It’s an exquisite portrait of a musical genius at work. And Yoko Ono.

Concert films are often an underwhelming proxy for a fine night out, but Cameron’s technical virtuosity and storytelling verve bring the whole shebang to life — as does shooting in 3D. I’m no Eilish superfan, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the last Avatar flick.

It is difficult to overstate Streep’s importance, and how deeply she inhabits a role that, for any other actress, would certainly be cartoonish — the outfits, the glasses and the whispered catchphrase “that’s all”.

Insolia and Riondino, meanwhile, are quite perfectly cast. Their characters have soul chemistry and their scenes together are the film’s best.

Sam and Mother Mary’s chemistry is the film’s big sell, and the impeccable Coel and imperious Hathaway prove the ultimate dynamic duo.

MacKay and Turner acquit themselves handsomely with many silent stares, tortured looks and grimaces. Like all Jenkin’s films, it looks extraordinary and the deliberately “tinny” post-sync sound only adds to the sense that you are watching something ancient, meaningful and quite magical.

In a project that took a full year to edit, with unfettered access to the Orwell estate’s entire archive, Peck proves impossibly adept at layering in seemingly disparate clips, quotes and footage without ever once losing sight of his central message. Much like Orwell, in fact, it’s the clarity of his polemic that impresses most.

A nuptial apocalypse has rarely been explored with such dark intelligence and mordant wit as in this often piercing and cringe-out-loud dramedy starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya.

It is a fascinating, often moving exploration of Japanese family life in the traumatised, bomb-blasted aftermath of the Second World War.

Boon’s already considerable charisma is somehow magnified by Tommy’s incarceration and Graham and Riseborough prove yet again that they can find humanity in even the most disturbing characters. Please let this not be their last joint project.

Halfway through Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (Netflix) I thought, yes, these toxic young men are awful but are we actually learning anything new?

Ryan Gosling on charisma overdrive and buckets of deadpan irreverence are enough to power this otherwise familiar sci-fi story to the highest possible entertainment orbit.

No, it’s not subtle. The rock soundtrack thumps along with propulsive vigour (cue original tracks from Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC and Amy Taylor from Amyl and the Sniffers), the screen pulses with stylish slow-mo from the director Tom Harper (Heart of Stone), while the top-tier acting duo of Murphy and Keoghan bring some unexpected poignancy to an otherwise familiar Oedipal clash.

The sidewinding rhythm of the film will probably throw some, but that’s all the more reason to see it in the theatre: a lot goes on beneath the surface, the lack of signposting has a cumulative power, and the ending is a beauty, mixing heartbreak, hope and the boy, Fernando, who has been patiently waiting for his father all along.

There’s a hint of repetition in the mid-section and a schmaltzy third act courtroom scene. But all flaws are overcome by Aramayo’s technically precise and heart-rending turn. It’s astonishing.

This is a celebration of the King doing what he did best, and loving every second.

It’s a testament to Nayyef’s ingenuous performance and the mesmerising sense of place that the film is always compelling and sometimes bleakly funny, although there are no happy endings.

Ultimately this protagonist looks to nature and to Mabel in an admirable attempt to reconcile the ubiquity of death, the brevity of life and the urgent, though possibly pointless, search for meaning.

The film is a hoot, possibly the most gloriously macho cop movie since the writer-director Joe Carnahan’s previous cop movie Copshop (2021), or his breakout cop movie Narc (2002), or the cop movie he wrote for Edward Norton, Pride and Glory (2008).

Gosh, I hope that Ralph Fiennes’s back is OK. Because the 63-year-old certainly did a lot of heavy lifting in this latest instalment of the long-running zombie franchise. I mean that metaphorically, of course, because in this movie it’s up to Fiennes to provide the emotional, intellectual and comedic fireworks.

Reinsve seems to give nothing away and yet there’s not a scene she’s in where we’re not clued into Nora’s emotions. The acting is almost invisible. Nora, it becomes clear, is the mirror image of her father: giving free rein to her emotions only under the cover of the art.

