The laughs are split between deft sight gags and set pieces, and goofy word play.

Freak Show’s formula, fabulousness and feel-good messaging doesn’t sparkle so much as soak up the glow of its obvious predecessors.

A characteristically rough-edged work, both visually and in the sound recording, the film eschews aesthetic finesse to follow its multiple characters where situations demand, to strikingly vivid effect.

Bernhard Keller’s fine photography gives this tense realist drama a streak of no-frills outdoor poetry, without overstressing its genre affinities. A strong cast, grizzled non-professionals in the great neo-realist tradition, are totally convincing.

Although the sparse dialogue and gradual build requires an investment on the part of the audience, this is an accomplished work.

The fourth installment of the Insidious series has deft scares and some nifty twists, all of which don’t entirely distract from how strangely inconsequential The Last Key ultimately feels.

What The Commuter lacks in nuance, depth, surprises, logic and serviceable dialogue...it can’t make up for in its effective single-location tension or well-choreographed action, though both rank among the film’s modest highlights.

Its emphasis on teambuilding makes The Thousand Faces of Dunjia play like a wuxia riff on Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) but its blend of spectacle and humour isn’t nearly as successful.

This strained musical is content to play to the cheap seats. Earnest in the extreme and armed with lethal amounts of razzle-dazzle, the feature debut of commercial director Michael Gracey is an all-out assault of sentiment, pop songs and dime-store psychology that’s somewhat held together by Hugh Jackman’s likably shameless portrayal of this striving charmer.

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.

The new film is proudly aware of how ludicrous it is...and the sunnily silly plot mostly functions to get the Bellas to their next song-and-dance number or comedic set piece. Yet, it’s impossible to miss the film’s wheezing tone.

Ethel & Ernest is, at its heart, a fond character study.

Galloping across the decades, the film becomes increasingly sketchy and superficial. There is so much detail and substance in the 1970s stretch of this epic that the twists of fate and rueful reflections of later years inevitably feel less authentic and closer to soap opera.

The Latasters rarely put a foot wrong - from their static opening shot in the town of Hapert to the final frames of Miss Kiet in her classroom, this is a beautifully-judged piece.

Gatta Cenerentola is on one level a noirish spin on a popular fable, but its real resonance derives from its stimulating contribution to a long-running dialogue...about the good creative and evil destructive demons that pull southern Italy’s largest city alternately towards hope and despair.

The space battles and lightsaber duels are appropriately exciting, but Johnson keeps a close eye on the human element that girds this galactic odyssey. Rather than simply regurgitating Star Wars’ past, The Last Jedi emphatically builds on it.

It’s an entertaining, engaging, colourful picture in its own right with decently-handled action-adventure set-pieces and sly comedy, detouring from the expected thrills and spills into body-hopping comedy drama.

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.

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.

Layering the life of Irish folk singer Joe Heaney through a flickering lens and leaning on the natural, unadorned voice of the sean nos [old style] singer, this doc/feature hybrid film isn’t perfect, but it is quite perfectly-made.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a period drama of startling tonal fluidity, and Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps deliver reserved performances that slowly reveal significant depth, transcending the material’s potential plight-of-the-artist clichés to hit at something far richer and more mysterious about desire, ambition and control.

Of a piece with his recent, stately dramas Lincoln and Bridge Of Spies, director Steven Spielberg’s latest brings intelligence and electricity to its study of nimble strategic manoeuvring which is guided by urgent performances from Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.

Jacoby delivers an adroit portrait of the artist at work in a technical package which wraps itself smoothly around this intense, surprising story.

The sheer energy of the performers, especially an exuberantly funny Mamiya, and the slapstick goofiness of the whole make this an eccentric, hugely enjoyable film - and often, partly because of its relative demureness, a fairly arousing one, with female pleasure and male discomfiture foremost on the menu.

An unusual and often hauntingly strange film, Angelica is given life thanks to Jena Malone’s impressive performance, which juggles mounting hysteria with a gentle sense of passion.

Whatever mild pleasure can be derived from seeing Batman and Wonder Woman team up with other costumed crime-fighters quickly dissipates as it becomes clear that director Zack Snyder has again crafted a lumbering blockbuster that dilutes what’s so stirring about these fabled fictional champions.

Because of the quality of the performances and the sincerity of the execution, Wonder doesn’t need to artificially stir our emotions, so it’s a shame that Chbosky lets the tone get away from him, badgering viewers with his points rather than simply letting the material speak for itself.

Whether quietly watching Nanami gain her sense of self scene-by-scene, or plunging into more dramatic territory whenever Amuro or Mashiro appear, the end result slowly builds, grows and blossoms into an astute, insightful, multi-layered character study.

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.

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are a lot less fun this time around, paired with a fumbling John Lithgow and a stiff Mel Gibson as their overbearing fathers who stop by for the holidays.

Branagh, in his direction and especially in his performance, can’t help but overdo the cheeky artificiality, which keeps Murder feeling more like a well-designed exercise than a delectable thriller.

