This affectionate portrait in failure is more in the tone of Darren Aronofky's Venice winner The Wrestler, carried mainly by a brilliantly swollen performance by Schrieber, full of humour and bluff and yet with an intelligence to learn his lessons, slowly, but learn them.

It's all so random and the 3D Kodachrome colours, poised performances and careful framing can't disguise the fact that The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez has very little to say.

It's an enjoyable jumpy imitation.

A drab and airless affair, it effectively ignores the substantial political commentaries inherent in its story, and fails to land the emotional punches of the one it's intent on telling.

The Age of Shadows is a bloody and breathtaking piece of filmmaking which confirms that Kim can do pretty much anything.

Certain Women is a deft masterclass in humane open-ended observation, crafting subtle portraits of three Montana women overlooked and hardy in their own individual ways.

Even at ninety minutes Popstar feels too long. The funniest moments are the songs.

Tod Williams, a journeyman best known for Paranormal Activity 2, has managed to transfer King's very popular brand of horror with a good deal of success.

It might seem unlikely that something so narratively simplistic and ultimately childish could sustain its runtime but the chaos and comedy of the haphazard gunplay is such that it only suffers from a handful of lulls.

Comedy is used to undercut the most horribly tragic of moments...given the sadness all the more pathos and offering glimpses of hope in a narrative resistant to catharsis.

There's no getting away from it, Gibson has produced another bombastic, crowd-pleasing and obviously blood-soaked movie which expertly glorifies that which its hero was against.

Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto's screenplay completely lacks the interpersonal vibrancy that a film like this needs and this is glaring given that it maintains the slow-build tension of the original.

Paradoxically, the wide-eyed awe produces a narrow vision, heavy on the photogenic, with modern life corralled onto a SIM card and loaded with a platitudinous inquisition.

Amirpour is a talented director with a wonderful eye but her style lacks substance and her obvious influences - the Mad Max franchise and the wonderful LQ Jones film A Boy and his Dog - are so superior as to almost completely nullify her derivative contribution to the genre.

One More Time with Feeling is a bold poem in itself, a portrait of the artist struggling to understand the essentially incomprehensible.

It's gorgeous, lush and fun, but there's an underlying silliness to the endeavour which, despite occasional archness, constantly threatens to trivialise events.

Despite some imperfections, Arrival is a close encounter with the best of intelligent, thoughtful science fiction.

Adapted by Cianfrance himself, The Light Between Oceans feels overly tied to its previous form.

For all its postmodern smarts, La La Land has a heart as big as its Cinemascope screen. This is primarily down to the two leads, without their performances it would only be an empty, if impressive, exercise in dizzying technical skill and style.

By using the tropes of the coming-of-ager - a rebellious teen and the strained relationship with her mother - as the central touchstone, Bouzid subtly, yet efficiently paints the nascent days of Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution as a force to be reckoned with.

For fans of samurai cinema, 13 Assassins ranks right up there with Yôji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai (2002) and Takeshi Kitano's The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003) as one of the finer additions to the sub-genre in recent years.

Though it is clearly a work of great empathy and respect, Bobby Sands: 66 Days takes pains to offer alternative perspectives and as such makes for a richly textured and complex portrait of man, myth and movement.

Up for Love lacks tact and substance but its leads make it a watchable, albeit bite-size, jaunt.

Being 17's great strength is the two utterly engrossing performances given by its leads and their exhilarating chemistry is conveyed with equal sensitivity during their tussles, as it is in every small glance and gesture.

This is a rich portrait of not only Mapplethorpe, but also the history of the New York art world in the latter half of the 20th century.

Respect and admiration for her work and carefree nature is in plentiful supply but this is not an exclusively glowing retrospective.

It's a little messy, like life, but it's also beautiful to experience.

Throughout, Solondz never allows a situation to get too serious. Something clownish or ludicrous is always peeking round the corner. At times, as with the very finale of the film, this works brilliantly: generating something darkly hilarious and cutely uncomfortable.

Displaying an exemplary commitment to knuckle-biting tension, director Serra has made a riveting B-movie.

Despite its claims to zaniness and colouring outside the lines, probably the most damning indictment of the silly Suicide Squad is that it's unrelentingly bland.

There is much that is inexplicable and remote about Sun Choke, but those should not be read as immediate negatives, but held up as virtues. Cinema too often gives the viewer everything on a plate and then spoon feds us with details until 'we get it'.

The Wakhan Front's script is finely-balanced, allowing the possibly supernatural to slowly impinge without resorting to genre clichés.

The resulting film is an exemplar of fine balance, managing to be both a humane character study and issue-driven polemic, looking at the ongoing personal and social repercussions and contextualising the events.

