Deutch, who appeared in Beautiful Creatures as well as Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some, delivers a sympathetic lead performance, carrying the film with equal doses of sweetness and grace, strength and vulnerability.

While the film stumbles and meanders, however, there’s no denying that it delivers enough set-pieces for three regular horror films.

As a satire about L.A. living, the movie delivers its fair share of zingers. With a script that recalls Whit Stillman and TV sitcoms, Morgan’s crisp dialogue sometimes hits its target.

Gloriously ludicrous and stridently melodramatic, F9 is fuelled by its own goofy energy, delivering comically grandiose chase sequences and shameless fan service all in the name of giving audiences an uncomplicated good time.

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.

Flamin’ Hot is a breezy affair accented by Jesse Garcia’s winning performance as the budding Mexican-American entrepreneur, but this underdog tale ultimately proves to be too unremarkable to generate much heat.

The film’s lavish production values and a comic register more impish than truly acerbic makes this a surprisingly cosy piece of luxury heritage cinema.

Long and detailed and frequently terrifying, Alex Gibney’s documentary about a 1994 massacre in a pub in Northern Ireland is investigative journalism at its rigorous best.

The descent into melodrama in the final act increases the tension but, in relying on some unexpected actions by several characters, also damages the film’s credibility.

The film delivers a dark coming-of-age tale through the young lead’s uncertain perception, tinged with uneasy implications and poetic flights of fancy.

Brainwashed doesn’t deliver the opposing views you might like to see aired in a film like this - it’s not a debate for her, even though some film professionals still think it is - and Menkes shows possibly too many clips from her own films (as illustrations of the right sort of take), particularly as this lucid documentary draws to a close. Yet still it’s vigorous, often brash, and full of information.

[Boden and Fleck] marry splashes of dry humour to gallons of blood, and feature every musical genre from punk to hip-hop while connecting the stories to a strange green glow in the sky. If the end result never quite achieves the style and bite of the likes of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, it is still a lot of fun.

For all that it bounces off a lot of contentious issues about children and the internet, where Carrie-style bullying has moved into the unsupervised zone of cyberspace, Nerve frustratingly stops short before eventually falling in on itself in the third act.

Unfortunately, much like the light at the end of the tunnel, the thinness of this situational comedy, which continues to hit the same jokes with diminishing returns, becomes glaringly obvious.

A smoothly executed but decidedly drab crime drama. Checking all the necessary narrative boxes for its target audience and asking little of stars Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson other than to bring their well-established onscreen personas to the characters, the latest from director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks) dabbles in familiar dramatic ironies and rather obvious observations about violence, celebrity and ageing. The Highwaymen never puts a foot wrong, but it fails to elicit much passion or fascination.

The sliver of a plot sees An American Pickle stumble in its attempt to be a timely commentary, although its emotional underpinnings give the film a modest charm to relish.

Neighbors: Sorority Rising turns out to be an uneasy watch, awash with unconvincing performances, unfunny stereotypes, and dubious gross-out gags.

Ultimately, it works as both a character study and welcome example of an LGBTQ film in which none of the characters are defined by their sexuality or gender, but by their individual choices — both good, and bad.

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.

In Bed with Victoria (Victoria) has its moments but too often falls short of the “oomph” that renders a comedy special.

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.

Between the highs-and-lows of razzle-dazzle couture there a substantial film here, and a frank portrait of a damaged, evasive man trying to come to terms with what he has done.

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.

A raucous and outrageously (if harmlessly) crude slapstick comedy.

Denzel Washington gives a terrifically off-kilter performance in Roman J. Israel, Esq., a fascinating and flawed character study that frustratingly can’t meld all its ambitions into a coherent and satisfying whole.

What proves irritating throughout the movie is the sense that Fogelman has chosen the easiest, least interesting execution of a rich premise.

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.

Examining a post-apocalypse through the eyes of a few souls left to carry on the human race, The Midnight Sky is an uneven but ultimately thoughtful and moving survival story.

The entire film is a game of cat and mouse in the emotional equivalent of slow-motion, made watchable by elegant compositions and De Laâge’s natural beauty.

The circle of life and death may be warped and buckled in Hounds, but nobody can stop it turning.

When writers find it necessary to beef up a screenplay with that tiredest of factory-farmed animated trope, the comedy dance off, one wonders whether a more organic approach to script husbandry might have been preferable.

Jojo Rabbit doesn’t lack for ambition or sincerity of purpose — which only makes it more disappointing that the film proves to be so meagre. ... Rather than being bracing or dangerous, this comedy ends up feeling a little too safe, a little too scattered, and a little too inconsequential.

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.

By no means a conventional horror film, yet several degrees more twisted and gruesome than the average indie relationships drama, this is likely to appeal to more adventurous cult film fans.

Despite how personally the filmmaker connects with this ambitious riff on the Cervantes novel, the long-time passion project succumbs to the same indulgences and weaknesses that have plagued his recent movies.

