Bread And Roses conveys the full nightmare of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, but it becomes a celebration of resistance rather than a lament for what has been lost.

It’s so doggedly faithful to the show, so emphatically orchestrated and so powered by Cynthia Erivo’s exceptional performance, that resistance to its 169 minutes of theme park magic becomes futile. This is a film that leaves nothing in the wings — except for an entire second act, and a sequel which has already been shot.

Ridley Scott has lost none of his flair for grandeur, but ultimately Gladiator II is diminished by a nagging recognition that this material felt fresher in the first film — and that Denzel Washington’s devilish schemer steals the picture from Mescal.

In the fun but strained Red One, director Jake Kasdan serves up an effects-heavy action comedy with a disarming sweetness that is undone by an overly complicated plot and some tired blockbuster conventions.

Writer-director Glasner’s control of tone in a potential misery fest that – believe it or not – contains a bunch of laugh-out-loud moments is pitch perfect, most of the time.

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.

The pace, the jokes – never over-stressed – the score and even the sight-gags (such as Gromit reading Virginia Woof) all combine to produce a film which is delightfully light on its paws.

The film builds to a conclusion that is unexpected but surprisingly effective in its understatement, suggesting that this veteran director can still find new ways to explore what everyday courage looks like.

Although there are plenty of lyrical moments, Zemeckis’ lack of restraint and some questionable narrative choices undo what should be a moving affair.

Conclave is most effective when it’s as shamelessly entertaining as its ambitious characters.

What works best is the dopey charm of Hardy opposite his CGI sidekick. Their grouchy rapport is almost enough to make up for a slapdash script and some predictable genre elements.

The film simmers with rage at the cruelty of one nation toward another, although the plotting grows increasingly convoluted, undermining the story’s righteous anger.

In the early going, the film delivers plenty of chills alongside some sly commentary about the music industry, but eventually Finn succumbs to the trite horror tropes the original picture so nimbly avoided.

Inevitably, this will mean it draws comparisons to The Babadook, the current high-bar for grief manifestation horror, but Daddy’s Head, which premiered at Fantastic Fest, is sharply drawn, well-shot, and genuinely unsettling in its own right.

For all its breezy animation, the film can’t match the vividness of its subject.

Oddly enough, in trying to capture a time that was wracked by scarcity, by the idea of make-do-and-mend, by the plucky spirit of the men and women under the might of the machines, Blitz just fires far too much heavy artillery.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is the kind of bold swing with difficult material that does manage to earn your respect.

Nickel Boys is about societal evil, certainly, and carries a score which almost bites the skin of the audience as a reminder of that pain, but it is the tenderness at its core that deals the emotional blow.

There are no human characters in Flow and no dialogue beyond barks and squawks but the sense of peril is compelling, the visuals are impressive and the emotional spell it casts is captivating.

Thanks to the tight team-work between Carreira and her intuitive lead actor, On Falling will grow to become an intense, enveloping experience.

Daaaaaalí! is less about Dalí himself, more about the difficulty of capturing his mercurial essence.

Its immersive intensity makes it essential viewing for Serra followers, and for anyone interested in documentary’s ability to record, and make us think about, the extremes of the real world.

Mostly Emmanuelle feels like a package and looks like packaged luxury, the kind that comes with money and not very much taste.

This depiction of young people facing up against school and state authoritarianism lacks a certain urgency, despite its manifest intelligence and craft.

Following his hugely ambitious period productions Mr Turner and Peterloo, the director returns to what might be considered the quintessential Leigh mode of tightly-framed domestic drama, and does so with exceptional bite.

Grief and tragedy naturally co-exist with gentle comedy; and Adalsteins leans into both the eccentricity and philosophical density of the source material, with the village itself serving as a somewhat enigmatic narrator.

While Morris’s attempt to personalise this humanitarian crisis by casting actors to play a mother and son crossing the border proves less than effective, Separated’s criticism of America’s dismissive attitude towards immigrants is sufficiently scathing.

Deadwyler is the heart and soul of a film whose every inch is deeply felt.

This is pungent filmmaking which creates a world steeped in superstition, ritual and folk-magic.

With style, strong performances and emotive use of mis-en-scene, On Swift Horses is a flawed but intense critique of Americana.

Beautifully shot, played by a mix of professional actors and locals and spoken mostly in dialect, Vermiglio feels both authentic and almost restrained to a fault.

Wang’s brutally revealing trilogy presents a challenging statement about working-class life, urban and rural, and urges us to think about economic exploitation and the nature of labour in the globalised world.

