A movie that while thin and silly, moves with such joyous speed that you almost want to throw your arms in the air and scream.

Very funny, it's also penetrating on the ravages of time on love and marriage and sweetly touching, but with abundantly incongruous randy content to heartily amuse.

Ingenious and wonderfully detailed, though better in its imaginative horror than its slightly too-broad comic knockabout. It's not quite on the level of Coraline, but it's proper summer fun with some dark delights.

It exists basically as a long showreel for Superman-to-be Henry Cavill, who gets to demonstrate a mastery of run-with-a-gun acting and flex his leading man charisma without really breaking a sweat.

The early franchise frights are missing. There's some ironic light-heartedness in the nuptial set, the religious overtones are distractingly self-conscious.

A moving drama set against beautiful Latin American backdrops - just don't expect fireworks.

If it doesn't ultimately engage your heart as it might, Anna Karenina is period drama at its most exciting, intoxicating and modern. Spellbinding.

Not nearly as terrible as burped-out Sandler disasters of recent years, there's enough funny stuff here to remind us of his talent. Still, it's not for everyone.

A bizarre and mesmerising journey to the heart of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

An uneven mix of impressively executed, violent clichés about good ol' boys defending the American right to flout the law.

There was much to dread about this new iteration of Dredd, but it's a solid, occasionally excellent take on the character, with Urban's chin particularly impressive.

Like any holiday, it is episodic and suffers from repetition but this is gag-for-gag the funniest film of the summer and a fitting end to a much-loved series. So long boys, it's been great to know you.

Too safe to shock and too familiar to really frighten, this is an overly conventional affair.

Best known until now for Oscar-winning holocaust drama "The Counterfeiters," Karl Markovics flexes his muscles on the other side of the camera with terrific effect. A fine, moving debut for the new writer/director.

Lacking the bite of "Attack The Block," Stiller and co. are happy to fall back on their usual shtick, with director Schaffer providing barely enough juice to power the laughs.

A semi-sequel to the acclaimed "Baraka," Fricke delivers another stunning spectacle in 70mm, interspersed with some tiresome sermonising.

Perhaps no more absurd than the Verhoeven version, but certainly less amusing. Farrell and Beckinsale emerge unscathed, but the endless scrabbling for novelty and reinvention leaves this feeling unaccountably stale and familiar.

It's overlong, but with its gorgeous cast, irreverent humour and beautifully drawn characters, this smart comedy-drama is the kind of movie Couples Retreat and Grown Ups should have been. Please, nobody let Adam Sandler anywhere near a remake.

The year's most fascinating and frightening doc so far, The Imposter delves far beneath the hysterical tabloid headlines.

A huge, bulging disappointment.

Sarah Polley's second film is a masterfully painted portrait of an ordinary marriage under threat, dominated by a central performance of exquisite subtlety and observation.

No less lovely than former films, in many ways lovelier, but Brave is boutique Pixar: less ambitious, more succinct, excellence at a lower ebb.

As earnestly as they have tried to continue the formerly excellent spy series, everything Gilroy and crew concoct only serves to mock the excellence and passion with which Greengrass delivered his films.

A worthy topic that deserves a slightly better documentary.

Solid production values lend a polish to the spooks and there are strong performances all round, especially from the ever-excellent Rebecca Hall, but there's little here to add to the well-worn haunted house genre.

Klayman exploits the opportunity to follow a man at the eye of a cultural and political storm, although more detail on his creative process and private life would have welcome.

A great disappointment by the "City Of God" man's high standards.

Christophe Honoré goes epic in a tale of interlocking lives that owes a debt to Jacques Demy. It won't be to everyone's taste but it's playful enough to win us over.

Greg avoids the curse of the three in the third outing for the Wimpy Kid. Hardly groundbreaking but plenty of fun for its target audience.

This barely conceivable story of neglect and loneliness is given heartbreaking new life by Morley, with Zawe Ashton standing in effectively for the tragic young singer.

Music fans will love this indie documentary. Try to avoid Googling him before you watch, though.

A mix of the fascinating and the frustrating: some of the dishes are exciting and interesting, however, 108 minutes of detail causes this documentary to fall short of its potential.

Lovely to look at and with some fun material not of Seuss' invention, but it's too hectoring, like reading an environmental textbook with jolly pictures.

Full of wit, intelligence and flair, once more Delpy has created a delightfully irresistible sort-of-romantic comedy.

Family dysfunction to make Jeremy Kyle blush, but thanks to McConaughey's oily power and Friedkin's unflinching purpose it's a compelling beast.

If Miike's re-tune of Masaki Kobayashi's bleak samurai tale is a surprisingly subdued affair, aficionados will still find enough sword-based shenanigans to keep them engrossed.