From the film’s first moments, the audience can guess exactly how the story will pan out, and the pleasure is watching Eastwood gracefully negotiate every well-worn twist and turn.

Whether or not there’s a factual basis to the story, it’s undeniably an absolute blast.

Stone’s mixture of paranoid thriller, political commentary and romantic drama keeps Snowden feeling busy without ever being particularly engrossing or enlightening. Frustratingly, Snowden remains a ghost in the machine.

The film is most effective in simply conveying the agonising practical realities of Galvez’s quest, an operation involving endless telephone calls and long down-time periods of waiting punctuated by brief flurries of frenzied activity.

Skin is a little pedestrian and obvious in its early stages, skirting with the feeling of a television production. It is the nature of the story and the scale of the mountain that Widner had to climb that finally makes it into something more compelling.

Despite the congested narrative, there is much to keep audiences entertained including the compelling performances by the entire cast.

Nocebo combines traditional Filipino folklore with modern concerns about cultural exploitation, and while it is prone to moments of melodramatic excess is still another intriguing work from one of Ireland’s most interesting talents.

As thoughtfully rendered as much of Hologram is, the film eventually succumbs to the material’s fundamental triteness, offering done-to-death life lessons about second chances and the value of broadening one’s perspective.

Thankfully never taking itself too seriously, the latest Jason Blum-produced comedy-thriller is happy to carve out its spot as the horror-themed, millennial-focused Groundhog Day, and to have fun doing so. A dynamic lead performance and a willingness to keep things short and snappy also ensure viewers won’t mind venturing into rehash territory.

Unfortunately, Howard fails to modulate this wickedness and, at over two hours, the picture becomes monotonous and unwieldy. Indeed, the malicious proceedings lose their power to unnerve, to diminishing returns.

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.

Moana 2 boasts such beautiful visuals, it’s all the more disappointing that the sequel’s story and songs struggle to keep pace.

While a few of the new songs are keepers, too often the razzle-dazzle distracts from a familiar but resonant look at the pain and pleasure of adolescence.

A modest, tasteful family drama ... None of this is terribly original, of course, but the leads consistently mine the complexity in Nicholson’s script.

Above all, there is the generous, often mischievous performance by Cámara, with a promisingly vivid juvenile lead from Nicolas Reyes as young Quinín, and a nice ensemble buzz from other family members, including Patricia Tamayo as mother Cecilia; otherwise it all comes across as a fondly soft-focus blur.

The climactic rescue sequence has tension and some thrills, but it’s over fairly quickly and the film settles back into a sentimental lull

An overly precious tone ultimately sinks the writer-director’s attempt to recapture the enchantment of adolescence.

The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic play about failed hopes and tangled attractions, is solid and satisfying in Michael Mayer’s intimate retelling for the screen.

A so-so stoner film where the premise is almost always better than the execution.

Like many movies set in colourfully bleak futures, Hotel Artemis can’t sustain the novelty of its initial world-building.

It is both a passionate exposé of a serious injustice and a big emotional ride that is also prepared to take some interesting risks in its journey towards a old-school tear-jerker finale.

It’s a handsome film, but a conventional one, rather missing the opportunity of allowing Salomon’s thrilling uninhibited style to inform the film’s aesthetic.

Thanks to Thea Sharrock’s graceful direction, this live-action movie never feels heavy-handed, speaking to its young audience without talking down to them.

The audience brings to this film a set of expectations born from a lifetime of watching romantic fiction. That Monday skewers them so pointedly and thoroughly is what makes it such an entertainingly subversive spin on the genre.

There’s a jazzy air throughout and the sound of the dance halls resonate.

This iconic archaeologist has spent his life digging for the treasures of the past — sadly, Dial Of Destiny does the same thing, pillaging our collective fond memories of a once-great franchise.

The impressive second feature from Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson confronts the feral cruelty and violence of children on the cusp of adulthood, but finds also a tenderness amid the sharp edges and posturing.

Ultimately director Jon M. Chu’s more-is-more approach has a numbing effect, the endless spectacle leaving little room for nuance, depth or genuine feeling.

Elemental contains hints of the studio’s wit and poignancy while lacking the inspired execution that once seemed so effortless.

Rather than including people with their politics, the filmmakers depend on flashy sleight-of-hand, distracting us with a deceptive narrative trick that isn’t nearly as fresh as they think.

Compact, edge-of-the-seat storytelling that makes good use of Joseph Gordon Levitt’s decent, appealing everyman persona, 7500 may have its flaws but it still marks an impressive feature debut for Vollrath.

The British director marries Welsh mythology to more modern ideas about processing trauma, using sound to create a strange and unsettling psychological mood piece rather than an out-and-out horror. The result is engagingly enigmatic if slight in terms of plot and light on chills.

The Cured is at its sharpest when drawing acute political parallels. As a zombie film, the shocks are few/

As with all Stephen King stories, there are resonant universal themes running through Pet Sematary; guilt, grief and trauma fuel this tale of a family who move to the countryside and become embroiled with an ancient evil. Yet these are buried deep under a mudslide of horror cliches — jump scares, creepy kids, expositional newspaper headlines — that reduce this to just another run-of-the-mill horror remake.

