What stands out most in Siegel’s The Killers is its unfaltering commitment to pulp fiction.

There’s an ironic detachment that permeates the dark fairy-tale atmosphere, and the performances are pitched to that heightened David Lynch-like caricature.

An exquisitely rendered study of entitlement and millennial dissatisfaction.

The film itself is fairly conventional given the wildness of its subject matter and Jim Jarmusch's pedigree.

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

Aster has concocted a weird mixture of dread, black humour and pathos, conjuring sympathy for the devil in a feverish hallucination.

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

While it hardly pushes the envelope in terms of developing Marvel's homogenous narrative conveyor-belt, it does do so in other areas, suggesting that the MCU can see beyond the confines of its first two phases.

Okuno’s Watcher is smart, engaging and intelligent, and it’s especially refreshing to see this sort of mid-budget, grown-up genre film getting a proper theatrical release.

Composed entirely of found footage and presented in black and white to lend visual consistency, the film raises important questions about the politics of viewership, the documentary form’s complex ties to reality and about human relationships in a digitally connected world.

Bearing in mind the dramatic nature of the real life-and-death story at Dormant Beauty's core, this is an unacceptable and irresponsible piece of filmmaking for all of its good intentions.

Elliot explores the film’s central themes of loneliness, mental illness, love and friendship, all with a deft balance of humour, sadness and subtlety.

A desire to avoid sentimentality is admirable, yet Still Alice relies entirely on Moore's performance to mask its multitude of shortcomings.

By situating the film in the context of domestic abuse, Whannel avoids cliché by evoking the way that distressed women are routinely treated as irrational and disreputable – a theme carried through to the film’s inspired conclusion.

The film is strongest in its first half but the double act between Wright and Pattinson sustains throughout: never has the Bat-Gordon partnership been so well-realised. Inevitably the door is left open for sequels, but The Batman stands up as an incredibly satisfying, grown-up vision of its own.

Far from breaking the mould of the survival drama genre, Arctic nonetheless offers thrilling moments and entertains throughout, mainly thanks to Mikkelsen’s muscular performance as the grizzled Overgård.

The Falling's refreshingly all-female perspective expects the viewer to become wholly caught up in its broad surge of feeling, yet there's something unsatisfactory and disaffecting about the film's asinine finale.

A film that is chock full of insight, piercing ideas and visual metaphors that unfortunately are never fully realised.

The Imitation Game's approach is successful as entertainment but not totally satisfactory in providing greater insight into its subject.

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

Plá's film is a caustic, genuine swipe at a selfish and insincere society which is content to make money from the suffering of ordinary people.

Endless drone shots, perspective switches and too many CGI animals undercut any grit or claustrophobia that Trachtenberg – director of the brilliant 10 Cloverfield Lane – might otherwise have crafted. Meanwhile, the interminable score refuses to quiet down and let the images or emotions speak for themselves.

Like the best films from its genre, Seconds acts as a potent parable and posits an intriguing idea.

Covering depression, grief and pregnancy as body-horror, the end result is a palpably unusual mix of comedy, pathos and gruesome violence

Brilliantly acted, shot with precision and style, this is a deconstruction of the ‘nuclear family’ that cries out for a second or third viewing.

No Way Home feels like a full and complete film in a way that earlier MCU entries failed to. No Way Home takes a cynical corporate elevator pitch and uses it to examine what it means to be Spider-Man in a world where Holland’s Peter isn’t the only hero.

The real success to Ralph Breaks the Internet is how, while having the most amount of fun possible, it’s also able to be cleverly subversive (no longer should the iconic Disney princess be reliant on men to strive) and deeply rooted in its themes of friendship, and all the ups and downs that follow.

It’s a fiery mix of ambition, mother-daughter love, female empowerment and childhood dreams – the gravities of each masterfully held together in the film, like planets in the canvas of space, revolving harmoniously around the sun.

The fraudulent nature of the mystery makes Wonderstruck feel like a technical exercise: albeit one which is enlivened by some great visuals and excellent performances, particularly the wonderful Millicent Simmonds.

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.

Ferrara's Welcome to New York is a savage work that's easily one of the best films of the year. [Unrated Version]

A rollicking masterclass in escalating tension.

22 Jump Street is hugely successful in retaining - and in many instances, improving upon - the qualities of it predecessor and pitching some jokes that will still have people chuckling for days afterwards.

Amid the allusions and collisions, jump scares and very close calls, the thrills and spills of A Quiet Place Part II are elevated by its strong performances and a director with a keen eye for this intelligent genre piece whose broad appeal makes for another sure-fire hit. Take a deep breath, and enjoy.

