It’s a fun premise, but Lowe’s follow-up to her deliciously nasty 2016 debut, Prevenge, is disappointingly underpowered and slapdash.

I can’t shake the inkling that it would’ve worked better as straight documentary.

It’s admirably understated film-making, shot in restrained black and white, with a tight aspect ratio that evokes the walls closing in around Donya during the long insomniac nights.

Time is of the essence; Eastwood’s 94 years old. He’s not prepared to be cross-examined or sidetracked by pesky minor details.

Savagely powerful, directed with an unshowy but acute eye (the use of the colour red is a simple but searingly effective device), this is a terrific feature debut from the writer and director Cathy Brady.

As this terrific and very moving documentary shows, the society, fuelled by bickering, biscuits and cinephilia, is a lifeline for its members, who weather bereavements, loneliness and fiercely argued creative differences within its peeling walls. Lovely stuff.

It’s a rich depiction of a traditional Yörük community – Turkic tribal people – that feels authentically lived in rather than an ethnographic curio, as well as a fresh coming-of-age film.

There’s a note of truth in Bell’s finely tuned performance as a character whose insecurities have calcified over the years, hardening her to genuine goodwill, which she frequently misreads as pity.

Tonally, with its extravagantly arched eyebrow and lacquered manicure of irony, this film feels oddly dated – a couple of decades out of step with current sensibilities. Were it not for Carey Mulligan’s Cassandra, an avenging angel in bubblegum-pink lip gloss, the picture may well have toppled off its stripper heels long before it got to stomp into its divisive shocker of a final act.

Superior western starring John Wayne (just out of hospital and boasting that he had beaten 'the Big C') as an honest gunslinger rallying his wayward brothers (Dean Martin, Earl Holliman, Michael Anderson) to regain the family ranch from a crooked land baron and avenge their mother's death. [30 Jul 2000, p.10]

While Mickey 17 isn’t in the same elevated league as Parasite, it’s a lot of fun.

Genuine jump scares are bolstered by the film’s spooky sound design, as well as terrific performances from Dirisu and Mosaku, whose terror is palpable.

Tarik Saleh’s political saga turns progressively knottier and more claustrophobic, almost to a fault. But it’s also horribly tense, richly textured and showcases a terrific supporting performance from Fares as the tale’s shadowy Thomas Cromwell figure.

Nine Days is, in its subdued way, a profound and powerful commentary on life.

There’s an atmospheric, unsavoury oiliness to the cinematography and an uncomfortable tussle of sympathies – director Carlota Pereda shows real promise as a genre film-maker.

The intelligence and craft of the film-making, the way Fingscheidt guides us along the emotional journey of the central character, is absorbing.

Part cautionary tale about the pitfalls of judging a book by its cover, part wily, gaslighting mind game, Luce is a tricky thing to pin down. And it’s entirely appropriate that a film that so bluntly challenges the preconceptions that determine society’s evaluation of a person should itself be a slippery enigma that defies neat categorisation.

The prosaic anti-escapism of this sprawling American indie thoroughly subverts the expectations of the festive family movie.

While it is not quite in the same league as any of the films that clearly influenced it, The Sheep Detectives is an appealingly offbeat children’s film, showcasing Balda’s knack for visual humour while also sheep-dipping into unexpectedly weighty themes.

It’s caustically funny, albeit wincingly uncomfortable at times. Where the film really excels is not so much in the snappy, trash-talking vag banter, but in the perceptive depiction of the gear changes in a female friendship as the besties start to realise that their paths might be diverging.

The yagé trip sequence is overlong, baggy and indulgent. The characters lose all sense of their bodies; the film simply loses its point.

Even by the standards of a Yorgos Lanthimos film, Bugonia is an unhinged and savage piece of storytelling.

Scenes of faces melting and bodies merging have a satisfyingly tactile feel, harking back to the experimental cinematic trickery of Georges Méliès, albeit with added 21st-century oomph. There’s a real physical depth to Possessor that helps keep the story grounded even during its most outlandish flights of fantasy.

