It’s a more subtle, damning film for implicating the media – as much as the church, the courts, the legal profession and other Boston institutions – in the systematic, wider cultural cover-up it describes.

A lusty ballad of love and heartbreak sung with passion and power, and just a handful of off-key notes.

A wonderful Maggie Smith plays all this dead straight, poker-faced for maximum laughs. It’s a peppery, unsentimental performance. She’s hysterically funny, till she’s not – flooring you as the regret and tragedy behind Miss Shepherd’s vagabond life is revealed.

There’s wit, integrity and insight here, but it cries out for a lighter touch.

It’s a nail-biting story, but this doc isn’t as gripping as it should be.

In the closing act, the film sharpens and becomes something far more compelling.

Ultimately superficial yet watchable throughout, it’s the very definition of classy fluff.

It's an endearingly loopy, occasionally half-cooked but always ambitious film.

It’s both soaringly romantic and truly sad.

This is a magnificent, career-capping achievement from one of the great storytellers of our era.

There’s something sloppy and sluggish about ‘Irrational Man’, even by Allen’s patchy standards.

What Hooper fails to do is get to grips with sexual identity in any way that's intellectually or emotionally provocative or surprising. That makes for a cold, pretty, delicate movie – one that too often relies on scene-stealing production design or the overwhelmingly insipid score for its otherwise strikingly absent emotional power.

Writer Abi Morgan ('Shame', 'The Iron Lady') and director Sarah Gavron's ('Brick Lane') tough, raw, bleak-looking film makes the suffragettes' dilemma feel immediate and real.

It’s Bulger whose grim appearance and even grimmer behaviour ‘Black Mass’ indulges. But it’s the quieter, more complicated Connolly who offers the film’s subtler pleasures.

In what is surely his finest hour, Tom Hardy plays both brothers. Much more than a gimmick, it’s like watching one side of a mind wrestle with the other – literally, in one explosive, fun-to-unpick fight scene.

Kormákur creates such a convincing world – the craft of this film is astonishing – that you’re willing to forgive its less delicate touches in favour of its totally compelling depiction of what it must be like to ascend into a place that’s heaven one moment and hell the very next.

This debut feature blows its chances by keeping us waiting way too long for revelations.

Cameraman and director Michael Heineman has created a riveting story of how, with awful inevitability, power always corrupts.

Writer-director Anna Muylaert’s observations on family relations and invisible-but-firm class barriers are always acute.

Director and co-writer Diego Quemada-Díez condenses many acute observations about life as an emigrant into a sure-footed, credible story.

In the plus column there’s a small handful of decent gags, a clutch of welcome cameos (Eddie Izzard, notably) and at 85 minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome. There’s also a fairly solid moral about free will and personal desire. But nothing else here really clicks.

U.N.C.L.E. has enough style and smarts to make it an amusingly louche summer movie: a cultivated mix of action and wit, suits and cities, that feels refreshingly analogue in a digital world.

You forget how limited so many movies’ ideas of women are until Amy Schumer launches into an extended tampon joke: nothing is off-limits as she kapows through expectations of female characters.

This dizzying, courageous, utterly humane and slightly unhinged film is a unique achievement.

This reboot of the Marvel superhero franchise is a film of two halves: the first likeable and fun, the second tiresome and loud.

This is a busy, moderately entertaining slice of family-friendly fluff. It’s flatly directed and functionally acted.

The Gift will have you triple-locking the doors and rushing to pull the curtains.

Pacino gives his most natural performance in years.

Hard to Be a God is an endurance test for its protagonist and audience, yet the reward is an unforgettable cinematic experience and a timely insight into the need to remain human in a world of carnage.

First-time director Sophie Hyde’s mazy, impulsive but sympathetic approach is always true to her characters’ exasperating but ultimately affecting pathway towards hard-earned self knowledge.

What a ballsy film and honest too.

Ghost Protocol plays it strictly by the book: the characters are bland, the plot is over-familiar and the action sequences are resolutely old school. But animator Bird relishes the chance to play with real people.

As filmmaking, X+Y is unassuming and not entirely remarkable, but the relationships play so sweetly and memorably.

With its unusual central conceit and awkward, somnambulant pacing, The Cobbler feels like a quirky foreign comedy that’s been mis-translated into English, losing all the subtlety and humour in the process.

This woman has plenty of blunt wisdom to share.

First-time feature director Jonas Govaerts handles the shocks and scares competently, and the pace is well maintained. But the characters are a forgettable bunch.