An extremely interesting insight, proving that rap music is an art form in its own right.

With spectacle in abundance and sexiness in (supporting) parts, this is superhero filmmaking on an unprecedented scale. Rises may lack the surprise of Begins or the anarchy of Knight, but it makes up for that in pure emotion.

Old friends and new voice talent will delight kids with a never-ending love for the most undemanding animation out there. A megabucks franchise drifts on.

The ever-versatile Winterbottom's loose and limber adaptation doesn't entirely mesh with Hardy's more formal narrative, leaving this feeling disjointed and underpowered. Nevertheless, there's still plenty to enjoy in the director's customary flourishes.

Fans will relish the chance to see Katy's rainbow-tastic live shows magically enhanced by 3D technology. Those indifferent to her will leave as perplexed about Perry's superstardom as they were before.

The final act has an inevitable wavering patch when the film is obliged to tut-tut about the shallowness of the stripping, drinking, bantering, carousing and whooping it has previously enjoyed, but this is terrific entertainment with a sideline in wry melancholia and testosterone-fuelled philosophy. Have 20 dollars.

Part road trip, part revenge movie, this is a tentative tale of a man who's not going to take it anymore, sharp on the fallibility of human foibles and sometimes stingingly funny, too.

Enjoyably satirical and occasionally insightful, it's betrayed by some lazy stereotyping.

A little pretentious maybe, but then you've got to wonder at a woman who could sit motionless in a wooden chair, eight hours a day for three months.

Graced with great performances from Garfield and Stone, The Amazing Spider-Man is a rare comic-book flick that is better at examining relationships than superheroism. If it doesn't approach the current benchmark of Avengers Assemble, it still delivers a different enough, enjoyable origin story to live comfortably alongside the Raimi era.

It benefits from a supernaturally engaging cast, but this treads too closely to the rom-com model to feel as smart or moving as Westfeldt's previous best.

Less confrontational than most Solondz movies, in that it refrains from violence or kink, but still unsettling and affecting.

The grave tone makes it stiff and leaden, the digi-saturated look is a turn-off. Damnable and disordered.

Despite one or two nice moments and the naturalistic tone, it's all a bit of a slog.

Another solid hit from Planet Apatow - charming, funny and remarkably in tune with real life.

Like every one of its songs, it makes a lot of noise about nothing much and cockily straddles awfulness and greatness. It's enormously entertaining nonsense.

An ambitious thriller from Pawlikowski assisted by excellent performances from Hawke, Kulig and Scott Thomas.

Unsparing in its portrayal of the seedier side of French society, only Polisse's loose focus keeps it from matching The Class for emotional punch. It's still a worthy companion piece to TV police procedurals like Spiral.

Quietly compelling, the cerebral slice of social realism is well worth hunting down.

Even with a strong cast to gild its endless chambers and salons, there's barely a spark of soul to fuel its story. Pattinson is no Malkovich either.

Buffeted by a lack of suspense, threadbare characters, and a very poor script, the stunning visuals, gloopy madness, and sterling Fassbenderiness can't prevent Prometheus feeling like Alien's poor relation.

A charming, visually sparkling Parisian fantasy with a dark edge.

A strong visual style tussles with flaccid storytelling in this ambitious retelling of Grimm. It won't exactly have Walt Disney spinning in his secret ice chamber, but you may wish they spent more time worrying about what exactly the film is than who it's for.

Talented Norwegian Joachim Trier - distant cousin to the better-known (and Danish) Lars - delivers a wonderful, melancholy character piece that's funny and tender, and as fresh as a breath of Oslo sea air.

As funny, bittersweet and as distinct as you'd expect from Wes Anderson, a director who helps you know you are not alone. Terrific performances from sprogs to stars and a lovely sense of the sorrow and joy of growing up.

Despite some good moments, Agents J, O and K are missing an E.

Remember your first time with Hard Boiled? Die Hard? This is how it's done - a clean, hard, constant hit of adrenalin. If it's not the best action movie of the year, we'll eat a fridge.

Formulaic, yet scrappy, and extremely funny in fits and starts, General Aladeen is the first of Cohen comic creations to get a better vehicle than it probably deserves.

A word of warning: this is not the knockabout comedy the trailer suggests. Instead, it cleaves closer to what you expect from Burton: darkness, quirk and Johnny Depp on great form. A step up, then, from Alice In Wonderland and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, but not tip-top Tim.

With so many films adapted from novels, it's nice to see cinema paying homage to unheralded greats of literature like Sebald. While this one often struggles to do justice to his sense of grandeur and poetry, it'll be manna for fans of the German's work.

There's undoubtedly comedy mileage in an irreverent sending up of the Signs/Magnolia school of everything-is-connected philosophy. Despite the calibre of the cast, the Duplass brothers mostly fail to find it.

