Tim Grierson

“One to One” isn’t a salute to the Beatles’ brilliance or Lennon’s genius. Despite the large screens this film will play on, the movie renders its subjects as touchingly life-sized.

Unquestionably uneven and only occasionally inspired, Hail, Caesar! is nonetheless engrossing and funny thanks to its off-kilter energy and a lead performance from Coens regular Josh Brolin that’s a model of quietly controlled chaos.

Mickey 17 sometimes wobbles balancing its different tones. But what holds Bong’s eighth feature together is his palpable rage at humanity’s cruelty mixed with his compassion for a protagonist who cannot die – and, therefore, cannot truly live.

Lit from within by the sunny disposition of its main character, Mrs Harris Goes To Paris is a lovely, modest ode to kindness, anchored by Lesley Manville’s considered performance as a housekeeper who is tired of feeling invisible.

There’s a gentle, lived-in quality to the material that’s a departure for Soderbergh, whose films would rarely be called heartfelt. But by his standards, the unhurried Let Them All Talk is an unusually compassionate examination of a group of characters, across different generations, who find themselves at a crossroads.

Considering it’s geared towards children — although not afraid to show some of the harsher realities of the animal kingdom — Penguins is more instructional tool than scintillating nonfiction investigation. But resistance to these sweet, wobbly critters is futile.

The movie takes some risks near the end that underline the story’s central themes while also undercutting them. But Tully is at its best when it’s simply moving intuitively from one negotiated respite to the next.

It may play a little flatly, but its sincerity of purpose remains affecting throughout.

The violence is never stylized, Córdova showing its subtle, corrosive force in these people’s lives.

Although the film sometimes dips into muddled melodrama, those occasional setbacks can’t derail a story filled with warm, resonant characters trying to fathom their own hearts.

By this point, the 1960s have been sufficiently chronicled and celebrated, but the specificity of Linklater’s portrait nevertheless has a poignancy to it.

Day One never reaches the inspired heights of what came before, but Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn are compelling as strangers forced to work together in a devastated New York.

Marielle Heller’s fourth feature is a gently observant comedy-drama about the perils of motherhood that could use a little more bite.

Often in sports, teams run the same plays over and over again, simply because they work. That’s true of The Way Back as well: We appreciate the expert skill, even if we know almost every move by heart.

As she did with Shiva Baby, Seligman shows a keen eye for her characters’ mortification, albeit without her previous picture’s precisely modulated discomfort. By design, Bottoms is a broader, more outrageous comedy, and unfortunately the jokes are not as cutting.

The director of The Lure has a knack for peculiar protagonists — not to mention mixing whimsy with darker textures — but her latest provocation wouldn’t be so affecting if not for the committed performances of Wright and Tamara Lawrance, who play sisters who understand one another when no one else does.

Even for opera neophytes who couldn’t tell a soprano from a tenor, Ron Howard’s brisk, engaging film capably maps out an art form that Luciano Pavarotti ruled for decades, including enough technical insight to go along with an overview of the maestro’s personal and professional highlights.

More informational than revealing, John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ documentary makes the case that in times of great uncertainty concerning mysterious diseases, calm reason and unassailable science are our staunchest allies — two assets the 80-year-old immunologist possesses to ample degree.

Deft performances from Lubna Azabal and Nisrin Erradi add heart and soul to this slender chronicle of a de facto family learning to rely on one another.

George Clooney and newcomer Britt Robertson are solidly compelling, but Tomorrowland remains only a moderate success, its ingenuity, wit and enormous heart too often at odds with a ho-hum story and tentpole conventionality that the film tries so hard to transcend.

Thankfully, Eastwood’s sure grasp of this inherently compelling story mostly overcomes his sentimental propensities.

This horror-action picture offers modest genre pleasures and a consistently spooky vibe, resulting in a film that has been designed chiefly to ensure future sequels, although the story includes enough emotional shading and robust set pieces to be an engaging standalone feature.

