Francois Ozon’s adaptation is at its best when it sticks to the letter and tone of Camus’ enduring, enigmatic novella.

The boundaries between fiction and reality are permeable throughout, with some shots juxtaposing actors against phone camera footage of the real life characters that they portray. For the most part, it works very effectively, although the snippets of real life phone footage are a little distracting, jolting us out of the nervy chokehold of the story.

Precision-tooled, ambitious in scale yet bracingly concise, this is Bigelow’s boldest and most assured film yet.

A screenplay dense with incident and ideological discussion is carried efficiently by fast-moving, sleek direction and sumptuous mise en scene that catches the tone of a changing society and its sudden explosion of capitalist excess. Yet it never quite comes to life as a character sketch.

The Smashing Machine may not always transcend genre conventions, but is a consistently idiosyncratic and candid look at a working-class athlete with a complicated romantic relationship and a crippling opioid addiction. Despite his hulking physique, Dwayne Johnson plays Kerr with real vulnerability as his championship aspirations slip away.

It’s a frayed fabric of a story that contains moments of daring artistry and beauty, but doesn’t always knit together into something satisfying and solid.

Late Fame is a deliciously acidic examination of the thin line between creative aspiration and pretentious poseurdom.

The director’s latest has a lot to say about families and generational relationships, but this is also a film of quiet charm, anchored by a scatter of joyful performances.

Though copious bloodshed and plenty of backstabbing does ensue, this laborious film is best when the quirkier tone shakes viewer expectations.

Although there’s nothing about Charlie McDowell’s interpretation that doesn’t aim for similar excellence, the very act of embodying the book lessens its magic.

As is often the case with del Toro’s pictures, Frankenstein is frequently a triumph of spectacle over nuance — grand gestures over precise character insights. Still, by envisioning this confrontation between its paired protagonists as an epic metaphor for humanity’s hubris at trying to play God, the filmmaker knows who the novel’s true monster is.

While the crime spree may be inept, Park’s filmmaking is as elegant as ever, in a wildly enjoyable picture that balances psychological tension against giddily hilarious comic set pieces.

While it may wish to spark debate, the stance it takes on its messaging is troubling – particularly given a stapled-on coda that seems to suggest we should be putting all of this nonsense behind us.

Although Jay Kelly explores familiar thematic terrain of an ageing man wrestling with regret, this tender film is mildly radical in its insistence that celebrities were once just everyday people — and might still be during unguarded moments.

It’s a serious message delivered in typically entertaining Lanthimos style and hammered home via a bravura climax which manages to be both gonzo and gut-wrenching in equal measure.

By depicting Coppola simply as a diligent director at work, Megadoc is ennobling without being hagiographic.

What gives the film its emotional continuity is a commandingly downbeat performance from Servillo.

Director Jay Roach’s adaptation proves too broad and tonally erratic. In the process, he undermines game work from Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as a husband and wife who can still sometimes see past their animosity to remember the love that once seemed indomitable.

To be sure, Tjahjanto provides these sequences with bruising action, mixed with a touch of dark comedy, but they are shot and staged without much distinction. And because the audience is now no longer startled to learn that nerdy Hutch can kill people, his ability to dispatch dozens of baddies feels anticlimactic.

The Blue Trail is entrancingly unpredictable in its picaresque unravelling, tinged with magical realist touches.

Although the narrative ultimately goes off the rails, Amamra’s magnetically pugnacious lead gives Animale a consistent pull, while director Benestan’s work with cinematographer Ruben Impens – who also shot Titane – is bustling and kinetic, and intimate when it needs to be.

Marked by strong, reserved performances — and deeply compassionate to its soulsick characters — this quietly absorbing drama has secrets in store, each of them revealed with uncommon elegance.

Late Night director Nisha Ganatra brings a bighearted sincerity and more than a few touching moments, and it is a pleasure to see Lohan back in a major big-screen role. But her charming performance cannot compensate fully for a perhaps unavoidably convoluted plot.

Like the filmmaker’s 2022 feature Barbarian, Weapons takes its time laying out an elaborate story, repeatedly shifting perspectives and main characters until the myriad strands come together in immensely satisfying fashion.

