This is a painful, important film, made more urgent in light of China’s tightening of religious freedoms and human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslims.

It is an absorbing and moving tribute to the courage of the young victims of Utøya.

This is an absorbing story, acted with superlative delicacy and maturity by Chastain and Sarsgaard.

It’s a compelling, visually exquisite piece of work.

It is basically deadly serious, and after some moderate knockaboutfun, settles into something pretty dull. Where's the edge?

Wonderstruck is sometimes sweet and well-intentioned, but more often indulgent and supercilious.

For those of us who like to immerse ourselves in sense-assaulting love stories, this 1957 Leo McCarey classic is as good as it gets.

As repellent a figure as many may still find Gibson, I have to report he’s absolutely hit Hacksaw Ridge out of the park.

Welcome to New York proves thoroughly engrossing. Here is a work of ragged glory; dirty and galvanic. [Unrated Version]

The film’s artistry is undeniable.

This is a decent, intelligent, well-acted film if a little uninspired until that third act, which packs an almighty punch.

The Land of Steady Habits, though not as funny and breezy as Enough Said or Friends With Money or Please Give, is a natural extension of Holofcener’s work, the totality of which is, in part, a rebuke of the idea that likability is necessary or even desirable in film characters.

It's a light, breezy 1960s-set coming-of-age tale that strives to convey something of how Japan rebuilt itself after the traumas of the second world war.

It certainly provides that rarest of things: relaxing enjoyment. In all its uncompromising goofiness, 22 Jump Street brings onstream a sugar-rush of entertainment.

This is an elegant, chilly dream of despair.

The restored footage is an intriguing relic – an offcut, raw copy. There’s something pleasingly voyeuristic about the experience of being allowed behind the velvet rope to watch these blusterers hold forth, although I expect their charms may be limited to die-hard devotees.

The initially alluring casualness of Ohs’s project fades quickly into a mildly irksome shallowness – lots of unearned and unconvincing staring, docile conversations, should-be evocative images that do not evoke.

Brad’s Status is a frustrating concoction. There’s a script full of insight but also inanity and while the performances might jump out, the direction falls flat. Stiller is back on the right route but, like Brad, he could afford to take a more daring detour every now and then.

The use of video diaries and the expository speeches are painfully on the nose at times, and dramatically spins a bit out of control by the end, while some of the acting is patchy. Still, one can’t but fail to be impressed with the film’s commitment to investigate its issues with subtlety and frankness.

One terrific moment in which Pat sees what he believes are the killer's shoes underneath a toilet stall door and berates him while Pamela climbs into the green van outside is reminiscent of another scene that arrived years later and was also labelled "Hitchcockian" – the footsteps down the hallway confrontation in the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men.

This documentary is a bit reticent on the subject of racism. It’s not a subject that Trejo addresses, other than to say that cops who used to pull him over now do so to get selfies. Yet it’s an amazing true-life success story.

It’s a movie about masculinity that could have been solemn and prescriptive; instead it’s pulsing with humanity, thanks in great part to tremendous performances from its leads Natey Jones, Alexandra Burke and smart newcomer Temilola Olatunbosun.

Flower herself remains elusive – which is the point, perhaps, since the perspective here is mostly lovers’ projections written on a delirious high, reconstructed from the letters.

The dual storylines are wrapped up together ingeniously with images and ideas slyly implanted at the very beginning. And there are some jump scares that had me Fosbury-flopping out of my seat with a yelp.

It purports to be a “cinematic meditation” on the havoc humans have wreaked on the environment, yet the style-over-substance approach reduces these eco-conscious contemplations to a mere exercise in aesthetics, without any social or political context.

An extended and good-looking essay, it serves as a sharp reminder to pay attention to politics and to remember that the personal and the local are political. If you like thinking about that sort of thing, and you care about whether your democracy means anything, this film might make you get up and take some action.

The drama sputters and fails to catch fire; it’s as if Gilford is far less interested in kindling things and prefers to just look at his pretty cast in a variety of lighting schemes from stark noontime sunglare to the golden hues of magic hour. That said, the toothsome cast is well worth watching, especially Plummer with his nervous smile and the incandescent Lindley.

A queasy humour remains, thanks hugely to salt-of-the-earth per-formances that hardly look like acting. [15 Nov 2006, p.33]

The sheer pointlessness of everything that happens subtracts the oxygen and even Fanning’s imperishable star quality can’t save it.

The interest of this garrulous, convivial documentary creeps up on you by degrees.

Some will be disappointed by the lack of firm conclusions in this film, but if it reveals anything, it’s the intensely personal nature of what people find funny.

All the fire and lifeblood of this idea has been sucked out and we are left with something bland.

Marsh's movie is calm, level, downbeat. The tension is subtle – perhaps subtler than it really should be.

Pugh’s pure force carries everything, and conveys the central paradox: to unlock this mystery, Lib is going to have to surrender to it, to believe in it, in order to gain Anna’s confidence and learn the child’s own awful secret. The wonder reverberates with the pangs of hunger and fear.

Sometimes the casting and staging work well, sometimes not so well.

Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese makes a really stylish debut with Disco Boy, a visually thrilling, ambitious and distinctly freaky adventure into the heart of imperial darkness, or into something else entirely: the heart of an alternative reality, or a transcendent new self.

There is a lot of sound and fury in this Macbeth, but not without meaning. It’s not perhaps a very subtle version, and I felt that Kurzel should have perhaps worked more closely with Fassbender with the contours of his speeches, and shown the painful mind-changing and nerve-losing in the early stages. There is an operatic verve.

It’s not The Exorcist, Sorcerer or The French Connection. But it makes for a worthy late addition to the great director’s armada.