Like the man, this film isn’t sentimental but gosh, it packs a punch.

Sweeney proves here, after Christy, Echo Valley and Reality, that she’s a performer of versatility and, crucially, staying power.

Jackman’s tendency towards camp is hidden by glitzy outfits and silly stylings of his stage persona, while Hudson is positively unleashed by the demands that Claire places upon her. She has been quite rightly nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, and is a credible best actress Oscar contender.

You really could not make any of this up.

It’s a wonderfully raw, moving and funny film about sibling niggles and family heartbreak, filled with biting humour, button-sized observation, noisy kids, frayed tempers and armpit farts. In short, a perfect movie to watch with your family as you contemplate the looming festivities.

It’s a sobering riposte to the clickbait era.

Arguments will rage about how much of this is staged and how much captured. The film-makers have labelled the film “a documentary fable” and that works for me. It’s that place where Ken Loach and David Attenborough meet. In the best possible sense.

There are gruesome gunfights, car chases, savage beatings and the sense by the closing frames that Safdie has delivered the narrative equivalent of an unstoppable plummet down an especially precipitous flight of stairs. You’ll emerge battered and bruised.

Perhaps most delightful, though, are the carefully drawn supporting characters, with welcome returns for Flash the sloth and Maurice LaMarche, the Vito Corleone-esque arctic shrew. Truly an offer you can’t refuse.

Erivo is extraordinary as Elphaba. Although she is known and rightly celebrated for her vocal prowess, her best scenes are wordless. She carries whole set pieces, and the wounded essence of the entire project, in her haunted looks and her mood of quiet despair.

The film rarely draws breath. It barrels bleakly, with effortless aplomb, to the end. You might need a stiff drink.

Once Jacob Elordi takes the stage as the monster — sorry, the creature — everything falls into place. It’s always the way of del Toro: the monsters are better than the men.

Winstead, in her most fruitful role since 2012’s Smashed, is a powerhouse, while Monroe, though never camp, is frequently and fabulously boo-hiss.

Sweeney is also surrounded by a plethora of ace character actors, especially Merritt Wever as Christy’s sanctimonious mother Joyce, who compound the sense of a lead protagonist trapped within a hopeless, claustrophobic milieu. It’s a proper movie.

I’m not convinced that we have the moral right to watch some of these scenes and to witness a tiny traumatised boy at his most bereft and alone. Still, it’s an outstanding, provocative film that is bound to inspire debate. Watch it and discuss.

[A] warm and hilarious comedy drama.

The ending, set in the Globe during a production of Hamlet, is harrowing, meaningful and magnificently sad. You might want to yell out, “Make it stop!” This is, instantly, the essential Shakespeare movie.

It delivers first giggles, then twists and gasp-inducing rug-pulls, courtesy of standout performances from a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Glenn Close and a never better Josh O’Connor. Not just that but Johnson’s probing script also explores the biggest conundrum of them all: God, faith and religion.

I’m not sure if it’s Anderson’s masterpiece, and though Penn is funny in the role of the crazed colonel, he frequently veers towards cartoonish and almost ruins his scenes. Still, it’s an easy best picture Oscar nomination in the bag.

A thrillingly tense game of kill-or-be-killed.

It’s a classy, glossy production that’s frequently bathed in stunning crepuscular light (the Canary Islands’ tourist board should be thrilled). And thankfully it’s one that refuses to patronise the audience.

It’s a discomforting film and a potentially eerie experience for all viewers. The villain appears to be personal compromise and the moral lapses ignored on a daily basis in the name of getting by.

There is, initially, some heavy slapstick here (the first murder is a calamitous mess) but the bite of the film resides in the richness of its characters and how it delves into the protagonist’s home life.

It is deliberately punishing material, channelled through unapologetic, galvanising film-making. Politicians should see it. Decision-makers should see it.

A suitably shiver-inducing farewell to the Warrens.

