Distinguished by a cast in which the trans characters are played by trans actors, the film effectively uses the trials of an individual life to illuminate the prejudices faced by a wider community.

The people interviewed are sharp and witty, carrying their heroism lightly and revealing a strength of character that sustained them through lengthy imprisonment and beyond.

Call Of The Wild isn’t animation, it isn’t live action, it isn’t fish, fowl or dog and somewhere in between it falls off its sled. Mankind can always benefit from some digital enhancement; man’s best friend, not so much.

Fantasy Island is the sort of inept, forgettable disaster that doesn’t even induce so-bad-it’s-good chuckles.

Although the film sometimes dips into muddled melodrama, those occasional setbacks can’t derail a story filled with warm, resonant characters trying to fathom their own hearts.

Despite some sweetness and playful absurdity, this big-screen outing feels mostly like derivative, fussed-over product.

An instantly engaging tale of a young male dancer’s sexual awakening in contemporary Tbilisi, And Then We Danced is personal and political, romantic and educational.

The movie is delightfully odd but not consistently inspired, often straining to rewrite the rules of superhero cinema, a mixture of good and bad ideas all mashed together. Where other comic-book movies lumber along with self-importance, this film is a breezy, amoral lark, which proves somewhat refreshing. But that’s not enough to allow Birds’ hit-or-miss pleasure to soar.

While the story’s sturdy, familiar structure remains resonant, this version never feels particularly inspired or revelatory, despite some lovely moments scattered throughout.

Built on a potent mixture of quiet bravery and hard-won access, David France’s new documentary, Welcome to Chechnya, puts audiences in the middle of the literally life-or-death struggle of an already endangered minority.

It can be a challenge to get on this movie’s frequency, but the strange signals Tesla emits are nonetheless fascinating.

Dramatising Steinem’s life during different periods, and with different actresses, Taymor has crafted an exceedingly thoughtful portrait of a leader and the women’s movement she championed.

All in all, Nine Days is a stellar feature debut, with strong filmmaking, from its assured compositions to its superb dimly lit frames, where shafts of outside light or wall lamps illuminate slivers of the sets. And Winston Duke, who appears in just about every scene in the film, offers a complex portrait of a wounded man.

On the whole, The Father incorporates what could have just been a storytelling gimmick and infuses it with such sorrow, grace and even the occasional dark joke that it becomes a profound exploration of how we say goodbye to someone dear to us — even though they have not yet really gone.

Director Euros Lyn overdoes the feel-good trappings, but it’s hard to deny the genuine sentiment that the movie stirs up.

Sure, the motorcycle wheelies are cool, but there’s nothing more intense than the raw emotion that comes from a mother trying to protect her child.

The Assistant is inspired by potentially scandalous material but subverts expectations, asking the audience to consider the broader societal implications of the crime.

A compelling political campaign chronicle and an incisive allegory of American democracy, Boys State is also much more fun that you’d expect.

Like the book, Reed Morano’s film is long on atmosphere and short on the kind of detail a spy thriller needs to be credible.

The result is a deeply touching tapestry that celebrates the diversity and cultural richness of LA, while at the same time exploring the hopes and fears of a generation heading into an uncertain adulthood.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the movie works better as a free-floating societal critique — of materialism, of so-called domestic tranquillity — than as an incisive commentary on any of the topics it brushes up against. But The Nest’s atmosphere of animosity is palpable enough that it’s wicked fun simply watching the O’Haras become unglued.

Minari is never downbeat, despite the challenges the characters face. Chung’s love for his characters—and the Arkansas farmland where he grew up—always shines through.

Proficiently directed by Sara Colangelo (The Kindergarten Teacher), well-acted by Keaton and co-star Amy Ryan as Feinberg’s deputy Camille Biros, and made with the respect and reverence that its subject deserves, Worth nevertheless remains a bit too stolid and too on-the-nose.

It’s not simply that Uncle Frank becomes just another road-trip comedy — it’s that Ball resorts to clichéd or contrived narrative devices to keep the story going.

