Foe plays to the strengths of its actors, two of the most natural and subtle on screen, and is endlessly engaging even though it eventually stumbles into head-spinning narrative problems.

Mulholland Falls is a period thriller that is distinguished by an excellent cast, even if most of them seem to be outdoing each other in deep gravel voices.

It's kitsch at times and transcendent at others, but the delicate puppetry and the gonzo ambition will guarantee Annette a cult following.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is no masterpiece, but it's warm, upbeat, unpretentious entertainment, and it's bound to be popular. We certainly won't have to wait another 23 years before the next Dungeons & Dragons film comes out.

Structured as a hardboiled detective thriller, Crimes of the Future has plenty of provocative concepts and images that will put a grin on your face (not least the dancer who has several ears on his face), but you may find yourself willing the plot to pick up momentum, and the ickiness to get a whole lot ickier.

It is a flawed film with a kind heart, but a significantly less impressive progeny of The Father's talky triumph. Like father, like son? Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case.

You have to hand it to Nolan. To use the old expression, he puts the money on the screen, delivering the kind of noisy, extravagant and fundamentally ridiculous pulp fiction which reminds you why you go to the cinema. But it collapses under the weight of all the plot strands and concepts stuffed into it. You don’t get the impression, which you usually get from his films, that every element is precisely where it should be. Some parts of it go on too long, others not long enough. It’s a treat to see a really big film again, but a smaller one might have been better.

Viewers are sure to be impressed by Aster's prodigious imagination and technical skill, amused by his gallows humour, and amazed by some of the outrageous images he puts on screen. But whether they will be enthralled by the film is another matter.

A cheesy but good-humoured voiceover adds to the charm, while the events on-screen can often be exciting and fascinating to watch.

The Order is a sombre, steadily paced, conventional drama. It's superbly acted by its charismatic cast, the locations and the period are evoked beautifully, and, best of all, the violent robberies and shoot-outs are staged with a nerve-jangling ferocity that recalls Michael Mann's Heat. But it isn't quite as gripping as the events deserve.

If a screenplay is going to be fixated on the history and purpose of storytelling, the stories within it have to be better.

It's a bona-fide piece of cultural history. If you love hip hop, this is unmissable.

It's a little hard to take Hugh seriously but he acquits himself reasonably well in this slight but entertaining thriller.

Eternals is more serious in tone and more deliberate in its pacing than the average Marvel movie, with less of the usual banter and no cameo appearances by other superheroes. But, if you're looking for the humanity and originality of Zhao's other films, you won't find much of it here.

A flimsy but pleasant enough comedy.

The actors keep the film going, at times by sheer magnetic on-screen presence even when the screenplay lets them down.

What's captivating about Bones & All is that it is so understated. The first few gory scenes suggest that Guadagnino has made an outrageous black comedy that gets its startled laughs and screams by contrasting the conventions of a coming-of-age romance with those of an X-rated monster movie. But soon Bones & All becomes entirely straight-faced. It isn't a horror film or a comedy, it's a sincere, sweet indie road movie that happens to feature bloodthirsty serial killers.

The racing sequences have enough energy and jeopardy to raise the pulse rate, but the rest of Ferrari... well, surely a film about high-speed cars shouldn't pootle along as slowly as this one does.

The main feeling it instils in the viewer is a renewed respect for the imagination of Lucas. The Rise of Skywalker has been lovingly crafted by a host of talented people, and yet the best they can do is pay tribute to everything he did several decades ago.

Branded by some as nothing more than a glorified soap opera, "An Affair to Remember" isn't afraid to employ some rather obvious dramatic devices, but it's hard not to become swept-up into a romance that seems doomed to failure.

The Whale retains the pacing, structure and conventions of a solid but clichéd melodrama.

Niki Caro’s film is a well-constructed family-friendly wuxia drama, with bright colours, grand scenery, and commendable themes. But it’s best enjoyed if you’re expecting a solid tween movie rather than a monumental cinematic landmark.

This is an energetic, fun, almost enchanting thriller with genuine moments of tension and a good few thrills too.

While not the most exhilarating 80 minutes, this is a movie that will find much identification with anyone whose teenage years were remotely angst ridden, with Hausner capturing the simmering tensions of suburban life with assured ease.

