The wider themes of the film grow more evident through individual elements in which nobody is prepared to listen to the other side of the story, or try to understand a different point of view.

Narratively spare ... Less substantial and approachable than Hong’s 2022 features The Novelist’s Film and Walk Up, the fragile, fragmentary In Our Day won’t earn Hong any new fans, but avid followers will enjoy its elusive felicities and love puzzling over its enigmatic gaps.

The affectionate rapport between the actors and their characters is evident in every scene and manages to transport the wary viewer through an odd but not unappealing mixture of mystical road movie and family psychodrama.

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.

A handsome, earnest drama ... This is a tasteful, respectful and thoughtful film about what it means to be a true friend in the darkest of times.

Marielle Heller’s fourth feature is a gently observant comedy-drama about the perils of motherhood that could use a little more bite.

Writer-director Chen Sicheng dials the original’s lewd humor down a notch, but still mines stereotypes for easy laughs with Wang delivering his trademark high pitch comedic star turn.

The narrative intricacy is daunting but, for viewers willing to keep track, the pleasure lies in the way that Kitano tracks the moves as they advance to an inexorably logical climax.

Newton is fascinating in the role.

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.

A smart if broad comedy that is exposition-heavy in places, it boasts a strong ensemble cast who give it a shot in the arm.

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.

Whether it’s a self-portrait, a series of sketches, an artist who is continuously working over a painful loss, Honore’s film betrays mixed emotions that may never be resolved as he carries the losses of that time with him forever.

The film’s general comic tone makes its darker moments stand out.

It’s a grimly efficient character study of a flawed and damaged man who is intent on visiting harm to those he perceives as wrongdoers, and an indictment of the system that protects him. Bleak, but grubbily effective.

As she did with Shiva Baby, Seligman shows a keen eye for her characters’ mortification, albeit without her previous picture’s precisely modulated discomfort. By design, Bottoms is a broader, more outrageous comedy, and unfortunately the jokes are not as cutting.

Considine’s strong central performance gives the film an emotional resonance.

Conventional to a fault but about as solid an indictment of corporate greed as could be wished for.

King of the Monsters delivers what its genre requires. Truly awesome monster scenes fill the screen, often imbued with emotional resonance by music cues.

While the first two acts are more engaging and accessible than the third – the picture does get a little bogged down in its effects and ideas – there’s no question that this is an imaginative and original debut from director Jake Wachtel.

The director of The Lure has a knack for peculiar protagonists — not to mention mixing whimsy with darker textures — but her latest provocation wouldn’t be so affecting if not for the committed performances of Wright and Tamara Lawrance, who play sisters who understand one another when no one else does.

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.

More informational than revealing, John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ documentary makes the case that in times of great uncertainty concerning mysterious diseases, calm reason and unassailable science are our staunchest allies — two assets the 80-year-old immunologist possesses to ample degree.

Deft performances from Lubna Azabal and Nisrin Erradi add heart and soul to this slender chronicle of a de facto family learning to rely on one another.

In the slim but powerful documentary He Named Me Malala Davis Guggenheim attempts to colour in a shy, yet deceptively stout-hearted schoolgirl and her symbiotically-close relationship with her father, indicated by the film’s title.

A minor but still fun-in-parts addition to his wacky oeuvre.

A fascinating, sometimes frightening film which, like its subjects, is perhaps a little too ambitious for its own good.

The pleasure of watching five fine actors feed on each other’s crackling dramatic energy drives this sensitive if not exactly groundbreaking Swiss cancer drama.

While there is no doubting the filmmakers’ admirably humanistic and progressive intentions, however, the picture itself somehow ends up less than the sum of its often-impressive parts.

The team effort of the story flows into and becomes a part of the team effort onscreen, and the fight continues.

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.

Mary Shelley is ultimately the story of a woman finding her own voice and asserting her independence and that will be the heart of its appeal.

Mexico 86 offers Béjo a substantial, compelling lead; it shows the Argentinian-born star absolutely at ease in a Spanish-language role, and using her characteristically low-key performance style to potent effect.

When the film gets more serious it produces some affecting moments between the two leads.

Bond has seen it all before, this team has done it all before, and the production juggernaut hits every beat with a carefully calibrated precision which can be deeply satisfying but also risk coming across as rote.

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.

George Clooney and newcomer Britt Robertson are solidly compelling, but Tomorrowland remains only a moderate success, its ingenuity, wit and enormous heart too often at odds with a ho-hum story and tentpole conventionality that the film tries so hard to transcend.