The cat-and-mouse chase across the desert that follows is entertaining to begin with but unnecessarily drawn out, leaving far too much room for Douglas to plug with cartoonish quips and daft machismo.

Rogue Nation is an uneven film.

Both actors are tremendous. Sy adds powerful dramatic shading to his usual irresistible charm, while Gainsbourg hints at a sunnier disposition beneath her volatile nervousness.

It works and then some, making for a noirish and complex emotional thriller. And Hoss is incredible, playing Nelly with the shuffling gait and haunted expression of a dead woman walking.

Rohrwacher draws us into this unusual world with the ease of someone who knows exactly what they’re talking about, neither judging nor celebrating and, at her best, just looking with tenderness and a winning sense of humour.

A film that doesn’t quite blow the lid off the sugar bowl, but ought to keep pop-science fans sweet.

For a while the film broaches genuinely unexpected comedic and emotional territory, and while matters eventually return to the safe haven of pat formula, at least there’s been some vim and vigour added to the amiable observational humour and likeable performances.

The film showcases Lea Van Acken’s remarkable central performance and director Dietrich Brüggemann’s adept control of a deliberately rigorous aesthetic.

The Choir is decently directed, competently performed and mostly watchable, but it’s saccharine and totally unworthy of its impressive cast.

Here’s heavyweight French auteur Bruno Dumont demonstrating his gift for deadpan comedy.

Missing – and missed – are Matthew McConaughey as snake-hipped strip club owner Dallas and director Soderbergh, who gave the original its lived-in feel.

What makes The New Girlfriend special is that is has something to say about sexuality (feminine, masculine, gay, straight, and everything in between – it’s complicated).

The action sequences are wild, the jokes relentlessly dumb-but-smart, and the sheer sense of anything-goes daftness...is glorious.

Writer-director Pablo Fendrik takes the whole thing terribly seriously, punctuating the action with ponderous slo-mo and laughably pompous discussions about Bernal’s spirit jaguar.

Sir Ian McKellen is a pleasure to watch as an elderly Sherlock Holmes, though the drama isn't as compelling as it might have been.

It's silly rather than scary, more insipid than insidious.

For a film posing the metaphysical biggies, there is tenderness and laughs. Its bonkers approach to storytelling and life may drive some nuts. The rest of us will soar with the birds.

Like Bujalski’s early mumblecore work, this is sensitive and meandering – and just a little bit patience-testing. But it’s also infectiously sweet and honest-feeling.

The script is solid, the period recreation spectacular and the performances muscular, but The Connection suffers from a severe case of overfamiliarity.

Bell is so goofy and likeable I found myself willing the film to keep up with her. But the funny bits are never quite funny enough, and the script loses feminist points bigtime for its sour bitch ex-wife character.

The Assassin is a beautiful, beguiling film; it's impossible not to get fully lost in its rarefied world.

In the end, Love is more silly than sordid, and even a little soppy in its late – too late – love-filled moments. Many teens will love it; most adults will roll their eyes.

A tasteful grieving-family weepie, it's conceived and performed with utmost sincerity, yet lacks the intemperate human authenticity, the sense of profound strangeness in the everyday, that made Trier's ‘Reprise’ and ‘Oslo, August 31st’ so hard to shake.

Poltergeist, while entertaining, has more in common with slick, audience-goosing spookers like "Insidious" and "Sinister" than with the imaginative original.

Tale of Tales might lack magic in the immediate, flashy sense, but its strange spell is altogether seductive and special.

Gestures, looks and touches carry enormous weight, and Blanchett and Mara, both excellent, invite micropscopic readings of their every glance and movement.

At times, you ache to put the brakes on the chaos, but still Pixar manages to do with all this what they do best, turning the everyday rough and smooth of childhood experience into a thoughtful, inventive adventure, full of totally appropriate lurid and strange imagery.

When it puts down its copy of ‘Political Philosophy for Dummies’ and focuses on character and action, Tomorrowland is a blast.

Anyone with a beating heart will be forgiven for allowing it to break during this unflinching and thoughtful account of the life and death of the soul singer Amy Winehouse.

Yes, The Lobster is arch: this is cinema in quotemarks, tongue-in-cheek storytelling that uses absurdity to hold a mirror to how we live and love. At its best, it has incisive things to say about how we shape ourselves and others just to banish the fear of being alone, unloved and friendless.