This film may seem stupid, but it takes real smarts — and a lot of joy — to keep the crowdpleasing silliness zipping along.

Viewers are left with some likeable, grounded performances from Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby and Ebon Moss-Bachrach — and a gnawing sense that this visually appealing sci-fi adventure is a missed opportunity.

Four Letters is a tale of signs and omens, destiny and divine intervention, cosmic connections and miracle cures in which love conquers every obstacle placed in its path. It has elements of Edna O’Brien’s early writing, and these star-crossed lovers might have appealed to Powell and Pressburger back in the day.

Part cringe-comedy, part diagnostic study of the modern pandemic of male loneliness, Friendship has several inspired moments, and strong performances from Robinson and Rudd. Ultimately, however, its determination to straddle both camps means it stretches itself rather too thin.

The mix of satirical comedy, action and sentimentalism is not always comfortable, and prevents the film from truly breaking the mould. Yet its bubblegum aesthetic, unchallenging narrative and strong cast, which includes Burning and The Match star Yoo Ah-in, make it ideal summer fare.

More conventional in its later stages, Brick is still a satisfying and watchable audience-pleaser.

This sensitively structured psychological drama benefits from first-rate casting.

It is a fascinating, free-spirited tribute to two men whose lifelong connection to the earth is only rivalled by their bond to each other.

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson brings some stylishness to the killings, but I Know What You Did Last Summer’s lack of compelling characters robs the story of its juiciest hook: these brutal slayings are cosmic comeuppance for their duplicity.

In No Sleep Till, it feels as if time is standing still.

Although overstuffed and uneven, at its best Gunn’s Superman combines the most admirable attributes of both character and director, resulting in an ambitious, occasionally stirring film that is weirder, nervier and more thoughtful than most blockbusters.

This sequel’s real sin is the fact the usually fearsome beasts are not suitably terrifying, resulting in some mildly effective action sequences but nothing that suggests the series is in the throes of a creative renewal.

Returning director Gerard Johnstone does not feel the need to rewrite the code, delivering a tried-and-tested mix of action, effects and comedy. Yet the whole thing now feels overly self-aware, resulting in a lumbering actioner that lacks the novelty value of its predecessor.

Like wrapping yourself up in a beloved book, Unicorns takes you to a new place, returning you charmed and changed.

Danny Boyle’s long-awaited return to the franchise he created in 2002 may lack the immediate, visceral bite of his original 28 Days Later, but nevertheless brings a satisfying mix of old horrors and new ideas.

While it may struggle to satisfy diehard Orwell purists, the film still takes a political stance and delivers an emphatic message celebrating equality and the power of the collective – albeit one which permits us a little more hope than was present in Orwell’s 1945 novella.

Scintillating on the track but not as agile away from the races, F1 is a thrilling sports film susceptible to every cliché of its genre, confident that its expert setpieces will outrun all that is otherwise derivative about this underdog story.

The best Pixar films make their dexterous mixture of humour, emotion and spectacle feel effortless but the ingredients do not blend as smoothly in Elio.

Returning director Dean DeBlois (who helmed the animation alongside Chris Sanders, as well as its sequel) has retained the energetic spirit of the original, and he’s helped by some fantastic CGI and a game cast, both of which lean into the fantastical charm of this tale of a hapless young Viking who discovers he is something of a dragon whisperer.

For the most part The Life Of Chuck remains a moving drama that comes close to capturing the infinite value of an individual life.

On its surface, Materialists tackles familiar romantic-comedy debates — contentment versus passion, money versus happiness — but Song approaches these themes with a frankness that makes them feel fresh.

A little too long and reliant on a coincidence or two to advance the plot, Falling Into Place still proves a heartfelt tale of thirtysomething love in which the prevailing gloom ultimately leads towards the light.

Uneven but not without its charming, touching and even kinky moments, the film salutes the oddballs lucky enough to find like-minded souls – but the story’s invitingly bizarre vibe isn’t captivating enough to overcome some clear narrative flaws.

The main thing with a rousing cinematic experience like Architecton is that it wins the emotional argument.

Action fans should savour the spectacularly violent set pieces, but a bland villain and an underwhelming narrative ultimately prove even more lethal than de Armas’s fighting skills.

