This film is as slick and shiny as Glinda's lip gloss, but it may also be just what its many fans want.

The Color Purple is a big, brash spectacle, an extravaganza blending the styles of Broadway musicals, Hollywood studio movies and music videos, with a mix of gospel, pop, blues and ballads, all of that coming together smoothly in one exuberant film.

This is a painfully moving story about uncompromising friendship and uncontrollable love - not so much unrequited as undeserving and unfulfilled.

A film as epic and rich as Sergio Leone's imagination, Once Upon a Time in America sits at the head table of gangster movies. 

Black Widow does become typically Avengers at the end, with an overwrought, too-long action scene that plays like a festival of stunt doubles tossing each other around a Russian lab. The real ending is better: a post-credit sequence brings back Pugh as Yelena in a tease that is not terribly surprising but is extremely welcome.

Casarosa has crafted a modest and gentle yarn about a few good-natured people in a small area, and their enviably simple way of life. His cartoon is aimed at the heart – and the tastebuds – rather than the brain. And it's no less of a delight for that.

Although the individual episodes are gripping, the plot trajectory is obvious, especially when we arrive at an ending that's easy to see from the start. But it works because there is something quietly miraculous about the way Hanks embodies this character, making him the stirring and fresh emotional centre of a beautifully old-fashioned Western.

The film itself is filled with great tunes and a slightly loopy plot. So it's just like your common-or-garden musical in that way. Where the film really takes off is in its subversion of sexual mores as Brad and Janet break free from their normality.

Fortunately, the script is brilliant enough to work even in this reduced form - with the captivating performances of Stephens and Blakely putting a hilariously camp spin on Wilder's overblown adventure.

The searing Paths Of Glory continues to impress with its striking blend of formal brilliance, economical storytelling and emotional directness.

Al Pacino takes on police corruption in the gritty Serpico, a film that's entirely dominated and driven by Pacino's empowered performance.

It's a great comedy, with a message that works in context, the flophouses of life's downside contrasting with Hollywood's absurd hedonism.

Running at 2 hours and 49 minutes, it is bigger than the previous films in every way ­– not better or worse, just more.

Made in 1979, the film has aged superbly, the shock of its violence and acuity of its insights still retaining their punch. True, its lengthy running time is demanding and the momentum does dip in the second half, but it's held together by cool-headed technique and Ken Ogata's imposing lead performance.

Exploring this terrible framework, DuVernay's film unfolds with unpreaching clarity and fierce focus, full of heart and vibrant intent.

Maestro is a warm yet melancholy portrait of someone who is the life and soul of every party not just because he loves company but because he fears being alone.

It's such an entertaining film that it's easy to overlook the fact that the comedy only works because it depicts structural racism in such an exaggerated black-and-white manner.

With some of the most famous tunes in all showbusiness, plenty of dancing cowboys, and an irrepressible feel good factor, expect a dose of good old-fashioned entertainment.

Esmail's adaptation of Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel adds a playful Hitchcockian spin and the starry cast of Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali to create a psychological thriller about family, technology and life in the 21st Century.

It's touching to see this icon of athleticism and positivity in a melancholy film which asks whether training for a championship is really worth the effort.

Directed by Kelsey Mann, Inside Out 2 glimmers with diamond-hard truths about the complex business of being a human being – especially a teenage human being – but it's still a fast-paced and playful comedy adventure with even more jokes and more puns than Inside Out.

The message underlies but never overpowers a moving, witty character piece.

The lurching rhythm of their relationship keeps you on edge, but it's also moving to see how tearful and confused Romy can be, and it's darkly funny to see how she bluffs her way through her double life. Ultimately, though, Babygirl comes to seem genuinely romantic, because Romy and Samuel are fumbling their way towards a deeper understanding of each other. As uncomfortable as the film may be, it's clear that Reijn loves and respects her damaged characters, even if they're not sure of how they feel about themselves.

