Wendy Ide

The film’s main asset is Apte, a gifted physical comedian who puts the dead into deadpan, and loads every gesture with an aggressive, almost demented slap-stick infused humour.

The compelling Ellis-Taylor goes some way towards tying together the disparate elements. She is a magnetic, dignified presence, persuasive in both the more melodramatic elements of the story and in the academic journey.

With stately restraint, Bellocchio manages to put the audience in an ever-tightening chokehold of tension and outrage.

Flashes of violence are effectively jarring when juxtaposed with the chintzy cosiness of much of the film. Less successful are two thudding, lead-weight flashbacks, which disgorge chunks of exposition and quash some of the fun in McKellen and Mirren’s deft double act.

As a portrait of friendship, viewed through the compound eye of a mutant insect, it is multidimensional and rather moving.

It helps that Gordon is a dream of a subject: funny, frank and eminently likable, she challenges preconceptions and prejudices about fatness with wit and grace.

Writer-director Evan Morgan’s deft screenplay balances a taut crime story against a textured character study.

A must watch.

While this picture lacks the guileless immediacy of the child’s-eye view of her first two films, Romeria demonstrates once again that Simon has a rare gift for capturing the unpredictable, mercurial beast that is the family.

Even if the scattershot plotting doesn’t quite hold together, there’s a wayward energy to the picture and a barbed sense of mischief.

This is not a film which minimises the pain of depression or the impulse to end it all. Bruises, both physical and mental, are on show throughout. It’s an approach which might come at the expense of some of the humour – the comedy evokes bittersweet grimaces rather than belly laughs – but does make for a satisfying study of male friendship.

The film features dazzling action and a fantasy world that is realised with an almost tactile level of detail. Seek it out on a monster-size screen if at all possible.

Borrowing a punky, handmade aesthetic from the famous monthly programme posters, the film collates wildly entertaining interviews with former staff and punters.

The brisk rhythms and energy of the storytelling ensure that the pace rarely flags, and that every frame of this film about the business of death is bursting with life.

Whis is a teen comedy with a refreshingly forthright approach to everything from puberty to the status of 13th-century women as chattels to be bartered.

It may lack the originality of the best Miyazaki films, but with its heart-swelling score and exquisitely realised worlds, this is a must for Ghibli fans.

It’s a fun, silly premise, but while there’s no shortage of stoner humour, the film is deeper and considerably more satisfying than the drug-baked adolescent wisecracking might initially suggest.

Firecracker chemistry between the two leads makes this doomed Romeo and Juliet romance all the more tragically persuasive. Mavela’s kittenish little girl voice is utterly beguiling; Marwan’s adolescent swagger doesn’t quite conceal the sweet boy beneath.

If anything, this follow-up is even more enjoyable, its appeal boosted by Milady slinking on to centre stage, her weaponised sexuality backed up by her private collection of daggers and swords.

Denis Côté’s eerie fantasy drama juxtaposes the mundane and the parochial with the supernatural, to sometimes disquieting effect.

With its looming, angular and alienating architecture, and thoroughly considered technological and ethical future landscape, this is a phenomenal and inventive piece of world-building from Prague-based director Robert Hloz.

In the elegant balance of these seemingly incongruous elements, Guadagnino has outdone himself.

It’s a droll, perceptive and shamelessly sentimental look at generational tensions.

Fans will no doubt find the film fascinating, if a little dispiriting: it may be like eavesdropping on your parents, only to discover that they’re on the brink of divorce.

The family scenes, all jostling banter and suffocating love, are terrific.

A third act that stumbles into genre territory loses focus temporarily, but is redeemed by a scene that celebrates the power of words above all else.

Kendrick’s knack for capturing period detail goes beyond the psychedelic synthetics and kipper ties. She taps into the treacherous sexism that was hardwired into the entertainment industry and wider culture of the time, both of which are shown to be minefields of fragile male egos and potential violence.

What is particularly striking, however, uniting most critics so far, is how elegantly the film flows; there is a curious, intuitive logic weaving together these randomly chosen scenes and clips. It’s an outstanding achievement.