The performances are solid, even if the age difference between the two female leads may strike some as a little disconcerting.

Pitch Perfect 2 is totally goofy but very sweet.

Futuro Beach is realised with such undeniable visual panache that the sheer beauty of the coastal landscapes or the moody images of urban isolation cast their own spell. But without much emotional connection to the central couple, it’s all a bit academic. Exquisitely lovely, confoundingly dreary.

By far the film’s best move is casting some lovable veteran actors. Ellen Burstyn is adorable as Adaline’s daughter and Harrison Ford steals the show as an old-timer with an instinct for saying the wrong thing.

It’s a film of small moments and tiny gestures that leaves a very, very big impression.

This slapdash but endearing doc about the rise, fall and resurrection of '80s pop outfit Spandau Ballet is an inside job, packed with strong archive footage yet lacking anything you'd call truly incisive.

Far from Men is a character study — a two-hander expertly acted by Mortensen and Kateb (best known for the terrific French cop show Spiral).

Gout’s ambition pays off in a climactic flourish. And the assault-and-battery of camera tricks captures Mexico’s head-spinning everyday madness.

Whedon has revealed that his first cut ran for well over three hours, and it shows: Ultron feels excessively nipped and tucked, barrelling from one explosive set-piece to the next, leaving ideas half-formed and character motivations murky.

Not just a cheeky stunt, Ferrara’s film is a genuine, worthwhile, thoughtfully unresolved attempt to understand the deepest, darkest mysteries of manhood and power.

Given that it comes courtesy of Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison... it’s no surprise that Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is a lazy, witless, laugh-free experience. But even by their standards, this is a slog to sit through, so glacially paced that at times it achieves an almost zen-like level of anti-comedy.

Child 44 is a striking example of how a single, wrongheaded choice can doom an entire movie.

A Lynchian coda upends the entire film, raising several questions and resolving none. Fans of rigorous storytelling may find it to be one whimsical step too far, but others will marvel at this miraculous coup de théâtre. Jauja is a film to make you wonder.

Good Kill is a dour, claustrophobic film, offering an acute and stunningly photographed exploration of middle-American banality and moral ambivalence.

Mirren’s performance movingly evokes the travails and rewards of seeking an accommodation with a nightmare past. Yet the clunky, often superficial movie around her tames the anger and anguish of memory in favour of a well-meaning but pat, feelgood ‘prestige’ product.

The Water Diviner is solid and old-fashioned.

The pressure for minimalist Simons to succeed in the ultra-feminine world of Dior is intense.

It’s all presented as a playful cinematic puzzle by director Eskil Vogt’s confident direction and mischievous humour.

The sheer sense of ludicrous, punch-the-air joie de vivre is impossibly infectious.

Dreamcatcher is harrowing.

This has its moments, but offers a significantly weaker call on your time.

The thriller tendencies here are as half-cocked as its compassion for the struggles of parenthood, even if there are some admirable, if hard-to-watch, moments when Bier refuses to turn away from horror and pain.

Directed by cartoonist-turned-filmmaker Marjane Satrapi (‘Persepolis’), ‘The Voices’ steamrolls over boundaries between genres and giddily ignores the limits of good taste.

Thanks to ‘Taken’ director Pierre Morel, this too often feels like just another slice of brainless Eurotrash, packed with saw-it-coming plot twists, half-hearted car chases and an angsty hero with mega muscles and zero charisma.

Notwithstanding the fairytale set-up, this is not exactly a children’s film. ‘Kaguya’ demands patience and open-mindedness. In return, it offers an achingly nostalgic meditation on what it means to love, age and depart from this world with dignity. A fitting farewell.

What a waste of Shailene Woodley the Divergent franchise is turning out to be.

The film is not without its problems – Michelle Williams is an elusive lead, and a wide array of characters come at the expense of depth – but it’s a knotty, thoughtful piece of work nonetheless.

Hyena is startling, claustrophobic and penetrating in its analysis of the blurred lines involved in doing good.

This hugely entertaining oddity could never be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker.

This limp, sometimes lifeless business-trip comedy can’t decide whether to aim for teenage boys or their fathers. So it plumps for – and misses – both.

Catch Me Daddy feels authentic and informed, but wears its research lightly and prefers to thrust us into the atmosphere of the moment rather than offer too much background or tie things up neatly.

Props to director Rob Cohen for making a gender-flipped 'Fatal Attraction’. But The Boy Next Door really should be a lot juicier.