High-class sex work is presented as a financial quick fix and a route to female empowerment, but the film’s sex-positive politics gloss over any of the job’s potential pitfalls.

My Rembrandt is at its most interesting when struggling to reconcile the slow, careful work of art restoration with the crass, instant gratification on acquiring such rarefied objects.

The action sequences are splendid, it's magnificently staged and photographed, but there's too much pretentious moralising talk. [12 Dec 2010, p.51]

Marvellous musical and a movie landmark, with the first joint appearance of Fred Astaire and Gingers Rogers as members of a band touring Latin America. [28 Sep 2003, p.9]

Like a big old glass of pub wine, it might not be particularly complex or sophisticated but, my goodness, it hits the spot.

The movie defines the violent, complex persona that would make Marvin a star, and he's cast alongside the irresistibly alluring Angie Dickinson.

Amusing and well acted. [16 May 2010, p.50]

The overall tone is one of wry knowingness, which is DaCosta’s achilles heel.

When the film is this much fun, who cares if Grant recycles some of the greatest hits from his gag repertoire?

Larraín’s film demonstrates a palate for mordant humour as refined as the count’s taste for blood.

At the very least it’s a fascinating historical document. However, the fly on the wall songbook approach is draggy and repetitive – this remains a flawed and slightly frustrating music documentary. [2024 Restored Version]

The film works better as a comedy than a horror, skewering its ignorant US tourists, and better still as a spiteful relationship drama.

While there are moments in which the film’s generous running time starts to take its toll, Bayona’s smart decision to make this a tale of both the survivors and victims brings a nervy uncertainty to the story, even if we all know broadly how it ends.

Writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is a furiously visceral force behind the camera. His knuckleduster direction goes beyond mere muscularity and takes on the daunting persuasive power of a mob enforcer; his storytelling is both thrilling and utterly terrifying.

There are few genuine surprises, perhaps, but there are distinctive elements here which set the film apart, not least the way lack of fluency in a language (Julia’s Romanian is sparse to non-existent) creates a sense of siege.

The Suicide Squad has found its place in the superhero pantheon: the gutter, and proud.

[A] fascinating, troubling but overlong documentary.

Smart, cynical and at times devilishly funny, the film delivers a crackle of disruptive static to the demonic possession genre.

Clark Gable, 21 years older, repeats his role as an expatriate adventurer; Ava Gardner's brunette temptress looks great but is an inadequate replacement for Jean Harlow's wisecracking blonde broad; Grace Kelly is the frigid upper-class visitor (a role originally played by Mary Astor). John Lee Mahin wrote both but did a better job first time around. [26 May 2010, p.51]

It’s a gripping piece of film-making: a propulsive, kinetic account of a grassroots campaign captured at what would seem to be considerable personal risk to both the subject and directors. And as a snapshot of a curdled, corrupted political system, it is eye-opening and at times genuinely terrifying.

Subverting the original text’s point of view allows Whannell to privilege his female protagonist while continuing to explore the novel’s theme of untrammelled power.

Zoë Kravitz is a highlight as cocktail waitress turned cat burglar Selina Kyle.

Reema Kagti’s fiction feature gets a little bogged down in the tension between the friends, resulting in a marked dip in energy in the second hour. But the (literally) uplifting final act raises the roof and, through rudimentary green-screen technology, some of the cast.

This is abrasive, confrontational film-making, with a machine-gun assault of ideas and influences.

Cretton negotiates potential cliches such as flashback sequences and that hoariest of old chestnuts, the training montage, with a gravity-defying lightness of touch.

While Luca might lack some of the dizzying inventiveness that marks out top-tier Pixar, it’s packed to the gills with charm.

It’s a prequel to the Predator series that stays true to the essence of the original – stylishly violent, stickily graphic, impossibly tense – while also working satisfyingly as a self-contained entity.

The film doesn’t understand what mode it wants to operate in; serious thriller with emotional stakes or contrived, cynical satire (a set piece around a Twitter hashtag seems to suggest the latter).

