No matter how likeable Cassie and her friends are, they are powerless in the face of a plot that goes through the motions, revealing ‘shocking’ twists about her past and building to an overblown finale. Madame Web argues that no one’s future is written, but it is very easy to see exactly where this film is going.

The central performance has a likeable, modest charm, and King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green resists the typical, unwieldy cradle-to-grave biopic narrative approach. Yet he fails to breathe much life into this underwhelming drama.

Overall, though, the stylistic consistency and sustained chill of the black comedy make for a satiric focus far keener than, say, the farcical overkill of Triangle Of Sadness.

Eternal You acts like a modern day Wizard Of Oz as it lifts the curtain on the intricate processes of bringing the dead to life.

This tale of a bestselling spy novelist who finds herself embroiled in real life espionage has some fun moments, an impressive cast and explosive set pieces (not to mention some strong echoes of classic eighties adventure series Romancing The Stone) but, in its attempts to keep audiences guessing, ties itself up in knots.

It is a premise that facilitates a forensic examination of China’s family planning model within the quasi-futuristic trappings of its urbanised present. It is also paradoxically highly specific in its subject yet incredibly difficult to pin down in terms of its broader identity, as it skilfully skirts genre lines.

While Will and Harper’s friendship gives the film its strongly beating heart, the casual reactions of strangers often also prove to be moving.

This is no superficial recounting of yet another injustice against native people.

Union is a solid work about an important subject. Yet, while the observational approach gives the picture an urgency and immediacy, it’s a film that might have benefitted from the addition of more contextual background information about Amazon’s labour practices.

This is a satisfying and impressively acted drama.

It is to Jacobsen’s credit that she highlights how apparently minor decisions can suddenly feel weighty.

While his film may dabble in varying points of view, it never manages to delve into the subjectivities of the characters it is trying to capture – even the ones it clearly cares for.

Zimbalist’s film is all about the highs: at no point will it dig deep. There is zero sense of perspective past the obvious.

It seems to encapsulate a generation’s dreams and disappointments, torments and triumphs. Even if it takes place on the other side of the world, it’s still a story we all know when we see it.

Despite the sentimental score, which unnecessarily ramps up the emotion, Daughters is honest about the fact that this programme is not a magic bullet, just one important step on the road to change.

Cinematic essays take many forms: few are as fragile and contemplative as Porcelain War.

Instead of treating the star’s life chronologically, they move between a consideration of his career and his spinal injury advocacy work in the wake of the devastating 1995 horse-riding accident that left him paralysed from the neck down. The result has the engaging feel of a dialogue between the pre- and post-accident Reeve and his family as his views and his life shifted as a consequence.

Mbakam has brought the patience of a documentarian to a character study that lets the details create an accumulative affect.

The funniest thing to come out of Belfast since [fill in the blank if you can], Kneecap is a riot which strains let’s-form-a-band film tropes (they’re the ‘shit Beatles’ via The Commitments), stirs in some Monty Python, sucks up the Young Offenders in all its shell-suited glory and blows it out at audiences in a blast of two-fingered audaciity.

Writer-directors David Zellner and Nathan Zellner’s fifth feature is easily their finest, a portrait of a Bigfoot community that starts out as an absurdist comedy before slowly transforming into a moving study of survival and loss.

Tears may well be shed but it is the actors who are delivering the goods rather than the script.

It’s a (virtual) life-affirming approach that is certainly affecting, but can feel a little disingenuous.

The film’s randomly generated structure manages to cohere enough to make the experiment mostly a success.

Even when the film risks becoming overly precious, Ronan keeps Rona’s struggles gripping. It is a tale not so much of triumph as one of melancholy resilience.

McBaine and Moss offer a celebration of the young women attendees alongside a consideration of the everyday sexism many encounter.

What results is an affecting tone poem which ruminates on the passage of time and the passing of traditions from one generation to the next.

The story is sometimes weighed down by an aggressive earnestness but, despite some overreaching and tonal inconsistencies, there is no denying the raw anguish that both Kaphar and his protagonist are trying to heal.

Some people will always want what they do not have, but it is hard to imagine anyone feeling short-changed by such a tonally rich, thematically ambitious film.

The film lacks the teeth to be an incisive takedown of romantic comedies — in truth, it works best at its sweetest. Dewey communicates a lifetime of longing in those soulful eyes that pop through Monster’s makeup, and Barrera brings an endearing amount of dorky energy. But whenever these characters leave the house, the problems start — both for their relationship and the film itself.

Hvistendahl gives her ensemble time and space to deliver the conflicted emotions they are feeling, a mixture of shock and longing playing out on their faces and in their movements.

There’s a lightness of touch to the performances, with Silver encouraging his actors to improvise on-set. Events may have made Ben something of a sadsack, but Schwartzman ensures there is still a glimmer in his eye, a hint that his lust for life is simply dormant.

