After the self-contained and simmering Assistant this feels like Green’s attempt to make similar material more accessible.

What lifts Mirza’s film above the pack is that it is alive with colour and music, her characters are endearing and, while a little fragmented towards the end, the writer/director at least makes sure it’s a pleasure to reach that point.

It’s a fascinating, chilling, if limited study of how the endless cycle of global warfare plays out.

The film may not be lacking in emotion – Tengarrinha’s emotions are portrayed through the combination of realism and surrealism – but this ultimately comes across as disconnected due to the lack of political contextualisation, leaving an emotional weight missing from the film.

For all his puerile instincts, Gunn is able to create stakes in this film that feel real and meaningful – perhaps because of the care that has gone into fleshing out this group of characters over the course of three films (and all their supplementary appearances).

It’s such a lovely set-up, you wish the filmmakers had attempted to do a little more with it.

It’s an accomplished directorial debut, focusing on the power of faith and the strength of motherhood to become symbiotic beasts fighting for dominance in its hero’s mind during her quest for autonomy.

Once you get used to some of its perplexing choices, there’s fun to be had here. De Niro has delicious chemistry with himself, which becomes more amusing when imagining how he would have been performing these duologues to an empty void.

What we can do, like these journalists, is bear witness to the pain in the hope that it transforms into an urgent, rallying cry, and address our universal capacity to connect with the pain and suffering of others.

Despite this contrived narrative and the group’s aggravating attempts at humour that land like dead fish – including multiple “that’s what she said” lines and a “not a today Satan” – Something in the Water succeeds in creating tension.

It’s a hushed yet effectively emotive drama that’s bolstered with the addition of Mikhail Krichman’s stunning cinematography. Yet sadly, it’s hard to overcome the film’s biggest weakness – the ripple effect that comes from its overcomplicated characterisations.

After so many punishing stories, most recently 2022​’s Tori and Lokita, it’s hard to begrudge them the raw sentiment and mostly happy, hopeful endings of their newest one. But it comes too easy, in a film so artfully and opportunistically structured, which jumps from dramatic peak to dramatic peak as if skipping tracks on an album.

Ultimately, Once Upon a Time in Uganda would have benefitted from diving much deeper into the making of the studio’s many iconic productions, but by mirroring Wakaliwood’s lively, exuberant energy, still comes together as a thoroughly entertaining crowdpleaser.

It’s a slow, detailed procedural, one which carefully draws you into its dismal intrigue – and it’s engrossing for much of its runtime.

While this is ultimately a film about taking the time to appreciate what you have and enjoying every step of your way, the overall impression remains one of haste and only occasionally contagious overexcitement.

Sono has flow to spare, but samples heavily from icky fanboy culture.

It’s an engaging movie about being able to control one’s destiny, but the wait continues for when this director will pull something truly heartfelt out of the bag

Garbus never tries to conceal Cousteau’s flaws. For her, in order to understand where we are now, we first need to understand where we came from, and Cousteau represents that touchpoint.

A couple of really random and contrived twists in the fourth quarter make it hard to invest emotionally in the climactic, must-win game, though there’s just enough humour and heart to scrape a last-second win.

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.

It all feels a little toothless.

Well made and with relatability and stark intensity, it’s by no means a disappointing film. But with the zeitgeist now so attuned to red flags in relationships, its message arrives a little out of time.

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.

One can’t help but long for something a little more exciting than ​“pleasant” – Pixar used to lead the animation industry, and they’ve been treading water for far too long.

It’s a timid offering from a once-bold studio, and although it’s better conceived and more enjoyable than many of the studio’s recent projects, retaining the charming design style and thoughtful touches which have made Pixar one of the world’s most beloved animation studios, it – ironically enough – lacks the emotional gravitas of its predecessor.

The idea of finding that perfect other but having to back away due to circumstance certainly has value, though Tezel does paint Kira and Ian as the only pure souls in a world of self-involved fools. And as such, they’re never entirely likeable or relatable heroes.