Sands is still an opaque figure by the end of this film. We have his sombre writings and journals but, interestingly, there are hardly any clear photographs, and we learn little about him as a human being.

There is ultimately something very unbalanced in this movie: the female lead and one male support are outstanding; another supporting male is fine and the third is frankly uncomfortable and miscast.

The Perfect Candidate is the sort of film I can imagine getting a remake in contemporary America or Britain, with not as many changes as we might assume.

Like its distraught protagonist, Amber Tamblyn’s Paint It Black is unforgiving, flawed and ferocious.

It is another powerful, absorbing picture from Campillo and a fitting swan song for Laurent Cantet.

Peake, warmly sketching a woman busy fooling herself that everything will work out, and Forte, as precise as he was in Nebraska, keep it honest, and within touching distance of real poignancy.

This struck me as that kind of comedy horror in which (like much romantic comedy) the “comedy” half of the equation has gone missing.

There are some great scenes, strong images, nice setpieces and Chen triangulates the sexual tension interestingly. The Breaking Ice is not as absorbing or fully realised as his award winning debut Ilo Ilo, but his film-making has an arresting fluency and openness.

It’s a measured, quietly powerful film with a performance from Virginie Efira that seems almost telepathic at times; in scenes where she doesn’t say a word, barely twitching a muscle in her face, yet somehow you know what she’s feeling.

For good or ill, the film does not directly engage with Ginsburg’s views on contemporary feminism and sexual harassment and what is sometimes derisively called identity politics.

There are some very funny scenes and a reasonably tense shootout finale – though the sentimental ending felt to me like a bit of a cop-out.

The Survivor wins on points, a decent and honourably intended picture about one man’s ordeal in the horror of the Holocaust and the heartbreak that came afterwards.

This is substantial and rewarding.

James Erskine’s film showcases the unforgettable Holiday voice: her elegantly casual, almost negligent readings of melodies, with a sensual moan or purr that was on the verge of a sob.

The film is a respectful and valuable tribute.

Don’t Breathe is a master class in tension, and while its script could have been written on the back of an envelope, its editing and use of sound design is a triumph for film theorists.

Sorkin is spellbound by his subject, fascinated by the many details of her admittedly impressive life, but the magic he clearly feels fails to translate on screen.

It’s fair to say Washington has never quite topped this performance. It’s an unparalleled treat to watch him messing with the bewildered Hoyt at their first meeting at a diner, and then to watch the two men striding out to the car, filmed from a low camera angle. It is all thrillingly ominous.

Dense thickets of information, told via rostrum-shot photos and documents plus angry mob’s worth of witnesses, become a grind after a while, as does the trite guitar-led mystery music.

It’s tremendously reassuring to find out that Spinney is just the sort of kind-hearted sweetheart you’d expect, a man who’s spent a lifetime making children happy. And it’s a kick to see archive footage and interviews with some of the old, non-puppeteer cast members.

It is a sad and lonely world, sympathetically captured, beautifully photographed.

It’s both amiable and original enough to distinguish itself from the slush pile of youth-appealing Netflix content. Couple that with a moving finale on the supreme joys of best friendship, and that’s reason to celebrate.

There’s something so constructed and suffocating about watching a tried and tested formula not working, the over-sentimental string-pulling on show for all to see.

A Prince might reinterpret the pastoral through a queer lens, but the point of view remains a white, French one.

We know he is an intelligent man who lives in this world – the silent supposed bafflement and dependence on giving people enough rope to hang themselves, which are such a large part of his arsenal, look like increasingly feeble weapons when the matters are of such increasing importance in all of our lives.

The direction from Eric Lartigau keeps things moving along fast and furious: preposterous it may be, the movie is carried off with some style.

It’s an intriguing, startlingly restrained and even cerebral piece of work from Ferrara, an unimpeachably serious homage, with an assured lead performance from Willem Dafoe.

It is the rarest kind of sports movie, in that it will encourage in participants a different, thoroughly thoughtful perspective with which to view their pastime. Breath is a surfer film with soul and gravitas.

To knock its sentimental failings would be like kicking a puppy – and there are actual puppies in the film just to ensure it snags the heartstrings. Resistance is futile.

The result is a film that’s people-pleasing in inverse proportion to its grouchy heroine.

As an antidote to Premier League cynicism, it couldn't be bettered.

You can’t help feeling you’ve seen variations on this coming-out story too many times (which applies to the gay theme as much as the disability one), and everyone is just a little too nice to be true, even the bullies.

A gentle and charming entertainment.

Francofonia is a fascinating essay and meditation on art, history and humanity’s idea of itself.

Richness, warmth and tenderness pulse from this lovely documentary.

Well, Caine and Jackson and their ineffable class give this film some real grit: it’s a wonderful last hurrah for Jackson and there is something moving and even awe-inspiring in seeing these two British icons together.

It's an intriguing and distinctive story, soberly told.

It's a film to leave you reeling but cheered, too. It's about battling love, as well as illness. A universal story, extracted from a unique one.

Midway through, the plot blows a gasket and the camerawork turns altogether crazed, joggling us about in the semi-darkness while the soundtrack rings to distorted screams. Expect pitch and yaw and lots of gore.

A movie with incomparable bite and strength.

Co-directing Unicorns with James Krishna Floyd (the star of My Brother the Devil), who wrote the script, El Hosaini brings a streak of hopefulness to gritty social realism, with the added attraction of superstar drag queens.

It is at once a relief and an obscure disappointment that the mystery is not left enigmatically unsolved.

Steve McQueen finds the key of C major for this well made and unashamedly old-fashioned wartime adventure, heartfelt and rousing and – yes – a bit trad overall, sometimes even channelling the spirit of Lionel Jeffries’s The Railway Children, although for me that’s no put-down.