The film’s doggedly chronological structure – at odds with its ostensible privileging of psychology over history – sometimes leaves its personal observations feeling superficial.

This version of Emma. is unlikely to win any accolades for invention. Indeed the 1996 film Clueless arguably remains the most exciting version of Austen’s novel. Nevertheless, de Wilde’s version is a confident and lively translation of Austen’s wit on to the screen.

Artfully, his films tracks the tragic decline of a good man gone bad, who finds murder too insignificant not to do again and again, a worthy addition to William Shakespeare's ever growing filmography.

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.

Vinterberg's Far From the Madding Crowd is a wondrous feat: at turns tender, dramatic, fragile and bold, it's the definitive adaptation.

What we’re left with is a sort of Blairite middle-ground where punches are pulled and no one really comes in for too much flack. Where’s the fun in that?

Eternal Beauty, whilst it is not entirely devoid of cliché, provides a much-needed, deeply human alternative to the noisy and tragic narratives about hallucinatory derangement, terror, and victimisation that we may have come to expect from films about madness.

Teemu Nikki's Euthanizer reveals itself to be an affecting examination of cruelty.

It is evident that her art is what she has used to plough through the attendant difficulties – lack of success and recognition, mental health issues – of the life she chose for herself. And as the documentary confirms, she has indeed been rewarded for it at long last.

With Sorkin's signature whip-crack dialogue driving an astonishingly assured directorial debut, Molly's Game is an exhilarating, superbly crafted crime drama.

Makala examines the tribulations of desolation and solitude with such respect that it’s impossible not to feel compassion.

One feels its subject would have admired the boldness of its conception, if perhaps not its overly slick execution.

Tender, charming and made with substantial care, Next Goal Wins celebrates the cliché that it's not about winning, but the taking part.

Francofonia is a chatty and occasionally brilliant rumination on art, history and death.

Although Mavis! doesn't quite have the same scope as the extraordinary vocal range of its magnetic, all-round wonderful subject, her zest for life, exuberance and good nature have clearly rubbed off on Edwards and it's likely they will on audiences too.

With so many elements working on such a high plain, it is ultimately a shame that The Theory of Everything remains a formulaic biopic with a scope far narrower than its subject. Still, it broaches universal themes through the story of a man who studies the universe, and succeeds in being a life and love-affirming along the way.

Involving and well made, rather than something flat-out great and essential.

The pacing and lack of incident may detract from the overall emotional investment we have for Horvát’s latest, but in its construction of a murky intrigue, composed visual style and Stork’s exceptional performance, there’s enough to make the journey home to Budapest a worthwhile visit.

A delight; a silly B-movie with a smart script and an amusing anti-authoritarian undercurrent.

The film is a compelling, concerning artefact which shows demagoguery in action, without coming across as heavy-handed.

Shazam!’s candy-floss sweetness rarely fails to hit the spot.

A poignant study of gender politics enshrined within an anthropologically fascinating drama.

There is a vitality and a quiet defiance to this kind of filmmaking that is difficult to resist.

Vesper is throughout a gripping post-apocalypse fable. Despite its mythological derivations, Buozyte and Samper’s world, grounded in blood, mud and viscera, is often uncomfortably close to our own.

A handsomely crafted, yet overacted revenge tale with a broken moral compass, Prisoners fails to build upon its taut atmosphere of suspense with anything of particular social value.

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

Proceeding with a linear chronology to the present day, Castro’s Spies does justice to the long trials and many tribulations of its engaging subjects without ever flying too far off the expected route.

Memory certainly makes a good go of it, weaving together industrial production history with its mythic, pulp and artistic inspirations. The disparate strands of Alien’s origins have never quite been connected like this in a popular documentary, but billing this as the “untold story” of Scott’s film is a bit of a stretch.

For all its storytelling shortcomings, The Walk is a must-see for its perilous, vertiginous, sweaty-palmed finale and its reminder that the Twin Towers can be remembered for much more than 9/11.

Sundown is a film full of narrative and emotional surprises, upending the middle-aged bloke having a midlife crisis storyline, with Yves Cape’s cinematography capturing the classy and mundane locations with equally seductive attributes. Roth and Franco’s second rodeo is a melancholic banger.

This is strong work for a debut feature, and while not presenting assisted suicide itself with the greatest of nuance, Plan 75 is an accomplished portrait of capitalist alienation.

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.

Osborne, who initially got his kicks with Kung Fu Panda, doesn't trust his source material and the film becomes about collecting the pages of the story and the effect the story might have on the people who hear it, rather than the telling of the story itself.