The film bounds ambitiously through fifteen years of the Baranov-Putin alliance.

Sorry, Baby is of a different order of achievement. Walking a tonal tightrope between comedy and tragedy with an exquisite balance that recalls Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain of last year, the film manages to address a difficult, dark subject with a blunt candour that is also slyly funny.

The film builds to a magnificently sad climax, with Clooney breaking the fourth wall and delivering probably his best screenwork ever.

The plotting has an off-kilter swerve to it that catches you nicely off guard, and the images have the warmth of nostalgic recall

Guadagnino is also on the form of his life, directing with assured style and structure, and offering a lovely closing device that asks us to relax, calm down and remember that it’s all just playtime.

La grazia is wonderful. It is slow initially and sometimes difficult but it gradually, seductively seeps into you and becomes near impossible to shake.

Mirren, of course, smooths over most quibbles with a character who begins in pure camp and enjoys a cheeky nod to her off-screen ex-beau Liam Neeson in Taken, and then gradually evolves into a serious, stony-faced sleuth.

Hallstrom also works wonders with the principal cast, finding hidden depths in Cline and mostly neutralising Apa’s unnerving propensity for blinkless serial killer stares (it’s like he’s going for Blue Steel but just, well, misses).

Where to start with this utterly gorgeous, commanding, terrifying and masterful suspense thriller? Firstly don’t believe the hype — it’s not a horror. It’s bigger than that. Not a slasher, a creeper, a spooker or a demented killer movie. It’s better than that.

There’s more of everything. More narrative convolutions, more subplots, more supporting characters, more one-liners, more slapstick, more musical interludes, and even more tear-jerking finales.

This film isn’t particularly new or original but it’s just like its predecessors, which is more than enough.

All of this, to be clear, is hilarious. Emotionally desolate, but hilarious.

Ending with uncertainty, and a sense that Brazil is never too far away from another military dictatorship, this is sobering, essential viewing.

In the end, though, the pairing of Edwards with Koepp is the complementary master stroke. They are camera and script in harmony, deftly entwined for a franchise that is finally, after thirty years, worthy of rebirth.

It’s bigger, brasher, more inventive, more “roboty”, certainly more entertaining, but missing just a sliver of the first instalment’s raw-bones charm.

The sense of hallucinogenic sweatiness won’t be to everyone’s taste but [Garland] and Boyle should be applauded for taking such big swings and having the flair and confidence to pull them off. It’s an astonishing piece of work.

You just want to punch the air and shout, “Yes, this is what it was like in the before times! With actual acting, crafted lines and plot!”

Howard makes a fine straightwoman, however, in a film powered by the gaucheness of Mohammed and the ridiculousness of Bloom.

Roustayi handles the change of gear impeccably, though, balancing extreme events with layered characterisation.

This kind of unhinged ambition is what cinema does better than anything else.

Johansson and her excellent cast nail the big moments and revel in the small ones.

It’s knotty stuff for a first film but Lighton finds a delicate balance between disturbing, funny, sweet and sad.

This is original, explosive (literally — you’ll see!) and ovation-worthy, cinema.

Schilinski is in such control of every frame, every cut, prop and camera move that it’s often breathtaking just to witness the emergence of this grandly interlaced tapestry of grief.

Jacobsen is an instinctive stylist and the film sometimes slips into cottagecore territory, complete with chunky knitwear and crepuscular lighting. Yet the truth of the family’s situation always surfaces, making the beauty hollow and the loss more keenly felt.

It’s not often that films get better on a second viewing, but this dense, challenging and intellectually rigorous documentary about “Hitler’s favourite film-maker” Leni Riefenstahl is one of those exceptions.

Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys deliver a concentrated burst of parental trauma in this propulsive psychological thriller that’s set almost entirely inside a Land Rover late at night. It’s like Tom Hardy’s Locke but more intense.