There’s still a great deal to admire, in particular the rich cinematography of Jarin Blaschke (best known for his collaborations with Robert Eggers) which creates a pleasing contrast from the sinister scenario, and the affection with which Shyamalan treats all his characters. Sure, there’s violence, but there’s a whole lot of love too.

Seidi Haarla gives a winning, intelligent performance as a naturally very clever person made to feel small and helpless in a strange land. But Yuriy Borisov pops from the first moments you see him: his hunched-shoulders posture; his abrupt, agitated movements and boxer’s duck-and-weave walk; the animalistic way he tears into food, impatiently and avidly.

Haapasalo uses warmth, respect and empathy as her modus operandi, allowing her trio to wade through the liminal cusp of adulthood – no longer teenagers, yet not quite young adults – as they search for meaning through friendships, fleeting situationships, and budding romantic connections.

It’s just floating in a no-man’s land, a charming but impersonal film about a deeply personal journey.

With a mix of righteous anger and abiding serenity, Thornton terraforms the Wild West of his home nation into a spiritually parched landscape.

Watkins’ slick direction and McAvoy’s frankly terrifying performance make this an effective, worthy if not essential entry into the “If you go out to the woods today…” creepy canon.

Surprisingly, Fast X emerges as not only Leterrier’s best film but one of the most enjoyable entries in the entire series. A great deal of this can be attributed to the fact that this film, to an extent heretofore unseen, acknowledges and embraces just how absurd this franchise is.

Dosa’s film is a slick, moving and cutely Herzogian portrait of this loving, monomaniacal couple who straddled the line between the eccentric and the earnest.

The eventual reveal of the who and the why provides satisfying resolution, though the reward feels petty in comparison to the film’s freestanding pleasures: the tremulous discovery of love, the crystalline peace of unsupervised play, and above all else, the transportive score from the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, a masterwork within a minor work.

It’s superior to the stuffy, lore-obsessed recent Scott films, yet doesn’t hold an atmospherically flickering candle to the original or its sequel. It also doesn’t have the rough-and-ready, overreaching character of Fincher’s famous folly. Yet it makes for a decent time at the pictures, and the grinding first half is worth enduring for a pleasantly rip-snorting finale.

It’s a competently made and compellingly acted film which will hopefully lead to us seeing a lot more of both filmmaker and lead actor.

There is something sweet about The Idea of You, even if it is a total fantasy. Perhaps it’s simply the winning charm of Hathaway and Galitzine or the novelty of a rom-com featuring a leading lady over the age of 25. More of that, please!

Director Christian Schwochow’s staging is unostentatious to the point of coming across as pedestrian, but the film is ultimately engaging thanks to the dilemmas wrestled with by the script.

Despite the strong performances by Cumberbatch and Foy, the complex weaving together of symbolic strands feels contrived; they hang loosely together by a precarious thread.

Scenes flicker between joyful hit and bemusing miss and it feels as if the film has been thrown together in a manner that feels experimental. The script, meanwhile, is too rudimentary to match the full satirical potential of the premise.

Director Blitz Bazawule does well to draw out multifaceted performances from his cast, particularly Barrino and Brooks, and with them the big emotional beats all manage to land well enough. Yet the musical flights of fancy feel creatively bound by the stage adaptation and lack a certain eccentric pizazz.

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.

It’s a worthy subject confidently handled, but without a more textured landscape, Hive feels more isolated than it could be for the community its title refers to.

There’s something of a ​‘so what?’ aspect to the film where it all comes down to the thrill of potential escape and, eventually, a whole lot of good luck.

Paxton is masterful at creating an atmosphere of dread, using precise framing and powerful chiaroscuro lighting to toy with symbolism from Japanese folklore, Greek mythology and modern art.

It’s a supremely well-made piece of work whose function and message never quite manage to transcend the prosaic. Still, in the strange times we’re currently living through, maybe it’s worth sounding that necessary siren one more time for luck.

There are points here where it feels as if Linklater was trying to make a gender-switched version of Fassbinder’s tragic The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, but without really leaning into the forceful bitterness and agency of the protagonist, and opting to have the text make a more profound point about the precarious nature of power and influence.