On Swift Horses isn't a disaster, but given its stars and potential, it is a disappointment.

Craig's soul-baring, skin-baring turn aside, Queer is a proudly artificial curio.

Ali G Indahouse delivers more than its fair share of saucy hilarity.

A mischievously rib-tickling tale with a stupidly simple premise: Sellers plays an uninvited guest at a Hollywood party who loses his shoe and talks in a dodgy Indian accent.

A poignant, heartfelt tribute to a vibrant New York subculture and its flamboyant acolytes, captured on grainy celluloid, shortly before it got appropriated and streamlined by the mainstream.

Coming on like an art-house Dead Calm (on which it was clearly an influence) Polanski's drama is slow-moving to the point of inertia, but patient viewers will appreciate the creeping tensions and Oedipal undertow. Not easily accessible, but a film whose scenes and themes stick with you.

It remains what it always was: a charming, escapist fairy tale.

MGM's lavish adaptation of Enid Bangold's evergreen novel is an at times winsome but nonetheless enjoyable yarn that remains a popular favourite among adults and children alike, dealing as it does with the notion of endeavour and the conviction of pursuing one's dreams.

It's not a perfect film because it does take quite a while to bring you into the characters' lives and engage you in their fate but when that becomes ominously clear, you're hooked.

Certainly the youngsters in Children of Heaven respond well to the direction of Majid Majidi and give off emotions and thoughts in such an unmannered way that many proper actors could learn loads.

Branagh has done a sterling job, full of energy and colour, and although some of them might balk at his modern interpretation of the story, his Magic Flute will no doubt attract aficionados, if not the popcorn crowd.

If more attention had been paid to plot and characterisation, this would have been a great rather than a good movie. Even so, it stands as a cinematic landmark. Without it there may well have been no Dirty Harry or The French Connection.

With such a dramatic opening The Fly has a lot to live up to and what emerges is a sad story of considerable pathos despite the ridiculous plot.

Despite a brief lull midway through the 83 minutes, The Magician largely succeeds as a good short story, thanks to Ryan's captivating performance in the lead role. An unlikely road movie/buddy movie hybrid, it has all the makings of a cult hit among discerning DVD collectors.

The film's message may be a clichéd staple of comic books - with great power comes great responsibility - but it's handled with sincerity and skill.

Leterrier's achievement in assembling such a gargantuan, multi-stranded, globe-trotting, head-spinning blockbuster is impressive, but however many gruff sermons Dom makes about his family, it's impossible to care about any of it.

The film is interesting and informative, but all those bomb blasts don't leave you as shaken as they should.

The film has its entertaining, off-the-wall comic moments.

The best superhero movies let you ignore how ludicrous the plots are, but the silliness of The Fantastic Four is always in your face.

Twisters isn't bad, but a braver film might have admitted that addressing the causes of extreme weather might be more useful than throwing nappies at it.

This laidback crime caper doesn't have a great deal more to offer, but there is something to be said for seeing the pals from Ocean's Eleven on the same screen again.

As cluttered as it is, though, Blink Twice is stylish and savage enough to gain a cult following. And it is undoubtedly the work of a skilled writer-director, rather than an actor who is having a go at directing.

Parts of Dune: Part 2 seem just as monumental, lavishly bizarre and downright disturbing as anything that Jodorowsky and Giger can have had in mind.

Ramsay's film-making flair lights up scene after scene, but as the narrative fragments, and reality and fantasy blur, you're left with the urge to read the novel to find out what's actually happening. The film may have communicated its heroine's boredom and bewilderment a little too effectively.

They're all beautifully performed, and they all sparkle with Lanthimos's deadpan genius: in his world, everything is just off-kilter enough to be funny, but just real enough to be horrifying.

The story also ends on a touchingly optimistic note, which is unusual for a Batman film. Who knows, maybe the next one won't be quite as gloomy. Pattinson might even crack a smile. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Chalamet gives Dylan a defiant look in his eyes and through these later scenes creates a visceral sense of his restlessness, of how important it is for him to break free of the public assumptions about him, both musically and as the spokesman of a generation. You can finally feel an energy that can't be restrained and that should have been in the film all along.