Wendy casts a powerful spell — the movie has the potency of a dusty folktale brought to vivid life — but it can be frustrating that Zeitlin doesn’t have much interesting to say beyond his stylistic flourishes and evocative atmosphere.

It’s a commercially marketable prospect, sure, thanks to a committed performance from Julia-Louis Dreyfus (who also produces), but Downhill has also groomed out the subtlety from the original Swedish-language source material in some wincing stabs at cross-cultural comedy.

The overly busy story provides countless opportunities to create imaginative worlds and strange characters, but it also tends to feel like a string of set pieces rather than something that builds dramatic tension or momentum.

Promising Young Woman builds to a truly shocking climax that delivers Fennell’s themes with a dark and twisted sense of humour—and justice. It’s a clever and unexpected turn in a film full of surprises.

Possessor is ultra stylish and uber violent, but, despite a top tier cast, it’s not always entirely clear what is going on and who is in control of the finger on the trigger.

Revelatory, moving, and honest, it is essentially the story of one brave woman’s decision to publicly accuse the rap mogul Russell Simmons of harassment and rape. But it’s also a painful, parsed education on the subject of black women and abuse.

A beautifully bizarre film whose considerable strangeness allows for sharp observations about family, loneliness and the terror of emotional intimacy, Kajillionaire is further proof of writer-director Miranda July’s ability to bend reality to her will.

Wittock has neatly sketched out her subject and a groovy neon palette for scenes involving Jumbo “himself”, but the story and general characterisation remains broad and thinly developed.

Blank’s lively debut feels liberated by its maker’s creative freedom.

Whenever Herself settles into predictability, the strength of Dunne’s performance pulls that comfortable rug away. And if her screenplay and her acting helps audiences understand what it is to be homeless, to be vulnerable in this way, Herself will have been a A-grade build by an A-list team.

This spy drama is bolstered by Benedict Cumberbatch’s stripped-down performance, and there’s plenty of pungent Cold War suspense to savour. And yet, Ironbark feels like a bit of a missed opportunity: The earnestness doesn’t necessarily do justice to the inherently absorbing material.

The Dissident holds few new revelations but presents its case with enough infuriating evidence and storytelling power to make it worthwhile.

A film to respect for its audacity, admire for its lead female performance perhaps, but also view as dramatically contrived.

Footage is surprising, and, occasionally heart-breaking; not because of the disabilities onscreen, but because it recalls the idealism of the 1970s, long since gone.

The film is a unique, albeit rarefied example of hybrid cinema that reveals emotional truths through staged reality.

The Painter and the Thief suggests, human relationships are complex and multidimensional things. And whenever you foolishly start to try to contain them in a simple frame, they stubbornly burst out.

While this simple story may not seem inherently momentous, it speaks volumes about the ways in which women are marginalised — especially when it comes to making decisions about their own bodies.

It’s ultimately unsatisfying—more style than substance.

Though it’s all a bit ridiculous—and Simien, in certain instances, acknowledges the humour in his horror—the film is anchored by Elle Lorraine’s breakout performance.

A flesh and blood catalogue of ways to be masculine, from tender with his granddaughter to robustly no-nonsense with a weapon, Ingimundur is a fascinating character, splendidly portrayed.

Though some of the interludes are surprisingly effective – Cong Cong’s playground romance is genuinely sweet – the downtime between disasters is mostly here to let the audience breathe. The draw of the film is its huge set-pieces, which easily best recent Hollywood essays in disaster such as Deepwater Horizon.

Deliberately scattershot and naïve, this engaging, absurdist collage, shot entirely on VHS tape, smuggles a serious message beneath its 80s poodle-permed public access television pastiche.

The trouble with Miss Americana is that, although there is honesty and vulnerability, there’s also something rehearsed and distant about it. Swift invites us in, but she only lets us see so much.

The result is a cheerfully lurid mess that goes goofily off the rails after a slow build, and will offer few surprises for adepts of Lovecraft or of screen schlock.

What the film depicts is at times creepy and unsettling, but it lifts the lid on an aspect of the virtual world which may be unfamiliar to audiences in the west.

