Perhaps it’s his fidelity to this team of collaborators that creates such a fluid vision; much like the honey bees that Teddy lovingly tends to in his garden, every artist moves in service of a grand design.

The bite that made the first Bridget Jones’ Diary such a delight isn’t really here. Perhaps that’s a sign of the maturing protagonist, but it doesn’t leave much for us to get excited about.

There is hope: Gazan journalist Bisan Owda is among the talking heads, given appropriate space in the film’s moving closing moments to reflect on the rippling global awakening concerning freedom for the Palestinian people; on the importance of feeling, regardless of how gradually, that they are not alone.

Although the script does have a zippy, wisecracking feel, there’s also an earnestness at play: the characters embrace the strangeness of their world without ever feeling the need to remark on it. In short, this is a film that is fun while also taking its premise somewhat seriously.

This is primary-colour, major-key storytelling. It is disarming, charming and unafraid to be sincere – especially when it comes to the sparks of inspiration, creativity and connection that are so fundamental to human existence.

Even if you know how this famous story ends, the final act is an exercise in tension-building that makes this visceral survival drama memorable long after the credits finish.

Ramsay articulates the inarticulate, here through her saturated blues, yellows, browns and greens, the colours of grief and sickness and rot…but also new life, summer skies, and hope.

The actors’ effervescent chemistry powers the film along wonderfully.

Williams and Maskell have delivered an effective, savage revenge thriller – as long as one’s expectations are moderate.

The Suicide Squad is crass, noisy and brash – a disturbing glimpse inside the mind of James Gunn.

The film does aim for something a little deeper by also making it about the sheep being forced to acknowledge and experience the realities of death, and there are a couple of moments of sheep-based existential revelation that are surprisingly moving. At its best it even occasionally recalls vintage Aardman, particularly something like the original Chicken Run film.

The writing cannot match the poignancy of Lengronne’s performance. Her emotional immediacy is more interesting than the epic, yet comparatively muted scope of the film.

It’s a throwback to the exhilarating, ferocious Hong Kong action filmmaking of yore, capping off a muscular actioner that marries old-school bravado with contemporary technique.

It is at times chilling, morally reprehensible and frightening, but it also proves to be liberating for the central character.

With his rumi­na­tive lat­est, The Shrouds, Cro­nen­berg once more makes a play for the heart­strings in what must be one of the most naked­ly mov­ing and rev­e­la­to­ry films with­in his canon.

Maybe he doesn’t have the cunning of Keaton or the brawn of Bale, but in his own unique way Pattinson’s Batman feels perfectly adapted for the uncertain and unjust times we are living in, where greed and impunity are the order of the day. And if the film itself isn’t totally original, it at least spreads its latex wings in some fun and surprising ways.

It offers a spitefully funny takedown of a culture which sees no differences between the acts of soul-bearing and self-abasement, and just when you think Borgli couldn’t twist the knife any further, he does just that.

The film plays through the scenario with plenty of moment-by-moment gusto, and there’s a lack of flab to it that makes it rather appealing when placed next to so many action blockbusters (many of the interim Predator franchise entries included) that just feel the need to ramp things up to a silly degree. And still, this is a shallow film that offers little more than superficial pleasures.

The pungent whiff of designer cynicism pervades every scene, so not only is it difficult to understand why these diners aren’t taking their business elsewhere (which they absolutely would do if they’re the capitalist scum we’re told they are), but it’s difficult to give two hoots as to whether they stay or go.

Seeking Mavis Beacon is the debut film of two young Black women, carving out their own place for themselves within the historical record. It’s not flawless, or free of blemishes and glitches, but neither should it be.

Heretic may seek to rock your faith in the divine, but it truly fortifies one’s belief in Hugh Grant.

As an account of Hudson the Hollywood party boy and lothario it is comprehensive, though those expecting a more complex account of the star’s inconsistencies may find themselves shortchanged.

The film works best when it allows the boys to simply shoot the breeze and discuss the lives they’ve led up to this moment.

No Way Home feels like a greatest hits package specifically designed to hit every fan service button. It doesn’t give us any indication of where this story is going, or why we should care.