Director Mark Grieco grabs our attention by going beyond the obvious. Exploring the consequences of well-intentioned actions and providing a sense of the much bigger picture transforms A River Below into an unexpectedly compelling proposition.

The new film is hardly a comedic lump of coal, but the broad, sitcom-y material has inherent limitations that no amount of shameless, gleeful silliness can overcome.

An exemplary sequel, the film retains the innocence and beguiling lack of cynicism of the first film, but moves on to explore other motifs

Twomey’s mastery of colour and exquisite blend of traditional Afghan-inspired imagery with cel animation techniques is not matched by such a confident command of tone, which rarely shifts out of a single mournful register.

Touching on the pressures of living in a patriarchal society, as well as exploring attitudes towards nationality and sexuality, the film unpacks a raft of parallels in its three stories, leaving seemingly disparate characters with the same choices.

The more that Nalluri tries to connect Dickens’ personal breakthroughs to those of his fictional character, the less authentic it feels. Inadvertently, this forgettable bauble ends up illustrating just how rare and precious true inspiration is.

Driven by strong performances, this is, however, a more conventional piece than other recent pictures which explored crises of faith.

An oddball hybrid that’s part documentary, part stylistic mish-mash, but wholly celebratory of Mansfield’s often derided ‘blonde bombshell’ image.

The proceedings are often stifling, but not without their prickly pleasures.

The subject matter may be familiar — despairingly so — but writer-director Jason Hall (who previously wrote American Sniper) imbues it with specificity and no-nonsense drama that make the plight of physically and emotionally wounded soldiers sting all over again.

In its zeal to pay proper respect to Mexican traditions and to avoid any hint of appropriation, Coco fails to give as much attention to its perfunctory characters or mediocre plotting, resulting in a family film which is reverent rather than inspired.

Bad Day succeeds because of the quality of the craftsmanship, the decision to bring a more measured perspective to typical thriller conventions and the performance of Nigel O’Neill who makes a very human and flawed avenger.

It makes for powerful and stimulating viewing whether or not a game is being played with viewers.

The film’s deadpan good cheer makes room for big-budget spectacle and a modicum of emotional depth, but a self-effacing vibe and pop-culture giddiness work the best here — necessary countermeasures as Marvel fights against the inevitable creative fatigue incurred after a decade of multiplex dominance.

It would be going too far to say Wonder Wheel is an instant Woody Allen classic, but it’s a reminder that he’s still a force to be reckoned with and a great director of actresses especially.

Cerebral and emotional, Tempestad is a road movie fuelled by the memories of unjust punishment. It’s a bumpy but illuminating ride.

It’s a rare inside glimpse of how a cosmic moment is stitched together.

An intimate, deeply felt engagement with profound matters of life and death.

Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series is comprised of page-turning, airport-blockbuster Scandi crime potboilers; Alfredson scorches the seventh, The Snowman, with such art-house intensity that it eventually melts into an exhausted puddle.

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.

Kosinski settles for a simplistic ending, and the film can’t avoid certain narrative predictability, but for all its conventionality, it’s also brave enough to push against those conventions to find the humanity within its heroes.

When it comes to the action scenes, Campbell’s unfussy style works well with Chan’s choreography.

The Holocaust has undergone some awkward treatments on screen before, but one of the most ungainly recent examples must be Andrei Konchalovsky’s Paradise, a well-intentioned but very soft-edged mess of romance, metaphysics and historical theorising.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is so well served in terms of gags, action and style that it bodes well for another savvy spy franchise and even more so for the star potential of Taron Egerton.

No matter what Oplev throws at us, the film refuses to catch fire and just grows sillier and more contrived as it unfolds. It never feels distinctive and often has the air of just another entry in the Final Destination series.

A ravishing visual colossus, Blade Runner 2049 more than lives up to its predecessor’s legacy as a groundbreaking mixture of sound, images and mood.

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.

Affecting as well as perceptive in how it intimately depicts the awkward blossoming of youth, Heartstone wades into the crowded coming-of-age genre with just the right amount of confidence, compassion and clear-eyed style.

This is not just a visual treat, it’s a rewarding and unexpectedly engrossing piece of female-led storytelling.

Well-acted, it lacks the standout performances or star presences which propelled the tonally-similar Ex Machina to more than cult success. While it will play to fans of cerebral science fiction, it may be less grabby for general audiences.

Goodbye Christopher Robin doesn’t just lack authenticity, it appears to scorn it.

As kinetic as its predecessor — and just as belaboured — Kingsman: The Golden Circle serves up another batch of hyper-stylised action, irreverent humour and sharp threads, resulting in a film that’s not nearly as cool as it thinks it is.

There’s an air of well-oiled, made-for-TV efficiency about the exercise that extends from Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra’s safe hand on the tiller to Stephen Goldblatt’s golden-light photography.

It’s a long, long road cluttered with clichés and stalled in softness, pot-holed by its self-serving use of Alzheimer’s as a narrative convenience.