Instead of intriguing ambiguity, this updated version – which had a long and bumpy development – offers only maddening confusion...With false endings within false endings, it’s the sort of movie whose final fade-out will leave audiences groaning in frustration.

The more specific its characters are – and these are very specific – the more amusing the gags in this warm-hearted comedy about growing up and breaking free.

Notable for the crispness of the lensing, Jose is deceptively simple but punches above its slight weight.

Whether it’s Downey’s mannerisms or the dull quipping provided by his menagerie of digital co-stars, Dolittle is a joyless slog trying to pretend it’s a hip, magical adventure.

The second feature from Nicolas Bedos is a sweet, inventive Richard Curtis-style romantic-comedy crowdpleaser that deftly balances hearty laughs and heartwarming emotion.

Taking the reins from Michael Bay, directing duo Adil & Bilall supply loads of energised style, but without the panache or shamelessness of their predecessor. As for stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, they don’t seem rejuvenated by this reunion, mostly re-creating the forced back-and-forth quipping that wasn’t even fresh back when they were younger men.

Bielenia captures a vivid sense of the emotions that Daniel experiences from the alertness of a trapped animal at the offenders institution to the euphoria that seems to surge through him after the delivery of a rousing sermon. His committed performance and Komasa’s assured storytelling convince us that God can work in mysterious ways.

Hers’s stamp as a contemplative miniaturist with an eye for the inner life is unmistakeably on display in this involving, typically graceful piece.

Lit like a Rembrandt, acted like a neo-Realist classic and with all the searing social conscience of a new Dardenne brothers film, Vitalina Varela is both richly familiar and profoundly unique; if occasionally a challenge to watch.

The film makes a powerful case that, despite a troubled upbringing, Hutchence was not naturally self-destructive.

Underwater is hampered by some of the genre’s silliest conventions — questionable character motivations, delusions of grandeur — but the movie nonetheless succeeds by capitalising on an elemental terror: underwater, it’s very hard to see the dangers right in front of you.

Shaun exists simply to entertain children and he fulfils his brief.

This striking drama vividly captures the sense of uncertainty of transient lives, but loses power in a final act which gets somewhat mired in hallucinatory dream logic.

Only Cloud Knows doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel as the catharsis of the final act hinges on revelations, but what could have been rather mournful instead becomes a poignant celebration of life thanks to Feng’s deft handling of patently sincere material.

The Gentlemen is a disposable crime caper on autopilot. Propped up by an all-star ensemble, particularly the sturdy Charlie Hunnam and scene-stealer Colin Farrell, Guy Ritchie reclaims the genre that brought him to fame but does little more than shuffle battered parts into an intermittently entertaining configuration.

Badly cast, broadly directed, and hampered by a book that hasn’t aged well since the musical’s 1981 West End debut, it’s hard to imagine just who this film’s target audience is.

Unlike The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, which were energised by the prospect of returning to Lucas’ galaxy, Rise feels obligatory and uninspired. Rey may learn who she really is, but this unengaging franchise finale remains disappointingly nondescript.

Neither the humour nor the script is particularly sharp, although younger viewers may not mind the slapstick simplicity.

Anchored by Imogen Poots’ emotional performance, Black Christmas is uneven and overreaches, and yet its anger at a misogynistic society gets its claws into its audience.

The Next Level lacks the gleeful inventiveness of Jungle, in which three well-known stars slyly subverted their personas while embodying the insecurities and naivety of their teenage players. Absent that, it mostly feels gimmicky; the cast straining to recapture the hilarious rapport that once seemed so effortless.

Never making an obvious move, like its subject, the end result veers close to avant-garde. That’s a term that Cunningham himself famously and continually shunned; however Kovgan clearly doesn’t share the same concern.

Despite an overly polished and broad approach, the film is ultimately a persuasive portrait, guided by strong performances from Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman as anchors who decide they can stay silent no longer.

Garver’s film is above all a celebration of the pleasure of intellectual and emotional response to art (“To be paid for thinking is a marvellous way to live,” Kael says), and a picture of a style of thinking that might be seen as distinctively but non-stereotypically female.