While the film’s narrative may run a familiar path from conflict to resolution, Rotem’s light, authentic touch makes it an engaging journey.

An enquiry into the brutal rape of a black woman in 1944 Alabama broadens into an alternative, female-gaze civil rights documentary in Nancy Buirski’s latest.

Grandma was clearly made on modest resources and can look a little rough and ready in places. Viewers will, however, be more than willing to overlook its imperfections - because it is so funny and engaging and because Lily Tomlin is such a joy to behold.

It’s a visually rich and moodily atmospheric film with a keen sense for the unsettling, even if it boils together a mélange of somewhat familiar ingredients.

A thoughtful and fascinating piece, it’s a game of two halves, however, with Lindeen making heavy work of modern-day footage which tends to drag on the dynamism of the past.

Going in guns blazing and attempting to set pulses racing might not feel wholly appropriate given the facts at the heart of the film, but it does suit Lam’s usual style — not to mention audiences looking for non-stop thrill ride of a movie.

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

This horror-action picture offers modest genre pleasures and a consistently spooky vibe, resulting in a film that has been designed chiefly to ensure future sequels, although the story includes enough emotional shading and robust set pieces to be an engaging standalone feature.

Landesman’s film may not be scintillating drama, but it aches with muted anger, and his cast makes sure to keep the proceedings at a consistent simmering boil.

The muddled but icily engaging All The Money In The World is a thriller packed with ideas which director Ridley Scott only sporadically delineates with the same vividness as he does his stylish compositions. And yet, this true-life tale of the kidnapping of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty’s grandson maintains its hold, bluntly outlining how the desperate clamour for wealth poisons all those caught up in its frenzy.

It’s a chaotic, protracted, wild ride that takes the audience across global locations and through past and present, but the amped up scale, imagination and audacity, the spectacular action set-pieces, clever writing and in-your-face charisma of its stars including Shah Rukh Khan in a long-awaited return to the big screen make it, in Indian parlance, paisa vasool - a film well worth the price of admission.

A tentative connection warms to something deeper in a poignant, slow-burn tale of hope and healing.

Most of those who’ll see The Biggest Little Farm will be drawn by its ardent, gentle idealism, and less by its hard-headed look at the challenges of sustainable farming.

It is, however, creepy, suspenseful and nerve-wracking - and marks Gillespie and Kostanski as genre auteurs in the making.

Kechiche has developed an almost unique ability to give surfaces depth through his manipulation of dramatic beats and a quality of empathy that seems built into the roving camera eye.

This earnest tale succeeds thanks to its potent themes — including the tension between old traditions and new ways of thinking — and Ejiofor locates the story’s emotional underpinnings without succumbing to cheap manipulation or mawkishness.

With a cast impressively headed by James Norton, and cinematography that captures the bleakness of winter and deprivation to grimly palatable effect, Holland’s drama comes across in part as a meticulously mounted, sometimes solemn history lesson.

By the time we reach an apocalyptic payoff, Titane has skated on and off the rails several times, with insouciant abandon. You miss the combination of bravado and control that made Raw work so well, but the deranged cocktail of outrage, excess, conceptual ferocity and sheer silliness on display here will make you gasp – and occasionally flinch.

If Sick of Myself runs out of narrative road towards the end, there’s still a decent quotient of dark humour along the way.

Levan Koguashvili evocatively captures the unpredictable crackle of tensions and the tacit loyalties between the men; all sweat and beer and maudlin machismo, although the atmosphere of the picture is rather more compelling than its somewhat workmanlike plot.

Compartment No. 6 is something of a minimalist shaggy dog story, ending on a bittersweet low-key note.

Through it all, Connelly and Englert completely sell their conflicted yearning for one another’s love but because this section is a late arrival, the revelations have to come thick and fast..

In its unassuming, intuitive way, the film is rather beguiling, if a little gauzy and elusive at times.

At its best, it’s signature Serebrennikov: ambitious, eccentrically amusing, visually flamboyant. But the film’s radical potential is ultimately diluted by its freewheeling nature.

Woman Walks Ahead is a story of defying expectations, finding common ground and gaining knowledge.

Its smooth efficiency offers plenty of sturdy pleasures. What’s missing are the emotional underpinnings that made these movies not just top-flight action vehicles but also stirringly soulful.

Precisely observed but somewhat aloof in tone, The Girl And The Spider builds into a symphony of separation and solitude.

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.

