Although sometimes a little overstuffed, the picture consistently gets under the skin thanks to its expertly-staged fright sequences that reverberate with insidious societal ills.

The Amateur mostly tries to upend genre conventions without offering anything exciting in their place.

Technically immaculate and marked by sensorial storytelling, it’s also a film whose undeniable style can overwork the simple message it wants to tell.

A raw central performance from Danielle Deadwyler brings some depth to this Blumhouse thriller, which otherwise maintains a creepy atmosphere but mostly trades in familiar psychological horror tropes and an abundance of jump scares.

Warfare certainly isn’t the first combat movie to take such an immersive approach to the subject, but what’s striking about this film is its overriding commitment to the truth as perceived by its real-life characters.

In its more diverting moments, A Working Man echoes its no-fuss protagonist, executing compact action set pieces that eschew flashy CGI in favour of good-old-fashioned shootouts and hand-to-hand fighting. But that spareness too often belies the lack of ingenuity elsewhere.

With a terrific lead from screen and stage veteran Hélène Vincent, this is Ozon in his fine-wine register, but with acerbic notes.

The story of a couple finding their best life in the rural Ireland of the 1980s is beautifully realised and quietly beguiling.

This lack of sparkle can be felt throughout the remake which, like so many of the studio’s recent redos, feels stiff and reverential — a cynical reproduction suffused with deadening CGI.

And while the events depicted in The Alto Knights will result in a major law-enforcement action that profoundly shaped the American mafia, Levinson’s sombre, pedestrian approach captures neither the excitement nor the momentousness of the incident.

The sci-fi horror-thriller Ash makes the most of a minimal budget, casting Eiza Gonzalez as the lone survivor on a distant planet whois unsure how she got there or who she is. With Aaron Paul playing a fellow astronaut trying to help jog her memory about a massacre that occurred at the base, the film quickly establishes an aura of paranoia and bad vibes, paving the way for deft twists and an appreciably gory finale.

Despite its vaguely-generic title, this well-crafted close-quarters suspense from British-Iranian director Babak Anvari is firmly-written, -shot and -acted.

Ne Zha 2 is a distinct fantasy epic and a technical achievement that stands up to the best that Disney, DreamWorks, Aardman or Studio Ghibli can offer, even if it frequently gives in to the same proclivities for excess as its peers.

Klein has a strong grasp on all of the material, and editors Jake Keen and Alexander J Goldstein cut it together it carefully so that the past and the present often meet.

The festering resentment of things left unsaid fuels this play, and David Lindsay-Abaire’s unflinching, brisk screenplay traces the growing fissures in the family.

This story of a guilt-ridden bailiff ostensibly resembles conventional social realism but then broadens its scope fascinatingly, foregrounding satirical intent and a mischievous degree of verbal overload.

Lovingly shot in warm natural light, and accompanied by a gentle, lilting soundtrack, Holy Cow is shot through with compassion for its rascally yet vulnerable protagonist.

Unfortunately, the film’s off-kilter tone and the characters’ beguiling opacity only enrapture for so long. The constant commentary about the banality of suburbia deadens the story, and a couple of late-reel twists fail to satisfy.

Director Paul Feig brings the same sly approach to this lavish follow-up, but the results feel even more strained than the original, which was often more stylish than deliciously diabolical.

There’s a B-movie purity to how this franchise conducts its business, eschewing the flash of modern blockbusters for a more pummelling, elemental approach to its shootouts and hand-to-hand fight scenes. On top of that, The Accountant 2 has added a winning sense of humour to the equation.

Unfortunately, the ending, like so much of what came before, is missing that certain magic, which not even a unicorn can provide.

Highly entertaining from start to finish, the film benefits from David Koepp’s inventive screenplay and Soderbergh’s storytelling swagger.

Filmmaker Jessica Palud’s second feature may be uneven, but it hits on something fundamental about its troubled, defiant subject.

This intense psychodrama about buried trauma and doomed romance demonstrates an unapologetic operatic flair which entrances and over-reaches in equal measure. Seyfried exudes a stark intensity that grounds the proceedings — whenever Egoyan risks losing control, she keeps the production on course.

Last Breath honours the constant possibility in work like this that the worst could happen at any moment — and that the line between living and dying is always frighteningly slender.

What emerges is a history lesson but also a personal journey of sorts for Koch and Schachmann, grandchildren of Jewish immigrants who discover an emotional connection to their cultural roots along the way.

El Planeta writer-director Amalia Ulman’s second feature tackles exploitation and cultural tourism, the film’s genial surface belying a quiet anger underneath.

Ridley’s spiky sense of humour is a balm, especially early on when Joey interacts with her brother, but the script’s formulaic nature proves too much.

Blue Moon, which plays out on the night of the premiere of Rogers and Hammerstein’s first hit, Oklahoma!, is a romantic, funny, moving, life-affirming chamber piece that is itself a great example of a three-way creative collaboration – between director Richard Linklater, writer Robert Kaplow and actor Ethan Hawke.