Landesman’s film may not be scintillating drama, but it aches with muted anger, and his cast makes sure to keep the proceedings at a consistent simmering boil.

The muddled but icily engaging All The Money In The World is a thriller packed with ideas which director Ridley Scott only sporadically delineates with the same vividness as he does his stylish compositions. And yet, this true-life tale of the kidnapping of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty’s grandson maintains its hold, bluntly outlining how the desperate clamour for wealth poisons all those caught up in its frenzy.

This earnest tale succeeds thanks to its potent themes — including the tension between old traditions and new ways of thinking — and Ejiofor locates the story’s emotional underpinnings without succumbing to cheap manipulation or mawkishness.

Its smooth efficiency offers plenty of sturdy pleasures. What’s missing are the emotional underpinnings that made these movies not just top-flight action vehicles but also stirringly soulful.

Case 137’s no-frills style can leave the film feeling a tad generic, and one wishes that Moll resisted underlining some of his thematic points so strenuously. But there’s a laudable awareness of the racial, class and gender issues at play in this story of a dogged middle-aged woman going into battle against a heavily male police force.

Aided by Owen Pallett’s occasionally jittery score, Alice, Darling can sometimes possess the faint air of a thriller, albeit one in which the central menace is offscreen, far removed from Alice and her friends. But Kendrick, who has said she’s experienced psychological abuse in a past relationship, wrings dramas from Alice’s internal trauma.

Whedon and his large, capable cast (even larger for this follow-up) deliver enough adventure, laughs and flat-out spectacle to ensure that audiences will feel as if they have gotten their money’s worth, especially when Ultron zeroes in on the quiet humanity beneath the special effects.

Blank’s lively debut feels liberated by its maker’s creative freedom.

An unusual underdog saga about an ordinary investor who inspired a grassroots movement that scared Wall Street’s major hedge funds, Dumb Money is a snappy, entertaining picture that taps into a lingering resentment about how rigged the financial markets feel to many Americans.

As with his award-winning debut, the French filmmaker sometimes risks heavy-handedness to make his points, but his argument’s brute force is amply persuasive.

While this defiantly unflashy film may similarly feel out of step, long on mawkishness and short on dynamic, arresting moments, the purity of its gently mournful tone stays with you.

This sequel can’t compare to John Carpenter’s ingenious 1978 original, but director David Gordon Green delivers a crowd-pleasing chiller that doubles as an existential commentary on horror itself, both on the screen and in our lives.

Fingernails’ themes may be a tad trite, but the storytelling’s unfussy elegance helps sell Nikou’s message about the messy vitality of true love.

The free-flowing style, aided by dreamlike editing from Isabel Freeman, is both playful and sombre, offering a captivating snapshot of a young artist trying to make sense of her complicated self.

An enjoyable star vehicle that provides the beloved comic with one of his most substantial roles.

The latest instalment in the DC Extended Universe too often succumbs to the conventions of its genre — it’s a film suffused with hokey punchlines and predictably gaudy action set pieces — but some compelling performances and director Jaume Collet-Serra’s ebullient B-movie flourishes prove to be sufficient compensation.

Several emotionally attuned performances help paper over Boy Erased’s storytelling weaknesses.

The film has much to say about peer pressure and male rites of passage, although Polinger’s points can become repetitive and his insights not especially deep. Still, this uneven mixture of coming-of-age drama and psychological horror suggests a filmmaker with a flair for unsettling atmosphere.

Examining a post-apocalypse through the eyes of a few souls left to carry on the human race, The Midnight Sky is an uneven but ultimately thoughtful and moving survival story.

The storytelling in Sex is ho-hum, but the sincerity of the undertaking — and the issues at the film’s centre — make it hard to resist, no matter what objections might be raised.

If nothing else, this intimate, well-observed drama should prove to be a nice calling card for its first-time feature filmmaker.