Memory’s relatively restrained hundred-minute runtime is bloated with repetitive sequences focused on the characters navigating the world physically rather than emotionally, suggesting that even Franco fails to grasp the vast potential of the parable at hand.

The impressive momentum of the first hour, in spite of the inherent repetition, dissipates when the onscreen players start loitering and even sitting down to talk. In its third act, this otherwise effective thriller about getting stuck does end up spinning its own wheels.

It’s a film which dismantles and reconstructs the stereotypes of Black masculinity in a manner that’s both unsentimental and honest.

It’s a creative and admirably earnest endeavour, but one that will most certainly live or die on your tolerance for Torrini’s winsome warbling.

Gilford’s tale of chosen family awash with bright blues and reds maintains a bold sense of hopefulness at a time when America’s LGBTQ+ population is bracing for the worst.

Predators: Badlands might not be on the level of Trachtenberg’s 2022 Predator spin-off, Prey, but it has its pleasures. It’s a smart kind of stupid that hits the lowest common denominator in terms of story as a means of revelling in the strangeness of the world building. Each scene serves its purpose and the movie, running not much longer than 100 minutes, never wears out its welcome.

“The hunt” may be the driving force of the booksellers, but the film shows rare bookselling evolving into a form of curatorship – and that being the key of its evolution, survival and accessibility.

It’s a refreshing return to naturalistic form for Pugh following her recent blockbuster run, relishing in the multi-layered gowns designed by Odile Dicks-Mireaux. But The Wonder is most captivating in its look.

Unfortunately, Disco Boy is afflicted with the curse of trying to pack too much (in terms of both style and substance) into its 92-minute runtime, rendering it incapable of saying much at all.

Every woman’s uphill battle will look different, and here is one fleshed out admirably.

The film keeps us guessing to the end, although a lack of character development and some ponderous plotting means it’s hard to care too much about the fate of Pete and the others.

Cemented by Efira’s restrained, empathetic performance, Paris Memories is a deft exploration of recovery, and a moving tribute to Winocour’s brother Jérémie and other victims and survivors.

Far from a humiliating and cruel character assassination, this film is a study of the limits of perception that is tender and unsettling in equal measure.

Reflecting on McQueen’s oeuvre, Blitz is a clear culmination of his greatest passions, the film itself feeling at once fresh and well-trodden.

While beautiful, the impression left by Banel & Adama is confusing.

It’s an elegant film, reckoning empathetically with an extremely complex topic, but there’s a slight sense that something is missing, keeping The Room Next Door from ever really becoming truly great.

It feels as if Crialese wants to explore this subject matter without potentially alienating an audience who may disagree with the stance it takes, so everything political is soft edged, and Adri’s dilemma is nudged to the background in the film’s final act.

These stories are already the stuff of cinematic legend, but that doesn’t make their retelling any less compelling.

The film mutates a little bit from playful essay to necessary advocacy doc, yet in its final passages Sankey also manages to ingeniously thread the needle between her two subjects.

It contains an effervescent combination of haste, impassioned nostalgia, and genuine affection between cast and crew. Going full method is to be commended, but the result is a back-slapping sesh that forgets its satirical intentions somewhere along the way.

A film of haunting unease, but not perhaps the complete package.

At a time when the tech industry is continually attempting to force AI down our throats, there’s something cloying about a film so nakedly insistent that a robot can replace a human being it portrays almost all the humans in the story as self-serving and villainous.

It’s a hot-waxed shrine to its subject, an official version which drips with hollow trivia and is happy to namecheck that thing it knows you like rather than reveal something that you didn’t.

The Bikeriders is an enjoyable ride and one that Nichols fans will get a kick out of. The ensemble cast is enticing but the tried-and-true story arc isn’t injected with enough rigour to make this the classic it could be.

At its heart is Tessa Thompson, giving a performance so commanding that it seems to reshape the molecules around her. Her Hedda is poised and sensual with a magnetism that affects virtually every interaction. The glance is a seduction and the lightest curled lip becomes a threat, with DaCosta trusting her leading lady to convey the power of this woman in silent, lingering close-ups.