Apart from a few quippy anecdotes, the only thing holding Elton John: Never Too Late together is the songs.

In its determination to maintain a glossy, upbeat tone throughout — even when dealing with an event that, as a final sombre title card tells us, saw ‘over 30,000 people killed or disappeared’ — The Penguin Lessons proves to be neither fish nor fowl.

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.

Mackenzie’s film works best when it believes in its audience. And it feels tantalisingly close to greatness when it allows the relationship between Ash and Sarah to simmer. The pacing is so unhurried, and the script has such deliberate mechanics that the film remains enthralling, despite an overbearing score.

The Fire Inside, in a deceptively brilliant twist on the inspirational sports film, is a humanist story, whose every hard hitting beat and aching emotion is also truly earned.

This remake of the 2022 Danish-language chiller maintains much of what made the original so effective but, in swapping that film’s shocking ending for a more audience-friendly take, loses some of its bite. Nevertheless, a striking performance from James McAvoy keeps things interesting.

[A] very entertaining, surprisingly moving film.

The picture has been worked out on a visual level — the immaculately sterile images evoke a future in which life’s pleasures, like having a family, have been wiped clean — but the script never explores those deeper themes.

Editor William Goldenberg’s directorial debut is an affecting, by-the-numbers inspirational sports film, whose ripped from the headlines drama remains grounded.

It is a sentimental journey to redemption but one that Boonnitipat grounds in understanding and empathy.

What saves this uneven material is the actors’ committed, anguished turns.

The Wild Robot’s nicely modulated ending packs a wallop, hinting that a mother’s job is never done — that’s just not in her programming.

Heretic has been crafted with expert care, and the strong performances help carry this dialogue-driven thriller. The problem is that the film’s ideas are not particularly stimulating.

The Last Showgirl is an achingly vulnerable picture that both catapaults Pamela Anderson into the awards conversation and stands as Gia Coppola’s best film to date.

Films about dementia don’t tend to figure on audience’s good time viewing lists, but Familiar Touch is rather special – it shows the ravages of the disease but maintains the dignity of the sufferer.

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.

A mixture of domestic drama, apocalyptic fable and old-fashioned (and unironic) Hollywood musical, The End is an audacious and frequently enrapturing experience, with superb performances at its emotional heart.

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

The stubbornly naive Horizon series — which may encompass up to two more instalments – is both enjoyably retro and fascinatingly aimless as it attempts to resurrect an old genre with gleaming sincerity.

Garfield and Pugh have such instant chemistry that one never doubts why their characters would end up together. But ultimately, We Live In Time views Tobias and Almut as abstractions, and by jumping back and forth in time, it never makes them very present.

April is a formidable, defiantly esoteric work. It demands considerable investment from the audience, but does repay it.

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

Unfortunately, David Gordon Green’s wholesome throwback to rambunctious family films like The Bad News Bears strains to sell the openhearted spirit of this Christmas-themed lark.

Her film definitely offers a chance to look more closely not just at the political condition of Brazil but, by extension, at the rise of far-right populism worldwide.

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.

Matt and Mara is one of those films in which very little concrete happens, but the tingling possibility that something might makes it compelling.

Hard Times, as the name title suggests, is not an easy film to watch, nor is it intended to be.

Salles never over-labours the film’s emotional beats, relying instead on Torres’ magnificent, intricately layered performance to drive the picture.

At once a documentary about the band and its recent live reunion, and a fictional embroidery around its status (and missed opportunities), Pavements is a joyous, slyly subversive celebration that, while unlikely to persuade newcomers to the music, nevertheless catches the band’s wayward spirit, as well as the downright ordinariness that came as an alternative to the bloated rock band ethos.

Joaquin Phoenix demonstrates again his willingness to take risks — in this case, singing alongside the far more technically skilled Lady Gaga — but a performance that was once so attuned to his character’s fragile mental state is, in Folie A Deux, littered with familiar flourishes.

For a Burroughs adaptation, it has all the provocation but none of the haunting power that Naked Lunch still holds, almost 35 years later.

For a story which ponders on late-life exhaustion and loss of curiosity and pleasure, The Room Next Door strikes a defiant blow against ennui, staking out new territory for the director.

Director Jon Watts’ self-penned script possesses a faultless sense of timing, and it becomes the gift that keeps on giving in the hands of Clooney, Pitt and a fine supporting cast.

September 5 recounts that tragic day with a combination of electricity and dread, drawing on strong performances for a meditation on the media’s responsibilities during such a volatile situation.

