Smart, sassy and sweet. This showed John Cusack's promise as a romantic lead, and some.

Unapologetically aimed at the arthouse crowd, this is superior filmmaking. Superbly acted and well written, it stakes its claim in the pantheon of love-gone-wrong watches.

Netflix wants to prove it can do what Disney does – and it more or less succeeds. Vibrant and heartfelt with tunes to boot, there’s plenty of love in Over The Moon.

Essential, enormous fun.

A beautifully argued parable about the need to go where life takes you, Darius Marder’s debut thrives on the soul of Riz Ahmed and the bold creativity of sound designer Nicholas Becker. Together they make Sound Of Metal sing.

Another strong, sparky and bloody entry in the QT canon. Although, creaking under its running time, it's not quite as uproariously entertaining as his last pseudo-historical adventure, "Inglourious Basterds."

An incredibly silly, sapphic, gloriously weird high-school satire. Bottoms’ ultra-knowing tone might be a struggle for some — but it’s hilariously rewarding.

1666 mostly operates in a different register than 1994 and 1978, but is no less entertaining. It rounds off an ambitious triptych chock-full of horror-history allusions, strong world-building, sharp scares, palatable gore, lively filmmaking and a likeable set of characters. Other scary-movie franchises take note.

Come for the wise alien spider, stay for Adam Sandler at his sombre best in this strange, heartfelt sci-fi drama. Here’s hoping he continues to push himself to new highs.

Mamet’s gem of a movie, with a great final twist, goads the Godfathers with just as much invention and wit as the much higher profile Married To The Mob.

Unlike most sequels Lethal Weapon 2 is neither predictable nor conventional. It's just pumped full of juice.

Benediction finds both sorrow and hilariously withering wit in the eventful 
life of a famed wartime poet, offering some of the sharpest, nimblest dialogue of writer-director Terence Davies’ estimable career.

Extremely enjoyable. Although it’s a little tonally unsure, whenever Hanks and Hoffman are on screen, any misgivings are forgiven.

A reminder of the astonishingly kinetic talent that John Woo maybe still possesses, this at times is on the verge of melodrama, but rescues itself from the brink with some fine gunplay.

As enthralling as it is important, How To Have Sex neatly depicts the joy and pain of teenage girlhood. A scrappy but impressive directorial debut — and a strong showcase of breakthrough British talent across the board.

Charming and effective feel-good fare.

Excruciatingly hilarious and hilariously excruciating. The merkin scene will live with you forever.

A dreamlike time capsule of a historic event, told from a kid’s perspective and rendered in beautiful animation — only Richard Linklater could have made this film.

Like last year's "Chronicle," here's another reminder that in the right hands found footage still has plenty of capacity to surprise.

While cynics may find it twee, Mendes fans should greatly enjoy this (gently) surprising change of direction. Go in with the right frame of mind and you’ll leave with a big, goofy grin on your face.

Unique, beautiful and endlessly fascinating. It really is a work of art.

Even if you’re wholly unfamiliar with the franchise, Confess, Fletch will find fans among anyone who likes mystery-comedies, wickedly dry humour, and the sight of Kyle MacLachlan twirling glow-sticks to club music.

A sobering, haunting but completely fresh look at Whitney’s life and death that will reframe everything you think you know about the singer.

Intriguing and visually atmospheric melodrama with Dietrich doing her sultry thing.

A profoundly affecting story of doomed love and lost time that boasts captivating performances from Mescal and O’Connor. Come for the boys, stay for the magic of storytelling through song.

It’s a visceral experience; part survivalist drama, part slash-and-stalk thriller, filled with intensity and dread, all amplified by wild editing strategies (flash cuts, jump cuts, abrupt cuts to black) and strobe effects to stoke up the atmosphere.

The high school teen romcom is reborn for 2018. Funny, sentimental and smart: John Hughes would be proud.

Superbly judging tonal shifts and juggling disparate storylines, this snapshot of a Refice street reveals the class, gender, racial and historical fissures in Brazilian society, while also making for riveting drama right down to the shocking sting in the tail.

It wouldn’t be like Martin Scorsese to pick up the tabs on a simple sequel, and this glossy, hard-spoken pool drama, a follow-on from The Hustler, never aligns to the simple organising principle of repeat value.

Entertaining as hell.

Brimming with compassion and punctuated by humour, this is a moving look at prison and prisoners. It’s both infuriating and inspirational to see so much beauty in such a harsh environment.

A deeply affecting glimpse of a man's quest to salvage beauty from tragedy.

