Equity is a smart Wall Street thriller which is most engaging when it’s exploring the obstacles facing its female protagonists specifically because of their gender.

Copa 71 may have a packaged air to it, but the story speaks – loudly – for itself.

Like the film, the soundtrack doesn’t quite know where it’s going, but it takes us on a curious and often engaging stroll.

Hester’s goal was to convince politicians that gay people are like everyone else. In its ultra-mainstream style, and now in its argument for equality (which most of America endorses today), this solidly acted drama drives that point home.

Although Mother And Son loses some of its energy as it unfolds, it is still a sensitive and complex examination of the shifting tensions in a migrant family.

Charismatic performances by Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva make you believe in the characters and invest in the romance. When harsh reality inevitably intrudes on their dream love, the emotional impact is all the deeper.

In focusing on Bell’s flamboyant performance and moving the action along at a frenetic pace, [Palmer] did what was required here in making a rowdy, infectious entertainment.

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

The result is a cheerfully lurid mess that goes goofily off the rails after a slow build, and will offer few surprises for adepts of Lovecraft or of screen schlock.

While shunning all the heroic pyrotechnics associated with this genre, [Lindholm] lays bare the moral and ethical dilemmas his main character, and many like him, have to face, raising questions that have no immediate or available answer.

It’s fair to say that Final Reckoning delivers ever more thrills and spills, even though the links between the action are ever more frayed.

The meandering narrative sprawls like a great Dickens novel but individual encounters and elements that may seem like distractions all reflect back on the greater themes.

Although it breaks no new ground, there’s heart, humour, charm and even a little healthy mischief in a film that re-imagines the rapprochement between the two former foes.

The film stands in the shadow of Michael Mann’s influential Southern California pictures, but a cast led by Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo add extra crackle to a story that salutes characters who are very good at their job – no matter what side of the law they are on.

This fragile, frank film chronicles its subjects with stripped-down intimacy, which can sometimes border on feeling like simple gawking. But it’s impossible not to care deeply about these anxious lovebirds, especially as we begin to understand the obstacles threatening their relationship.

There’s a nicely intimate side to Ducornau’s urge to dig beneath the flesh here, a ‘soft body horror’ simulacrum of the hormonal changes this adolescent girl is going through.

There is a compassion in this filmmaking that is markedly lacking in America’s attitude towards the people it pushes to its outer fringes.

Hacksaw Ridge returns to the themes which have professionally and personally motivated 60-year-old Gibson for his entire life; he’s never been subtle, but he’s certainly effective when it comes to delivering his heart-felt message.

A polished, engrossing procedural, Spotlight offers plenty of old-fashioned pleasures — chiefly, the sight of smart, scrappy muckraking journalists stopping at nothing to uncover systematic corruption.

Underneath it all, superb performances from a stellar, experienced cast – confidently shepherded by debut director/star Kate Winslet – hit authentic, relatable notes, and save the film from sinking entirely into melodrama

Queen & Slim’s cumulative impact mostly justifies the tonal inconsistencies, leaving the viewer with a troubling look at a society in which the marginalised always feel hunted.

Photograph’s deliberate pace does bring some rich rewards for the patient viewer, while a lovely ending feels like a throwback to the old-fashioned big screen romances of yore.

Singh busts rhymes with the best of them in this energetic, entertaining film that smuggles some urgent social themes in under the cover of a hoary old fable about a handsome pauper who gets the stardom and the girl.

There’s a fine line between giving a voice to the victims of honour killings and putting words into the mouths of people who are no longer able to speak for themselves. The slightly contentious issue with A Regular Woman is how closely allied it is with the real case of Hatun Aynur Sürücü. There is no distance afforded by a layer of fictionalisation and, ultimately, it’s impossible to know how closely the voice of the character in the film matches that of the young woman who lost her life.

Franco manages to maintain credibility as he ramps up the emotional stakes, creating situations in which the viewer longs to jump into the screen and change the course of events.

The X-Men adventures keep getting bigger, but Singer works extremely hard to ensure that, even when they’re not always better, they continue to thrill sufficiently.

On Becoming A Guinea Fowl is a formally daring picture that blends fantasy, stylised drama and elements of black comedy to explore the societal pressures that rewrite the truth.

The unnerving prescience of Ana Katz’s low key, symbolism-steeped drama adds an extra layer to this intriguing but slight blend of observational intimacy and science fiction.