Too often The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain favours eccentricity over actual insight. But even when the tones jar, Cumberbatch’s vulnerable, layered performance always rings true.

Mostly harmless. A very British, very funny sci-fi misadventure that's guaranteed to win converts.

So it may not be Citizen Kane, but it is a hilarious comedy (although not a very believable one — there can be no eight-year-olds this ingenious) that kids will love and adults won’t mind sitting through either.

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

A sturdy by-the-numbers legal drama that really belongs on the small screen.

A quality production, with awards-bid performances from Bale and Affleck to prove it... but, as signalled by the curiously unmemorable title, it flounders while trying to come up with a story to embody the things it wants to say about the sorry state of modern America. Worth seeing, but a near-miss.

A grimly funny social allegory that doesn't pull a single punch.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but maybe they’re wrong: on this evidence, Guy Ritchie can absolutely learn how to make a Paul Greengrass film, delivering a handsome slice of serious war drama.

The golden-larynxed franchise graduates with a merit.

Soapy it may be, but for those who’ve poshed it up with the Crawleys since the very start, this is an affectionate, escapist hug of a movie — like being wrapped in a doily.

While Landau, Aiello and a brief appearance by Christopher Walken do perk things up, it's a tediously indulgent, redundant work.

One of the greatest screen musicals ever.

A snappy, quirky German indie that will thrill fans of early Jim Jarmusch.

It’s cool and brutal, but with such impressive action credentials you almost wish there were fewer plot devices to distract you as Charlize gets up and at ’em.

This stylish, quietly suspenseful crime film offers a rejoinder to the typical macho ’70s genre, focusing on the female experience in a compelling, nuanced way.

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

As Lowe systematically dismantles Spader's antiseptic existence, Hanson and writer David Koepp handle the thriller plot well, with Lowe effective as the plastically beautiful but deeply dangerous bad influence of the title.

Familiar biopic beats hold it back, but strong performances and McAvoy’s sincere direction make it a promising debut, balancing humour and heart.

This glimpse into a decadent era has its charms, but they’re mostly visual. While Pfeiffer and Friend perform well, the script is tonally confused and lacks edge.

This coasts along just fine thanks to charm and comical interludes, but it fails to deliver the sassy story it promises. Fine for a romantic comedy, but an inferior follow up to director Gluck's edgier "Easy A."

The method is well-worn and the subject-matter familiar, but this is a smart, scary little picture.

Hardly hard-hitting but a thoughtful and spirited look at a man at the top of his game and a moment in time that refused to fade.

With a frustrating format and poor animation, it's still worth it for Franco and the chance to engage with a key work of poetry.

Occasionally, like its characters, ragged around the edges, this nevertheless rings with all the emotion and power of the source and provides a new model for the movie musical.

Good-natured, old-fashioned family entertainment, but Two Brothers never quite manages to strike a successful balance between fantasy and reality.

If it were any more manic you’d have to put it on Ritalin.

It has grown a little thin with age, especially Gere’s yuppie baiting speeches, but there’s a hardness here, an aversion to the dumb action thrills of the genre, that keeps it respectably high up the scale.

This pleasant 1940 comedy-drama hit on the successful double-act teaming of crooner Bing Crosby and patter comic Bob Hope, throwing in sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour for glamour and working through a trivial plot about fleeing responsibility for a South Seas idyll.