From the astonishing studio sets and (Gaultier-designed) costumes to Gambon’s performance (so ferociously wicked that it beggars description), Greenaway attacks his targets with a sadistic obsession that is, frankly, terrifying. Many people will be profoundly offended by this film — by the monstrous misanthropy that Greenaway lays bare through it, by the spiteful images of women in a vicious world — but some may appreciate it for what it certainly is: the most startling depiction of intellectual cruelty and evil for many years.

A riveting revenge riot, with gobsmacking levels of film craft, and a performance from Michael Fassbender to make your blood run cold. It’s not quite top-tier Fincher, but it comes damn close.

Still an impressive and disturbing brink-of-doom thriller.

It might be a minor work from a major filmmaker but François Ozon’s remix of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic has its pleasures, chiefly strong performances across the board, especially from Isabelle Adjani and the immense Denis Ménochet, embodying the German maverick without ever descending into impersonation.

The first of two King-as-Bachman 2025 thrillers featuring a deadly reality show in a dystopian future. Edgar Wright’s The Running Man will need to bust a lung to keep up.

Crowe is still a master navigator of swampy territory, and any movie that can warm the heart and tickle the funny bone without selling its soul is to be cherished, warts and all.

Mary Poppins Returns has boundless creativity, stacks of charm and not a cynical second. If it’s not quite practically perfect, it comes close enough.

Pascale Ferran as the first female director to adapt this notorious novel absorbs her successful vision with a uniquely romantic vibe.

An interrogation of art and artist, The Pigeon Tunnel is an enthralling documentary both for fans of le Carré and those who’ve never read a page of his work.

A resonant film which has a speudo-cult status as everyone has seen it late one night on TV and it's never left them.

A brilliant Vicky Krieps performance, ample surprises and a series of playful anachronisms elevate Marie Kreutzer’s period drama about a 19th century Empress above the ordinary. That, and a fine soundtrack to boot.

Designed and deserving to be seen big and loud, Memoria is a hypnotic, unquantifiable, occasionally inpenetrable sonic odyssey from a unique cinematic voice.

Wrongly branded misogynist by PC kneejerkers, this is a scathing assault on the exploitative nature of pornography and the emptiness of sex without love.

Played with restraint and individuality by a fine ensemble, this is a moving but provocative study of belief, duty, compassion and acceptance.

No fence-sitting here, Sorry To Bother You wallops its targets. Drenched in self-awareness, it is fantastically refreshing, defiantly announcing Riley as a radical new voice.

A placid, poignant, well-kept secret of a movie.

Dark fun, with performances to savour and a set of references too seldom made in today’s pictures, this is a treat. It may peter out at the end, but what a calling card for Cory Finley, and this could be the last outing for its leads before superstardom beckons.

Shadowy political trickery is one thing, fabricating an entire NASA mission is near impossible to credit. Get over that and it’s a whole lot of fun watching Hal Halbrook’s — who played supergrass Deep Throat in All The President’s Men — wicked scheming unravel thanks to the gutsy work of Elliot Gould’s tatty hack.

Accomplished and assured.

Moving, bold, unconventional and impeccably staged, The Arbor is a worthy tribute to a powerfully artistic voice.

With Edgar-Jones and Powell’s fizzing appeal at its epicentre, Twisters at once feels like a testament to a new generation of stars and a gripping old-school movie event. Fear it. Watch it.

An immersive and impassioned documentary from one of Britain’s most formidable filmmakers, which may be singular in its perspective but is as powerful to watch as it is painful.

This is probably not the film you would expect it to be. But its unexpectedness is its biggest asset, a moving and very eccentric feathered fantasy about life, death and everything in-between.

A strong directorial debut from Winslet with — as you’d expect — stellar performances from her cast. It might be the perfect antidote to other, overly saccharine Christmas films.

Impossible to appreciate in a single sitting, this masterly piece of polemical filmmaking is as intoxicating as it is intriguing.

Truly classic film-making.

A delightful folk story from one of the best filmmakers working today — and a fitting final turn from Redford, all easy charm and grace. It takes a lifetime of effort to look this effortless.

Excellent performances from Pollack and Davis in particular, make this one of Woody's finest of the 90s.

Tense when it needs to be and awfully good fun throughout. Stupidity reigns supreme for these rich kids, but the filmmakers are smart enough to make Bodies Bodies Bodies stick the landing.

Maddin's surrealism is always gently persuasive rather than all-out shocking. Nobody else is doing anything remotely like this; reason enough to treasure it.

It’s not quite the home-run of Homecoming, but Far From Home isn’t far from matching it, with heaps of humour, energetic action, and the answers Endgame left you craving.

Expertly handled by director Doug Liman, wittily scripted, and boasting a wonderfully original take on the action hero archetype, this new Road House is a total riot.