As an emotional journey Day One has its moments. For a supposedly scary movie, it's a little bit sloppy.

Beavan's costumes are dazzling throughout, including Cruella's glittering red dress at the Baroness's gala. But when the costumes overwhelm the characters and story, there's something hollow at the film's centre.

This one may be the most unruly and excessive of the trilogy, but it is as sweetly touching as any film with so many slimy, tentacled monsters in it could be.

Music is definitely the key here, as the plot is distinctly thin, and the pairing of Crosby and Astaire, does not work as well as it could have.

And as always in Peele films, clues and echoes are so detailed and carefully planted that it's hard to spot everything the first time through. He is still a master filmmaker, and even a mediocre Jordan Peele film is better than the strongest film of an ordinary director. Nope is that mediocre film.

It's good fun, but unless your tolerance for the director's idiosyncrasies is stratospherically high, the chances are that the story will seem too random for you to care about by the halfway point.

Across the Spider-Verse leans into the artificiality of its world: its central, postmodern concern is how the multiverse will be affected by the tangled web of various Spider-Man narratives. If you don't happen to be a universe-hopping comic-book superhero, it's hard to relate to any of it.

It is funny, irreverent and crowd-pleasing, with a kaleidoscope of likeable characters and actors. Director Craig Gillespie (Cruella and I, Tonya) has turned a saga that ended up before a Congressional finance committee into a breezy entertainment.

Despite all this Moana moaning, though, it's still a high-quality piece of work: a hurtling Disneyland rollercoaster ride that small children, especially, are bound to enjoy. The irony is that if it had been a television series, viewers might well have gushed about how spectacular it was. But as a film, Moana 2 wouldn't be near the top of any list of Disney's finest.

The chilling fact is that the real world has overtaken the one in the film. If you read any article about how AI is creeping into our lives these days, then M3GAN's killing spree will seem quaintly innocuous in comparison.

Lee’s film takes a deep dive into the music, and it succeeds in making that aural nostalgia exhilarating. But a movie called Michael Jackson’s Journey that leaves out the personal dimension of that transformation is missing a key part of the story.

Compared to most US action adventures, The Northman is adventurous and distinctive. It feels compromised, but the great stuff outweighs the not-so-great stuff. To see or not to see? If that is the question, the answer is: see it.

Despite its shoddy script it does benefit from superior art direction that looks a million dollars.

As it is, I have a strong suspicion that Wicked will work much better as the first part of a double bill, with Wicked Part 2 being shown after an interval. But we'll have to wait another year to know for sure.

The story is cluttered, the tone is muddled, and the pacing is off. Again, that doesn't make the film a disaster. In some ways, the identity crisis is what makes it worth seeing. But this muddled production will be enjoyed more by politics and cinema students than by children who are hoping to be enchanted by Disney magic.

Throughout the film, various people draw a distinction between "Maria" the woman and "La Callas" the superhuman diva. Its title notwithstanding, Maria is definitely about "La Callas".

With all due respect to Miller's bonkers vision, and his incredible ability to put that vision on screen, Furiosa seems like one of those spin-off graphic novels that plug the gaps between two films in a franchise, but which don't quite match up to the films themselves.

There's no questioning the strength of Lee's polemic nor the social and political observations that "Bamboozled" offers, yet as a piece of film-making it is undeniably flawed.

Stewart is such inspired casting that she makes all this eccentric nonsense watchable.

The deepest flaw in My Policeman is that we grasp too little of the characters' inner lives.

While Channing Tatum is charismatic, and there are a few flashes of wit in the script, the latest Magic Mike sequel is 'tepid'.

Ultimately Rabid boils down to zombified sluts and shock moments but it's an irresistible combination that Cronenberg handles well.

Whether the film excites you or not, it does excel with some glossy art direction that looks suitably slick in a quality picture transfer. Clear and sharp, this is a pleasure to watch.

Overall, then, Wonka seems to be straining every sinew to be the best possible family entertainment at cinemas this Christmas.

The first in DC's new cinematic universe starring David Corenswet is "glib and flimsy". Comic fans will love it, but this curio feels like "an eccentric sci-fi B-movie".