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.

In the end, The Upside is the sum of its good players and dubious politics, wrenching genuine tears from a story that celebrates the rich promise of life in all its shades of joy and heartbreak.

Even if Trier doesn’t have much new to say about oppressive religious belief, childhood trauma or the terror of adolescent hormones, Thelma’s sustained, muted uneasiness gives this genre exercise sufficient gusto.

Although director David Gordon Green commendably opts for a realistic, unfussy depiction of Bauman and his on-again/off-again girlfriend (played with welcome grit by Tatiana Maslany), Stronger feels more perfunctory than lived-in.

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.

Writer-director Angela Robinson chronicles a complex love story that investigates kinkiness, social mores and the impetus for art, resulting in a drama that’s far more intellectually intriguing than emotionally engaging.

The considerable chemistry between Kate Winslet and Idris Elba certainly helps sell this tearjerker, but even so the film feels oddly distant and muted, only really coming to life in a denouement that suggests the tasteful passion buried at the story’s core.

The scenes that Chastain and Elba share are enormously enjoyable. There’s a crackling, almost screwball quality to their rapid-fire banter. You rather wish they had more screen time together. But there’s a lot of backstory to explore and many fools to be parted from their money.

A solidly engrossing political drama, anchored by a commanding central performance from Liam Neeson.

A feature that might not always surprise in its story, but succeeds in its authenticity.

The lack of emotional distance between the filmmakers and the subject – producer Jonathan Cavendish is the son of Robin and Diana – might account for the bracingly celebratory approach. This is understandable, perhaps, but it results in a lack of dramatic light and shade, and an absence of texture in the characterisation.

We only see what Loung sees, feel what she experiences but through her ordeal there develops an emotional connection to a country undergoing some of its darkest hours.

Indivisible peers and probes, offering a sensitive, insightful and sometimes even dream-like rumination on the cost of seeking and subverting normality.

Shot and edited with Wiseman’s customary poetry and precision, Ex Libris is structured as a series of forays from the Library’s Fifth Avenue heart to its orbiting satellites, and back again.

Served up with star turns from Emma Stone and Steve Carell, Battle Of The Sexes slams a crowdpleaser across the net.

This is a film which breathes life, as well as alcohol fumes, into history. Like its central character, Darkest Hour has “mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.”

There’s a thin, and very jagged, line between the radical mosaic approach to editing and narrative of a film like Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and the impressionistic jigsaw vagueness of Woodshock, which simply seems reluctant to commit itself to mere coherence, as if that simply were too unchic.

Writer-director Mike White has crafted a painfully funny and surprisingly moving character piece, but what’s most remarkable is how he and his star empathize with Brad’s feelings of inferiority while, at the same time, pinpointing the arrogance, privilege and callousness that often factor into such soul-searching.

Lady Bird is often screamingly funny but it also has a generous spirit, embracing characters with all their flaws and foibles, virtues and defects.

Anchored by a funny, foul-mouthed performance from McDormand, McDonagh’s daringly-structured dark comedy is rich and layered and often laugh-out-loud funny but trips over constant tonal shifts.

This sprawling, meandering compendium of dispossessed people in transit is a profoundly human film, a heartfelt call to empathy, but also something of a politicised nature documentary.

An eye-opening, moving and often shocking film, Motherland is a serious-minded documentary without talking heads, music, or narrative structure.

Director Juan Carlos Medina (Insensible/Painless) fails to muster Golem’s many moving parts, and tension leaks from the film like the blood from one of its many savaged corpses.

Boasting some strong performances and clever writing, this breezy overview of the author and his magnum opus, The Catcher In The Rye, fails to fully capture the magnitude of this brilliant author’s struggle for greatness and then, later, his decision to walk away from literary stardom.

Consistently, persuasively unnerving, It turns the coming-of-age drama into a nightmare.

Darren Aronofsky’s churning fever dream mother! is a devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that’s like the lancing of a boil, releasing a torrent of despair and disgust for the greedy chaos of society today as well as a self-loathing portrait of the artist as an emotional succubus.

Suburbicon is a solid, pleasing piece, even if it never quite reaches the bleak heights its set-up promises.

This documentary reminds us that justice can be as elusive in the US suburbs as anywhere else, and that having guns keeps people who are born different from getting too close.

A ripe, bittersweet romantic tragedy lies at the heart of Tulip Fever, but director Justin Chadwick’s aggressive tastefulness smothers the life from this potentially lusty melodrama.

A production line effort with an eye on cashflow rather than the demented work of art Hooper loosed on the world, this eighth entry is above average for its attenuated series. Gore levels are as high as expected and, naturally, the finale leaves things open for further instalments.

Guillermo del Toro channels all the streams that make him unique into The Shape Of Water, pouring his heart, soul and considerable craft into an exquisite creature fable.

There’s something for everyone in Downsizing - just not a full meal.

The film imaginatively uses a presumably tight budget to claustrophobic advantage.