Director Stacie Passion doesn't try to ape Buñuel’s surrealist twist on ennui in Belle Du Jour, instead crafting an enthralling, modern tale in which intimacy is a goal rarely achieved.

It aches for more depth and warmth and humour, but this is spectacular sci-fi — huge, operatic, melodramatic, impressive. It feels the right Superman origin story for our era, and teases what would be a welcome new superfranchise.

Though the story occasionally stretches credibility, the warmth and wit so reminiscent of the original Bridget Jones's Diary propels you along, being due in large part to the return of one woman: director Sharon Maguire. You feel her filthy, funny thumbprints pressed on almost every scene.

We've never seen Pierce Brosnan so liberated - he’s a man reborn, and for what The Matador may lack in rounded plotting, it makes up for in funny, spiky, idiosyncratic glee.

Close gives a performance that demands the Oscar voters consider her for a seventh time, and with Pryce matching her barb for barb, this is a heavyweight piece of theatre that grips whenever they’re on screen.

If you can take the assault on your senses it’s worth sticking with for a core of genuine, affecting drama and dollops of sly, quotable humour.

Recalling the work of Jacques Tati, this is a grim but amusing and ultimately successful effort.

With remarkable performances, aggressive direction and a cracking pace, this is superb cinema, even if the historical accuracy leaves much to be desired.

With the whole of America as his backdrop, Penn pulls off his most ambitious movie yet. The result is a beautiful and thought-provoking road movie.

Effortlessly the best Predator movie since the original, Prey proves that, against all expectation, there’s life in the franchise yet, not to mention a thrilling new lead in Amber Midthunder.

Brad Dourif shows he was always great in one of John Huston's better later films.

A sci-fi thriller starring Robert Pattinson suggests that Claire Denis has gone all mainstream. But High Life is the filmmaker at her most dark, a mesmerising, patience-testing, violent exploration in the darkest reaches of outer and inner space.

A gruelling, nightmarish, ferociously vivid riot epic that recreates one of the darkest chapters in American history. Unflinching, unmissable and terrifyingly pertinent.

It has some of that episodic ‘compressed miniseries’ feel which a lot of King pictures get stuck with (the book was later redone as a TV serial with Anthony Michael Hall) but still manages a lot of powerful material.

Last-act let-down aside, this is a confident and creepy ghoul-in-the-pool horror that makes Bryce McGuire a filmmaker to watch. Wusses, bring armbands.

This is how action movies should be made.

Kidman, in particular, hasn't been this good since "To Die For" and maybe not even then.

Disjointed but it still rocks.

Hardly a barrel of laughs then, but this slowburn tale sears its way onto the synapses and then flat refuses to budge.

Cronenberg's best for a long time -- broad and entertaining enough for those unacquainted with the director's work, but layered with the themes of infection and mutation that have defined it.

Filmed over 13 days in Tuscany and based on genuine Balkan Route testimony, this is an innovative, immersive insight into the migration crisis that also reveals much about human depravity.

Truth or not, this is an exceptional piece of cinema, deeply provoking and audacious.

Jackie does what the very best biopics should: it makes you view someone you’ve seen countless times as if you were seeing them anew.

A riveting slice of Romanian new wave drama, haunted by shadows of the Ceausescu era and never less than thought-provoking.

Within Allen’s recent output, Vicky Cristina is the highlight. See it for beautiful locales, an ambivalent look at human relationships and a clutch of great performances, especially from Cruz.

Unpredictable and compelling, this draws parallels between Japanese and German cultures in interesting and moving ways.

An exciting, intellectually stimulating science-fiction thriller which also connects emotionally. Everyone involved earns a promotion to the premiership.

A hard film to love, but a hypnotic meditation on all the elements -- gossip, religion, bullying -- that can turn a parish and country bad.