we mean this as a compliment – the slasher equivalent of The Naked Gun 2. Offsetting the self-indulgence, Goth sinks her teeth into the goose-killing heroine and spits out all the feathers.

The kind of kids who hide behind the couch during Scooby-Doo may well feel emboldened by the fuzzy feelings, silly quips and toothless villains. But it all feels rather pointless for the non-meek community.

It is often argued that The Strokes are the last rock stars and that their Manhattan peers are the last great bohemians. It’s an Americentric view, but it’s gospel truth for this appealing if impressionistic time capsule.

It seems churlish to complain that a film about a global serial killer is unnecessarily brutal and nasty. But between blackmail victims splatting on the pavements of Piccadilly Circus to bodies frozen under snowy lakes, Luther: The Fallen Sun is as distasteful as it is silly.

The film is not as taut as Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s similarly themed 2015 thriller, The Lesson, but its freewheeling authenticity gives it charm and momentum.

The winner of the Ecumenical Jury Award at the 2022 Cannes Festival finds warmth and empathy in the unlikeliest and most unethical places.

Mostly, Joyland is a film of huge heart and empathy. Mirroring the hapless hero’s journey, it’s an unexpected romance.

The powerful current Palme d’Or favourite features terrific performances from youthful leads Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele, claustrophobic cinematography from Frank van den Eeden, weepie-worthy orchestrations from Valentin Hadjadj, and meaningful musings on how we hide behind small-talk, and internalise pain and gender norms.

Playwright Florian Zeller’s third instalment – and second film – in a cycle that includes The Father is a muscular, devastating drama that ought to have featured more prominently in the protracted “awards conversation”.

An elegantly structured film composed of clever, delicate movements, every aspect of Georgia Oakley’s debut feature – from Izabella Curry’s editing to Kirsty Halliday’s period costuming – is as restrained as Rosy McEwen’s excellent performance.

There is a lot to like here, not least Ray Winstone’s Papa Bear. The forests are Skittle-coloured. The set pieces are wild and kinetic. But it is Banderas’s star power that saves the day.

Despite the claustrophobic setting, Diop crafts an evocative modern retelling of Medea, with detailed notes on femininity, immigration and race.

Poitras’s biopic of Goldin is powered along by righteous fury: an engaging portrait of both the artist and her activism.

The dialogue is yellow-pack, the set-up is so silly you wonder why they didn’t parachute in a dinosaur or set off a volcanic explosion for good measure, and the sparsely populated commercial flight screams budgetary constraints. Still, it ticks along, makes merry, and everyone works hard and sweatily to put the “AAAAAAH” back into action.

For all Joachim Philippe and Virginie Surdue’s handsome cinematography, this lyrical documentary lacks focus and, more disappointingly, historical context. A missed opportunity.

It’s a cracking, effective thriller, powered by uneasiness, and made all the more potent by the recent death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old killed in police custody after being detained for violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code for women.

The film arguably shares DNA with the psycho-geographical works of Pat Collins and Alan Gilsenan.

Mendes’s script, though it contains some memorable scenes, tries to do too much, as it takes on racial and sexual inequality, mental-health issues and, incongruously, the romance of cinema.

Against the distress, Chukwu and Deadwyler find purpose in Mamie’s transformation into a hugely influential civil rights activist. This is a woman’s account of striving for racial justice in the era of Jim Crow laws.

An entirely non-professional cast makes it seem as if the director-editor Ana Pfaff and cinematographer Daniela Cajias simply happened upon every beautifully composed sequence. The effects can be slow-burning and occasionally a little shapeless, but they cast their dappled spell as the summer wears on.

Corsage shares some obvious DNA with Pablo Larraín’s Spencer and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, but where those films swoon for their put-upon heroines, Krieps brings an unapologetic flintiness.

We’re accustomed to Dumont leapfrogging from one genre to another, but he has seldom attempted so many swerves and shifts as he manages here.

The Pale Blue Eye is beautifully shot and absurdly plotted.

Working on a small budget, writer-director Alison Locke puts the confinement of one location in service of her claustrophobic script. A promising first feature.

It’s a lovely thing to behold, but who exactly is this for? Unlike Matteo Garrone’s sublime 2019 fantasy, a version that managed to be faithful, wildly imaginative and all-ages in appeal, this brooding musical veers wildly between primary school scatology, repeated journeys to the underworld and darkest history.

Between Kurtz and Stigter – a Dutch journalist who authored Atlas Of An Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945 – no stone is left unturned.

The pretty pictures and silhouetted, sanitised sex will do well enough for Bridgerton fans, but the material has strayed so far from the source, one wonders why they kept the title.

Save for some Skittle-coloured CG and cartoon violence, the original West End director Matthew Warchus puts a filmed version of the stage show onscreen. Theatre fans will be delighted; movie fans will wonder where the wide-angle chorus lines went to.