It’s a dismal TV movie of the week: trite, shallow, cautiously middlebrow and blandly complicit in the cult of female prettiness that it is supposedly criticising.

This is a gift to cinephiles everywhere from deep in the cellar and we’re all lucky to get a sip.

The disparate ingredients do not always gel. But in fits and starts Bombay Rose casts quite a spell.

There are stabs of the same fear and revelation that made The Beast so fascinating, but this is in the main unfocused and undisciplined, and the isolation of each character merely drains the film of oxygen.

Cross of Iron is an atmospheric, unflinching tale of the German retreat, though its sedate pace holds it back from greatness.

Chastain single handedly prevents it all from veering off the rails by dominating Miss Sloane with her forceful presence. She grounds her heroine to ensure you’re with her.

Vivarium is a lab-rat experiment of a film, with flat, facetious humour and a single insidious joke maintained and developed with monomaniacal intensity. In its way, this film is an emblem of postnatal depression and simple loneliness.

It's atmospheric but derivative, and I didn't find the denouement's Christian imagery convincing.

Frustratingly, the film tells us little about the crime itself and the denouement is a little unconvincing. The taste of sweat and fear is, however, real enough.

The successes are in large part owed to Merced’s sensitive, grounded performance, her open face able to pass amusement, anxiety, self-loathing vitriol, panic attack and relief like quicksand. Her performance alone can absorb the film’s rougher edges, vaguer lines and dramatic whiffs, especially when assisted by a strikingly natural Cree.

This film is a deeply felt, tremendously acted tribute to courage.

Ant-Man is a cut-and-shut muddle, haunted by a ghost, produced by a high-end hot dog factory, by turns giddying and stupefying. Watching it is like channel-surfing between "Hot Fuzz", a duff early 90s Michael Douglas drama and the very schlockiest bits of "Interstellar".

Director Francis Laurence ekes a paltry story out. The special effects are limp and the script a little creaky, although somehow it still manages to thrill.

Where to Invade Next is a romantic film, equally affecting and annoying in its simplicity.

It’s a gentle, predictable film that doesn’t exactly put any steps wrong in its depiction of adolescence but Orley doesn’t quite do enough right for it to linger in the memory for longer than the credits.

Everything about this film is very well observed.

There's so much thrown into Tip Top that nothing stands out.

This is a film in which you will hear a letter read aloud, with a voice-over saying the words “you dared to dream”, delivered without irony. It is, as they say, what it is. Perhaps most interesting is Walker’s depiction of the mosque congregation. With its politics and divided factions, this part of the film feels utterly authentic and is dramatically interesting.

This film induces a grisly shiver, like a slug dropped down the back of your neck, and there are some amazing images. But I wondered if it was finally unfinished and anticlimactic.

Now Guardians of the Galaxy has reached the threequel stage: overlong, yes, and finally reaching for an importance and emotional closure (perhaps inspired by Gunn’s own emotional corporate redemption) that it doesn’t quite encompass, while leaving the GOTG brand open for a next-gen reboot. But it’s still spectacular, spirited and often funny.

You get the impression they are only comfortable sharing their lives when they’re perched above where the rest of us live. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find them swoon-worthy, never mind the cryptocurrencies and branded partnerships circling their pursuits.

This is a shameless heartstring plucker. But it’s charming and sometimes very funny.

It’s an earnest rather then energetic retelling but Stanfield’s stare is indelible.

Where it initially threatens to be a new The Thing, it finally serves up sloppy zomcom; just about enough for a Friday night but not much else.

Sad to say, it goes down like a cup of tepid, milky and over-sugared tea.

While it doesn’t have the same tense grip of Spellbound, it’s an amiable enough diversion.

It might work if Rita was a more appealing protagonist, capable of wringing out gallows humour or personal tragedy from her predicament.

Nanni Moretti's new film is occasionally amusing, but is also a frustrating and directionless experience.

