Although the film avoids depicting any act of violence (aside from that which Nitram inflicts on his father and a shooting we hear but don’t see) its sympathies seem strangely weighted in favour of a man who showed none to the people he murdered.

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.

Where Thor: Ragnarok was unpredictable and unruly in the most thrilling way, Love and Thunder by contrast feels safe and formulaic. Waititi is too preoccupied with trying to land the same jokes, and he burdens the film with a wishy-washy love story which even by the MCU’s low standards feels shallow and perfunctory.

Although it celebrates Morricone’s particular genius, this documentary is not greedy with the nostalgia it generates as it casts light on so many parts of 20th century culture.

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

It’s by no means horrendous or offensive, but it’s just a chronic bore, another film that will likely join the Billion Dollar Box Office club, but not a single person will be able to tell you how and why it managed to get through the front doors.

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

Ultimately this story of a young boy’s emergence exhibits strong teleological leanings, suggesting that all our endeavours – even our apparent failures – ultimately have a purpose in a grander scheme.

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

There is an entirely straightforward way of making a docudrama about this subject, yet Beshir’s bold approach leaves much more of a lasting memory.

Although occasionally let down by weak writing and erratic pacing, the film’s visuals are glorious. Unsurprisingly given its creators’ backgrounds, The Deer King is meticulously crafted.

While heartbreak is imminent as it is a coming-of-age film, the absence of hopelessness brings a lightness to the film not begotten by hollowness, and you may even find yourself with a melancholy smile, as Nora’s metamorphosis is complete: she breaks out of her cocoon.

The story focuses on the mutual gratification the protagonists provide each other, and how two imperfect humans meeting can prove a shared antidote for worldly ills.

By replacing one, more earthly transcendence, with another, Pleasure confirms itself as a film that lays bare the paradoxes of complying to a flawed system, and critiques the commercialisation of bodies with orgasmic poeticism.

Earwig consciously lacks the clarity we’re taught to ultimately expect from mysteries – but then Hadžihalilović is not in the business of making clear-cut whodunits. In opting to take a less-trodden path, she creates something sensuously distinct but narratively ambivalent.

It’s a magnificent piece of work, completely beguiling from end to end and one which wears its immense philosophical profundity with admirable lightness.

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.

Paying homage to a true hometown pioneer, Stephens’ portrait of a gentleman who knows how to be nothing but entirely himself is a compassionate and colourful character study.

Rather than an attempt at directorial mimicry, Bergman Island is a unique vision from one of the greatest directors working today.

It’s a well-paced comedy that never threatens to outstay its welcome, somehow managing to daisy-chain childhood anxiety, family financial worries and a murder mystery into a single, coherent plot.

Clearly taking inspiration from Italian neorealism, Camilleri never embellishes or trivialises the landscape of fishing in Malta but rather presents it as it really is. Luzzu is a foreboding warning with no climax. A quiet call to action in the vein of Andrea Arnold’s Cow.

Beyond its nonsensical plot, the film imagines the audience will be delighted by a myriad of references to the first film – but in Dominion it feels less like watching a beloved band play their greatest hits and more like watching them hawk merch to pay for an expensive divorce. Embarrassing.

While the break-neck pacing effectively creates a chaotic feeling, it eventually takes away from the film’s harrowing effects. Nevertheless, even the most hardened horror fan is likely to feel a chill up their spine during the film.

Tensing, thrusting, dripping with sweat and the promise of a good time after the curtain falls, Butler gets the moves, the voice and, most importantly, Elvis’ charisma down. Whatever flaws the film has, Butler’s Elvis is mesmeric.

Cordelia is a film of two halves and, unfortunately, only one of them is good.

The most compelling throughline of a-ha: The Movie is its level of detail and frankness. While the group’s stayed together for 40 years, through hiatuses and solo ventures, there’s an impression they’re not especially close.

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.

Top Gun: Maverick is an extremely enjoyable thrill ride, yet its focus on intense, immersive action doesn’t allow much room for lighter, steamier fun like its predecessor.

Owen wrote several other poems about the horrors of war before his untimely death in 1920, and there is one which Davies does not feature here whose title nonetheless captures the mournful spirit of his film. It’s called ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.

The unfocused script from outclassed first-timer Ross never really follows through on what should be its foundational idea, led astray by underdone subplots and vague relationships between its characters.