Aided by Owen Pallett’s occasionally jittery score, Alice, Darling can sometimes possess the faint air of a thriller, albeit one in which the central menace is offscreen, far removed from Alice and her friends. But Kendrick, who has said she’s experienced psychological abuse in a past relationship, wrings dramas from Alice’s internal trauma.

John F. Donovan may revisit a lot of familiar territory for Dolan but on this form it is good to welcome him home.

Rambling but strangely compelling, Oh Mercy!’s documentary bedrock gives the investigation at the heart of the film a real authenticity. From around its midpoint, this uneven film becomes a riveting, compassionate interrogation drama.

Whedon and his large, capable cast (even larger for this follow-up) deliver enough adventure, laughs and flat-out spectacle to ensure that audiences will feel as if they have gotten their money’s worth, especially when Ultron zeroes in on the quiet humanity beneath the special effects.

It’s a likeable popcorn movie, with some good monster moments, an engaging international cast and Jon Turteltaub helming a family-friendly balance of laughter and mayhem.

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

This engaging, eye-opening documentary follows Gordon over six years, as a book deal forces her to give up her anonymity and she further explores her own relationships with food, her family and society at large.

The film is as much an exploration of often contradictory human attitudes towards migration as it is towards the experiences of the refugees themselves.

Larrain uses the familiar narrative structure of the flashback and adds some operatic grace notes to deliver a performance-led film that is never less than expected – but also never less than watchable.

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.

Its ambitions might exceed its execution — there’s no shortage of stories to tell among these Corrientes teens, as the film makes plain — but One in a Thousand remains a potent, defiant feature.

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

Haneke’s magisterial control of tone, actor and shot is not to be underestimated: there are scenes of quiet, nuanced authority and menace here that, true to form, compel our attention with their glacial brilliance.

Convincing portrayals aside, this conventional story is further bolstered by Power’s sparse approach. Brutal as many scenes may be, the filmmaker imparts a sense of aesthetic restraint, knowing that waiting is often more unnerving than blustering straight ahead.

Renee Zellweger gives the performance of her career in a film which is certainly an awards-friendly biopic, but strikes a darker, more maudlin note than expected.

It truly growls in its depiction of the brutal nature of girl friendship and the shock of the menstrual metamorphosis.

It may be a touch overlong – perhaps because everyone has to stop running to sing songs at regular intervals – and the emotional beats familiar, with moments of poignance, tragedy, gruesome comedy (a decapitated zombie in a snowman suit) and absurdity.

As with his award-winning debut, the French filmmaker sometimes risks heavy-handedness to make his points, but his argument’s brute force is amply persuasive.

It’s the kind of horror which eschews jump scares in favour of a more subtle, gauzy sense of unease, a slow-burning discomfort that creeps up on the audience like a half-seen shadow. It’s not exactly terrifying, but there’s an oppressive sense of menace which is magnified by the high-quality performances from the two young stars, and by the nervily watchful camerawork.

Suffragette’s strength lies in the fact that, even though some of the characters and events depicted seem archetypal, and they’re certainly composites, they turn out to be more than that.

It’s a slow burner which gambles that the incremental build of tension will keep the audience involved, even as the stoically inexpressive central character holds them at arm’s length. It’s a gamble that pays off

While this defiantly unflashy film may similarly feel out of step, long on mawkishness and short on dynamic, arresting moments, the purity of its gently mournful tone stays with you.

This sequel can’t compare to John Carpenter’s ingenious 1978 original, but director David Gordon Green delivers a crowd-pleasing chiller that doubles as an existential commentary on horror itself, both on the screen and in our lives.

It’s authentic without being grim; moody and tentatively hopeful. There’s a British verite influence at play, but King Jack’s heart is positively American.

The style is minimalist and meandering but does eventually add up to an unsettling portrait of three generations connected by blood if not affection.

The result often verges on sensory overload but is nonetheless largely coherent and frequently inventive while evincing a determinedly dark sensibility.

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.

A few sub-plots get lost...but this offers a satisfyingly large-scale demonic incursion as glimpsed from the streets.

Faucon, obviously very fond of all his characters, carefully avoids the patterns that many genre films fall into.

It’s rather meta since the backstory riffs on the star’s life and reputation, yet Yang gives the proceedings cross-generational family appeal through focusing on the protagonist’s deep bond with his steed.

The picture draws parallels between China and the US when it comes to botched and skewed deployment of information.

Fingernails’ themes may be a tad trite, but the storytelling’s unfussy elegance helps sell Nikou’s message about the messy vitality of true love.

Apart from being a series of comic vignettes, The Meddler is also framed partially as a romance, and a very endearing one at that.