Goodman emerges as a passionate advocacy journalist but also a well-navigated professional who is wise to the tricks of the trade and prepared to use them.

Grappling with serious themes, this wistful comedy opts for a sentimental tone that’s out of rhythm with the more realistic, tough-minded story that occasionally asserts itself.

As the story travels from bittersweet to comic and back again, The Last One for the Road never feels like it explores new territory in terms of its characters and situations. But the specific setting both in time and place make it a very vivid portrait of a place ravaged, like its characters, by time, but hopeful that one last drink might enable things to be seen in a more positive light.

The Devil Wears Prada has become something of a modern classic, thanks largely to its eminently quotable, whip-smart observations about the world of fashion and its enduring sense of style. It’s unsurprising, then, that this sequel (again directed by David Frankel) is cut from exactly the same cloth, deliberately designed to be a narrative retread – albeit with a few Gen Z updates – that should delight existing fans.

The gimmick for this schlocky action picture is that it’s almost entirely dialogue-free. The story unfolds through ambitious action sequences and montages; the film helps itself liberally to the cheese buffet that is 1970s MOR rock.

Here, however, his bravura conducting of relatively conventional melodrama material doesn’t affect us as much as his best earlier works. In any case, it’s the actual music that often does the heavy lifting here – with selections from Chopin, Bartok and Bruch, not to mention Grégoire Hetzel’s score, spiralling saxophone capturing the vertiginous register of the whole affair.

What it does feel is a little cerebral, rather wary of engaging too deeply with its characters. The effect is both alienating and refreshing.

Although the film’s musical performances galvanise, director Antoine Fuqua reduces The King Of Pop to a blandly inspirational cipher.

Alice Winocour’s captivating fashion drama Couture is a quiet, observational picture about creative women finding solace in one another.

The script may be a litany of cliches but there’s grit here too, and the vein of documentary truth that pulses behind some rather brazen nationalistic French virtue-signalling keeps us watching.

Colours of Time nudges its audience a little heavily, if cheerfully so, with its historical references, and self-confessedly (as per an end title) plays fast and loose in its accuracy, but is genially inventive in messing with the codes of period cinema.

Lee Cronin knows how to construct suspense sequences and ramp up tension, and there are moments in his portrait of a couple dealing with the traumatic return of their missing child that are legitimately frightening. But the film’s ambitious scope is betrayed by derivative genre ideas that make this tale of the dead disappointingly listless.

It’s a bold, gothic, compelling study of the cult of fame, the creative impulse, the fragile threads that bind. Every aspect of the film is carefully crafted and calibrated in service of Lowery’s distinctive vision, and, while it may prove divisive, it casts a hallucinatory spell.

While the interviews are largely quite banal, thanks to Song’s expressive performance, they are intriguing. But the picture loses what steam it had once we get to the final two chapters, where the actress is required to transcribe what she remembers of the conversations, memorise them and then perform them for her acting coach.

Unkovski’s film may be singing from a familiar hymn sheet, but he makes that part of its charm.

Although the follow-up to the 2023 original boasts colourful animation, too often this Illumination production mistakes visual and narrative busyness for genuine excitement. As a result the film, based on the venerable Nintendo property, suffers from strained humour and cluttered action sequences — issues that will hardly discourage young audiences from coming out in droves.

One thing that can be said for revenge thriller Serpent’s Path, by Japanese genre maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa, is that its French remodelling stands coherently enough on its own terms, although the result is a murky, over-extended affair.

While the film’s balance of thorny laughs and thought-provoking themes is not always smoothly executed, Borgli’s provocation succeeds thanks to the grounded performances of his stars.

The Fox doesn’t go far enough, its sombre tone muting its fantastical elements, its weirdness not nearly weird enough to overcome its flaws.

Marczak’s film becomes not just a document of a hunt but a psychological portrait of loss and a family’s attempts to come to terms with that.

Happy New Year… is vigorous and engaging as dark character comedy, but as drama it never quite builds or coheres convincingly.

BenDavid Grabinski’s time-twisty, sci-fi gangster comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is brimming with hair-brained schemes and hilarious gags; the kind of unruly one night adventure that isn’t about logic, it’s about stoking delirium.

The film’s simple premise is supported by smart plotting, nimble editing and evocative sound, and lands with frightening force. An engagingly frigid performance by Scott furthers the film’s keen ability to conjure overwhelming anxiety from its many punchy jump scares, combining to make Hokum an exceptionally chilling horror film.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come delivers short-term thrills in an emotionally hollow gore fest.

Sierra’s film not only stands as a love letter to peaceful protest but also to intelligent law enforcement that took the opportunity to de-escalate and resolve the situation without violence. Whether audiences agree that it has ’changed the narrative’ or not, it is a powerful testimony to a community’s ability to take control of their part of the story and give it a happy ending.

This Hamlet sticks to the narrative essentials to produce a terse, pitiless retelling.

Though its many narrative twists and amusing turns might wear down less adventurous viewers, this film will be embraced by those who enjoyed the director’s dystopian critique Sorry to Bother You and his equally scathing series I’m a Virgo.

Marc By Sofia is light on probing insights, instead offering viewers a chance to see a relaxed Jacobs talk to a close friend about his inspirations and artistic philosophy. Still, the uninitiated may crave a more rigorous, extensive overview of the man’s redoubtable career.