Mickey 17 sometimes wobbles balancing its different tones. But what holds Bong’s eighth feature together is his palpable rage at humanity’s cruelty mixed with his compassion for a protagonist who cannot die – and, therefore, cannot truly live.

Limber and thought-provoking, An Unfinished Film is an absorbing portrait of an unfinished era.

For all its unpredictability and nerve, the film too often feels snarky rather than subversive.

Unfortunately, the film often feels as unremarkable as its protagonists, evincing little of the impressive spectacle or snarky wit of Marvel’s best installments.

While its surprising innocence is what makes this film appealing, the franchise is still dependably cheeky thanks largely to Hugh Grant.

The perfunctory martial-arts sequences and convoluted plotting conspire to make this a painfully uninspired proposition.

Hailey Gates’ ambitious debut feature Atropia is full of comic potential that is never quite realised. The mixture of war games satire, deadpan farce and sweet romance provides amusement along the way without cutting as deep as it sometimes promises.

While this expansion of Frett’s 2023 short of the same name may, at times, feel like it’s being cornered into making a political statement, the nuanced central performance from Stephan James largely prevents the message from overwhelming the story.

The multiple scenes featuring family fights feel raw and authentic, sometimes painfully so, because they seem part-improvised: but at times they drag on too long, a sign of a larger problem with pacing and rhythm. What brings it all back from the edge are the performances.

While not seeking to paint all Russians as ‘victims’ and explicitly acknowledging the situation is far worse for Ukranians, Talankin’s footage comes as a reminder of children as the innocent victims of war.

While it’s a remarkable feat, particularly from an editing perspective, there’s also something laboratory-like about raiding the archive from a distance and imposing such an articficial structure on it.

Seeds is a sweet, meditative elegy for a way of life that is fast disappearing.

Many Americans recognise the injustices within the country’s prison system, but the case has rarely been laid out as comprehensively as it is in The Alabama Solution.

Sharp-witted, sympathetic and illuminating, Coexistence, My Ass! successfully runs the gamut from hilarity to heartbreak.

Companion looks fantastic. But, underneath that glossy surface, it makes some biting comments about power dynamics, free will, and what it really means to be human.

There’s much that is brilliant here, although the loss of nuance in translation from page to screen reduces a potent brew of emotions to more literally-depicted stages and consequences of pure, overwhelming, overwrought grief.

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.

Offering an eye-opening insider perspective that comes as a reminder of what conviction politics looks like when it is maintained even under extreme pressure, as well as being a celebration of feminism, Prime Minister holds appeal for audiences well beyond New Zealand’s shores.

Its reflections on modern relationships are engagingly comical, cynical and ultimately tender.

On the surface, Not Alone Anymore is a solid, sweet-natured celebration of a unique artist, but it gradually provides a deeper perspective.

Lurker is sometimes a little too on the mark.

While director Justin Lin’s thriller-inflected approach is periodically absorbing, the scattered structure and episodic nature of the plot works against him as it slides towards an overly sentimental conclusion.

Ewing and Grady want to leave viewers with a heartwarming message about the capacity of people to discover their true selves.

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.

Sometimes overwhelming but always penetrating, the film practically demands multiple viewings to absorb its rich collection of ideas, images and music.

Lacking nuance in its early stages, it matures into a more considered, moving tale that effectively blends the personal and the political.

The actors’ on-screen rapport is sweet and loving, and they lean into deadpan once Together gets bloodier and increasingly more outrageous.

Director Clint Bentley sculpts a sentimental story whose gentle ironies and modest design have a cumulative power.

Delicately segueing from deadpan humour to delicate poignancy, Sorry, Baby is guided by the filmmaker’s graceful lead performance, which captures the guilt, anger and sadness of a woman who once seemingly had a bright future — until, suddenly, everything changed.

A distant lightning storm indicates nature is a force to be reckoned with but in Walker-Silverman’s films the energy of empathetic human nature is shown to be just as powerful.

Despite the potentially fun pairing of Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich as, respectively, the writer and her messiah-like subject, neither the film’s commentary on celebrity nor its escalating body count pack much punch.

This is not the first documentary to deal with thwarted creative ambitions. It may, however, be the one that most effectively and entertainingly cocks a snook at the very fates that conspired in the first place.

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.

Predators may not find all the answers, but it offers a thought-provoking exploration of the questions and should attract audiences fascinated by the morality of the media and the complexities of crime and punishment.

The effort is strenuous; all 128 minutes of it. But it’s almost as exhausting to watch as it must have been to make.

The result is an undemonstrative but rich contemplation of memory, time and – as shown by the shifting nuances of expression on Rebecca Hall’s face – the pleasures of simply giving someone your undivided attention.

Music-video director Isaiah Saxon’s feature debut sometimes wobbles when balancing its impish sense of humour with darker tone, but ultimately, the picture’s peculiarity becomes part of its charm — as difficult to resist as that adorable titular critter.

While audiences will probably expect to laugh, they may be surprised to find themselves shedding a tear or two as well.

Chernov brings home the sense of violent stalemate so that, even when Andriivka seems within reach, peace still feels a long way off.