I Am Mother is undoubtedly a strong calling card with plenty on its mind. I just wish it had figured out what to do with it all.

Overall, this is a likable and well-researched film, but there is something unsatisfying in ignoring the band’s later stages. Perhaps Part II is in the works.

An awkward misfire at best and an uneasy and irresponsible one at worst.

There is a contrivance to both story and script that grates, rubs up against Murray’s appeal as a loose cannon.

Emblazoned with mouthy Big Short-style info-dumps, and with a phone-selling scene reminiscent of The Wolf of Wall Street, Body Brokers outwardly seems to be aiming for high Scorsesian amoral operatics. But given the originality of Swab’s take, it’s a shame he couldn’t find the film a more appropriate style: at heart it is a more sober film intent on declaring its outrage.

West of Sunshine’s rough, down-at-heel Aussie vibe prompts one to set it alongside other recent bawlers and brawlers, such as Kriv Stenders’ Boxing Day or David Michod’s Animal Kingdom. But Raftopoulos is altogether more protective of his characters, shielding them from full-blown horror, clearly wishing them well even as they stumble and fall, and his film works best in tenderly framing a burgeoning father-son friendship.

In this film, nothing about mega-celebrity looks fun.

The supposedly important themes of immigrants and Syria are cancelled by its naive flippancy.

Everest is a frustrating movie in many ways – despite some lurches and shocks, it doesn’t quite deliver the edge-of-your-seat thrills that many were hoping for, and all those moderately engaging characters mean that there is no centrally powerful character.

The plots are rickety and the characterisation has the depth of a Franklin Mint plate, but there are some funny moments and Kevin Doyle, playing the overexcitable servant Molesley, pretty much steals the entire film.

The film has the authoritative air of official history: sometimes brash, sometimes stolid, sometimes with flashes of inspiration and sometimes with long stretches of courtroom dialogue.

The constant shifting between Italian, English and Québécois-accented French adds an extra texture, and the performances are as sharp as the suits.

Above all, everyone in a Meyer film looks like they're having an absolutely great time.

Scott’s return to the Roman arena is something of a repeat, but it’s still a thrilling spectacle and Mescal a formidable lead. We are entertained.

This is a story about the randomness of life in the big city, a melodramatic convulsion of grief, rage and pain which has a TV soap feel to its succession of escalating crises.

It’s cheerful and watchable, if a relentlessly on-brand fan promo, corporately policed and controlled, using vintage archive photos and video rather than closeup talking-head footage of the band now.

It has to be said that Nobody rattles enjoyably and bone-crunchingly along and as for Odenkirk, this career turn more or less pays off. He never tries to be macho exactly, and spends a lot of his time flinching and scowling at all the cuts and bruises on his face.

Finding Fela does an exemplary job of explaining, in musical terms, what made Fela standout, a simple enough step that most music documentaries ignore.

The archive clips suggest Halston is a role Richard E Grant was born to play: the designer had a long-limbed loucheness, grandiose affectations and put-on accent, along with a fierce perfectionism.

It’s an adequate, involving enough afternoon watch (faint praise: better than Geostorm) and for those with a certain destructive itch that still needs scratching, this should do the job.

This is a film with an impressive, sometimes oppressive craft and technique – but it also feels unfinished. A sustained and rather brilliant conjuring of atmosphere, with some superb ambient music, finally succumbs to a rather banal inability to decide where to take the story and exactly how important the story has been.

The effect of it all is elegant and overwhelmingly stylish, yet maybe there’s not a superabundance of substance to go with the style. Kinds of Kindness feels heavier and longer than I expected, as if reaching for a meaningful resolution that might not be there. Yet absence and loss is perhaps the whole point.

However earnest and heartfelt, the film doesn’t tell us nearly enough, or really anything, about Joe.

It’s an immensely likable movie, impeccably acted and wise about the nature of exile.

Those who come away cheering for Ready Player One will likely have enjoyed the film’s many references, the story’s breakneck speed and playful visual design. Others may want to unplug from the paint-by-number characters and shallow plot.

