Handsome, engrossing, frequently very funny for a literary bio drama, and ultimately deeply moving, with pitch-perfect performances from one and all.

A deeply disconcerting provocation about the future of civilisation: a powerfully performed vision of an insignificant humanity.

This is way more than it seems and manages to surprise and enchant throughout.

One of the most chillingly effective visions of the world’s end ever put on screen -- and a heart-rending study of parenthood, to boot.

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.

Decent ingredients but, as a whole, this is lacking in choreographic flair and plot substance.

A really satisfying backstage drama, this is an exhilarating tour around a man whose talent was almost as big as his ego.

If you buy in to the central romance, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll swoon. Otherwise, the lingering glances, lip-chewing and regular de-shirting may cause uncontrollable giggles.

Bullock delivers a towering performance that grabs the movie and the Oscar race by the scruff of the neck. You will be moved, but at the price of any nuance or complexity.

An exhilarating riff on the cop-thriller drama by a director at the top of his game -- Herzog is also at his most accessible here -- powered by an incendiary performance from Nicolas Cage. A very bad lieutenant, then. And a bloody good film.

Gorgeous and seductive, if pitched at Almodóvar fans and perhaps a touch long. Those drawn by Cruz’s divadom will wonder why it takes so long to get to her -- though she is wholly dazzling when it does.

Camp, over-the-top and entirely unbelievable: in short, the best thing John Woo has made in years.

Genuinely original: a silly, hilarious and oddly profound adaptation for adult-sized children.

A mix-tape of successes and failures, perhaps too light for its subject, but a silly, easy watch.

A worthy addition to the canon of Iraq war films, The Messenger has a gentle humanity that creeps under your skin. Look out for a terrific Harrelson turn, too.

Movie Marmite. Many will be perplexed. Donnie Darko fans should lap it up.

While it may not be perfect on a technical level, dramatically it’s a blow-your-socks-off triumph. Be moved. Very, very moved.

It’s always a good story, this time told more creepily than usual. Good, but not as good as The Muppets’ Christmas Carol, Scrooged, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol or some great, classic live action classic versions.

George Clooney dazzles and Jeff Bridges shines in a scattershot but often hilarious military farce.

This Is It delivers neither the full-on Jackson stage experience or a revealing portrait of his complex mindset. Yet it does not dishonour his memory and you can’t deny the power of the music.

Swank’s moving performance, the period dressing and beautiful planes all appeal, but dramatically it doesn’t really soar.

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.

Jaa’s period ‘beatquel’ is thick on action but thin on plot. Awesome final fight, though.

A film for anyone who’s ever climbed trees, grazed knees or basked in the comfort of a parent’s sympathy as they’ve pulled you off the ground crying. It’ll make your inner child run wild.

Cliché-ridden and full of plot-holes.

Relentlessly ugly, preposterous and hackneyed of dialogue: guilty on all counts. It will do well, then.

A decent but unremarkable film with a big, unforgettable central performance. Carey Mulligan passes with First-Class Honours.

Sheen thrives in the guise of the idiosyncratic Clough in a brilliantly candid, if bitty, football parable.