Subtle it’s not, but it’s maliciously entertaining. It turns out that revenge on the ultra-wealthy is a dish best seared over a naked flame.

It’s a tense, tight fairground ride of a film.

The film is all about the chase: it’s an aggressive seduction that teases with bold visual statements, with flesh and flame throwers. But does it satisfy? Not on any deep emotional level, certainly.

It’s all very meta and self-referential; screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers hoover up memorable lines from past movies and serve them with a flourish and an exaggerated wink to the audience. It’s also a good deal of fun.

This harrowing retelling of Norwegian rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 terrorist attack on the island of Utøya is less exploitative than Paul Greengrass’s brutal, Netflix-bound, English-language version, but the question remains: does a tragedy have to be turned into cinema for people to engage with it?

Gradually and delicately, Sylvia and Saul’s tessellating traumas are revealed by a beautifully balanced pair of lead performances.

It captures beautifully and atmospherically a sense of mounting tension as the military men grapple with their impotency in a newly independent country.

Malaysian-born writer-director Yen Tan shoots stylishly in black and white 16mm, each frame a tasteful photograph. What’s most skilful, though, is the way he succeeds in complicating archetypes.

The picture, a big-budget spectacle guided by the sure hand of action director Seung-wan Ryu (Crying Fist), is at its most effective when the hurtling camera is strafed by bullets. It’s less successful when the headlong pace falters to allow the screenplay to hammer home its message of collaboration and tolerance.

Pretty Red Dress is both playful and defiant, swept along on a tide of toe-tapping tunes that tug at the heartstrings, yet unafraid to face up to complex personal issues while still maintaining its solidly mainstream appeal.

To suggest Krasinski is only interested in surface thrills feels at odds with the seriousness of his craft. Judicious pacing, clever cross-cutting and visceral sound design build tension, but there’s an absence of soul, and no satisfying sense of what the monsters might be a metaphor for.

Raunchy, honest, non-judgmental comedy about two Yorkshire schoolgirls reacting against the inertia of their sink estate and sharing the favours of a randy estate agent. Adapted by Andrea Dunbar from her Royal Court play, directed by one of this country's great realists, and acted with gusto by Siobhan Finneran, Michelle Holmes and George Costigan. [01 Jan 2006, p.63]

There’s a new maturity both in the character and in the storytelling that makes this final film in the trilogy take wing.

Few will remain unmoved by this intriguingly adventurous and thought-provoking drama.

In the lead role, Anya Taylor-Joy creates an admirably spiky character who is less likable than some of her screen predecessors, and all the better for it.

While the plot itself is a little nebulous, the atmosphere that Abbruzzese creates, through a hypnotic, pulsing electronic score and Rogowski’s febrile presence, is unnerving and intense.

Like Maryam’s approach to local politics, the film is well-meaning but occasionally naive.

Andrew Gaynord’s debut feature doesn’t quite hold together, but the atmosphere of twitchy paranoia is horribly effective.

It’s not a showy piece of film-making, but then this indomitable 85-year-old is not an ostentatious person.

What makes this amiably amusing Danish comedy work is the fact that it takes its hapless protagonist almost as seriously as he takes himself.

Roberts relies heavily on imagery suggesting a confused reality ( characters are constantly fractured into multiple reflections) but the use of colour is an effective shorthand that clues us into Jane’s state of mind.

This immersive, slow-burning documentary about a Congolese charcoal maker finds poetry in the punishing, monotonous graft of one man’s trade.

It is gleefully dorky, hopelessly earnest, sincere, quite possibly to a fault. It unfolds as a series of Springsteen-soundtracked set pieces, each shamelessly engineered to maximise catharsis, cheering and possibly weeping from the audience.

“Narrative art is dead – we are in a period of mourning”; “To scandalise is a right, to be scandalised a pleasure”; “Refusal must be great, absolute, absurd…” Abel Ferrara’s infatuated tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini is littered with such gnomic bon mots, which could apply equally to either director.

There’s a real emotional heft to the storytelling and Caine, at 90, is a knockout.

Guaranteed to scare the pantalones off you.

