It is a sad little tale but one that manages to find notes of hope amongst the setbacks and rejections of everyday life.

Although this doc is slender, it’s also fascinating, playing into nostalgia and current-day politics in equal measure.

The film is at its most arresting in its slick neo noir middle section.

It’s McKirnan’s unflappable performance and energetic humour that hold it all together.

The unguarded authenticity of this film shifts its simple story away from any banality towards being a revealing narrative which celebrates the creative spirit and ponders the invisibility of Blackness.

Ziba is a genuine intellectual heroine, and Hekmat conveys a sense of how her introversion and seriousness might set her apart in a hedonistic high-school culture.

As fragmented as its title suggests, Pieces of a Woman contains parts of a good film, possibly a great one.

This knowingly excessive brew of cartoonish knockabout and macabre comedy horror just isn’t that funny.

Visually inventive, wryly satirical, White Noise the film leaves viewers to apply DeLillo’s sometimes prescient visions of a morally and physically diseased America to post-pandemic 2022 as they see fit. But it still has a lot going for it, much of it entertaining.

Roofman sidesteps this tale’s most potentially fascinating elements to sell a more conventional narrative.

Boosted by a warm performance from Ali’s Moonlight costar Naomie Harris, Swan Song proves to be a rather straightforward tearjerker, but it earns its sentiment thanks to the thoughtful approach from its cast and crew.

A compelling drama that transcends its generic roots.

This meticulous documentary can’t quite overcome the inevitability of its rise-and-fall trajectory, the familiarity of its sad-clown hypothesis.

Ultraman: Rising lacks sophistication in its storytelling, but the film nevertheless achieves a quiet poignancy.

An unusual underdog saga about an ordinary investor who inspired a grassroots movement that scared Wall Street’s major hedge funds, Dumb Money is a snappy, entertaining picture that taps into a lingering resentment about how rigged the financial markets feel to many Americans.

It might be a given that Pixar’s movies are visually spectacular, but The Good Dinosaur may be the studio’s most purely cinematic, the richness of the design and the emotional power of the widescreen compositions stirring deep, almost primal feelings about childhood, the loss of innocence and the untamed ferocity of the natural world.

Superb performances from Boyega and the late Michael Kenneth Williams highlight this sombre, character-driven tale.

Even for opera neophytes who couldn’t tell a soprano from a tenor, Ron Howard’s brisk, engaging film capably maps out an art form that Luciano Pavarotti ruled for decades, including enough technical insight to go along with an overview of the maestro’s personal and professional highlights.

Diallo has a lot of things to say here. Yet sometimes words aren’t enough: a straight-up drama won’t bring audiences to the place where Diallo wants to take them. Rest assured she makes her points crystal clear within the genre trappings: the only question left is where next for this talented new director.

Whether Hill’s debut as a writer-director is drawn entirely, or partly, from personal experience seems a moot point: there’s a sufficient clear-eyed skill to the project to elevate it out of the memoir arena and mark the actor out as a directing talent to watch.

The Convert promises the potential for plenty of fire and brimstone but, despite some committed performances, lacks the dramatic passion that would have really left a mark.

It’s fair to ask whether the world really needs one more story about a flawed, brilliant, lustful older male artist, but Tommaso’s commitment to its own soul-searching fervor is potently feverish.

Howard honours the collective heroism above all else, resulting in a well-crafted procedural that’s a little impersonal. Like the brave men who ultimately saved the day, Thirteen Lives gets the job done.

Rolf de Heer’s wordless allegorical drama explores its themes in savage, boundless landscapes; in stark images of hate and violence; and in disease and blood.

It’s a richly detailed mosaic of a movie which pays as much attention to emotional authenticity – a dull ache of grief which is the aftermath of the First World War and a smouldering yearning between the two lovers – as it does to the story itself.

A sufficiently motivated woman is a fearsome and unstoppable force: the central premise for this gleefully pulpy WWII horror puts a dash of feminist fury into a schlocky B movie set-up.

For those prepared to invest the time, One Floor Below quietly builds into a devastating portrait of a weak man and the weak society he represents, both of which have lost their moral compasses.

Focused and thought-provoking, it should be welcomed as a return to form after the disappointment of The Unknown Girl.

A thoughtful biopic that grows more involving the more it shrugs off its tendency towards the reverential.

The film moves at a languid pace, with long periods of silence, and there’s not a great deal of action until a final cathartic orgy of violence. Yet this world is richly drawn.

This ripping action-adventure features stellar effects and a superb lead performance from Owen Teague as a timid simian who must rescue his clan from the clutches of a warlike tribe.

The fading, erstwhile disgraced star’s grizzled, weary urgency gives this story some gusto and resonance, but otherwise, Mesrine director Jean-François Richet delivers adequate B-movie excitement only in spurts.

Like the wizarding movies to which it’s connected, Fantastic Beasts is better the darker it gets, especially in a robust final reel where the film fully hits its stride.

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.

It’s a wildly original work from De Los Santos Arias, a film with a gleefully wanton approach to form, style and story in which no directorial decision is predictable, and, despite a slightly overstretched running time, no moment is ever dull.