The film rarely lets up thanks to a combination of Ledru’s dynamic turn, kinetic camerawork with breathless tracking shots along open roads and impressively choreographed action sequences packed full of thrilling bike and quad stunts.

There is a lack of catharsis in the conclusion which, to the film’s credit, feels apt. It’s a powerful story with no easy way forward for anyone concerned.

Even if it wasn’t a regressive picture masquerading as progressive, or completely out-of-touch with the sociopolitical reality of Mexico, Emilia Pérez would simply be a boring one and that’s just as much a crime.

Monkey Man is an energetic and thoughtful debut feature that leaves one excited about what Patel’s future as an action star might look like.

Lentzou is certainly onto a winning formula, but it’s Kokkali and Georgakopoulos’ superb performances that ultimately make up for Moon’s shortcomings.

As a director, von Horn is smart enough to recognise that even the most heinous crimes have a human culprit, and as such his sensitive, unsensational film retains a sense of poise and never strays into soap opera territory.

It’s a film that simply enhances the feeling that America has been prematurely deprived of one of its finest musical ambassadors. Irrespective of location, however, we’re all poorer without him.

Despite some pacing issues and the fact it leans a little to heavily on extended visual longeurs, this is a fine second feature from Mortensen.

Aside from well-trodden social politics, Brother’s examination of the myriad ways we respond to grief is what sets it apart from other films that delineate the Black experience.

It’s an unhurried story, one which drinks in the details of existential ennui suffered by kids who are supremely aware of the fact that they’ll probably have to take a bullet very soon. The question that remains is which direction will it come from.

While it would be hard to argue that none of this film’s two hours, 20 minute runtime could be trimmed, its final minutes are well worth the wait, with Cooper selling the intense darkness with everything he’s got.

It’s a film which sets up a lot of easy targets, but shifts its aim at the last second to take on – and bullseye – a whole lot of hard ones.

What elevates Sisters above a standard Hitchcock rip-off, and makes it authentically De Palma, is its typically unsubtle and scathing social critique.

Better overambitious than the opposite, and hopefully In Camera provides plenty more opportunities for Khalid and Rizwan, who so richly deserve them based on the strength of this feature.

It’s well meaning and all done with the best of intentions, but it doesn’t really say or do much more than the BBC documentary did nearly 40 years ago.

The result is a luridly coloured, transgressively queered piece of self-conscious schlock where cutting is the business of lovesick killers as much as filmmakers – and both cut right to the heart.

It’s as minimal as a drama can get, softening the highs and lows of narrative into a meditation on memory, purpose and recreation. Don’t be put off by its ambling form, for its function effectively probes political topics behind a gauze of cinematic serenity.

Fonzi doesn’t sugarcoat this tale, nor does she attempt to make it feel entirely like a piece of activist filmmaking that’s entirely serving a political cause (even if, in many aspects, it is). Yet through her canny pacing and shot choices, she elevates this material far above what might have been expected of it.

Wei maintains a highly individual, slippery and fascinating artistic sensibility all his own.

Weide’s own infatuation with the acclaimed writer helps this documentary to become a very personal chronicle of an interesting and influential life. Weide creates a documentary that even those unfamiliar with Vonnegut and his legacy can enjoy.

The film’s creative gore alone cannot paper over the ultimate flimsiness of Blichfeldt’s concept, which amounts to an adolescent scrawl of fairytale satire, somehow less interesting and transgressive than Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’ which predates it by 46 years.

It’s sometimes clumsily communicated but there’s something affecting about the reminder that it’s all worth the risk, or maybe it’s just that this writer has attended four weddings this summer.

It goes without saying, but the film dazzles with its trompe-l’oeil-like worldbuilding, which inhabits the fairy tale reality of Anderson’s mind without ever giving over to the wayward indulgence of dream logic.

Even if it does eventually crumble to pieces, it’s a really strong thriller for the large majority of its runtime.

The film does well to capture the probing literary spirit of Murakami, even if it doesn’t quite manage to channel the intense emotional aspect of its work, instead coming across as dryly ironic and detached.