Anora fizzes with energy and laugh-out-loud moments, but it isn't recommended for anyone with high blood pressure. It builds into the kind of hectic farce in which not just one person is stressed: everyone is stressed.

Adapted from a melodramatic novel by James M Cain, it is a magnificent blend of film noir and feminine soap, glossily crafted by Michael Curtiz whose versatile achievements included Casablanca and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Writer and director Sam Levinson, who also created the audacious and enthralling HBO series Euphoria, gives the familiar story a makeover with dynamic, sensitive performances from its hugely talented stars, and a story that broadens to include race and the new Hollywood.

The investigation is exquisitely constructed, with a stream of revelations, some pulse-pounding action and continuous glimmers of wry humour. It's also a model of elegance and restraint.

As bleak as it is hard and viciously uncompromising, Get Carter is one of those films that has become increasingly interesting over time.

Throughout, Colman and Cumberbatch's performances make the dialogue much funnier than it sounds in print.

Maybe because or in spite of this near psychedelic experience, Floyd at Pompeii has become my favourite concert film of all time. Maybe it's because the lack of an audience means you don't feel like you're having a second hand experience. Maybe it's because you're getting to see a legendary band playing sometimes genuinely transcendent music in a strange environment.

On the Rocks is practically a distillation of Coppola’s Lost in Translation style. Each scene is compact and feels lived in, without any urgent narrative drive. That elegant surface makes it seem like a trifle, but there are layers beneath.

Based on the play by Bill Naughton, Lewis Gilbert's film broke new ground by interspersing its amorous anti-hero's sexual conquests with frank and witty confessionals delivered straight to camera.

Ozu's pared-down visual style facilitates our involvement with these 'ordinary' characters, who are struggling to reconcile their feelings of duty and desire, and to accept life's inevitable changes.

Stalker is an epic and frequently puzzling inquiry into freedom and faith, which unfolds in an unspecified totalitarian society.

Marty Supreme has such scope, ambition and humour that its flaws, as with those off-screen Timmy exploits, are easy to overlook.

The sequel to Gremlins actually proves more enjoyable than the first film, offering audacious dark humour and a lot of knowing 'in-jokes'.

There are some cheesy moments (and gaping plot inconsistencies) as one might expect. But any laughter soon turns to screaming as the screen fills with calculated gory mayhem and some fine shock moments.

Ducournau's beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy is a nightmarish yet mischievously comic barrage of sex, violence, lurid lighting and pounding music. It's also impossible to predict where it's going to go next.

This remarkable collaboration between legendary Japanese animator Leiji Matsumoto and Parisian techno gurus Daft Punk is a visual and aural treat of intergalactic proportions.

It has the ring of a tall tale that has been told in pub after pub, gathering weird new details every time, until it has become a part of Irish folklore. It's a story that you'll want to hear – and tell – again and again.

Dreams of the future merge with memories of the past as a fascinating array of imagery is conjured to the screen. The effect is sometimes confusing - but always beautiful - and eventually intertwines to a singular life-confirming realisation that cuts through the madness and embraces it.

As Eggers proceeds steadily and methodically through the events in Murnau's masterpiece, you may admire the intelligence and painstaking craft that has gone into it, but you may also have the feeling that you're watching actors playing time-honoured roles rather than real people in mortal danger. Horror fans needn't worry, though: Nosferatu has its share of gruesome shocks.

This is a film that is undoubtedly more effective in the dark, with a top-notch sound system and a huge screen, than it would be on a laptop or a television. If, like Evelyn and her family, you are willing to venture out of your home and into the outside world, you could hardly ask for more suitable or more exhilarating entertainment.

The Woman King leans toward fantasy in its heroic moments, but is rooted in truth about war, brutality and freedom. It is a splashy popcorn movie with a social conscience.

A touchstone for many of the sub-standard gangster films Britain mercilessly churns out today, The Long Good Friday is classy fare and superior viewing to its modern counterparts in every way.