The fantastical elements soon fade away and the film becomes grounded in the tender realities of growing up, finding oneself and questions about love, sexuality, home, family, and the future.

So many films have tackled the underlying tensions between diametrically opposed family members, but here Eisenberg sidesteps cliches, consistently complicating our feelings about these nuanced cousins.

Love Lies Bleeding makes no apologies for its stylistic boldness or its rising body count, but its swagger cannot hide a nagging hollowness underneath.

The ending is simultaneously satisfying and slyly subversive, allowing an unravelling of ideas that should lead audiences to think about what they have watched.

The film proves to be a sleek, efficient exercise, with Soderbergh riffing on the conventions of the haunted-house thriller while applying intelligence and technical mastery.

Making his debut, writer-director Josh Margolin combines acuity and playfulness in a funny action-drama whose spirit animal is Mission: Impossible.

[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.

Unfortunately, the film tends to underline its points, turning a clever idea into a fairly obvious one, and Love Me’s self-consciously innocent/sweet tone can become grating. But what holds the film together is the intelligence and commitment the two stars bring to this occasionally mawkish tale.

The spell that the writer-director slowly weaves is intoxicating.

Amir Ebrahimi gives a remarkable performance that’s a smart mixture of fiery and openhearted.

Frida is not just a broad brush affair; the artist is noticeably present.

Giving her characters shading and the story space to breathe, Talati has created a quietly captivating, sharply observed film.

Filmmaker Lina Soualem’s sentimental journey with her actress mother Hiam Abbass becomes a powerful celebration of lives marked by separation, exile and erasure.

This charming story . . . has a deft, audience-friendly lightness of touch, focusing on Armenia’s people rather than its difficult history. Nevertheless, it firmly makes its points about displacement, cultural cleansing and the difficulties of returning home.

Alex Schaad’s spiky, good-looking debut feature takes a clever concept and develops it into a witty, provocative exploration of identity, gender fluidity, sexuality and the pursuit of happiness.

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.

Jacquet makes the fundamental miscalculation — at least for non-French audiences — of assuming that his endless musings about why he is drawn to this part of the world, delivered at length in his own voice, are, well, sufficiently interesting.

The chemistry between these three is the film’s greatest strength, and Good Grief plays best as a love story between friends.

As the mysteries behind the strange occurrences are slowly revealed, this underpowered horror film starts to drown in cliches and predictable plot twists.

The shame this film provokes – or should provoke – in collective society will make it difficult and distressing viewing. And there’s no beauty to show here, despite former cinematographer Kelly’s accomplished work. There’s always love, though. If only there was more to go around.

It’s Eva Green who steals the elaborate show, making villainy seem like the best possible career choice for a beautiful woman, circa the 1620s.

As a film concerned with the power of perception, The Goldfinger largely succeeds as a style exercise.

Much like the original, The Lost Kingdom boasts a gleeful exuberance, whether through Bill Brzeski’s eye-popping production design or in Rupert Gregson-Williams’ knowingly overdramatic score. There is a boyish zeal to Wan’s filmmaking, which is not afraid to embrace the goofy or the playful.

That balance of despair and hope, dark reality and a feel-good ending is not always perfectly executed but, as the picture navigates its plot twists and reaches its moving finale, the tonal discrepancies begin to feel insignificant.

The Boys In The Boat is heartfelt and smoothly executed, but this inspirational drama cannot outrace the filmmaker’s staid, undemanding approach, which turns even the most stirring moments into predictable plot points.

Unfortunately, there is not much ingenuity or inspiration to Snyder’s vision.

Very much a collaborative affair between subject Apolonia Sokol and Danish filmmaker Lea Glob, it also functions as a snapshot of millennial creatives and their struggles to balance public and private lives amid external financial and psychological pressures.

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.

Bolstered by a series of fragile, lived-in performances, led by Zac Efron’s astonishing turn as the soulful eldest brother in this seemingly doomed clan, the picture asks troubling questions about fate, fathers and ambition, eventually arriving at some hard-earned answers.

Inshallah A Boy delivers a social realist critique of Jordan’s structural oppression of women and girls.

[A] charming, quirky, dramatically inert new feature.

2018 wears its heart on its sleeve and succeeds as tense, well-paced popular entertainment.

The well-drawn characters, clever plotting and sting of social commentary in a tale of pride and property create an entertaining film that could follow in the wake of Parasite, Squid Game and other South Korean success stories.

Director Paul King brings the same comic sweetness as his acclaimed Paddington pictures, but this delightful, frequently funny musical resides in its own cheeky, bighearted sphere – despite having to adhere to the rules that govern all potential franchises, which treat valuable intellectual property even more preciously than one of Wonka’s prized candies.

A rollicking historical romp with nary a dull moment, The Three Musketeers - D’Artagnan (Les Trois Mousquetaires — D’Artagnan) offers all the sprightly action, jaunty repartee and sumptuous settings a contemporary movie-goer could possibly want.

