A fresh spin on a difficult topic, it’s a high-wire walk that balances sensitivity and sensationalism. You won’t find a more compelling film this winter.

You’d be hard-pressed to call it moving, but at least there’s an emotional narrative that drags us through the grisly bits. Sick, dark and laugh-out-loud nuts.

The film lacks narrative drive and genuine comedy, then. As it barrels towards its inevitable conclusion, though, a funny thing happens. Out of the chaos emerges a rather inspiring ode to making it up as you go along, living in the moment, saying ‘yes’ and hoping for the best.

Like many of Leigh’s best films, it prioritises authenticity and recognisable glimpses of emotion over a splashy narrative arc. That may make it frustrating for some viewers, but there’s no doubt that Leigh and his cast have created a sad, captivating, fascinating slice of everyday life.

A three hour and thirty minute biopic about art, history, money, sex, trauma and concrete, it’s heavyweight in every sense: a monument to its own greatness that stands a good distance from anything else you’re likely to see at the cinema this year.

Midas Man is so busy hitting the familiar beats of the Fab Four’s incredible rise that it never really burrows beneath Epstein’s skin.

Wolf Man isn’t quite as creepy or emotionally charged as its predecessor. Some of the dad trauma stuff is laid on a bit thick and the whole enterprise runs out of puff in its final third, partly because the titular creature doesn’t actually look very scary (at times, you sense a strong coffee and a fry-up would sort him out).

This isn’t a perfect film, but it is a funny, fascinating one with terrific performances from Kidman – surely the bravest A-lister around – and Dickinson as an inscrutable wildcard. You’ll submit to Babygirl’s machinations willingly and thrillingly.

Dodgy depictions of real-life celebs (such as Liam Gallagher) clash with the film’s fantastical tone, which itself can’t support Gracey’s attempt to address serious topics.

If this is a bookend to his incredible performing career, at least it’s a respectful and tender one.

If you’re already a fan, the next few weeks will be spent making playlists of lesser-known B-sides or reading the lore around a scene you weren’t familiar with. And that’s why it was a good idea to make this film – a mad idea, but a good one.

Exploring themes of ancestral reparations and generational grief, The Piano Lesson is powerful on paper, but unremarkable on the screen.

What results is a film that both works as a finely-tuned thriller and a meditation on the Church’s place in today’s society.

Right People, Wrong Place might be a document of an album, allowing RM to show the contrast between this experience and the more polished, slick workings of BTS. But it also feels like a subtle chronicle of friendship forged through music.

This take on Nosferatu may be essential viewing for fans of gothic horror but must be recommended with caution for everyone else.

By the end, you won’t quite be levitating off your seat but you’ll definitely be enchanted enough to stream the soundtrack on the way home. Funny, colourful and full of empathy for outsiders, this film really is the Shiz.

Badland Hunters is simply in it for the mayhem, marvellous though it may be, but ultimately mindless.

If you loved Gladiator, it’s odds-on you’ll enjoy this too. It’s got all of the same exciting bits – swordfighting, rousing speeches, nasty poshos getting what they deserve. The problem is that’s all it gives you. You want to feel like you’re watching Maximus lift off his helmet and deliver that iconic monologue for the first time again. You want the thrill of a core memory being unlocked. You want to know you’ll be quoting Mescal’s lines to your mates in the pub for the next 10 years. Gladiator 2, piously respectful as it is, can only offer a faded memory of that experience. There was a dream that was Rome – and this is kind of it.

Maria is both winningly camp and a little too po-faced for its own good, apparently unsure if it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek or deadly serious.

With scenes of harrowing violence, the film often feels totally unsafe: no adult’s motives are beyond reproach. In true Andrea Arnold style, though, it’s also a life-enhancing tale that soars with unexpected grace, optimism and faith in humanity.

Neville’s film is so forward-thinking, it’s easy to forgive the more superficial aspects of the production.

Hardy fans keen for a laugh will lap it up and forgive the slightly incomprehensible plotting, while those who just want a break from reality can happily chuckle at a comic book (anti)hero who is uncommonly free from the navel-gazing that afflicts bigger names of the genre.

Among the best horror films of the year.

Whilst its blend of influences make Emilia Perez unique, they also make it exhausting.

Is it scary? Rarely, to be honest. But it knows how to twist the knife, at least.

Different by name and different by nature, A Different Man is one of the most original films of the year. Not since the days of Charlie Kaufman, with his brilliant scripts for meta-movies Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York, has there been anything this bonkers.

Nightbitch makes plenty of very valid points about traditional gender roles and the oppressive nature of new parenthood. But it never fully sinks its teeth into a meaty premise; it’s briefly ferocious where it could have been completely feral.

Despite the peaks, Uprising would have benefited from a shorter runtime and a more focused lens – and perhaps less severed noses.