Occasionally, the film does lack ambiguity, and there are a number of characters who, just through the casting, make-up and dress, come across as one-dimensional extremes of “goodies” and “baddies”. Yet Molly herself, and the seemingly endless string of physical and psychological trials she endures . . . makes for a satisfying emotional core.

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.

The film’s advocate for kindness amidst the zeitgeist generations’ omnipresent nihilism is heartfelt and hard-earned – and not without diving deep first into the dark, sticky terrains of our morals and minds.

Garland’s film seems to be an attempt to highlight the very real misogyny within the modern world that has no insight on the subject beyond Women Have Always Had It Quite Bad.

While Raimi injects as much soul into this sequel as the Marvel blueprint will allow, it’s difficult to see the film as anything other than a cog in a bigger machine.

Each shot is framed with tenderness, and the rapport between Cave, Ellis and Dominik is a palpable testament to the depth of their trust for one another.

Cobb is excellent at toeing the lines between calm and unhinged, often fluctuating between them and never really settling on either.

It’s a hypnotic lesson in watchful photojournalism, offering an insightful take on a quest to liaise with wildlife in its natural habitat – in this case, the rare Tibetan snow leopard.

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 overall effect of this well-starched pantomime of Britishness is dizzying – it produces the peculiar kind of seasickness induced by cake-coloured period dramas when they don’t quite capitalise on their potential for quality kitsch, instead over-amping the nostalgic sentimentality, and neglecting the campiness that could make them so much more fun.

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.

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.

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.

This is not a politically didactic film, nor a lapel-shaking polemic, but a film whose obligation towards fine dramatic authenticity succeeds in convincing that this is the correct way of thinking, and any alternatives are incorrect.

Don’t call it a throwback though. Despite bearing certain similarities to high-concept action-adventure romantic comedies of yesteryear (namely Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile and Six Days, Seven Nights), this is a thoroughly modern romp.

Huezo’s background as a documentary filmmaker is clear in the way this debut narrative feature so solemnly and matter-of-factly observes a community that exists beyond this fictional ‘slice of life’ representation.

The result is incendiary – a lusty romp concerning repressed desire, the seedy underbelly of organised religion and the question of whether it really matters if communion is administered at a church or between a lover’s thighs.

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.

Anchored by four very strong performances, Murina is a taut psychodrama that makes subtle but impactful statements about misogyny and personal choice.

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.

Through disrupting linear time, Kapadia’s speculative, poetic rumination on memory, political reality and personal association transforms the viewing experience into something transcendent.

Apollo 10 ½ is about the subjective intimacy of history, and how all events are just an equally-sized, vibrantly-coloured fragment in the kaleidoscope of our mind.

Dolan ensures that such myth comes with a dark gothic edge, unnerving, insidious and uncannily ambiguous, as this clan’s internal problems find their expression in highly incendiary rites of Capgras cleansing.

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.

Harari’s film is a practical, simple and saddening document of everyday madness.

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.

It’s a film with fingerprints all over it; one that has been crafted rather than manufactured, and rewatches reveal a chance to revel in its sharpness; a scene in which Amleth seeks the counsel of a blind Seeress (the incomparable Björk) teems with intricate set and costume details, while a violent game of Knattleikr – a Viking cross between lacrosse and rugby – proves more adrenaline-inducing than any CGI special of recent years.

In this oneiric oddity, consumerism is everything, ultimately devouring even the consumer – while the real horror is the exploitative means of production, carefully kept underground beyond the sight of bourgeois shoppers above.

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.

Despite the evasive final scenes which avoid resolving or contextualising Hoss’s fragile mental state, Weisse delivers a captivating psychological exploration of the all-encompassing plights of achieving excellence.

Whether Archenemy is a tale of genuine urban renewal, or merely of power shifting without any real underlying change, remains tantalisingly ambiguous.

Director Ivo van Aart and writer Daan Windhorst weave the darkest satire. In essence their scenario pushes at the same boundaries between what is acceptable and unacceptable as Anna’s campaign, even as Femke’s vendetta shifts the argument from merely discursive, theoretical terms to the realm of the viscerally physical.

Carnivalesque both literally and metaphorically, it is a surreal affair, but for all its unnerving strangeness, the depressing subtext is spelt out very clearly.