The pair muster some chemistry but it's the big musical moments - including a gusto-packed Soft Cell riff - that impress most. Sadly, the pair's romance is predictable and the plot unfolds with all the freshness of a two day old fish supper.

A nasty little chiller from the Saw director with the evergreen De Mornay on top form.

"The Notebook" may have had us blubbing but since then Nicholas Sparks adaptions have offered thin pickings for cinemagoers. For all Efron's boyish charms, this one could be the most ordinary of the lot.

The first couple of servings back in the day were fresh and fruity, but the franchise has been left on the shelf a little too long. It's occasionally entertaining to have these characters back in our lives, but for the most part this fails to party like it's 1999.

It works as a suspense-building scare machine, given heart and depth by Olsen's performance - though it's still an effective exercise in misdirection rather than a strikingly original vision, and now it's a remake of an effective exercise in misdirection.

An Oscar nominee at this year's Academy Awards and for good reason, Falardeau's film is moving, smart and sensitive. Terrific stuff, in short.

Hansen-Løve again shows what a gifted storyteller she is with this tender, realistic portrayal of young love.

A rough, exhausting, exhilarating action picture with a payoff which would have delighted Sam Fuller or Howard Hawks. The Stath - an actual Olympian, remember - is on top form.

Charming, delightful and amusing - just what you'd expect from the star-studded cast of veterans.

The Avengers have been assembled and, for the most part, they fit together superbly. A joyous blend of heroism and humour that raises the stakes even as it maintains a firm grip on what makes the individual heroes tick.

It's just not quite as much fun as it should be, despite Pearce's best efforts and some good chemistry with Grace. Unusually for an action thriller, this could have benefited from being just a little longer.

Another bravura performance from Juliette Binoche glosses over the flaws in a soft-focused glimpse at the seamier side of student life.

As awkward as McGregor's geeky hero and almost as confused as the titular plan, Salmon Fishing is still very likable if you're prepared to take the bait. And it might even be Scott Thomas' funniest turn since "Four Weddings And A Funeral."

A masterful documentary to rival Macdonald's "Touching The Void."

Miss.

A slick thriller which takes place in a moral vacuum. It's fascinating rather than exciting, but makes for chilly thrills with two strong, charismatic lead performances, a great deal of style and amusingly repulsive, ruthless twists.

A sometimes shocking, often moving journey through a blood-stained corner of the past. Like Costa Gavras's "Missing" through the eyes of an everyday Chilean.

Part "Evil Dead," part "The Truman Show," part "Arthur Christmas"... For horror hounds who love a larf, and those of us who always wondered exactly what that dry-ice stuff that rises out of the forest-floor moss is. A fun ride - but not quite a "Scream."

A eye-popping visual treat and a journey into the creative spirit.

It may not be up there with his very best, but Aki Kaurismäki offers a reminder that he's a still one of the freshest voices in cinema.

Superlative performances from Roberts and Hammer almost cover the shortcomings. Like most Tarsem films it's a muddle, but this time not one with enough distracting dazzle.

A fascinating insight into the disparity between rich and poor, and powerful nations and their less muscle-flexing neighbours. And, unless you're a fish, it's also pretty darn scary.

If even a tenth of the care and attention lavished on the production design and action sequences had been afforded the script, this could have been an adventure of legendary proportions. As it is, this fizzles whenever anyone opens their mouths.

Another Aardman triumph. The animation house's most technically ambitious project so far and, if not quite at the genius level of Wallace & Gromit, still a comedy treasure and far too good just for kids.

Much-maligned it may be, but the so-called mumblecore movement continues to turn out gems. Lena Dunham's lo-fi, witty treatment of a semi-autobiographical tale adds another dozy to the canon.

Though short on shocks and mild in horror terms, Fresnadillo's fantasy has a lot of heart and sincerity in equal measure.

Another reason to avoid films endorsed by the US military, this is sub-propaganda tosh that inadvertently plays like Hot Shots: Part Trois.

In outline it sounds trite - a disenfranchised kid is turned around by a kindly stranger - but the Dardennes' make it so much more. Raw but compassionate, naturalistic but compelling. If you're looking to get into the Dardennes, this is a great place to start.

As thrilling and smart as it is terrifying. There have been a number of big-gun literary series brought to screen over the past decade. This slays them all.

This isn't traditional heritage cinema and it may not tickle the same taste buds that devoured "Tinker Tailor" or "The King's Speech." It does, however, represent the unique vision of an artist who needs to be met halfway, and in an age of hubbub, its patient elegance is a rare thing we should nurture.

Complex and sophisticated, this genre-defying crime story is spellbinding viewing.