Blonde is less preoccupied with building a faithful portrayal of the real-life figure than with translating the brutal ruthlessness of celebrity, holding an uncomfortable mirror up to the people who enjoy dabbling in voyeurism neatly packaged as entertainment.

The Hunt is a smart satire that uses genre tropes to explore volatile social issues.

Craig's performance is wily and joyful, and the film's biggest flaw is that there is too little of him, as Johnson often turns the spotlight from Blanc to other characters.

But it takes on a quieter, more psychological tone and becomes infinitely better when Fiennes arrives.

At the heart of "A Cry in the Dark" lies a true story so incredible that to have it made into a film could have tempted a sensational outcome of the most ridiculous proportions.

As unbalanced as it might be, One Night in Miami is a well-acted history lesson and a sincere tribute to the men, their friendship, and their inspiring cultural importance. It’s just that King and Powers’ treatment of that outstanding premise hasn’t quite made the leap from stage play to big-screen film; it has landed in TV-movie territory instead.

A watchable, if by-the-book little movie.

Tommy Lee Jones wisecracks his way after the Black Moon supercar in this intriguing action film that was to prove highly influential for the later "Die Hard".

Without the aid of mind-expanding narcotics though, El Topo can't help looking laughably ramshackle, the combination of bad dubbing, shoddy camerawork and over-the-top performances making it pretty much unwatchable by modern standards.

The fights are about as sophisticated as watching kids in a playground, and they rely heavily on slow motion, as if that will instantly create tension.

It's true that many viewers have already fallen under its spell, but Zhao and O'Farrell have stripped away so much of what makes the novel magical – the time-travelling structure, the hypnotic prose rhythms, the internal monologues and the tiny, tangible details – that what's left is no more profound or authentic than any other costume drama set in ye olde days.

It’s an original and timely feminist spin on HG Wells’s concept, and a welcome riposte to those thrillers that are fascinated by homicidal maniacs at the expense of their victims. If only the film itself had been clever or scary enough to do justice to its ingenious premise.

This new Rebecca feels as if someone at Downton Abbey were having a bad day.

If The Midnight Sky has the sombre tone of a high-minded art-house project, it has the bland design, sentimental characterisation and flimsy plotting of a children's TV movie. The story may have links with today's reality, but it never feels real.

Renfield is worth watching for Cage, Hoult and Awkwafina's entertaining performances, and not much more.

The one Vaughn trademark that Argylle is lacking is the director's usual adolescent offensiveness. He's taken out all the sex, gore and swearing, which may be a sign of belated maturity, but which leaves Argylle seeming all too close to Ghosted, Shotgun Wedding, Freelance, Murder Mystery, and the other sort-of action, sort-of romance, sort-of comedy films which have been dumped on streaming services over the last couple of years. They're all vapid, anonymous blocks of content, but at least the others offer something vaguely glamorous to slump in front of in your living room when you can't settle on anything more nourishing to watch. Argylle, on the other hand, is being released in cinemas, so the shoddy and derivative nature of the enterprise is harder to forgive.

The Iron Claw's shallowness and eventual treacliness are especially disappointing.

Don't get me wrong. Plan 9 from Outer Space is a terrible film. A dreadful film. An atrocious film. But it does have some elements that are halfway decent, and it's unlikely that it would have a cult following without them.

Formula One enthusiasts may disagree, and they may be delighted that their beloved motorsport has been put on the big screen in such a laudatory fashion. Everyone else: this is not where you want to be.

While the picture falls well short of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedies it seeks to emulate, it's slick and good-looking enough to while away a few undemanding hours.

Depending on how you look at it, this demythologising exercise is either daring or it's irritatingly smug, but it's definitely not much fun. Phillips seems to be saying that if you fell for Fleck's Messianic self-image the last time around, then the joke's on you.

Not that it is completely uncool or completely un-fun. Birds of Prey is certainly more coherent than Suicide Squad, and more energetic than the lacklustre Charlie’s Angels reboot, which was Hollywood’s last attempt to assemble a trio of action heroines. Perhaps it counts as progress, too, that after so many years when gory, postmodern Tarantino rip-offs were about men, there is finally one that’s about women instead. However popular the film becomes, though, I doubt that anyone will adore it as much as it evidently adores itself.