Deep down, Nineteen is a comedy, with a profound sympathy for its confused protagonist, who is left alone to struggle with identity issues that could so easily turn into mental health issues. But the film stays limber, hopeful and affectionate.

Ratchapoom’s feature debut is a visually ambitious and thematically layered big swing that’s as polarising as it is creative.

The thriller-like intrigue in Meeting With Pol Pot is sustained by tension around whether the title event will ever actually happen and, ultimately, whether any of the trio will make it out alive.

Hot Milk lacks some of the lush, heady symbolism of the book, and opts for a less teasingly ambiguous approach to the storytelling. Mackey, however, impresses, as a woman driven to distraction by the neediness and manipulation of those around her.

This is a solid, watchable drama that, while perhaps lacking some of the directorial flair of Heal The Living, evocatively tallies the costs of living on the wrong side of social and sexual conventions in the 1950s and 60s.

Scottish director John Maclean’s ambitious second feature is an intriguing blend of Western and samurai actioner — always close bedfellows — which makes the most of its untamed setting.

This new instalment knows which story beats to hit, but it has little grasp of the emotional undercurrents that made the original resonate — how it touched on adolescent insecurities, first love, and the scourge of school bullies.

Ultimately, it’s difficult to say what A Private Life is trying to say, but remarriage comedies don’t really need to be anything more than that – and the ending is winsome enough to make up for that second-act wobble.

There’s no denying the film’s urgency, and audiences will certainly leave with plenty to chew over, but Peck doesn’t aid the thinking process by overloading us, where a more focused reading of Orwell’s key ideas could have yielded a much more cogent argument.

Love is a constant saving grace in The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo. Diego Cespedes’s striking debut feature blends together a heady mixture of melodrama, western and coming of age tale to create an imaginative, indignant AIDS-era story.

Hadi has an eye for detail, echoes and lyrical touches.

The child’s eye view of a seismic time of political upheaval is not an entirely new storytelling approach, but Davies breathes fresh life into the device.

The result is bound to offend on a wide scale, but also exhilarate with its sheer rage and ebullient aggression. Not for the faint-hearted, and certainly not for fans of Israel’s political status quo, Yes promises to stir very heated debate.

The Dardennes’ typically no-frills approach means that these glimpses of young lives feel unvarnished and honest. There is, however, a degree of predictability to some of the plotting.

Josh O’Connor is marvelous as this sputtering soul with no aptitude for illegality — or, frankly, anything else — as he drifts through an unremarkable life that’s slowly slipping through his fingers.

With modest ambitions and a slender runtime, the film proves to be a sexy, amusing time – despite being fairly forgettable.

Amrum is something of a departure for Akin, the kind of precision miniature work that can be achieved on a smaller canvas.

The film subsides into piled-up shocks and reversals, leaving the actors to bolster the drama with emoting – not always in the most subtle of ways.

While this picture lacks the guileless immediacy of the child’s-eye view of her first two films, Romeria demonstrates once again that Simon has a rare gift for capturing the unpredictable, mercurial beast that is the family.

Packed with dazzling sets and effects, and touching on multiple genres and styles, it is a sometimes exhausting ride – especially when we’re struggling to engage with a changing cast of characters rooted in Chinese places, history, legend and religion. But it’s also a memorable and exhilarating one.

Reticence is also the keynote of The History of Sound’s two riveting central performances.

On its surface, the film may touch on the familiar theme of how artists draw from their own lives, but Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgard bring incredible tenderness to a story that is ultimately about what children and parents never say to one another — and whether those lifelong silences can ever be broken.

While this new film is that rare visually striking indie comedy, the clever dialogue and potentially provocative scenarios eventually fizzle, resulting in an unfocused commentary on the absurdity of modern love that is, itself, far removed from reality.

Street-shot, cluttered and claustrophobic, Left-Handed Girl is both fast and slow, moving along at a relentless pace yet taking time to advance a storyline that turns out to be about the precariousness of women’s independence and the perpetuation of male privilege – sometimes by the very women that suffer under it.

At its weakest, there’s a suspicion that Eleanor The Great is leaning into the Holocaust for otherwise unearned emotion, but the piece is clearly genuine, and the cast so strong, it doesn’t linger.