As the violence escalates, an absurdist dose of humor is added to the mix, injecting the film with a distinctly modern sensibility that is welcome and does not let up.

Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy are joined by Caine as a hilarious Scrooge in this irresistibly sweet musical adaptation of Dickens’ festive tale.

It’s a bruising movie, being sold on the promise that it’s “scary as hell”, a quote that I worry will mislead expectant horror fans. The scariest thing about The Lodge is how human it all is.

Mäkelä is too in bed with his protagonist’s objectives to develop the kind of perspective that might yield richer insights into the life/art trade-off.

Woody Allen’s Café Society is a sweet, sad, insubstantial jeu d’ésprit, watchable, charming and beautifully shot by Vittorio Storaro – yet always freighted by a pedantic nostalgia for the 1930s golden age in both Hollywood and New York, nostalgia which the title itself rather coercively announces.

Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac bludgeons the body and tenderises the soul. It is perplexing, preposterous and utterly fascinating.

The film coheres quietly, thanks in no small part to the two excellent child performances.

Actor turned writer-director Jillian Bell’s naked, and sometimes literally naked, attempt to craft a new rewatchable comfort food favourite with notes of both sweet and salt is charming when it works but distractingly effortful when it doesn’t.

Best of all, Zenovich and her editor, splicing and dicing 50 years of archive material, get across Chase’s abundant talent at its best, particularly his masterly command of the pratfall, and his immaculate comic timing.

Director Ali Abbasi has given us fascinating monsters in the past with Holy Spider and Border but the monstrosity here is almost sentimental, a cartoon Xeroxed from many other satirical Trump takes and knowing prophetic echoes of his political future. It’s basically a far less original picture.

As well as death and tragedy, war is full of absurdity, indignity, chaos, all sorts of bizarre and embarrassing things that don’t get mentioned in the official record. Greyhound is content with its keynote of sombre reverence.

Yes, it certainly is about her, but it’s almost as if everyone involved – Gabeira, people who were supposedly her closest associates, and even the director Stephanie Johnes – aren’t quite conscious of the fact that they’re also making a documentary about endemic sexism in sport.

Everything here is out of the top drawer of production value: but it never really comes to passionate life.

This is Tarantino for ankle-biters with a bit of Ocean’s 11 thrown in: funny, energetic and just smart enough.

Synchronic is frankly just silly and tedious, with faintly absurd and jeopardy-free time-travel scenes and a dramatic focus hopelessly split between Dennis and Steve’s separate but equally tiresome lives.

The knowing tone again feels like Hollywood confessing to trading in material few could take seriously, yet a certain sincerity is evident in Moner’s winning performance.

There is an important subject at the centre of this documentary from Korean-American film-maker Sue Kim, co-produced by Malala Yousafzai, but the film is finally let down by a bland and supercilious way of celebrating the women involved as a picturesque eco-feminist folk tradition, without actually tackling the hard questions their work is raising.

Official Secrets is a well-intentioned retelling of a daunting act of courage and as a vehicle for informing more people of who Katharine Gun is, it’s effective, carefully laying out the incremental stakes as well as her noble intentions. Credit for this however lies almost solely with Knightley.

This is not social realism in the style of Ken Loach, but it is a film with a strong sense of outrage. Some might find it relentlessly bleak.

Anyone who has pushed things a bit too far, and woken up with one too many “wtf” mornings, will appreciate how close Belgica has got to replicating hedonism going off the rails.

It’s an intriguing, stimulating, exhilarating movie, which really does address – with both head and heart – the great issue of our age, AI.

Backbeat is a historically plausible take on the relationships between John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe and Astrid Kirchherr, and a thoughtful, engaging film.

Niccol creates an atmosphere that is airless and dull, an unusual tone for a modern war film, but one that fits the subject matter perfectly.

