What makes it special is that it’s not another romance about finding a man. It’s about finding your people, about being a bit lost in your twenties and not knowing who you are or what you want to be. And it’s got bucketfuls of charm.

Hats off to Dreamworks for offering some bold surprises in a respectable sequel filled with moments of humour and emotion among its ample noise and movement.

It may lack its predecessor’s lofty ambitions, but once the bullets, spears and hairy fists start flying you’ll be too wrapped up to care.

Archipelago confirms Hogg as a daring and mischievous artist, and a major British talent whose next move will be intriguing.

Hogg displays a welcome desire to draw on global film influences and ignore the unwritten rules of what British cinema should or should not seek to achieve, especially in the realm of films about the monied and unsympathetic.

Exhibition succeeds in making us feel deeply uncomfortable for peering into other people’s lives.

What you take from Miss Violence depends both on your stomach for this kind of brutality, and whether you appreciate its cold, mannered formalism – one viewer’s stylistic tour de force is another’s grating Haneke pastiche. Still, this is punchy stuff.

Eschewing metaphor and mysticism (save insofar as his characters adopt them), [Dumont] has for once given us a film of immense visual beauty, thematic clarity and subtle resonance.

Psychologists would doubtless have a field day with the film’s lumpy brew of semi-incestuous paternal angst, midlife machismo, all-American dick-swinging and moderate racism, but we imagine most of them are too busy to waste two hours on this sludge.

There’s too much story to cram into one film, with the result that the three surly teenagers themselves – who would have made far more compelling central characters – are pushed to the side. And with their own legal team surely keeping a close watch, Egoyan and his scriptwriters are unable to point fingers in any meaningful way. A missed opportunity.

Sometimes you find yourself wishing for an alternative version of the film unfolding before your eyes. ‘Belle’ is a good-looking and exceedingly polite film where perhaps a more complex one with less good manners would have been better.

This snore-bore doc follows the year-long world tour of Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic production of 'Richard III’ directed by Sam Mendes ('Skyfall'). Critics dusted off all their big words to praise the play. But we don’t get to see much of it.

As with all of West’s work this is a good-looking, well acted film shot through with moments of real power, but its conventionality is troubling.

There’s a lack of subtlety or surprise which serves the story poorly... That said, it’s a thoughtful, timely, often quietly captivating drama.

The casting of comedian Koechner as the sleazy host is a masterstroke, but all four actors relish the salty dialogue and farcical cruelty, as the film moves towards a bleak but satisfying ending.

Grace of Monaco could have been a camp delight, but it feels too much like a stodgy, outdated television movie to work even as kitsch.

22 Jump Street knows how to play to its strengths: Tatum’s performance here is even more puppy-dog lovable than last time, and his scenes with Hill possess a goofy, low-key warmth too often lacking in big-budget comedy.

Refreshingly, Mariachi Gringo looks beyond the usual cartel/corruption/bloodbath take on modern Mexico, but the result is altogether stronger on sincerity than emotional engagement.

Politics and entertainment are never an easy mix, and Jimmy’s Hall is a familiar, slightly unsurprising coming together of the two from Loach and his writer Paul Laverty. Sometimes you can see the joins, but there’s also great warmth, charm and humour among the ideas, and the sense of time and place is especially strong.

As the actors move fluidly between various states, shedding one skin while assuming another, Polanski makes this subversive parlour game matter.

Like Restrepo, this troubling and thoughtful documentary asks tough questions.

Given an inch by the surprise success of his raunchy teddy-bear romp Ted, writer-director-star MacFarlane now takes a drastically overlong mile with a film that flatters his moderate talent and subzero leading-man charisma at every turn.

Most importantly, the film involves us: it draws us into the debate, makes us complicit, demands that we have an opinion, and then upends that same opinion a few minutes later. It's engaging and rousing.

Beneath the well-tuned atmospherics lurks a schlocky, fairly ludicrous and pretty distasteful yarn that ultimately puts the stress in all the wrong places.

What stops David Cronenberg’s grotesque noir Maps to the Stars, written by LA insider Bruce Wagner, from feeling tired is that it’s deliciously odd.

As ever with Leigh, Mr Turner addresses the big questions with small moments. It's an extraordinary film, all at once strange, entertaining, thoughtful and exciting.

With Dolan, you feel you're in the company of a truly original voice and one unafraid to make his mistakes right up there on the screen.

Stick with it and writer/director Alice Rohrwacher’s first feature reveals another side: taking a small town as a microcosm of Berlusconi’s something-rotten-at-the-core Italy.

When the film gets outdoors, it soars, and Ceylan continues to dig with acute intelligence into the dark corners of everyday human behaviour.

The film’s Groundhog Day-meets-Independence Day plot is actually pretty genius.

Any film that teams up gruffer-than-thou icons Shepard and Johnson is bound to go heavy on the testosterone, but Mickle undercuts all this strident manliness with a rich vein of self-mocking wit and paternal angst.

The film’s blanket refusal to question its subject feels not only cowardly, but antithetical.

This homegrown romcom is pretty much doomed from the start.

There’s plenty to enjoy – a handful of smart one-liners, a few nifty shocks and one truly unsettling confrontation in a cemetery – but nothing to give Joss Whedon a run for his money.

It’s as handsomely shot as any film about an ace shutterbug ought to be, and Binoche infuses familiar internal crises with palpable pain and urgency.

Willow Creek doesn’t take us anywhere new – the climax is abrupt and unsatisfying – but it’s a whole lot of jarring, juddering fun while it lasts.

This is the director’s most vivid, most emotional and humane film, and perhaps his best.

As arthouse coming-of-age films go, this is brilliant – smart and sensitive with a screw-you feminist streak. And it’s beautifully acted by two first-time actresses playing Eka and Natia, who have been friends forever.