It feels like a tantalising trailer for the longer and presumably richer and deeper film that is still to come.

A glib misreading of Men might reduce it to: "Ha! Men! They're all alike." But the film's ending emphasises how much Harper's trials and Garland's film have been about her profound tangle of love, grief and understanding.

Perhaps the film could have done with a little more conversation and a little more action, but it's still a quietly affecting, sympathetic tribute to the kind of person who is a supporting character in most biopics.

The deliberate pacing and sometimes confusing narrative make Monster less engrossing than some of Kore-eda's work, and less likely to win prizes. But it is still a marvel: a minutely observed, profoundly compassionate chronicle of untidy contemporary lives. It's a Hirokazu Kore-eda film, in other words.

Cinema rarely gets this close to poetry in motion.

The Room Next Door isn't a weighty philosophical work – as mature as it is, it still has glimmers of cheeky humour and campy melodrama. But it develops into a sweetly heartfelt reflection on ageing, dying, and whether or not it's healthy to find joy in the most desperate of circumstances.

Coppola depicts their lives with sympathy but also with clear-eyed honesty about the dreams they never achieved and the youth that's impossible to reclaim.

A true sci-fi classic.

This absorbing film is likely to stay with you. It's a compliment to say that you may walk away with the off-kilter feeling that you have been in another person's dream the whole time.

Waititi's winning, winsome film is his most accessible and mainstream movie to date, Marvel aside, one that successfully mixes in funny jokes with zeitgeisty social commentary.

Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Emerald Fennell's new take on the classic romance is far from faithful to the original book – but it is "utterly absorbing" in its own right.

The nicest surprise is that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is that rare thing, a big-budget comedy which is actually funny. The screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar is packed with knock-out punchlines, and Burton's visual gags manage to be hilarious even while pushing the boundaries of how eccentric and macabre a Hollywood blockbuster can be.

Tom Cruise's seventh Mission: Impossible film is an unusual mix of high-tech and low-tech, of ultra-modern and defiantly traditional.

Set in the military dictatorship of 1970s Brazil, this buzzy crime drama, which has premiered in Cannes, "makes up in pulpy excitement what it lacks in subtlety", and "bursts with sex, shoot-outs and sleazy hitmen".

White Noise has so much crammed into its two-and-a-quarter hours that it will take multiple viewings to unpack it all. Luckily, it's all so entertaining that the prospect of those multiple viewings is an enticing one indeed.

At times it's as if the film itself was stitched together from the parts of other movies, but collecting all those bits and pieces is a sign of Gyllenhaal's huge scope and ambition.

The war scenes speak loudly on their own, with no need to add dramatic emphasis. Alexandre Desplat's score matches that style, with a subtle, piercing beauty. If the first half of Lee had been as dazzlingly effective as the second, it might have been a great film instead of a very good one.

The Kiwi native proved he had more up his sleeve than trashy schlock.

A film with this scope and richness is a splendid achievement, but it's easier to admire than to love. There is some humanity in there somewhere: at heart it's a coming-of-age story about a boy becoming tougher and more cynical on his way to becoming a leader. But will anyone care about the shallow, po-faced characters? They've got exotic names and elaborate costumes, but none of them has much warmth or personality compared to those in a certain other space opera which I won't mention.

Partly because the characters look so healthily pretty, and partly because the mood is so woozy, The Stars at Noon feels more like a stylish pastiche of a Graham Greene novel than the story of real people battling their way out of a difficult, potentially deadly situation. It's beautifully made, but to enjoy it you have to relax, and let it wash over you.

A crisply satisfying tale of espionage from cinema's master of suspense.

Taking its artistic inspiration from African sculpture and Egyptian art, the distinctive pictorial style of Ocelet's award-winning feature is bolstered by an authentic soundtrack from Senegalese musician Youssou N'dour. Couple this with the film's pint-sized but big-mouthed hero, and you've got one of the most enchanting animated features in quite some time.