It’s a shame that the film falls back on old ideas, because Weapons’ first half is genuinely intriguing and some of the film’s scares are effective in both shock value and bewilderment. It’s clear that Cregger has a cinematic spark, and his sick sense of humour is most welcome in these trying times, but two films in, it’s time to find a new boogeyman.

The film sits somewhere between hope and realism, an ode to public service for an audience whose optimism is running low.

While Hunter Schafer makes for a great Final Girl and Dan Stevens is on top form leaning into his knack for playing offputting weirdos, Cuckoo suffers from an ambiguity that hinders the story, unable to reconcile the comedic elements of the plot with the unsettling.

It starts an important discussion but doesn’t dig deep enough.

Ayouch means well, interpreting the teens’ connection to rap music as emblematic of a rebellious spirit, yet deeper discussions on other social issues – politics, women’s rights, religion – are unfortunately reduced to mere sources of frustration, either ending abruptly or remaining incomplete.

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.

Any flaws the film has in its pacing make it no less of an essential viewing experience, with an air of unpredictability in its final act and enough to say to stick with you after the credits roll.

As a whole, the film doesn’t really work, as Mendes is far more successful in dealing with psychological issues than he is with political ones.

This is an exhaustive and lively document of a cult scene that you’re very happy it existed, but maybe don’t want to be a part of yourself.

It’s more of a soundtrack album of a movie, a sequel crying out for a stage production to give little girls and lethargic parents a rare night off: something to sing about.

If you’re able to make peace with the faecal smears on the wall painted by a cackling Olivier winner known for her physical performances, The Front Room is an entertaining, morbidly funny slice of perverse B-movie exploitation horror.

It’s maybe disingenuous to say this, but the shift in tone and quality is so extreme that it feels as if Green has been let off his leash a little and allowed to make something far more in tune with the insightful, intimate, sensitive dramas upon which he made his name.

In isolation, First Steps is a pretty good time, even if it feels as though it could push its aesthetic into more daring territory.

Each time Fuhrman is obviously switched out or Julia Stiles is clearly stood on a box the B-movie hokeyness is utterly hilarious. That fun is only enhanced by the complete seriousness with which each actor is performing their part, particularly the cat-and-mouse duologues that Stiles and Fuhrman practically spit at each other.

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.

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

It’s too early to declare Horizon a success, a disaster, or even a noble failure, though this first instalment makes it clear audiences traveling west with Costner should prepare for a lengthy trek.

Scream VI is well-made, fast-moving and often painfully brutal, while peppered with the kind of sassy, savvy dialogue that has always been a hallmark of the franchise.

It’s predictably rousing, and Tolkien heads will probably enjoy many of the callbacks to the original trilogy, but as a film in its own right, it’s all a little overblown and unnecessary.

If this is Noé at his most compassionate and vulnerable, it’s telling that Vortex ultimately lacks the raw emotional impact of Michael Haneke’s Amour, another brutally honest, skilfully acted chamber piece about dementia and death, or Florian Zeller’s more recent The Father.

With Medusa Deluxe, Hardiman makes a directorial debut that successfully injects a fresh, vibrant perspective into the murder mystery genre while still employing the dark dread that stands as its trademark.

There are some great things in this film, yet its intentions are swept up in a mire of tonal indecision and cynicism masquerading as irony.

Visually and dramatically, the film doesn’t reinvent any wheels, nor does it set out too, instead happy to splice together a satisfyingly intense period drama with some nice moments of genre pay-off.

At its best it cuts between historical footage and new material and achieves the awed emotional resonance of connecting history with the present.

This is not guilt-free viewing, closer instead to a doomscrolling spiral into despondence.

It’s all competently performed and executed, with loud booms of sound cued to each scene change as an attempt to ramp up the tension, and lots of behind-the-head tracking shots of cardinals anxiously pacing through corridors and stairways.

Although he’s no stranger to IP-based films (his last two were adaptations) Trap is a reminder that Shyamalan is one of the few A-List directors who still seems dedicated to original storytelling, and even when the scripts don’t quite fully deliver on their elaborate premises, his knack for creating interesting characters and casting the right actors to play them picks up the slack.