The breakneck pace, the seething sense of menace and the unflinching attitude to sex, drugs and violence coagulate into a nastily authentic take on the seediness and venality of modern villainy.

At the venerable age of 84, documentary maven Wiseman hasn't lost his touch.

Zendaya and John David Washington deliver career-best performances in this mesmerising two-hander that ruminates on love, life and art.

Dolan has previously been accused of style over substance but here he draws both magnificently together. It’s perhaps a little too long, but Mommy is a movie to make you feel alive.

A star rating is not much help, since von Trier’s self-conscious arrogance is calculated to split audiences into extremist factions, but Antichrist delivers enough beauty, terror and wonder to qualify as the strangest and most original horror movie of the year.

Louis Malle, possibly at his best here. The drama is subtle but affecting.

A dark rites-of-passage story meets lethal Shakespearean drama, with low-key performances that artfully get under the skin.

Witherspoon's June is a pistol - a sugar-rush of screwball energy and cornball Southern sass that's meticulously earthed with grace notes of sadness.

At times terrifying and too tough for tinies, this is nevertheless a triumphant sequel that puts its faith in Hiccup and Toothless to find a way through dark times for man and dragon. Until we all get our own dragon to go flying with, the result is a story sufficiently thrilling to have us all airborne.

A superbly mounted, powerfully performed, if slightly underfed Apes sequel. That Reeves is set to direct Untitled Of The Planet Of The Apes next is cause for much celebration. This guy’s fur real. No pun intended.

Despite half-a-dozen recent attempts to "correct" this biopic, Minnelli's agonised portrait of the life of Vincent Van Gogh remains the definitive movie word on the subject.

If The Force Awakens raised a lot of questions, The Last Jedi tackles them head-on, delivering answers that will shock and awe in equal measure. Fun, funny but with emotional heft, this is a mouth-watering set-up for Episode IX and a fitting tribute to Carrie Fisher.

Enormously influential, it spawned Hollywood's interest in smaller scale, prosaic dramas, few of which failed to match its resonance.

Thanks to the captivating performances, this is well worth checking out.

Compelling, entertaining and illuminating documentary which makes you think twice, and then a few more times, about eating anything at all in U.S.

Another epic helping of sci-fi wildness from Denis Villeneuve that’ll take true believers to paradise — even if it’s a bit too much Spice to digest in one sitting.

This is the Bond flick blessed with the best plot, a genuine sense of emotion and a spirit closest to Ian Fleming’s novels.

If you can get on board with the paradigm change, this is an amped-up rock-gig of a movie and the most fun Predator since the original.

A high-concept idea with a low concept approach, Marjorie Prime is cerebral, talk-driven sci-fi lit up by a compelling exploration of big ideas and across-the-board strong performances from the small cast (especially Smith). A treat for the brain and soul.

It's a collection of cop-movie clichés but presented with sufficient flair and strong performances that the ride is enough, even if it's on rails.

Complicated and long but deftly handled adventure/caper/satire that ends up being thoroughly entertaining

It might not have the overwhelming impact of an Endgame or even a Guardians 3, but this is the MCU back on fast, funny form.

Exactly as good as Musker and Clements’ earlier efforts, so a return to the form of Disney’s early 1990s classics. The animation is gorgeous, the heroine feisty and the animals amusing -- but this may be too scary for the very small.

Of course it's hokey and silly, but Reiner really knows how to skirt potential schmaltz and there is a political backbone to the piece which gives it reassuring depth.

Setting out more to challenge us with its ideas than make us whoop at the action, Vendetta can be clumsy, but there are enough impressive flourishes to make up for its stumblings.

Its intelligence makes it near-essential viewing.

The film never sentimentalises the old swine as it explores the nature of his genius. Terrific ballplayer, miserable human being. Unworthy subject, great movie.

An understated yet profound examination of identity and self-sacrifice, this honest depiction of repressed romance will unashamedly tug at every heart string.

Despite some fuzzy thinking in the third act, when it gets hard to see what is on Guare's mind, the result is a thoroughly engaging and pointed film.

A typically quixotic documentary in which great unknown artists from 35,000 years ago collaborate with one in 2011. Profound, mysterious and utterly absorbing.

Shannon Murphy’s debut film is a refreshing take on a familiar subgenre, offering a nuanced depiction of a family dealing with the worst-case scenario with humanity and sweetness.

A clarinet player who also runs a health food store is frozen and brought back in the future by anti-government radicals in order to assist them in their attempts to overthrow an oppressive government. When he goes off on his own, he begins to explore this brave new world that has Orgasmatron booths to replace sex and confessional robots.

It might veer towards hagiography at times, but its subject is so entertaining you don't even care.

It might be lesser known, but certainly not deservingly so. This is a cracking piece of Brit cinema.