This twisted fable suggests a filmmaker who gleefully goes to extremes, but the story’s shocks and stomach-churning gags prove more memorable than the underlying observations about the way in which women are pitted against one another in a patriarchal society.

Thompson reveals his deep love for this musician by looking past the rock-doc cliches, searching for the soul of a man who put every ounce of it into his songs.

The Perfect Neighbor’s sombrely objective approach invites audiences to discover how this tragedy unfolded and speculate what, if anything, could have prevented it.

It’s not just the structure of the film that is clever, Sweeney varies his joke delivery, so that there is a mix of one-liners and more slow-burn humour alongside a raft of sight gags.

Magaro, never allowed to explain his character, does a terrific job with internalised anguish, keeping it in check so it’s a presence in the car but not one which prevents him demonstrating his love for his kids, over and over again, in whatever way he can.

Hyde’s fifth feature is an affectionate, perceptive observation about the quiet difficulties of family, even if the picture overstays its welcome with a melodramatic, predictable final third.

Byrne is raw, brittle and believably volatile, bringing such immediacy and nervous energy to every scene that we understand why Linda cannot think straight — and why the seemingly most simple tasks (like making an appointment with the doctor) are beyond her.

Modi’s ramshackle romanticism never remotely convinces, and – given that it’s about artists who suffered for their radical modernism – it feels terribly dated, stylistically and in content.

The film’s main asset is Apte, a gifted physical comedian who puts the dead into deadpan, and loads every gesture with an aggressive, almost demented slap-stick infused humour.

Essentially, for all its sci-fi/disaster/zombie movie trimmings, at its heart the film is a mismatched buddy movie that celebrates the bond from birth between Porky and Daffy.

Kwedar never denies the harsh realities of the penitentiary system but, by preferring an ultimately hopeful tone, he eventually falls victim to some of the tropes of the prison drama which his thoughtful picture had, until that point, mostly sidestepped.

This guerrilla approach, together with Dynevor’s committed performance, give Inheritance an adrenaline-fuelled agility that lifts it above the normal trappings of the genre.

With contemplative slow pacing that is leisurely rather than laborious, and Cecilie Semec’s clean, luminous camerawork equally making the most of Oslo’s harbour area and the cast’s characterful, attentive faces, Love is a drama about choice, chance and the carpe diem imperative, especially in the face of illness and emotional distress.

Despite the comforting pleasures of watching old-fashioned battle scenes waged with swords, axes and crossbows, Bafta-winning director Nick Hamm’s action film recycles the stirring spectacle of bygone epics without having much new to tell.

Abbott and costar Julia Garner give grounded, emotional performances in this occasionally thoughtful chiller ultimately undone by its grander ambitions.

It’s all very sweet and well-meaning, yet this story of redemption is a naïve and very pastel coloured portrait of a Yakuza veteran.

Although it is initially intriguing to see Nick and Donnie put aside their differences to form a fragile truce, their wary partnership does not generate much spark.

With fresh access to her personal, self-serving and -aggrandising archives, Veiel lets Riefenstahl speak unedited: she puts a lot of issues to rest through her own lies, evasions and unrelentingly difficult personality.

While there are perhaps a few too many jump scares, and an overwrought ending which takes some of the wind out of its sails, The Damned is powered to the finish by its creeping sense of dread.

A 21-film anthology on everyday life under bombing in Gaza, From Ground Zero offers a vivid range of insights into the daily challenges faced by civilians, particularly valuable given the restrictions on news reporting there.

Whether it’s Jim Carrey playing not one but two supervillains, or the introduction of even more supporting characters, Sonic 3 wears out its welcome, resulting in an entertaining but exhausting affair.

The CG images still impress, and there are gripping moments during the film’s second half as the insecure Mufasa embraces his destiny. But like too many origin stories, Mufasa often rehashes what was once stirring about this materia

Kraven The Hunter is, by far, the most graphic and violent of the Spider-Man Universe pictures, but that extra bloodshed does little to quicken the pulse.

The film manages to illuminate precisely what makes Dylan’s opaqueness so captivating.

The result is an old-fashioned action-adventure replete with battle scenes and hearty proclamations such as “We will paint the dawn red with the blood of our foes!” But the hand-drawn animation style has its limitations, and the film’s central figures are not as magnetic as before.

Get Away attempts to blend Withnail-like irreverence with Wicker Man-tinged folk horror but, while some of those elements hit their mark, the film’s tonal swerves undermine its more original aspects.

Beautifully shot, impressively cast, and revolving round a charismatic lead from long-time US indie favourite Pitt, the film otherwise comes across as a derivative, solemn affair with a look that suggests a retro gloss finish on generic material.

It’s a remarkable film – exhaustive, informative and rigorously researched, but also crackling with energy , ideas and formal daring.

Eggers gives us a gothic horror that teeters on the edge of madness, resulting in an elegantly woven tapestry of encroaching evil. Led by Bill Skarsgard as the unholy titular monster, this Nosferatu leaves its mark as one of the most memorable of vampire tales.

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