The political commentary feels far more explicitly pointed and widely integral than in previous incarnations which adds a bold new dynamic where perhaps the same re-inventive verve is lacking in the film's formulaic story. Fortunately, Greengrass and Damon are so in command of this material it's rarely too much of a concern. Even when little of substance seems to be happening, the narrative feels propulsive.

The film doesn't simply work, it trumps expectation and lingers long in the mind.

If you go out into the furthest reaches of Star Trek's filmography today, you're in for an unsettling discovery: the final frontier looks oddly familiar. It's brightly coloured eye-bait, Jim, exactly as we know it - outpacing your visual field in an attempt to convince you that something exciting is going on.

The attempt to make an intimate, multi-stranded story out of this royal episode is appreciated, especially given its subplots which effectively compare with Kristina's own struggle between independence and duty, but the gripping central performances lack a proper foundation.

The Violators bravely paints a vicious circle without pulling any punches and shows real promise in a new female British filmmaker.

Shim directs well, but he lacks the verve for this to sail through on its visuals and although the denouement returns to the unconventional (discounting the unnecessary coda), the climax reduces the impact of what was otherwise an enthralling voyage.

Lacks both the iconic heft of its predecessor's imagery as well as any sense of character development.

Notes on Blindness raises fascinating questions about our reliance on visual memory aids and the amount to which we truly experience the world around us.

Maggie's Plan is over-educated satirical skewering at its finest - to be enjoyed at leisure, between symposia perhaps, or other perambulatory Manhattan-style discussions of crypto-narratives in the modern family unit.

There is meaning beneath the madness, but Men & Chicken is best recommended to those who are prepared to sit through the deeply sinister absurdity.

Despite a promising concept and strong production values, Summertime's poor execution makes it one to avoid.

Riccobono neither condemns nor sympathises, maintaining a commendable neutrality, as his subjects frank testimony paves the way to jail cells.

Russell is the magnetic epicentre of a much broader contemplation on the nature of being, creation and self-truth at a time of peace and love.

The pacing is methodical but breakthroughs in the case and anxious moments where all is feared lost generate real tension.

Hooligan Sparrow is a chilling reminder of the extent of state repression and corruption in China.

Yes, the cynical argument that Sony needed a franchise to hold its own against the might of Marvel may have something in it. But put the cynicism aside and what you have is a hilarious action-comedy that puts four great comedic women front and centre, with Feig dexterously balancing homage with originality.

Captain Fantastic is a slickly made comedy with a witty, politically articulate script and some wonderful cinematography by former Jacques Audiard regular Stéphane Fontaine.

It's all raucous, good natured fun and the laughs come thick and fast.

Set in early 1970s Chile, and prefaced with archival footage of the final days of Salvador Allende's presidency, The Colony paddles indecisively in the unspeakable ills of the Pinochet era without ever really taking the plunge.

It's endearing, but unlikely to convert those that have previously resisted the director's charms.

Finding Dory is as entertaining, soul enriching and bittersweet as any Pixar production to date.

Directed by Jon Cassar, Forsaken is a humdrum Western which never demonstrates even the suggestion of a trick up its sleeve.

Structured in a series of chapters, there is an element of picturebook, even fairytale, enchantment to Hunt for the Wilderpeople. It is easy to be swept up in the adventure of it all, and the comedy and light-heartedness make it eminently watchable but as one narrow escape leads to another, and another, things start to feel a little thin.

Sachs' extraordinarily humane knack for emotional restraint echoes throughout Little Men. And it is all the more profound for it.

It is a kooky, touching, continually droll comedy drama that treads simultaneously familiar and unusual ground in its exploration of grieving for a sibling, more specifically a twin.

Heartstrings, prepared to be tugged at vigorously. Ma Ma is a quintessential tear-jerking melodrama that leans into its genre conventions heavily while still keeping an airy beauty to its characters and vision.

Scafaria is writing from personal experience and it shows in some of the understated but utterly credible scenes which illuminate the grieving process.

The performances are fine across the board and Nørgaard keeps things moving efficiently, but this is stylish but televisual fare, ram-packed with familiar hardboiled and shopworn tropes.

As an entry into the Scandi police procedural genre, The Keeper of Lost Causes disappoints. As a TV pilot, however, it's serviceable yet unremarkable; the kind of thing that you'd probably give a couple more episodes in the vain hope that things will pick up.

Director James Wan has delivered what should rightfully be considered his masterpiece. There is a breadth and scale of ambition at work, which really tops anything he's tried in the genre before. Most importantly: it's a resounding success.

