It’s not half-bad. I mean, don’t get too excited – this is still a bad movie. But it is the kind of better-than-it-should-be bad instead of merely bad-bad.

With a tongue-in-cheek title inviting audiences to immediately dismiss its supposedly intense fear factor, Damian McCarthy’s new horror film arrives ready to play with convention and expectation. The scary thing, though, is that the movie exhausts itself halfway through, revealing Hokum as something closer to hogwash.

It’s not entirely fair to call I Swear a PSA for inclusion. Above all, it is the story of a man who overcame an extraordinary set of odds to build a simple but meaningful life for himself and foster understanding in others. Yet, you cannot help but hope that the film – and the events surrounding it – inspires us all to think about the messiness of life. And how making space for everyone might involve a degree of discomfort for us all. But we can all, ultimately, live with it.

Ultimately, Blue Heron is an epic exploring the power and fissures of memory. But there is no chance that audiences will ever forget what Romvari has accomplished here.

Soderbergh, once again acting as his own cinematographer under the alias Peter Andrews (and editor, with the nom de plume Mary Ann Bernard), finds his own way of keeping the camera swirling and twirling, electrifying lengthy, densely composed monologues that require some visual energy to keep them from landing with a cinematic thud.

In an era where studios are obsessed with reviving ostensibly comforting intellectual property, Goldhaber has twisted the end-goal of modern Hollywood radically and beautifully.

The resulting drama, while perhaps predictable in an American Movie meets Cocoon kind of way, is still awfully sweet and warmhearted.

Atkins, a multidisciplinary artist, proudly doesn’t obey the almost obligatory rhythms of documentary filmmaking. There are no talking heads, no manufactured narrative momentum.

The real trick of the film, though, is how it constantly steadies itself in the face of ever-mounting absurdity. This is a movie of such sexual outrageousness and stylized depravity that it should topple over every few minutes. And yet Glowicki and Petrie (who plays multiple roles) ride the razor’s edge of delirium to create something fantastical, even beautiful.

A nervy, eye-popping reimagining of the AIDS crisis as filtered through the lens of a frenzied domestic drama, Julia Ducournau’s new film is, like the very best Cave song, a profoundly upsetting creation to sink into, equal parts blood-pumping passion and skin-crawling menace.

A Canadian spin on Thelma & Louise, the ambitious new drama Nika & Madison has all the fiery spirit of its made-in-Hollywood inspiration, if not quite the narrative dynamism and endless resources.

In its bold aesthetic courage and rigid thematic spine, Khatami’s movie is a full-body experience that leaves you fully alive.

The film works best when it is only Evy and her headphones on the screen, the character’s head (and ours) becoming overwhelmed by some truly impressive, singularly creepy sound design.

At almost every turn, Project Hail Mary attempts to convince you that it is groundbreaking, innovative filmmaking. But in actuality, the movie lands as a grand act of cinematic recycling – the fusing together of familiar, comforting bits and pieces into something determined to please crowds and warm hearts.

It flails wildly from minute to minute, bursting with ideas and themes it barely has time to articulate, but the sheer unpredictability of its narrative and aesthetic gesticulations guarantee that your attention never threatens to drift, and that your nerves remain constantly on edge.

The pace moves from the hustle-bustle of daily business carried out over five decades to moments of stillness from the artform – the flick of a fan and a hand moving in gentle waves, for example. The actors bring the drama to life, without being overly dramatic.

Laxe stages a deathly pas de deux between humanity and nature, with technology – embodied here by worn-down speakers and rusted vehicles – as a mediator that begets both agony and ecstasy.

Like many of its Pixar predecessors, Hoppers manages to thread the needle between a charming story for a young audience and a considered take on the climate crisis that will also resonate for their adult caregivers.

Shot entirely in the director’s home country with a largely amateur, untrained cast, the film blends a striking sense of street-level realism, political commentary and poetic nostalgia for the naive innocence of youth.

Fortunately, Midwinter Break stars two seasoned actors who are not even close to the winter of their careers. Both bring grace and gravitas to their characters, conveying their personal crises with humanity.

The accurately titled EPiC is the greatest concert documentary ever made.

Whereas Michael Mann gave Heat the perfect narrative offramp, Crime 101 tends to circle the block toward the end.

The evolution of Colin and Ray’s relationship is traced with a steamy kind of sensitivity. Lighton, in his feature directorial debut, never treats the BDSM scene as an object of fetishistic curiosity, but rather a culture rich with yearning, compassion, jealousy – the entire gamut of romantic life.

Statham is as enjoyably stern and semi-serious as ever, but his sturdy presence cannot enliven a weirdly buttoned-up exercise in mercenary mayhem.

Momoa and Bautista are having an unhinged blast in The Wrecking Crew, as eager to rip each other a new one as they are to compare themselves (unfavourably and intentionally) to such contemporaries as John Cena and Dwayne Johnson.

What remains is an interesting, if too often overly protracted, portrait of creative frustration, artistic ego and the ethics of storytelling in an overly saturated landscape. It’s Shackleton’s most personal film to date, even though it’s about something that doesn’t exist. Or maybe that’s why it feels personal – here he is finally interrogating not just formal convention, but his own desire to fit into it.

Glowicki and Petrie are immensely committed and often fearless performers – so much so that you can see them frequently bouncing against the constraints of the story surrounding them, the actors seemingly confident that if they pushed themselves just past the brink, the movie’s half-untapped potential might burst wide open.

In just her second feature, Schilinski creates a true art-house epic, haunting and lyrical.