Its low-level strangeness jumps to surreal and gory heights – and it keeps going higher until it hits a peak of gonzo high-adrenaline fun that leaves you reeling and breathless. Many viewers will have had enough of the film long before then, but there is something heroic about Aster's uncompromising determination to go his own way.

After opening with a calypso tune from the inimitable Louis Armstrong, High Society really has nowhere to go but down, yet somehow director Charles Walters manages to keep this Technicolor musical sparkling through the next 100 minutes.

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.

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

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.

Bloated by two or three elements too many, it isn't a "perfect organism", to use the phrase coined by Ian Holm's android character in Alien, but it's as close to perfect as any entry in the series since Aliens in 1986.

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

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.

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

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.

Under its crowd-pleasing surface, though, the film's theme of political power, of who wields it and how, is strong and purposeful, even if Scott cagily weaves it into the colourful show.

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.

Mescal and O'Connor are nuanced and charismatic, and it's amazing that an Irish actor and English actor should play these most American of roles so flawlessly, but The History of Sound doesn't probe beneath the attractive surface of its star-crossed lovers.

There is no denying that The Creator is a major new sci-fi adventure. If you're partial to such things, Edwards' ambitious, immersive film should prompt the intoxicating awe that you might have got from The Matrix and Avatar – the feeling that you're seeing a rich vision of the future unlike any that has been on the big screen before.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget doesn't just reach the standards of its high-flying predecessor, but it soars above them.

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

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

Knock at the Cabin ends up being no more than a passably tense, low-budget chamber piece that doesn't do justice to its Old Testament conceit.

Be warned. Triangle of Sadness rants and smirks at the state of the world over two-and-a-half hours, which is quite some running time for a satirical comedy. But it is never boring. Partly that's because the political commentary is so shrewd, and partly it's because it has a surprising amount of warmth and nuance, too. Östlund ensures that while the situations may be absurd, the people in them are as human as any of us.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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").

The strange thing is that, while the first Avatar seemed exhilaratingly futuristic, the third film seems like a relic of an earlier era.

At its best, Chazelle's film is a cinematic marvel, evidence enough that movies are magical, as it sweeps us into the beautiful, terrible world we recognise as Hollywood even now.