Eagles Of The Republic reunites Saleh with Fares Fares, the lead in the earlier pictures, to mock film industry egos while delivering a chilling commentary about a tyrannical government which imposes its will both through media propaganda and deadly force.

A testy father-daughter relationship adds weight to the story, all of which Armanet, in her first lead role, tackles with a convincingly frayed and frustrated performance.

There’s a seam of pitch black gallows humour running through the picture, and moments of absurdist hilarity. But mostly, it’s an impassioned and forthright condemnation of the regime and of the men who do its bidding.

The temporal leaps don’t distract us from the fact that the plot is threadbare in places.

Enzo makes a low-key but resonant coda to Cantet’s work, while thematically also being highly consistent with Campillo’s directorial output.

Open-minded audiences will soon realise that Pillion is not out to provocate, but to authentically and sensitively explore a side of gay culture little seen in mainstream film.

While vivid in its depiction of Paris’s vibrant lesbian culture, seems curiously slight and modest in its emotional impact given the seismic internal battle the central character wrestles with.

Two Prosecutors is crisply fable-like in construction.

Many of these jagged little vignettes are exquisitely realised, others are genuinely chilling. Whether they fully coalesce into a coherent whole is one question; whether they even need to is another. Renoir may leave questions, but it’s an elegant, thoughtful piece of filmmaking that digs into the guilt and confusion that underpins a child’s struggle to process death.

Although it’s a wisp of a thing, it delivers rich rewards. Mirrors No. 3 (which takes its title from the third movement of a Ravel piano suite) is an elegant demonstration of what can be achieved with limited ingredients in the hands of an inventive creative team and a first-rate cast.

Case 137’s no-frills style can leave the film feeling a tad generic, and one wishes that Moll resisted underlining some of his thematic points so strenuously. But there’s a laudable awareness of the racial, class and gender issues at play in this story of a dogged middle-aged woman going into battle against a heavily male police force.

There’s a nicely intimate side to Ducornau’s urge to dig beneath the flesh here, a ‘soft body horror’ simulacrum of the hormonal changes this adolescent girl is going through.

Laxe maintains rising tension throughout, although to frustratingly inconclusve effect and somewhat at the cost of conventional dramatic satisfactions, but the boldness of the undertaking will appeal mightily to cinephiles hungry for movies that take real risks.

Ultimately, the picture’s energetic swirl comes across as slightly hollow, its barrage of themes and impulses never finding harmony.

This gritty social realist character study is spiked with striking and unexpected detours.

The fourth fiction feature from Kleber Mendonça Filho is a sweat-saturated riot of a movie: a dual-timeline thriller powered by the kind of anarchic, erratic energy that you would expect to find at the end of a two day bender.

The result is an intense baring of the soul that is part performance, part confessional and all entertainment.

Sean Byrne’s third feature is a messy mash-up of creature feature and serial killer movie whose psychological posturing and gory effects can’t hide the fact that it’s propped up by tired horror tropes.

Although The Phoenician Scheme is transporting — an effect amplified by Alexandre Desplat’s lilting orchestral score, supplemented by selections from Stravinsky and Beethoven — the narrative proves to be fussy rather than delightful.

This affectionate homage to a slice of urban French cool that has rarely been equalled is also a nostalgic tribute to a time and place of extraordinary creative ferment and cinematic sex appeal.

The Oscar-winning actress gives a volcanic performance that is nonetheless very controlled, avoiding melodramatic theatrics. Pattinson plays off his costar superbly, giving us an inattentive husband who comes to realise how little he understands about his wife.

Despite an honourable commitment to exploring how severe adolescent trauma casts a long shadow over a person’s life, the film’s patina of pain eventually grows repetitive, undercutting the sensitivity Stewart and her lead bring to the proceedings.

In certain moments, the film’s absurdism recalls that era’s paranoia and volcanic anger, but too often Aster overshoots the mark, collecting the period’s signature elements without finding much that is smart to say about them.

What’s certain is that Sound Of Falling, the striking second feature from German director Mascha Schilinski, is a work of thrilling ambition realised by an assured directorial vision.