There are some outstanding sequences in this movie that are truly chilling

Widely regarded as the best excursion for Jacques Tati's alter ego Monsieur Hulot, this whimsical comedy builds on the work of American silent stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, to produce a French variation on the art of slapstick.

They're all rather deliciously far-fetched stories but fun to watch. And the demented camera angles and fast pacing makes the tales far more unsettling than you might imagine.

For some viewers, this frenzied finale will be reason enough to treasure The Substance; for others, it will be reason enough to steer well clear. But no one who sees Fargeat's film will forget it. If she had taken it to its magnificently tasteless extreme 15 or 20 minutes sooner, it would have been a cult classic.

Paddington in Peru offers a fun and lively hour-and-three-quarters in the cinema, and that's not to be sniffed at, but it comes across as the solid third part of an established franchise rather than a stellar pop-cultural phenomenon in its own right

More riveting than most thrillers, and more terrifying than most horror films.

Reuniting the mismatched heroes from its hit predecessor, Carlos Saldanha's mix of race-against-time action and eco-friendly propaganda is actually an improvement on the original, not least for giving its funniest character - acorn-hunting rodent Scrat - a lot more to do.

Bros races along almost until the end when it embraces romcom elements, including a montage, that land as more clichéd than subversive. But that doesn't make the rest of this charming film any less entertaining and effective.

The Lost Bus doesn't have to bludgeon viewers with a message or with its timely resonance. Greengrass lets us feel it.

His craftsmanship is so overwhelming that unless you're already allergic to his tics and trademarks, you should get a buzz from the film's many, many incidental pleasures. One thing's for sure: there is nothing quite like The French Dispatch – except Anderson's other films, of course.

Lanthimos may get carried away, but the results are daringly outrageous and often hilarious.

Although developing from a small, insightful, character-based beginning to a more Hollywood-friendly feel-good climax, this intelligent, atmospheric, and well-crafted family movie seldom loses its way.

It Was Just an Accident is a taut and twisting revenge thriller loaded with heavyweight ethical quandaries. It is heartbreakingly explicit about what the well-drawn characters have suffered, but it asks whether they can ever be justified in using the same methods – abduction, torture – as their oppressors.

The Original Kings of Comedy has more to do with great comedy than Spike Lee's direction.

Though the narrative style of Ice Age has been around for almost as long, superb animation, a droll script, and excellent vocal talents make this a compelling and surprisingly moving addition to the computer-generated canon (where it sits alongside the likes of "Monsters, Inc." and "Shrek").

Having been made with a specific political purpose, Subsequent MovieFilm won’t age as well as the previous Borat did. Whereas that one will stand as an evergreen comedy, this one might be as ephemeral as a newspaper’s editorial cartoon or an episode of Spitting Image. But it’s the ripped-from-the-headlines relevance that makes it so fascinating, and it’s the boiling rage at current politics that makes it so bracing. There aren’t many films as urgently satirical as this one. You might not want to re-watch it in a few years’ time, but you should definitely watch it now.

It's hard to create tension when the stakes are so low. But the film's breezy tone and ultimately strong emotional depths make up for that flaw. This big-hearted Thor, thundering and sensitive, may be just the diverting hero we need right now.

Maybe Lord and Miller knew what they were doing when they went for such a bright and breezy tone. They've crafted a sci-fi epic which is more than two-and-a-half hours long, and which is a one-man show for much of that time. They have filled it not with action, but with mind-stretching concepts, painstaking laboratory research and knotty technical puzzles. To do all that and keep things zippily entertaining throughout is an extraordinary achievement.

It's refreshing to see a grown-up Hollywood film that takes on contemporary issues: feminism, cancel culture, identity politics, and the generation gap. But After the Hunt is more of an admirable project than an engaging drama, because it never stops reminding you of how clever it wants to be.

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.