The resulting film is an uneven one – occasional flashes of intrigue are hampered by Fuze​’s strange structure and uncertainty about how funny it wants to be. Although the 90 minute runtime is welcome during an age of ill-advised action film bloat, there’s not much good in a film being short if it’s also largely unremarkable.

This is a film about the victims of abuse and, as By the Grace of God makes clear, for many victims this is a story that has no end.

As an awards-bait biopic, Christy is basically solid; as another chapter in the star text of a soon-to-be-28-year-old woman basically no one on the internet can ever be normal about, it’s interesting – and also, given the entrepreneurial Sweeney’s social-media savvy, quite a canny bit of positioning.

It’s a model of old school screen storytelling, where the robust individual elements coalesce into the exact sum of their parts and not a single ounce out either way.

Western media has trained us to brace for the worst in works engaging with the fanatical corners of Islam, and so the ground-level sobriety in Saleh’s treatment lands as a blessing all its own.

Rather like its robotic protagonist, Brian and Charles is bolted together from misshapen parts that don’t constitute an altogether successful whole. But, anchored by a strong but understated performance from Earl, it’s awkward but ultimately endearing.

It’s not an entirely unpleasant journey, but the film does have a jarring, unfinished feel to it, and while the detail-oriented might find it novel to unpack its myriad cinematic homages, and Aster’s ambitious execution is worthy of celebration, ultimately it’s an uneven ride, particularly given the incredible talent involved.

There’s a breezy panache to Wang’s direction, and he’s very good at capturing the comic skulduggery of, say, early instant messaging apps. It’s a shame, then, that it doesn’t have an original bone in its gangly, hunched frame.

Remaining loyal to the source material, Boyle’s Kensuke’s Kingdom greets fans of the novel with a safe cinematic counterpart, using an animated format to re-explore Morpurgo’s environmental literature, remaining within the boundaries of the original narrative, arriving at set expectations and nothing more.

Millepied’s foray into directing does well to shine the spotlight on Barrera and Mescal’s chemistry, as well as demonstrating how you can tell a story through movement alone.

It’s an easy watch – even a mostly enjoyable one, thanks to the great time Cage and Pascal are clearly having – but the dialogue stumbles into cheesy territory more often than not, and overall it feels like a missed opportunity to make a bolder statement about the ruthlessness of the Hollywood machine, or indeed Cage’s enduring celebrity.

There is something strangely comforting about Red, White & Royal Blue, as imperfect as it is. It’s a romcom for the streaming era but it has a markedly different vibe to it because it’s fronted by two men.

If it’s pure action you’re after, there’s plenty to set your heart racing here. Cruise and his long-time directing partner Christopher McQuarrie have once again engineered some truly staggering set-pieces

Wandel displays her clear skill as a director of actors in this exercise, but there is the sense that this could have been a painfully visceral short film instead of elongated into a feature where it begins to feel overdone.

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

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.

There will be many people for whom it is love at first sight, and people in whom it provokes a wild allergic reaction.

It’s engrossing and purposefully strange, and the images of this climate-change-ravaged world of dried lakes and barren grasslands are bewitching and terrifyingly plausible. But when the inevitable twist comes, it makes about as much sense as using a fundraising model Bob Geldof threw together in the 80s to stave off the 4th horseman of the apocalypse.

Although World Tour hits some of the right notes, the familiar abstract quirkiness occasionally makes it feel like a cover version of the first film. And, crucially, there’s no song even remotely close to Timberlake’s soundtrack hit ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’.

It is funny, grotesque, assuredly savvy and very bloody — and one might discern, in its preoccupation with errant parents struggling to get closer to their estranged children, a Message that could be called universal.

Dreamers is slight but effective, and perhaps doesn’t quite come back from a twist that occurs about two thirds of the way in when Isio’s situation suddenly changes.

Where this film excels is in the basics – it doesn’t take any risks and just choses to do the simple things well.