Aïnouz has eschewed the post-modern fun of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite for a much grimmer, darker vibe. This is the kind of film where torches most definitely gutter and men call out directives “on the orders of the king!” But for all the weighty gravitas of Simon Russell Beale as a conniving bishop and Eddie Marsan as a conniving noble bring to bear, the story never takes the history seriously enough either.

It’s not that Abigail is terrible: all its pieces slip together where they should, but its for all its excessive violence and gore it is a dull, lifeless experience.

This biopic is a well-mounted and handsomely shot study of men obsessed by their work, but never fully hits top gear.

Irony has a wearying effect after a while, ultimately leading to a flattening of the ethical landscape so that by the end of it we can’t help but feel they’re all as bad as each other.

Few American directors capture the contemporary urban nightscape as well as Fincher: a supreme genre filmmaker, which makes this perfectly fine film so disappointing.

As fascism in South America, North America and Europe is rising from the grave, it needs a properly-aimed and delivered stake, rather than complacent sniggering

American writer-director Erika Arlee’s debut feature showcases strong performances and nice visual flourishes, but A Song for Imogene struggles to find an emotional hook.

8 A.M. Metro is a sweet but ultimately shallow film whose final act ultimately finds depth and dimension too late to redeem its prior narrative shortcomings.

The Dial of Destiny starts with a prologue that easily stands up against the classic trilogy, is often disarmingly poignant and never less than entertaining. Much of this is down to Ford, who has always excelled at bringing depth and charm to a character who on paper is fundamentally little more than a silhouette.

Everything looks beautiful: sand the colour of peach fluff and skies, a cyan blue.

A basically entertaining, but flimsy and shallow object, The Flash may not be the final entry in this long-beleaguered franchise, but it might as well be.

Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.

Homecoming gives an empathetic portrait of a family in a phase of change. Girls are becoming women; a mother is beginning to return to life. It has the promise of a prelude.

It’s a pity that on this occasion Scorsese makes an admirable and fine film, but alas not a great one.

It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.

An uncategorisable odyssey of sub-Freudian nightmares that goes hard on suffering but soft on narrative intrigue.

Julia’s journey is one of nihilism having transformed into a quest for meaning: Rodeo’s final image speaks to both of these impulses.

While The Five Devils doesn’t quite have the clarity of vision of her previous picture, its emotion, erotically-charged themes and puzzle-box structure leave much to recommend.

Pearl is notable as a pandemic film, situating itself in the middle of the Spanish flu outbreak, though much like its engagement with sex, violence and entertainment, and its treatment of women, the film sets the table for a discussion but doesn’t quite make a full meal of it.

The screenplay balances the big narrative beats that this kind of broad crowd pleaser demands, along with posing more difficult social questions to which there are no easy answers.

The components are all here for a compelling psychological drama, led by two excellent performances, but a conflation between narrative obfuscation with thematic depth undermines Esme, My Love’s final emotional impact.

As a mechanism the film functions very well indeed – but as a film, as “a machine that generates empathy” as Roger Ebert had it, Quantumania falls vastly short. Still, one might argue that we do not board roller coasters expecting art, and so as an entertainment at that level it is hard to deny that this latest entry fulfils its purpose handsomely, providing all the thrills and spills of the fair.

Religious allegories, monochrome photography and folk horror trappings will draw in viewers as much as its meandering contemplations and languorous pacing may test their patience.

Bebjak’s film is far from bad and its three-tiered narrative is often compelling, buoyed by fine performances. But its treatment of women and shallow exploration of its themes sadly bring down its initial promise.

Though it may not stray too far off a well-beaten track, Marley Morrison’s feature debut Sweetheart is a sure-fire crowd pleaser that showcases a young filmmaker and cast with real promise.

As this semi-autobiographical film plods on, there is an unshakeable sense that in reaching for the stars, The Fabelmans instead lands somewhere more mediocre and disappointing.

As a neo-noir Holy Spider offers a tightly-woven procedural crime thriller, bolstered by a superb central performance from Amir-Ebrahimi and gorgeous, lurid aesthetics. A steadier hand marshalling its themes and a more disciplined third act might have tipped Abbasi’s third feature into being something truly special: as it stands we are left a very solid, smart and satisfying thriller.

Beyond its gender-swapped lead role, Peter von Kant never truly ventures into new territory and so never quite justifies its own existence.