In the film’s favour, it is not afraid of telling bitter truths about violence, hatred and death.

This intriguing feature debut from Bafta-nominated Scottish short filmmaker Louis Paxton makes effective use of its striking location and a trio of strong performances from Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin and Grant O’Rourke.

Obvious good intentions are drowned in a hot wash of showboating stars and flooded by self-indulgence.

This considered, muted drama can’t escape a fussy tastefulness — not to mention inevitable comparisons to more crackling treatments of similar subject matter.

Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphael Quenard commit fully to this cheeky postmodern exercise, but neither the humour nor the commentary is incisive enough to sustain such a strained bauble.

Perhaps unsurprisingly – and intentionally – Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is a much gentler affair, intended to affectionately lampoon those ageing musicians who struggle to retain their creative spark and trade heavily in nostalgia. There is plenty of that here – the film essentially retreads old ground and gags – but the sharp wit of the original is sadly lacking.

This time, celebrated action director Yuen Wo-ping, taking over from Sammo Hung, ensures the film’s fight sequences remain the film’s primary focus, although the overall tone is smaller and quieter, reflecting both the personal drama Ip Man encounters and Donnie Yen’s own encroaching retirement from kung-fu cinema.

Essentially a feature-length version of the cute animal videos that proliferate on social media, Born In China is a feast for the eyes while also being an irritant for the ears.

This small, engaging film doesn’t offer much in the way of introduction to Birkin for non-initiates - there’s nothing about her acting career, for example. But for the devoted audience of a star who can – for once – genuinely be called an icon, the film offers a tender and quite illuminating portrait of a mother-daughter relationship seen both within, and far away from, the public sphere of celebrity.

Staying just on the serious side of funny, Feng’s Mr Six is a fine, savoury creation.

The picture’s initial comic energy proves hard to sustain even with a short runtime, though, as the jokes start to feel strained and the numbers grow uninspired.

And Their Children After Them is a big, sweeping melodrama which, although undeniably cinematic, struggles to sustain audience engagement throughout its overly generous running time.

In Pearce’s sure hands, the film sustains its tension, even as it sideswipes the audience with slickly executed change of tone.

It’s to Ficarra and Requa’s credit that they try to juggle romance and political commentary, daring to make a studio movie that doesn’t fall into cookie-cutter genre rules. But the overriding problem is that Whiskey doesn’t go far enough in its risk-taking, settling for a story that gets more predictable as it rolls along.

It’s no spoiler to report that not everyone in Army Of The Dead will make it out alive — what is surprising is how little you’ll care who does.

While McGregor and Harris convincingly portray a couple in trouble, and Lewis’s odball spook is an uneasy fit, it is Skarsgard’s dynamic performance which saves the day.

While Arcadian is far from being a new modern horror masterpiece, it makes for a satisfying B-movie romp.

I, Olga Hepnarova struggles with its difficult central character, always spiky and occasionally psychotic but never really as intriguing as the filmmakers clearly believe.

There’s plenty of food for thought here, but the script’s penchant for saccharine touches – one aided and abetted by a lilting string-led soundtrack that turns to treacle a little too often – undercuts the authority of the film’s philosophical musings.

The screenplay seems a little thin, full of frayed threads which are never properly woven into the story.

Jake Gyllenhaal brings likeability and commitment to a raw role, but despite a strong supporting cast director Antoine Fuqua never quite transcends the proceedings’ gritty, melodramatic blandness. A lot of care, heart and craft have been thrown at awfully familiar material.

For a movie that’s meant to have some magic in it, Peculiar Children displays little buoyancy, the proceedings weighed down by tedious world-building and perfunctory thematic lip-service about the need for community and the power that comes from finding one’s voice.

Piranhas feels a bit like a teen movie that just happens to have a Cammora backdrop, rather than a serious, nuanced drama about the paranza system – essentially, the grooming of underage kids as drug runners and Mafia footsoldiers.

From the earnest score to the breathless talking heads to the atmosphere of awestruck reverence, this is a film which takes itself every bit as seriously as its subjects.

Love And Thunder doesn’t always gracefully execute its balance of light and dark but when the film focuses on the unshakeable bond between Thor and Jane, the results can be mighty moving.

For all the commitment that Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki bring to the central roles, their characters never really emerge as autonomous beings from the faintly preposterous story they’re trapped in.

Chen winds up with little more than an elaborate shaggy cat story, although one that is not without its fair share of incidental pleasures

Reaching wide but grasping tight is where After Louie fares best; while the film looks broadly at the contemporary gay community, it’s the combination of intimacy and authenticity that makes the biggest impact.

This involving, stranger-than-life story has been edited for cinematic release although seems purpose built for streaming: like its protagonist, it suffers from a sense of unfinished business and unanswered questions.