It’s a lot more interesting and exciting to think about than it is to watch.

The Sweet East takes an admirably measured look at societal fracture in the modern age, and its use of arch provocation becomes a device to represent a highly recognisable vernacular of despair, where obscenity (both verbal and corporeal) is the only language that cuts through the chaff.

Zippy duologues, expertly teased beehives and stunning late ‘60s costumes may make this pro-choice message more palatable to the masses but ultimately the film pulls its punches, never lingering long enough on a single scene or tragedy to let the impact of these women’s work consume the audience.

A wildly ambitious, idiosyncratic and very English domestic horror story baked in the mould of Clive Barker’s seminal S&M gore wig-out, Hellraiser, from 1987.

If you believe cinema’s job is to ask the questions rather than offer the answers, then this will usefully challenge you. A dirty fingernail stuck right into the open wound of our unspoken social anxieties.

Gripping and full of tension, The Teacher not only makes for a wonderful cinematic experience, but poses some all-important questions the wider world has seemingly avoided answering for too long.

Although Beetlejuice Beetlejuice suffers a little from an overabundance of ideas leading to a bit of a third-act scramble, and its plot points are sign-posted so large you can see them a mile away, it’s a much better-executed and enjoyable film than it has any right to be, charmingly reverent and referential to the point that even its cliche story beats can be mostly excused.

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.

There’s something curious and pure about the way Leone disassembles bodies, like a child breaking open an old VCR not to see how it works, but to survey and play with the complicated stuff inside.

One issue with here is there’s so much plot, alongside a persistent desire to frame and underscore every one of this journey’s universal resonances, that it’s hard not to feel bogged down in ideas and details.

It is tempting to want people to be one thing or the other: the murderer or the victim. This film reminds us: Highsmith was both.

A tightly-paced action thriller, Plane competently delivers on the deliciously formulaic tropes of the genre.

By transposing the video essay format to a feature-length affair, Philippe attempts a union of theory (criticism) and practice (documentary filmmaking), and so the very ontology of Lynch/Oz becomes a subject of fascination in its own right.

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.

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’s a good time, but not a great time – though within the canon of Stephen King adaptations, it’s definitely among the more fruitful offerings to make it to screen.

On the whole, the live-action How to Train Your Drag­on plays it extreme­ly safe. It’s per­fect­ly pass­able, but only because it close­ly mir­rors a nar­ra­tive that’s already well-loved.

Unfortunately, the schmaltzy mumblecore sensibilities that made Ansari’s Master of None a successful outing don’t translate in Good Fortune, an observational comedy of paltry observation; a frothy, big studio concoction of little substance and even less style.

Some will find the earnest silliness which ties a lot of Fire and Ash​’s beats together tiresome, but – along with the work of some very gifted digital artists – it’s what keeps them feeling real and not just empty capitalisation on a billion dollar box office.

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.

Unfortunately Heart Eyes is so vacuous and confused that it can’t even decide if it’s cynical or sentimental about love itself.

Chazelle swings for the fences, but Babylon feels like the worst kind of jazz: a loose freestyle comprised of beautiful moments punctuated by bum notes and off-key scatting.

The film is not without intrigue as the situation is so bizarre and terrifying that it often appears more like a work of fiction.

Despite its laid back tone and a committed performance from Erivo, the film lacks for surprise and innovation, slowly edging towards a revelatory climax that only the most narrow-sighted of viewers would not have seen coming from a million miles off.

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

While neither director nor screenwriter seem to have anything more substantial to say about female pleasure beyond the fact that it’s important, you do nevertheless find yourself cheering for Florence and Violette when they embrace their selfish side.

For all its convention, Oscar Harding’s A Life on the Farm remains an elegy for amateur filmmaking, while also allowing for the survival of Carson’s work, which though brilliant, remained undiscovered and unrecognized until now.

Ultimately, for all the focus on horrific ​‘cold cases’ from the past, this plays too nice with its characters in the present. Great horror is meaner-spirited and less happy-clappy.