While the entire cast impresses, standout performances come from Murphy and Lycurgo. They make it clear that Steve and Shy are two sides of the same coin, both shaped by past trauma and finding it almost impossible to exorcise their demons.

Plays like an unnecessary revival of the provocative cat and mouse thrillers that were once a speciality of screenwriter Joe Ezterhas.

Unfortunately, however confidently Macaigne works his genially shambling nerd persona, the comedy of manners never comes across as sharply as you would hope from a director whose comic mode can be relishably trenchant.

Perhaps it’s the effort of introducing so many new characters that has sucked out the spontaneity from Deadpool: still, it’s nothing that can’t be sorted for the likely next installments.

Often in sports, teams run the same plays over and over again, simply because they work. That’s true of The Way Back as well: We appreciate the expert skill, even if we know almost every move by heart.

It’s a testament to Macdonald’s performance (and later, to Khan’s charm) that we share her passion for puzzling.

The escalating cat-and-mouse game between Pike’s schemer and Peter Dinklage’s Russian mobster has its pulpy pleasures, but the script’s arch cleverness and heavy-handed message about the corruption of the American dream make it hard to care as much as we should about who ends up on top.

A moderately engaging thriller that coasts along without ever evolving into the more riveting character study it has the potential to be.

Gay Chorus Deep South draws its strength not only from its subject, but also the effective way in which it it presents its arguments.

This is a big-hearted song and dance spectacle for the entire family in which everyone laughs at the same jokes.

If in the past Abu-Assad’s movies could be criticised for stridency, The Idol finds him sacrificing none of his thematic drive while locating a more humanistic, inspirational tone.

If Starve Acre seems to walk on well-trodden ground, Kokotajlo is nevertheless adept at inhabiting and revitalising the material. Familiar themes and moods haunt the film with their own uncanny insistence.

The subtext of In Viaggio (which translates as ‘Travelling’) is that it is while on the road, away from the close confines of the Vatican, that Pope Francis is at his most uninhibited and, therefore, most revealing.

The beloved animated character’s latest big-screen adventure is an amusing romp full of the expected horrible puns, dopey slapstick and generally cheerful vibe.

Ultimately, Prince is unwilling to follow through on its darker impulses, while equally reluctant to go the whole nine yards in its lighter comedy register. Even so, its stylistic brio makes Prince enough of a live wire to bode well for de Jong’s future.

Perhaps the darkest, most action-packed Star Wars instalment, director Gareth Edwards’ standalone adventure establishes its own rhythm, balancing fan demands with grand, poetic moments unlike anything this cinematic galaxy has previously achieved.

An intense and touching tale of first love set over a six-week period, Summer Of 85 blends the energy of youth with the curveballs of fate in a pleasant, keenly acted package that, despite a tragic core, will send all but the most strait-laced curmudgeon out of the cinema smiling.

A workmanlike and sometimes clumsy screenplay is not enough to extinguish the spark from this real-life fairytale romance, which delivers both a heartfelt emotional story and a grim lesson in 20th-century British foreign policy.

It’s a blast. Last Night In Soho is the kind of good time which isn’t over until someone’s either crying or bleeding. And oh, how we’ve all missed those nights!

Older children will appreciate the brisker pace and peril, so the overall strategy may be a smart commercial move – but this is the least striking of the series so far.

Exploring a bewildering range of issues from ideas of masculinity to assisted suicide and the fraying of societal ties, Staying Vertical is wildly eccentric, darkly comic and filled with you-don’t-see-that-often moments which are liable to render it an acquired taste.

Desplechin delivers with flying colours thanks to an excellent cast and a sometimes serious, sometimes funny story that never lets up or becomes predictable. [Cannes Version]

Winning and confusing in equal measure, this Japanese animated feature is likely to attract devout admirers but also baffle a significant number of viewers.

The result – something like a female-fronted version of Antonioni’s The Passenger - isn’t likely to entirely satisfy anyone in either the arthouse or mainstream camps. But if taken as an oblique tropical reverie, the film definitely has pleasures to offer – not least an oddball but often riveting lead performance by Margaret Qualley.

Origin of Evil doesn’t stretch the conventions of teen-appeal spookiness too far, but is solidly put together, mounted with a pleasant conviction and runs to several fine performances and some decent scares.

This is a story of survival, but it is by no means typical of the genre – instead it is sensory, tactile; a film that taps into an atavistic, instinctual primal quality that characterises new motherhood.

For a film industry determined to open itself to a diversity of voices, this is very much a safe, back-to-basics play for British audiences in need of some reliable comfort food.

A film that initially offers guilty pleasure thrills ultimately reveals its softer, more sentimental side. Kills On Wheels manages to cast aside the straitjacket of political correctness and treat disability issues with humour, understanding and inventiveness.

With a vibrantly charming lead from Griffin Dunne, and enough melancholic worldly wisdom to leaven the humour, Ex-Husbands is an accessible, ostensibly lightweight offering but one nevertheless carried off with expertise, intelligence and empathetic insight.

This fitfully funny comedy — in which they must come up with the perfect song to stop reality from folding in on itself — offers little beyond nostalgia for an onscreen friendship that was once far more excellent.