As a folkloric meditation on the relationship between human and environment, mother and child, Alegría’s film has an earthly mystical quality to it, moving through its minimal plot with fluidity and enticement.

There is something a little boilerplate in how the film is structured which prevents it from offering anything particularly original. Were the visuals not so gorgeous, you might even see this as material primed for the small rather than big screen.

While there’s a loving homage element to the film, Cronin isn’t merely attempting to ape the hysterical dynamics and acrobatic camera moves that Raimi made his trademark.

This is a moving and compassionate fable that honours both the dying and those being left behind, while personifying, without ever demonising, death itself.

Throughout, Dragonfly plays with perspective, fascinated by the potential of others and what people are capable of. However, the film’s final note is deeply cynical, as if it is embarrassed by the sincerity of its genuine and vital message.

Alone Together invites us into this community and gives fans some insight into Charli’s psychology, although perhaps the most evocative work chronicling this period in the artist’s career is the album itself.

It’s the greatest asset of Papicha that it condemns without being dogmatic, showing its central conflict to be more complicated than Western audiences might otherwise believe.

If Sorrentino has a special power as a filmmaker, it’s his ability to draw the very best out of Servillo in any type of terrain, and it’s this wholly committed and natural lead performance which holds together an otherwise slipshod and fatally schematic tale how the cold realities of life and death can feed into the process of politics.

It’s passable as a mildly amusing twist on the slasher genre, but its lack of strong identity or coherent thesis means there’s little that sticks in the mind after the credits role, and ultimately does a disservice to its crop of talented stars.

Much like what the film’s themes speak to, this debut alludes to a brighter future, and serves best as the foundation upon which Malcolm Washington’s greatness will be built upon rather than a monument to it.

If some viewers can still cling onto The West Wing as a comfort watch even now, there’s something to be said for the appeal of a text offering the total flip side in its portrayal of centrism’s capabilities, especially one as full of punkish spirit as this.

Co-writers/co-directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz confound life and art, reality and dreams, sanity and madness in their surreal vision of conservative America succumbing to – or biting back against – the encroaching counterculture.

Playing out as part psychological chiller and part supernatural horror, it navigates parental fears and family secrets in a sinister liminal space.

The filmmaker draws some arresting audiovisual cues into the patchwork of images, but the film lacks some of the goofy wit of British documentarian Adam Curtis, whose own provocative essays at least offer some element of surprise (even when they don’t work themselves).

The layering of material is done carefully, with narrative embedded within the images.

The first half of You Resemble Me is gripping in its neorealistic, social realist approach.

There’s clearly a lot at play: guilt, grief, purgation, conformity, electoral fraud, and the prison industrial complex to cap it all off. What may have been appropriately lolled out on paper feels distending within a 105-minute runtime, where big, salient ideas are brought only to a simmer.

It’s a rosy, adoring view of pubs and clubs as explicitly, perfectly Marxist – a coal country – accented chorus rising in a single voice to inspire us all to a more perfect union.

This is also a film that benefits from occasional glimmers of lightness, which contribute to a more rounded sense of who Winton was as a person while providing some respite from the weighty subject matter.

A chamber piece with a small, charismatic cast, in a location made vivid thanks to strong production design, would seem an ideal model for lower-budget counter-programming efforts, should audiences show up. And with Dick Pope on cinematography duty, the visual realisation tends to avoid staginess.

The Harder They Fall is a thrilling feature debut from Jeymes Samuels, redefining the movie western for a modern age. These. People. Existed. And we want more.

British-Moroccan filmmaker Fyzal Boulifa’s second feature borrows the title of this Crawford vehicle and retains its melodrama, only to portray an otherwise entirely distinct, compassionately-crafted survival tale.

Lamb’s premise is intriguing too – a pleasing twist on the familiar horror trope of monstrous motherhood. Even so, the imaginative conceit is let down by a rather sudden and underwhelming climax.

Slipping into insanity right alongside its protagonist, Smile is an uncommonly sharp movie deviously disguising itself as more of the same. Lowering our defences with the appearance of the commonplace may be its most wicked move of all.