Fonte, who deservedly won the best actor prize at Cannes this year, is remarkable.

Hardy is terrific, his face crowded with conflicting emotions that Luke doesn’t have the words to express.

This crystalline tale of memory, love and brain surgery from writer-director Lili Horvát (who made 2015’s The Wednesday Child) is a treat – sinewy, seductive and beautifully strange.

What the film-maker has built for us here is the cinematic equivalent of an Anderson shelter: basic, sturdy and unfussy. It’s there if we need it and have nowhere else to go.

It’s a collection of grimly satirical snapshots, fitting together like the misshapen pieces of a Chinese puzzle ball to create a dyspeptic, dystopian portrait of our past, present and future.

It’s unsavoury viewing – flies on the wall are rarely attracted by the sweet smell of roses after all – but it’s queasily fascinating nonetheless.

There’s a sense of Stranger Things camaraderie among Billy and his foster siblings, who are actually fun to spend time with, and the film’s message of found family is a sweet one. Still, its overblown finale overstays its welcome, teeing up the team as mainstays in the inevitable sequel.

See The Room Next Door for its stunning mid-century architecture, chic interior design, and for Swinton’s enviable euthanasia wardrobe. But don’t expect to feel much of anything, unless you have an unhealthy passion for colour-blocked chunky knitwear.

Of the two main characters, Clara provides the tonal touchstone for the film. Like her, the picture spins off into moments of unpredictable fantasy – musical numbers inspired by television variety shows. Music – peppy Italian pop, schmaltzy ballads – is inventively employed throughout, but the use of colour and costume is particularly evocative.

This gripping thriller, an early film noir in colour, features the Niagara Falls thundering grandly in the background and Marilyn Monroe wiggling sexily in the foreground as a treacherous wife whose scheme to murder her middle-aged husband (Joseph Cotten) goes fatally wrong. [27 Sep 2009, p.29]

Interviewees tie themselves in knots of gushing superlatives, but the real insights come from the man himself.

This is subdued storytelling that, while it drags a little in its pacing, asks tough questions about society’s relationship with elderly people.

It isn’t breaking new ground, but the feature debut from TV director Drew Hancock is pulpy, bloody fun.

Chalamet’s Dylan sucks so fervently on his cigarettes it’s as though he’s breathing in the genius of the musical heroes who came before him. But while he radiates insouciant charisma and channels the once-in-a-lifetime talent, he reveals next to nothing about Dylan as a person. This is not necessarily a failure in Chalamet’s acting. It’s a deliberate choice – the film is called A Complete Unknown, after all, and it’s a manifesto as much as a title.

Directed with wit, subtlety and great emotional honesty by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (the co-directors of 2012’s brilliantly life-affirming Good Vibrations), it’s a singular story with universal appeal – striking a very personal chord with some viewers while finding common ground with the widest possible audience.

While the actual plot is a little thin, this is a thrillingly evocative piece of film-making: it’s shot in colour rather than the black and white of Lyon’s photographs but there’s a weary, beer-stained grit to it all, like leathers that have wiped out across asphalt a few too many times.

Good in parts, mainly due to the excellence of Vivien Merchant, Jane Asher, Julia Foster, Shirley Anne Field and Shelley Winters as his various conquests and, in a brief but memorable role, Denholm Elliott as a sad abortionist. [28 Mar 2010, p.57]

Long, well-mounted early Christian epic based on the novel by 1905 Nobel prize-winning Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz about eager Christian martyrs and hungry lions in ancient Rome. [03 Aug 2014, p.45]

Mini-chapters focus on characters in turn, each offering a new perspective on the unfolding drama; choral and chamber music is an unexpected but effective punctuation in the storytelling, but most powerful is sound design that understands the gravity of moments of weighted silence.

The film’s messaging on female empowerment and living authentically might border on the trite. The means of delivering that message, however, does at least feel genuinely fresh and new.

It’s a visceral, breathless rampage, and while it’s a little rough around the edges at times, the picture’s brawling energy makes it an exhilarating ride.