Mendes is intent on bringing a sense of breathless derring-do to a war only known for its doomed futility. And he loads onto it a one-take challenge, a rolling-back and slowly-swerving camera, using the sleight of hand which distinguishes the best action cinema of this kind.

It’s only when Pugh gets her hands on spoiled younger sister Amy and opens up that often-overlooked strand of the work does the film seem to find relevance beyond its pretty fussiness and that warm, wintery – decidedly Christmassy, somewhat pleased-with-itself – glow.

Kasbe has imbued When Lambs Become Lions with the feel of a thriller rather than a polemic.

Thankfully, Eastwood’s sure grasp of this inherently compelling story mostly overcomes his sentimental propensities.

Battaglia talks candidly as she picks over the pieces of a life that could easily stretch to more than one film.

A solid but forgettable crime thriller whose best asset is Boseman’s commanding presence.

Queen & Slim’s cumulative impact mostly justifies the tonal inconsistencies, leaving the viewer with a troubling look at a society in which the marginalised always feel hunted.

An air of wistfulness imbues the proceedings, building to a resonant climax that’s hard to resist, despite some legitimate reservations about this uneven sequel.

The subtle brilliance of its mise-en-scene, from 1980s Ohio boardrooms and rubber-chicken dinners to all-black wait staff and the casual discrimination against women, beds the story in the awful truth.

Not quite thrilling or hilarious enough, writer-director Elizabeth Banks’ take on the 1970s television series preaches empowerment and gender equality, and leads Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska prove to be fun company. But this fizzy entertainment is yoked to a dull spy story which recycles genre tropes without adding much that is new to the mix.

Wanting to honour history, Midway proves to be an oddly polite war film, afraid to be too exciting lest it interfere with the solemn tone.

Shamelessly sentimental but also dedicated to the proposition that, in our dark political moment, kindness still matters, director Paul Feig’s film benefits from the adorable rapport of stars Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, who help puncture the story’s conventional trappings.

Hoping to be a stylish, witty conman thriller, The Good Liar starts out as an amusing lark but fails to stay ahead of its audience, piling on the ludicrousness until it’s impossible to take the proceedings seriously.

Extravagant camera moves, woozy fish-eye lenses and a full-on assault of CGI fail to give this story of warring inventors much in the way of a dramatic charge.

The result is an intriguing, smartly sustained drama in which we learn to be wary of those who claim the moral high ground.

Flanagan brings enough smarts and soul to the flawed, fascinating Doctor Sleep that he manages to escape The Shining’s shadow mostly unscathed.

I Lost My Body (J’ai perdu mon corps) is sit up and take notice animation.

Gibney’s story is clearly told and wholly engrossing.

Everyone here appears to be revelling in the juicy opportunities Earthquake Bird brings to hit up our memories of everything from Fatal Attraction to Single White Female.

The downside to a film that includes multiple shots of a clock counting down is that it provides audiences with an unintended rooting interest: we’re just hoping it gets to zero soon so we can leave the theatre.

Told with raw emotion and lurid violence, it transforms elements of his life story into a disturbing, eye-opening coming of age drama.

Although less convincing when it tries to say something meaningful about racism and police brutality, Black And Blue has sufficient pulp pleasures and a winning confidence in executing its modest ambitions.

Unlike this film’s sleek killing machines, the new installment is creaky and sometimes clumsy, and yet it ultimately succeeds by delivering sufficient thrills while also offering just enough emotional depth to keep viewers engaged in its familiar man-versus-robot tussle.

Mistress Of Evil invests heavily in inundating our eyeballs with relentless enchantment, which unfortunately translates into largely dreary CG renderings of pixies, sentient trees and other woodland critters

Never satisfyingly kooky, spooky or ooky, the new animated Addams Family film transports Charles Addams’ lovably macabre clan into the 21st century, resulting in an undistinguished children’s comedy full of dull pop-culture referencing and half-hearted commentary about the importance of inclusiveness.

Sink Or Swim works because of a screenplay with some genuinely funny moments and a jaunty, confident approach from Lellouche that displays his sure comic timing and faith in the performers.