As much as her camera patiently and sensitively observes Gabriel and Maya, they still feel a bit distant, their unspoken hopes and fears just out of reach — for us and perhaps for them, too.

Kokuho is a hearty melodrama with a little bit of everything — sex scandals, betrayals, unlikely comebacks, health scares — but the film’s gaudy plot twists (which shouldn’t be spoiled) belie the filmmaker’s unsentimental attitude regarding stardom’s perils.

The Woman King doesn’t always successfully juggle its myriad narrative ambitions, but director Gina Prince-Bythewood has crafted battle sequences that are exciting and moving at the same time.

The prickly protagonists of Funny Pages would not be pleasant company in real life, but writer-director Owen Kline’s proudly dyspeptic feature debut gives his characters a scruffy integrity that makes them perversely fascinating.

There’s a slightness to this tale, and also a nagging familiarity in its exploration of twenty-something restlessness, but Raiff’s compassionate eye — paired with Dakota Johnson’s melancholy turn — results in a touching, understated affair.

Each new segment of All That’s Left of You is its own self-contained drama, but they build on one another, the past’s invisible weight bearing down on children who cannot fully comprehend the sorrow that came before, but have grown up knowing nothing else.

Like its appealing main character, I Feel Pretty is a smart, funny comedy that isn’t always confident enough in its potential greatness.

Homegrown never makes excuses for its subjects — there’s no blaming their ugly views on economic disparity — but the disturbing ordinariness of these men is chilling.

Lacking some of the simplicity and elegance of the first instalment, The Conjuring 2 is nonetheless a smoothly efficient horror movie, building to a powerhouse finale rooted in our emotional connection to the film’s well-drawn main characters.

With its restrained tone and measured performances, The Sun Rises creates a fragile world populated by characters who don’t know how to move forward — either separately or, perhaps, together.

Following up her Sundance prizewinner Clemency, director Chinonye Chukwu brings intelligence, sorrow and rage to what eventually becomes a courtroom drama, but the film is most effective when it pushes against its conventionality, locating the psychic scars within this woman and the nation.

Sometimes Shults’ reach exceeds his grasp, resulting in a self-conscious epic that wants to hammer home its characters’ emotional wreckage. Nevertheless, Waves is also powerfully immersive, investing so passionately in these individuals that it’s hard not to do the same.

With superb understatement, Marceau communicates Emmanuele’s seemingly inexhaustible patience, while hinting at all the unresolved feelings she has about this impossible man.

The film’s professional polish and slick accessibility sometimes come at the expense of probing insight, but those still grieving his suicide should find comfort here.

Whitney is strongest when it connects Houston to the larger history of Black America, illustrating how this glamorous performer grew up in poverty and never entirely escaped the obligation of helping to pull up her underprivileged family members.

Coen draws from existing interviews and performance footage to create a portrait that is far from definitive, and yet the film’s snapshot quality manages to amplify what is so mythic about the 86-year-old legend — and also what remains so vexing.

Although the film doesn’t always deftly balance sentiment and broad humour, it is fun to spend time with such raucous company.

The film can sometimes be dramatically simplistic, relying on perfunctory montages and creaky expositional dialogue, but Domingo ensures that Rustin is a layered and vibrant character, pushing Rustin to be bolder than it otherwise is.

This thriller can sometimes be too mechanical — a breezy exercise if not always an emotionally satisfying one — and yet the large cast’s willingness to get on Johnson’s brainy, sprightly wavelength makes this an enjoyable romp.

The Ugly is less concerned with the machinations of the whodunit and more invested in how physical appearance defines both ourselves and our feelings about others.

Brie Larson gives Carol the right mixture of sweetness, humour and swagger, underlining the film’s message of self-empowerment with a light touch.

Running over three hours, and swamped with sex, drugs and over-the-top set pieces, this swaggering drama seems infused with the impetuous energy of its characters, resulting in a film that’s drunk on its own ambition, wildly uneven but never, ever boring.