It's an allegory about the Vietnam war, a study of American character and a national propensity for violence. Southern Comfort is a masterpiece.

Even though Trump puts herself, her husband and many members of her family at the heart of the story, the end result never feels navel-gazing or narcissistic.

Woody Allen acquired the rights to a terrible Japanese Bond-style extravaganza, re-edited it and provided an incongruous soundtrack full of New York Jewish gags. The joke wears thin, but there are good laughs along the way. Allen's then-wife Louise Lasser and friend Mickey Knox help out.

The performances are very strong, and there’s a great sisterly relationship between Bemba and Gohourou; they deserved a more substantial story.

It’s propulsively watchable if a tad light on reflection. And you may feel hoodwinked by one late reveal.

A Bridge Too Far is a fantastic historical and cinematic achievement but, if you're not a die-hard war obsessive, prepare to snooze.

It’s a fiery, flawed, often stunningly made film that provokes uncomfortable discussion, rather like the Richard Wright novel it was based on, although purists might argue over some key changes.

Perhaps to overcompensate for the lack of conventionally opened-out dramatic action, there is some big closeup acting from Gyllenhaal, but it’s a well-made and watchable picture of a man in the secular confessional box, a sinner forced to occupy the place of a priest.

Some of the time, this new Chicken Run has the same flaw as the newer Pixar movies: a sense that the film could almost have been algorithmically fabricated through AI, especially here in the opening act. Well, the gags puncture that and a lively voice cast including Romesh Ranganathan, Daniel Mays, David Bradley, Jane Horrocks and Imelda Staunton provide energy and fun.

What’s crucial is how Senese and cinematographer Andy Duensing film these elements: patiently, attentively, with a feel for space and ambient atmosphere, and a reluctance to offer easy explanations that invites tantalising metaphorical readings, and counts as recognisably Carruthian.

Jones skilfully cranks up the creepiness a notch at a time with an ominous soundtrack and stylish lighting, until the dial is way past 11 and into grand guignol territory by the end.

While the shifts in genre, plot and location do prove intriguing for much of the film, they ultimately result in a feeling of mild dissatisfaction, the whole never quite the sum of its parts.

Devotees of Dumont's earlier films – particularly his 1999 film "Humanity" – will instantly recognise the style, the locale, the narrative, the bizarre quasi-realism, in which events take place in a world infinitesimally different from the one we inhabit. As ever, the visionary, radioactive glow is compelling.

François Ozon's new film is a luxurious fantasy of a young girl's flowering: a very French and very male fantasy, like the pilot episode of the world's classiest soap opera... But this is well-crafted and well-acted.

Nothing else comes close to capturing the atmosphere of the early days of hip-hop and spraycan art, of the burned-out and derelict Bronx; the only colour comes from the impressive artwork as b-boys and fly girls dream of making "cash money" while scratching and rapping in kitchens, dingy bars and, in an impressive DIY turn from Double Trouble, on stoops. This isn't old skool, this is pre-school.

The Lego Pharrell is an intriguing, absurdist high concept, but not nearly as interesting as the real thing.

This heartfelt story is always watchable.

You can't help thinking he's missed the point of Pulp. Their music denigrated the people as much as it celebrated them. Habicht leaves the city in love with a surface-level reading of Cocker's take on it.

Kass and Minahan combine old and new while rubbing suggestively against the grain: the familiar pleasures of watching charismatic young actors meet the novelty of seeing them plugged into situations our period dramas have historically overlooked.

Director Will Sharpe is a potent talent whose early movies Black Pond and The Darkest Universe I loved – but this is a strained film, overwhelmed with self-consciousness at its own unearned period-biopic prestige.

It's a slight, attractive tale: a childlike fable of a little girl and her preternaturally intelligent cat that swiftly devolves into a very old-school cops and robbers yarn.

Under the workmanlike direction of Mick Jackson (The Bodyguard), what should have been a rousing and ragingly topical crowdpleaser, instead feels more like a Lifetime movie.