Beauty And The Dogs is a forthright and accomplished film which deals with its controversial subject matter without flinching. Tautly plotted, it has a pace and tension which mitigates the exhausting spectacle of watching a vulnerable young woman getting bullied and browbeaten by a selection of utterly horrible men.

It’s a breezy trip for the star, making ample use of his usual charisma, urgency, grin and gift of the gab, though the late ’70s/early ’80s-set film doesn’t completely hit the mark.

Although there’s certainly a lot going on on screen, our attention is focused on Bening’s central performance.

Chaotic lives can make for a muddled storyline, yet ultimately Hegemann allows her central character some kind of growth.

Like its magnetic central character, the entertaining latest from Luis Ortega is fascinating: a playful, shape-shifting, questioning journey that refuses to be neatly pinned down.

Lacking some of the simplicity and elegance of the first instalment, The Conjuring 2 is nonetheless a smoothly efficient horror movie, building to a powerhouse finale rooted in our emotional connection to the film’s well-drawn main characters.

There is a compassion in this filmmaking that is markedly lacking in America’s attitude towards the people it pushes to its outer fringes.

As was the case with the source material, however, glamorous visuals and a kitschy vibe aren’t enough to paper over a threadbare plot, thinly drawn characters, obvious dramatic beats and an ill-advised central conceit.

Writer-director Todd Stephens can allow quirkiness to overwhelm the thin narrative, but the story’s emotional underpinnings guide the film past its occasional rough spots.

The message of selflessness, generosity and loyalty is by-the-numbers stuff, but embellish it with moss, pinecones and twigs, and it takes on a certain magic.

This is a solid and often uncomfortably tense domestic drama.

The Dating Game is sustained by the humanity that Du Feng finds in each of the individuals we come to know and understand a little better.

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

A little too jaunty and picaresque at times, Bye Bye Germany is nevertheless, when it hits its stride, an entertaining, watchable take on the oppressed-minority-comeback genre (“We’re the Jewish revenge”, as one of the salesmen bitterly quips), shadowed at every turn by an unspeakable horror.

Ron’s Gone Wrong transcends the familiarity of the story (there’s a thematic an overlap with Big Hero 6 and How To Train Your Dragon, to name just two) with deft writing, appealing animation and a big heart crammed into a small malfunctioning robot.

Characters longing for connection but simultaneously fearing it provides a strong framework on which Rachel Lambert builds an unpredictable relationship drama that feels both profound and fragile.

Mockingjay — Part 2 proves to be the most satisfying, gripping and emotional film in the franchise, resolving Katniss Everdeen’s odyssey with tense action sequences and a well-earned poignancy.

More than a quarter of a century later, Beauty and the Beast enchants again as a swirling blend of live-action story, stage, screen and sheer, rococo-spun fantasy.

A welcome return ... The Book of Solutions is an ode to time-wasting distractions and shelved projects, one that suggests that perhaps it’s here, rather than in the boring finished stuff, that you can find an artist’s soul.

Dramatically the film can feel a little one-note and overlong. But it stands comparison with Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio as a fascinating portrait of an artist fighting to survive in the cut and thrust of times quite unlike our own.

The Polka King, and Jan’s plight, never quite reaches the level of palpable human drama of their previous effort. Black does his best to make Jan a vulnerable and sympathetic character, but neither the script nor the direction allows him to become fully dimensional.

A tight, focused piece of storytelling, Sibel is impressive in the way it also embraces the journeys of the other characters. Sibel’s newfound defiance and confidence in herself also changes her sister and allows her father to actively embrace a more modern view of the world.

While Selena’s raw talent and infectious personality are a huge draw, the film’s real selling point is its access to Selena’s family, open and honest in their recollections.

Ultimately, the picture is entertaining enough, in a somewhat tawdry way. Just do not expect it to hold up to forensic scrutiny.

It’s a long, flat, no-frills journey which struggles to engage despite its many bloody shocks.

Smothering the screen with good intentions, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (adapted from Annie Barrow’s best-selling comfort novel of the same name) is British security-blanket film-making at its finest.

Can a film be baffling and rewarding at the same time? Can a stimulating cinematic experience co-exist with the suspicion that the filmmaker has deliberately set out to frustrate the audience? For all who believe the answer to those questions can be ‘yes’, then Sunset (Napszállta), second film by Son of Saul director László Nemes provides a rich seam to explore.

Critical Thinking has plenty of heart, which unfortunately can’t make up for its fairly uninspired design and predictable trajectory.

A slow-burn drama with familiar contours but a sure sense of place and a great deal of restrained empathy.

Singh busts rhymes with the best of them in this energetic, entertaining film that smuggles some urgent social themes in under the cover of a hoary old fable about a handsome pauper who gets the stardom and the girl.

Tibetan road movie Jinpa is a playful, gently perplexing and distinctly stylish fifth feature from director Pema Tseden.

More often than not, Deadpool’s bratty energy feels liberating, allowing for a sexier, dirtier, more hilarious superhero movie than the typical all-ages Marvel affair, which is so concerned with maximising profits that it risks offending no one.

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.