The film’s spontaneous spirit is muddied by a sense that some ideas are retroactively staged . . . but what ultimately stays with you is the actor duo’s commendable ability to find inspiration and poetic gravitas in silliness, horseplay and tomfoolery, even (and especially) in the darkest of times.

While it would be unfair to suggest Hausner is condoning Novak’s actions, there is a sort of nihilistic glibness about the film which leaves a sour taste.

Anchored by Susan Chardy’s restrained performance, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl might touch on hot-button themes of sexual violence, misogyny and familial cycles of abuse, but Rungano Nyoni finds her own intriguing language to explore them.

Heller skillfully portrays the repeated routines of motherhood – breakfast, lunch, dinner, bath time, bedtime – as both meaningful and exhausting.

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.

The filmmaker’s renderings of desi girlhood are subtle but powerful, coming through in small details: the claw clips and medicine strips strewn about the apartment, tiny tattoos and even tinier, heart-shaped lingerie hardware, stolen moments under cover of darkness.

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

Moana 2 is one of those few exceptions where it doesn’t quite soar to the heights achieved by the first story but still stands tall in its own right.

Bilal Hasna shines as Layla, delivering a magnetic performance, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for the rest of the cast, who fall victim to the contrivances of a script that was maybe taken out of the oven before it was fully cooked.

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 has been a long production journey, but reaching the end of this winding yellow brick road has yielded movie gold.

On a moment-by-moment basis, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is as exhilarating and illuminating a history lesson as you’ll ever have.

It’s a film with an affection for the past, but one that also acknowledges you can never go back to how things were when you were younger – and that while everything about the holidays seems perfectly exciting and straightforward as a kid, the older you get, the more the fault lines start to appear.

Tension between characters seems to evaporate all too easily, meaning it’s hard to really see any weight in their words or actions. This, combined with the flimsy conceit that a fundamentally corrupt institution can be changed from the inside out with a few good men, means that Gladiator II lacks both the gravitas and simple but satisfying narrative arc which made its foundation such a refreshing epic.

No Other Land exemplifies the bravery and patience of activists and journalists. The occupation started over 70 years ago, and together, this unlikely pair capture its inhumanity with humanity.

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.

While there are passages of uncertainty and twists that take their good sweet time to arrive, things come together beautifully, and a finale that combines a series of clever emotional call-backs and another heartening plea for human empathy that’s worthy of only the finest John Lewis ad.

This is no kitchen sink drama; those most marginalised by years of British austerity are making do, and they’re as entitled to magic as the rest.

It’s not so much a study of corruption as it is lethargy and the difficulty of feeling compassion towards someone who just looks like he makes mischief.

It’s an amazing, hypermodern concept for a film, one which operates as a brutal critique of the class system, while also acting as a metaphor for geopolitical relationships and the moral and ethical lapses we sometimes overlook in the name of making rent.

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

As slipshot and lazy as it all is, it passes the time as air-headed escapism, and does manage to save all its vaguely-original moves for a bulky final act that delivers some decent spectacle.

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.

The naturalistic camerawork and performances ground the film in realism, creating a wry dramedy that refuses to placate us with easy answers or condescension.

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.

The film avoids polemic and instead presents itself as informed and inquisitive blueprint for the ways in which we discuss anti-colonialist action.

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.

Tereszkiewicz and Marder delight as a double act, but it’s Huppert who steals the show with a cunning smile.