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

La Mif refuses to proselytise on the moral character of its subjects; Lora’s terrible confession to the girls at the film’s climax is played not for tabloid revelation, but as a final expression of the flaws inherent in ourselves and the systems we depend on to protect us.

Colossal possesses some real depth in its acting and its description of human relationships, it's just a shame that when it sinks a few beers and gets up to do the monster mash: things get a little too silly.

Phyllida Lloyd’s strong third feature, Herself, is as much an indictment of the grinding bureaucracy failing to house and protect women abused at the hands of their partners, as it is the men who inflict such despicable physical and psychological trauma.

With well-balanced humour, and a heartfelt father/daughter narrative, Ant-Man and The Wasp makes for refreshing viewing after the gasp-inducing drama of Thanos clicking his fingers. Sometimes, focusing on the smaller stories is just better.

Mia Madre is an intimate and sincerely made family portrait, which ends up betraying its own indifference to anything beyond the confines of the family.

Striking a balance between the dark and combative religious humour and its more saccharine elements proves difficult.

An assured and captivating debut feature, von Horn weaves a moral tale of guilt, redemption and revenge with a disquieting restraint that catapults his film towards the territory of Malick or Haneke.

This is not just a biopic, or a bunch of worthies singing the praises of the King of Rock and Roll and hoping thereby to get a dribble of the blue suede limelight. Rather, it is a thought experiment, an argument, an essay in the true sense of that word, which is truly revealing.

While Binoche is reliably magnetic and the fitfully pretty visuals match a ripped-from-the-headlines script, Who You Think I Am’s pot never quite comes to the boil.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa is at once a deeply satirical depiction of Hollywood and a sumptuous saga of the rise and fall of a star.

As well as ruminating on grief and the impalpable, incomprehensible sense of loss in the wake of a lifelong love, A Man Called Ove gives credence to the notion that there is much more to any individual than merely a name, that outer appearance and behaviour belie an unknown past.

The Offence is almost the definition of murk, unrelenting and unforgiving.

Del Toro’s latest ventures away from fantasy, revealing the monsters in this fable to be all too human.

Mindhorn is a ridiculous comic creation taken to extraordinary, laugh-a-minute heights.

More than a casual swipe at modern social trends, Rotting in the Sun exposes a kind of cruelty, alienation, and social stratification that is only as modern as the technology through which it expresses itself.

An effective thriller, Sisters is an intense tightly executed slasher, which fans of the directors later work will revel in.

As with much of Miyazaki’s own output, the film offers a winning heroine and a joyful dip into Japanese folklore, even if it does not stand up against the studios most celebrated works.

Benjamin is a charming metropolitan rom-com which is ultimately too lightweight to escape the gravity of its influences.

It makes for truly sobering viewing that cuts to the quick, exposing the atrocities the country's government so willingly commits.

This is not a run-of-the-mill pop doc: it’s part defiant portrayal of a woman, part autobiographical travelogue, part tale of a country in turmoil through the coming of age story of a young girl, and part meditation on creativity and self-hood, baring all about the elusive grasp of the westernised dream.

Gonzalez can be masterful in conjuring sexy imagery, febrile moods and erotic frissons, but his grip on the storytelling here is weak. Knife + Heart struggles to regain its initial momentum, falling flat until a lively climax.

A postmodern experiment in both form and function, Life of Riley's rigidity can at times feel like its restricting its actors, leaving them unable to treads the boards with the same authority they would on the stage.

Black Coal, Thin Ice is a majestic neo-noir.

If there is any real complaint to be levelled at Color Out of Space, it’s that it has more ideas than it knows what to do with.

It’s refreshing to see a character with Down Syndrome treated with depth and intelligence, in control of their own story and not being patronised. Gottsagen is truly a shining light, bringing a strong, wonderfully rich performance -and brilliant comic timing- as Zak to the film.

Adapting Melanie Joosten's novel, Shaun Grant has been unable to recapture the grimey darkness of everyday evil of his previous script Snowtown. Instead, we get a sojourn in place of trauma.

As the family resolves problems of the film's own making, the satisfaction gleaned is relatively minor. The threatened and/or promised explosions fizzle out frustratingly, leaving behind the lurking impression of Louder Than Bombs as a well-crafted, well-played, slickly-written misfire.

While Sicilian Ghost Story doesn’t entirely fulfil its promise as a richly themed gothic romance, the visual craft on display throughout is more than enough to recommend.

Once beyond the babble of the Mindfulness merchants, the latter half of the documentary, however, is far more interesting and compelling as Shen has his experts round on the noise pollution that so disrupts our lives.

The Defiant Ones combines Stanley Kramer’s trademark liberal politics with a picaresque adventure that is deftly entertaining, tense and heartfelt.