Thompson's strikingly assured and unflinching debut pumps new life into a well-trodden genre.

Fire at Sea is a film that expertly plays with contrasting moments and themes.

The more conventional thriller element demands that the transformation from enmity to something like love is too swiftly accomplished to be properly convincing.

Wang's film is as bewildering and heartbreaking as it is insightful, in its depiction of the daily existence of the institution's residents.

The President has an urgent relevance to all too many countries around the world, including those touched by the Arab Spring; a darkly comic and poignant portrait of an Ozymandian fall from grace and the subsequent damage that ensues.

Alice Through The Looking Glass is at its middling best when Wasikowska is at the reins.

There is much to like about Elle, first and foremost a witty and bold performance from Huppert and the generally seasoned ensemble.

For all the glib élan on display, there is very little being said, above and beyond the slickness of a well-tuned melodrama. The plot always risks revealing its essential silliness and there isn't much wit or humour to alleviate the mood.

This is a rich and complex take on guilt and anger.

A dark and slightly hysterical portrait of fundamentalist fever.

Guiraudie's humour is self-referential and at times hilarious. His tendency to shock might seem adolescent but he's also careful to identify taboos that perhaps shouldn't be taboos at all.

Though the farce is occasionally funny, it's as bloated and windy as its comedy policeman Inspector Machin.

At almost three hours, Puiu's latest is as long as most family events are, but the observations made are brilliantly bright and there is love here, after all.

A superb character study of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The whole set-up risks being all too winsome, but Jarmusch has always been a quiet punk: his most radical assertion is believing, despite everything, in the essential goodness of people.

Gnecco has both breadth and subtlety. His Neruda is a complex and fascinating character study, a man fastidiously vain of his status but unconvinced by his own performance even as he enraptures a nation.

Penn's film doesn't entertain greatly nor does it have much coherent to say.

The nighttime tungsten orange of the street lighting and the urine-coloured neon of the interiors makes for a grueling visual experience which is why the daylight of the latter-half offers precious relief.

Following the disappointing period dalliance of Jimmy's Hall, Ken Loach's latest I, Daniel Blake is something of a return to form. It stands as a succinct and furious raging against the dying of the light, or more accurately the snuffing of the light by a privatised and punitive system more intent on lowering the figures than caring for those in need.

The film reveals its twists and turns with a delicate hand and always manages to stay one step ahead of the audience, even as most of those watching will surrender to the hypnotic erotic charge that runs through the film.

The material is weak, overly familiar and cliché-ridden. Dolan throws the cinematic sink at it but his latest feels like a shorter, not particularly watchable sequel to August, Osage County.

Despite treading some familiar territory, British director David Mackenzie's new film Hell or High Water proves itself a brilliantly executed, sharply written genre gem.

As Personal Shopper progresses a rather predictable series of twists almost drain the story of interest.

American Honey ticks off all of the indie clichés. Fireworks? Check. Standing up in convertible with your arms outstretched? Check. Grubby children? Check. But all of this could be forgiven, or at least put up with, if the film wasn't so long and meandering.

It should confirm Nichols' reputation as a mature filmmaker of great tact and intelligence.

The fact of the matter is that Refn has now become so predictably shocking that the truly shocking thing for him to do would be to make a film without attempting to shock.

A run-of-the-mill, plodding drama, the 'social realism' of which never feels particularly real.

There are numerous delights for the patient and the two leads give prize-worthy performances but at just under three hours this is one drawn-out gag that almost outstays its welcome.

Carney, who wowed everyone with Once, has a knack for this kind of film. Sing Street promotes his best attributes, and succeeds in delivering toe-tapping, head bobbing thrills, heartfelt, if cheesy romance and big laughs.

The problem is that Apocalypse's highlights feel like moments of serenity amidst two-and-a-half-hours of lumbering, inconsequential chaos.

The Nice Guys could well mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Black has really thrown the kitchen sink at his latest project and it all works tremendously. Let's hope there's more to come.

Richard Linklater once again casts his outwardly laid-back yet deceptively astute gaze on those loitering around the edge of adulthood with Everybody Wants Some!! - a joyous and often uproarious portrayal of college-age adolescence and the alluring freedom that brings.

A triumphant debut feature with an important message that masterfully balances its personal and political concerns.

It's a finely made thriller that's a little bit more contemporary than other le Carré adaptations before it, and allows the central trio a chance to shine and Lewis to do some weird things with his accent and mouth as a weirdly laid back and unconcerned British agent.

For anyone with at least a vague interest in the history of art, Troublemakers offers a fascinating if uneven viewing experience and a valuable record of a movement whose boldness still has the capacity to impress.