The Brutalist is defiantly its own kind of construction, but longueurs and narrative inertia make it not quite the resounding statement it aspires to be.

A film of two halves, Cloud’s excessive, bullet-strafed second section is more effective than the restrained and sluggish first part. The themes it explores are uncomfortably of the moment.

There are conventional elements to this story, but also a level of craft that keep the proceedings reliably taut — especially when Kurzel unleashes another excellent chase sequence or shootout.

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are excellent as these carnal combatants, each of their characters jockeying for control. But the writer-director’s larger ideas — about sexism in the workplace and the feelings of shame surrounding sexual kinks — fail to burn as hot as the two leads’ fiery chemistry.

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.

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.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may not be that fresh or substantial – it’s basically comfort food for long-term Burton fans – but it’ll be hard for viewers to repress a pleased smile, or graveyard rictus.

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.

All the micro-motivations and manipulations of life are present, from the desire to be loved and look after others to the urge to tear down a carefully constructed emotional wall.

The Crow longs to be edgy and sobering, but the shallow, melodramatic treatment constantly calls to mind an insecure adolescent male who is trying to prove how dark and deep he is by dressing all in black and talking ponderously about death.

Romulus achieves its goal of being nothing more than a well-executed monster movie, but that modest ambition leaves this sequel feeling a little hollow and mechanical — a sufficient thrill ride that largely reminds the viewer how masterful the first two instalments were.

Sirocco And The Kingdom Of The Air Streams is a beguiling and surreal story of sisterhood and survival.

It’s fleetingly amusing to watch Blanchett flex her wit and grace amidst this motley crew of outsiders and reprobates. But Lilith so easily outclasses everything around her that Borderlands is that rare would-be blockbuster where you wish the main character could get her own standalone feature, just so she can escape this meagre adventure.

This is a film that leans into its cliches — long, loving nights transform into windswept mornings, ardent dialogue teases obsession — and smartly uses them to enact triggering lessons about generational trauma.

Shyamalan and Hartnett struggle to fashion a convincingly layered murderer whose mental unravelling and inner anguish are sufficiently captivating. Instead, the performance is a muddled melding of serial-killer types audiences have seen before.

Drawing heavily from his own adolescence, director Sean Wang makes a beautifully-crafted feature debut, which manages to be both personal to his own specific cultural experience, and speak to more universal truths about walking that tricky path to adulthood.

Rob Peace is buoyed by Jay Will’s touching lead performance as the titular aspiring scientist, but the film struggles to bring coherence to this cautionary tale, ambitiously tackling several themes and tones but never quite bringing them together into an engrossing whole.

While we understand Sam’s back story and present situation, we too rarely get a sense of who he is when not struggling against misunderstanding and harsh weather.

It’s both an elegy for, and triumph of, Hong Kong genre cinema.

A restrained production favours story over splatter but eventually delivers a fair amount of gloopy, tentacled creatures and exploding host bodies. That should be enough to satisfy Adams aficionados.

Structurally inventive, if not downright format-twisting, it takes a Jacob’s Ladder to 1990s China, where a beleaguered police detective tries so hard to unravel a killing that he spins himself into seeming madness.

Roquet’s intimately textured filmmaking captures not just the hot and cold currents of sentiment between the girls, but how all-consuming and all-important it feels to the sheltered Nora.

Sarandon is as close as The Fabulous Four gets to touching on genuine emotion or comedy. . . but the prevailing sentiment is what a shame it is to bring together such entertaining women and then strand them with material so beneath them.

Hugh Jackman demonstrates again what a fine Wolverine he is but this comic-book pairing ultimately underwhelms, resulting in some touching moments and some anarchic humour in a picture otherwise dragged down by convoluted multiverse logistics and drab fan service.

The New Zealand landscapes could not be more enchanting, although the story lacks a similar magic.

As hilarious as it is heart-wrenching – frequently within the same scene.

Like I Lost My Body, Meanwhile On Earth is a moving elegy on the power of grief, and the lengths to which we are driven in order to feel whole. While it may not have quite the same visceral impact as Clapin’s animation, and culminates in a soft, somewhat-obvious ending, it nevertheless leaves its own mark.

It’s a joy to see them performing energetic old hits like ’Popscene’ and ’Song 2’, and a privilege to watch them create their more introspective new material.

Frauke Finsterwalder’s take on the Empress is a lavish production favouring an accessibly middlebrow, at times almost soapy, approach.

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.

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.

Director Baltasar Kormákur and his actors err on the side of restraint, delivering a balanced, absorbing human drama.