Towards the end, that mood changes devastatingly. Another film might have needed a murder to send these chills but Donaldson is in such control of the tone, and her cast are on such exquisite form, that a single sentence has massive reverberations.

And then, saving the best till last, literally (of the entire franchise), there’s a helter-skelter biplane chase along South Africa’s Blyde River Canyon that’s simply one of the most extraordinary and apparently death-defying stunt set-pieces that anyone, let alone an A-list megastar, has ever attempted to put on film. And for this, Tom Cruise, we salute you. Mission accomplished.

Everything ultimately descends into an overblown and hyper-violent firefight south of the border, near Juárez. It is an action movie, after all. But it’s one of the good ones.

In the end the most radical element of this revamped Marvel entry is its suggestion that the problems of the world can’t be solved by a super-powered punch to the face, but by a heartfelt group hug. Sappy and saccharine, perhaps. But possibly the movie we need right now.

Yes, the canine element is structurally paramount, and yes, Apollo the Great Dane, as played by Bing, is adorable and regally sad throughout. But this is pedigree material.

This is nearly two and a half hours of eye-gouging spectacle with jabs of heartfelt emotion, deftly orchestrated by the relatively inexperienced writer, director and animator Jiaozi (remember the name).

The ending’s a bit iffy, the action so-so. And yet the genre-mashing audacity (part horror, part historical epic, part musical) is so assured, the characters so rich, and the flights of fancy so ambitious that it’s impossible not to be moved.

The London kids are all right, and then some, in this sun-kissed love letter to teenage angst, human frailty and the uncommon beauty of the capital city.

It’s a testament to Binoche and Fiennes that the heat they create on screen is intense enough to solder any cracks. Their scenes together are riven with pain and resentment yet bound by love. These are two of the greatest living actors nailing two of the most iconic roles in Western culture.

A heartwarming coming-of-age story about a raw boy slowly ripening to manhood, this impressively mature debut is earthy, compassionate and never too cheesy.

This is a movie that’s as difficult to watch as it is to forget. It’s a sensory blitz, a percussive nightmare and a relentless assault on the soul.

Soderbergh knows his spy movies and so is careful to inject the film’s more cerebral proceedings with just the right amount of lore and giddy genre hokum.

Cole and Liu are grippingly believable, despite doing much of their acting through helmet visors, while Harrelson provides much-needed levity. The subaquatic cinematography conveys the vastness and terror of the open ocean.

He may have developed, produced and directed just one movie — this boisterous Robert Pattinson sci-fi comedy — but, yikes, has he packed a lot into Mickey 17.

It’s Hugh Grant, returning as the ageing, inveterate “ladies’ man” Daniel Cleaver, who steals the show.

The writer-director Peter Hastings preserves Pilkey’s key ingredients: lavatorial sniggers, winking details, a kid-made aesthetic.

Mike Leigh and his leading actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste have created a bilious protagonist to rank alongside Jack Nicholson’s ornery grouch in As Good As It Gets and David Thewlis’s scabrous drifter in Leigh’s own Naked.

This is impossibly strong writing for a wacky comedy.

Past western, part romance, part philosophical treatise, this Sundance Film Festival stunner also feels like the greatest Terrence Malick film that Malick never made.

This is a film that, at its best, while softly cradling its two battered protagonists, is also howling madly at the shadow of mortality.

Very occasionally a movie appears that understands the potential of cinema so deeply that it changes the medium for everyone.

A wonderful movie from one of the world’s best independent directors.

Here the Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) dives truly deep for a tale of orphanhood, family conflict and the reluctant fight for a throne. It’s often thrilling to watch a film featuring only anthropomorphic animals where the central characters are more rounded than most of their human counterparts at the mainstream multiplex (yes, that means you, Gladiator II).

It leans away from formula and into the hard-knock-life of its protagonist.

Hollywood finally delivers a worthy successor to The Wizard of Oz with this musical adaptation, starring the superb Erivo as Elphaba and a startlingly good Ariana Grande as Glinda.