The Hong Kong action auteur conjures up a few of his trademark over-the-top sequences, but this tale of bloody vengeance is not the most satisfying delivery device for Woo’s unique brand of melodramatic, slow-mo carnage.

Nearly 70 years after the release of the original film, Godzilla Minus One returns the titular beast to its roots as a metaphor for Japan’s postwar anxiety and grief, in the process delivering a stirring spectacle that also contains a palpable emotional undercurrent.

Disney has rarely and so shamelessly plundered its own catalogue — not just in terms of homages to its greatest hits but also in the familiar elements thrown together for this wan fable.

Wagner takes a reserved approach to potentially heart-tugging developments. There is an air of confidence and composure in the film.

Napoleon features exceptional battle scenes as well as tart back-and-forths between these romantic combatants, resulting in a lavish, thoughtful drama that remains entranced and bemused by France’s most notorious emperor — a brilliant strategic mind who could not have been more insecure.

This action-romance provides the requisite thrills while offering new characters and narrative turns, creating a portrait of blossoming evil that is thoughtfully executed.

Unfortunately, this relatively lighthearted instalment, which boasts likeable performances and some unapologetically goofy comedic moments, ends up feeling insubstantial rather than freewheeling.

Beneath all of the visual razzle-dazzle and quick-firing gags, though, Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget is, fundamentally, a familiar, well-executed coming-of-age narrative, in which a youngster is compelled to spread their wings, and parents must learn to let them fly.

While the subtle world-building may be more consistently impressive than the familiar narrative, The Kitchen nevertheless makes its points with style.

Unfortunately, this adaptation of the popular 2014 video game fails at delivering scares or cheeky laughs, resulting in a tedious experience that relies heavily on horror’s most cliched tropes.

A willfully theatrical, proudly retro yet delectably pertinent confection.

Despite its thoughtful ruminations and supple performances, this period drama fails to produce the expected intellectual fireworks.

With the film reminding us that the American system isn’t only failing people with diabetes, the battle for affordable healthcare rages on.

There’s a disconnect between her inventive, impressionistic artistic output – Audrey’s actual work is interspersed throughout the picture – and the film’s flat, rather matter-of-fact look.

Leave The World Behind draws from familiar elements, but this adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel stands apart thanks to its excellent performances and slow, superb escalation of tension.

Emotionally intense and visually arresting, Evolution is rewarding viewing for those willing to enter its austere territory, but the technical virtuosity leaves it on the edge being perceived as of something of an academic exercise. It’s a film easier to admire rather than whole-heartedly engage with.

It is a film in which, over two hours, the maverick Argentinian virtuoso quietly blows up and rebuilds the established language of cinema in challenging but ultimately exhilarating ways.

Hardly a conventional love story, but achingly tender nonetheless, Here is fully present and dazzlingly alive.

The entertaining blend of quirky absurdism and behavioural neuroscience echoes Baumane’s approach to her family’s history of depression in her previous film. It’s a successful and distinctive formula, albeit one which falters slightly at the film’s uncertain conclusion.

The Mission is a thoughtful, fair-minded exploration of what motivated Chau, and also spreads out to confront bigger questions on the legacy of colonialism, the delusions of white saviour narratives and the thin line between faith and fantasy.

Filled with both spectacle and strikingly intimate moments, The Eras Tour is almost too much of a good thing — so many hits, so many memorable set pieces, so many peaks.

Kennebeck’s documentary offers a more sympathetic, thought-provoking version of what motivated Winner’s actions and the morality of whistleblowing.

With a vibrantly charming lead from Griffin Dunne, and enough melancholic worldly wisdom to leaven the humour, Ex-Husbands is an accessible, ostensibly lightweight offering but one nevertheless carried off with expertise, intelligence and empathetic insight.

Exorcist: Believer has none of the creeping dread of the original.

Initially intriguing, Ashkal grows less satisfying as it struggles to do justice to the disparate elements of the personal, the political and the supernatural.

This magisterially simple version of a celebrated stage warhorse is a steely, no-nonsense final chapter to Friedkin’s career, as well as a stately farewell to cast member Lance Reddick, who died in March, and to whom the film is dedicated.

Debut feature director Sebastien Vanicek proves to be adept at wringing every drop of tension out of this slim narrative, elevating this B-movie creature feature to A-grade horror.

While the dramatic destination may be signposted fom the off, this well-observed debut from actor-turned-director Prasanna Puwanarajah handles its themes lightly, leaning into dark comedy rather than melodrama, and that approach, together with strong central performances, serves it well.

With a running time of four hours, Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros is a marathon, even by Wiseman’s leisurely standards. But it is an absorbing film, a forest full of trails for viewers to wander in.

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.

Rogue One’s Edwards delivers a film which is reliably visually inventive even when the familiarity of the narrative can make it feel oddly stale.

Respectful, frank and moving, this is a small film with a devastating impact.