Roofman sidesteps this tale’s most potentially fascinating elements to sell a more conventional narrative.

Boosted by a warm performance from Ali’s Moonlight costar Naomie Harris, Swan Song proves to be a rather straightforward tearjerker, but it earns its sentiment thanks to the thoughtful approach from its cast and crew.

A compelling drama that transcends its generic roots.

This meticulous documentary can’t quite overcome the inevitability of its rise-and-fall trajectory, the familiarity of its sad-clown hypothesis.

Ultraman: Rising lacks sophistication in its storytelling, but the film nevertheless achieves a quiet poignancy.

An unusual underdog saga about an ordinary investor who inspired a grassroots movement that scared Wall Street’s major hedge funds, Dumb Money is a snappy, entertaining picture that taps into a lingering resentment about how rigged the financial markets feel to many Americans.

It might be a given that Pixar’s movies are visually spectacular, but The Good Dinosaur may be the studio’s most purely cinematic, the richness of the design and the emotional power of the widescreen compositions stirring deep, almost primal feelings about childhood, the loss of innocence and the untamed ferocity of the natural world.

Superb performances from Boyega and the late Michael Kenneth Williams highlight this sombre, character-driven tale.

Even for opera neophytes who couldn’t tell a soprano from a tenor, Ron Howard’s brisk, engaging film capably maps out an art form that Luciano Pavarotti ruled for decades, including enough technical insight to go along with an overview of the maestro’s personal and professional highlights.

Diallo has a lot of things to say here. Yet sometimes words aren’t enough: a straight-up drama won’t bring audiences to the place where Diallo wants to take them. Rest assured she makes her points crystal clear within the genre trappings: the only question left is where next for this talented new director.

Whether Hill’s debut as a writer-director is drawn entirely, or partly, from personal experience seems a moot point: there’s a sufficient clear-eyed skill to the project to elevate it out of the memoir arena and mark the actor out as a directing talent to watch.

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.

It’s fair to ask whether the world really needs one more story about a flawed, brilliant, lustful older male artist, but Tommaso’s commitment to its own soul-searching fervor is potently feverish.

Howard honours the collective heroism above all else, resulting in a well-crafted procedural that’s a little impersonal. Like the brave men who ultimately saved the day, Thirteen Lives gets the job done.

Rolf de Heer’s wordless allegorical drama explores its themes in savage, boundless landscapes; in stark images of hate and violence; and in disease and blood.

It’s a richly detailed mosaic of a movie which pays as much attention to emotional authenticity – a dull ache of grief which is the aftermath of the First World War and a smouldering yearning between the two lovers – as it does to the story itself.

A sufficiently motivated woman is a fearsome and unstoppable force: the central premise for this gleefully pulpy WWII horror puts a dash of feminist fury into a schlocky B movie set-up.

For those prepared to invest the time, One Floor Below quietly builds into a devastating portrait of a weak man and the weak society he represents, both of which have lost their moral compasses.

Focused and thought-provoking, it should be welcomed as a return to form after the disappointment of The Unknown Girl.

A thoughtful biopic that grows more involving the more it shrugs off its tendency towards the reverential.

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.

This ripping action-adventure features stellar effects and a superb lead performance from Owen Teague as a timid simian who must rescue his clan from the clutches of a warlike tribe.

The fading, erstwhile disgraced star’s grizzled, weary urgency gives this story some gusto and resonance, but otherwise, Mesrine director Jean-François Richet delivers adequate B-movie excitement only in spurts.

Like the wizarding movies to which it’s connected, Fantastic Beasts is better the darker it gets, especially in a robust final reel where the film fully hits its stride.

The best Pixar films make their dexterous mixture of humour, emotion and spectacle feel effortless but the ingredients do not blend as smoothly in Elio.

It’s a wildly original work from De Los Santos Arias, a film with a gleefully wanton approach to form, style and story in which no directorial decision is predictable, and, despite a slightly overstretched running time, no moment is ever dull.

While the entire cast impresses, standout performances come from Murphy and Lycurgo. They make it clear that Steve and Shy are two sides of the same coin, both shaped by past trauma and finding it almost impossible to exorcise their demons.

Plays like an unnecessary revival of the provocative cat and mouse thrillers that were once a speciality of screenwriter Joe Ezterhas.