This is a high-energy caper with lots of larger-than-life characters circling to kill, and two innocents at its centre about whose fate and very survival, against all odds, we are made genuinely to care.

It’s crazy and colourful enough while it lasts, but the fleeting diversions on offer from Sonic’s first big-screen outing pass too quickly to leave much of a footprint in the memory.

It’s a strange, mythically menacing journey through grief and the self-torments of guilt.

This finely-crafted, often affecting film points not necessarily to another sequel, but to a future where the Overlook and its eerie occupants have been frozen in time and locked away, forever and ever and ever…

Short yet elliptical and haunting, and keeping its secrets, this is an assured calling card announcing Godwin’s arrival in the horror family.

Hadaway paints a deep portrait of mental struggles that soon overflow onto the main character’s body, from the peeling bloody skin of her hands to her slashed ribs.

An overabundance of celebrity cameos and some incoherence aside, The Bubble succeeds because it is just so damn fun. Even with a departure from Apatow’s more muted direction there is an abundance of laughs.

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.

I have to hope that sooner or later the bubble will burst, and a film as insulting to audience appetites and intelligence as this will be some sort of larger lesson for Hollywood. Probably not though. There’s always another D-tier comic book character waiting in the wings for their spin-off moment.

There’s a joke where people say, “This film’s plot could’ve been written on the back of a napkin!” Yet for Sonic 2, a napkin seems like the equivalent of multi-volumed antiquarian tome, as there is so little of substance to this depressingly rote endeavour.

Ambulance is just delightfully unhinged in its experiment to see how much carnage can be caused by just one car chase.

It’s a character study for the ages, with Reinsve, Danielsen Lie and Nordrum delivering three magnetic turns.

Buoyed by a strong performance from Regina Hall, it’s a thought-provoking debut from Diallo, but one, unfortunately, weighed down by hokey jump scares that undermine its much more interesting commentary.

There’s a lot going on, then, but the three stories don’t really mesh to significant effect, though what does bind them is that the menfolk are stuck in their ways, rightly but mostly wrongly, and the stoic women have to make the best of it.

It’s undemanding, dramatically inert and, although class is very much on its agenda, one-dimensional in its depiction of the golfing establishment’s stuffy elitism.

Most remarkable about Deep Water is the fact that beyond being a sexy and gruesome thriller, it is also an absolute riot.

It’s with a strikingly minimal amount of dialogue that Haider Rashid’s Europa poignantly evokes how those bearing the brunt of state violence enter a physically and emotionally soul-destroying state of purgatory.

Even with its artsy cinematography, this feels like Audiard’s least self-conscious work to date, a playful reminder that the kids aren’t alright, but they’re feeling their way through.

While other men move through then out of the picture, Rogowski holds everything together with an exquisite deftness that is often emotionally overwhelming.

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 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.

Vibrant, wicked and welcoming, [Baker] is putting these people on the map like nobody else.

With all of its visual delights and expert use of its colourful onscreen spaces, its ever-a-shame that it’s the latest Pixar movie exiled to Disney’s streaming services – because it’s one of their best animated movies in years.

With five decades to plow through, director William E Badgley manages to skilfully compact the Rebel Dread’s political awakening and leftfield creative escapades into an insightful document of an integral fragment in British pop history.

With Ali & Ava, Barnard triumphs in presenting a romance tale that is deeply grounded, yet in its well-matched leads and heartfelt story, still possesses the magic required to sweep the audience off its feet.

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.

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’s an imperfect but enjoyable adaptation, with Wright, like Dinklage, delivering something charismatic but insubstantial.

A jolly throwback to a time when flip, breezy British comedies came freighted with substance, and lots of charismatic performances to boot.

There are numerous moments where all the signposts point towards a saccharine dirty bomb, and thankfully, the film seldom allows those to detonate.

It’s gripping in the moment, but with plenty to take away for afterwards. Genius really isn’t too strong a word.

Perhaps a little slacker than some of his previous outings, but Panahi’s commitment and courage shine through.

Fascinating in its balance between microcosm and aerial view, but the performances definitely raise more emotional heat.

With so many layers to unpack, this one stays with you.

There are a few moments of strain and not every gag is comedy gold, yet overall it certainly tickles the cross-generational funny bone and Shaun himself, irrepressibly naughty yet affectingly open-hearted, remains a fluffy icon for young and old alike.