Chases on foot and four wheels keep the thing moving, but apart from a thematic wrinkle where Besson’s clearly siding with the hood rather than the lawmakers, it’s all pretty predictable.

After a shaky start, Bad Neighbours blossoms, with inspired visual gags in excellent poor taste.

Tracks might be a bit slow for some, but it’s one of those films that quietly creeps up on you.

The Stag is formulaic and schmaltzy, and its endless gay jokes jar with its warm-hearted message – but it coasts along on an undeniable likeability.

First-time feature director Omid Nooshin makes the best of a minuscule budget, and his punchy script doesn’t brake for breath.

Instead of updating the genre, The Other Woman rehashes it, bringing little more than a few giggles and a dash of glamour to the table.

There’s enjoyably smutty comedy to spare... but the film’s bleakest segments are actually its strongest.

The film can’t match the novel’s elegant, startlingly excellent Booker-Prize-winning writing, but a first-class cast (including Charlotte Rampling and Sinéad Cusack) make this an absorbing watch.

The film never works out how to generate genuine dramatic fire from its material. There are convincing performances and decorative retro detail to admire, but the heart needs to beat just that bit faster – and it doesn’t manage that.

The first half of Magic Magic is greatly enjoyable... Sadly, director Sebastián Silva isn’t sure where to take his characters.

This Brit comedy has the watchability factor of a mediocre TV sitcom.

An overlong, at times almost plot-free soap opera that introduces a wealth of characters and dips into a wide variety of subplots but never comes together as a story.

We Are the Best! is a joyous celebration of youth, friendship and rebellion, and if there’s a nagging note of regret and bitterness it never manages to undermine the overwhelmingly compassionate tone.

Lyrical, satirical and hugely entertaining, it deserves a wider audience.

It’s formulaic, but also largely entertaining, quite touching, occasionally amusing and competently animated.

Half of a Yellow Sun bravely takes on too broad a canvas with too narrow a budget, but it’s a relevant saga that’s worth telling.

If you make it as far as the obvious, disappointing denouement, you might be left asking yourself if the filmmakers’ abstract style is better suited to short films.

Pioneer delivers insidious, shadowy tension, while it’s genuinely surprising to find yourself so engrossed – story glitches notwithstanding – in key issues like compression sickness and divers’ gas supply.

There are a couple of decent jumps and a few giggles, but nothing armrest-clenchingly scary about The Quiet Ones.

[A] wickedly funny black comedy, all fatalism and gallows humour, with both a beating heart and an inquiring mind lingering beneath its tough-guy bluster.

There’s nothing wildly original here, but it’s carried off with charm and wit, and two very enjoyable central performances.

This unnerving and enigmatic debut feature from Israeli director Nadav Lapid trains its steely focus on the group dynamics of the cops and robbers rather than asking us to get swept along in the specifics of their violence travails.

It’s taut, creepy, compelling and sexy. And, apart from the location, it’s very much a Dolan film, focused on people testing the limits of their love for each other – and themselves.

There’s much to ponder in a brave, defiantly idiosyncratic film that’s as mesmerising as it is unexpected.

Ayoade tips his hat to so many other filmmakers and writers that he leaves little room to consider anything other than what a good job he’s doing of distilling all his references into an effective Pinterest board of paranoia and alienation.

The characterisation is feisty and memorable, the song-and-dance sequences intricate and colourful, and it’ll charm the socks off little people.

This microbudget indie about a pair of brothers in small-town USA looks great, sports strong performances and doesn’t outstay its welcome. But it’s impossible to shake the feeling that we’ve seen all this before, and better.

The characters could use more depth – Vincent’s backstory is told too swiftly, and his bonding with Ava is brief. But it’s still a smart, thought-provoking little thriller with strong central performances.

Sadly, this polite film, though touching in places, is so desperate not to offend, it’s the film equivalent of sensible shoes. Diehard fashionistas may disagree.

This story of humanity manifesting itself in unexpected circumstances just doesn’t have enough surprises on offer to make good on that early promise. A noteworthy debut nonetheless.

What keeps this out of Nicholas Sparks bumper-paperback territory are terrific performances and Reitman’s control of the drama.

The joke wears a bit thin and performances vary: this isn’t as slick as the teen movies it draws from, such as ‘Clueless’ and ‘Mean Girls’. But an original premise and earnest tone go a long way.

The novel A Long Way Down is not-quite-vintage Nick Hornby. And this is a disappointing film version, a bit hokey and fake.

It’s disappointing when Starred Up begins to lapse into soapy cliché.

Story aside, this is about the gags, songs and then more gags. On the upside, the jokes are great: the usual jolly mix of character humour, situation comedy, farce, satire and wordplay.

Every emotion is bang-on; every scene unfolds grippingly and naturally; and by the end, these characters feel like people you know.

There’s something rather bland about Veronica Mars – even the murderers have neat hair and nice clothes – and the largely forgettable cast don’t help. But the one-liners are sharp, the plot unpredictable and the whole thing ticks along with a minimum of fuss.

After a creaky, clichéd start, Need for Speed picks up a bit. The script is still as corny as hell, but the chase scenes are pretty spectacular.

Much of the film's impact stems from a pair of remarkable lead performances.

It’s all extravagantly daft, moves at a fair clip and is over before you expect it to be.

There are some gorgeous comic touches.

A startling examination of how artistic principles translate into real-world actions, and a moving portrait of a genuinely, unexpectedly brave man.

Against all the odds, Stake Land director Jim Mickle has cooked up a controlled, affecting ‘companion piece’ that honours the Mexican original while deepening its themes.

In this heartfelt film, Fleifel shows us the human cost of the conflict.

When the best one can say about a movie is that it’s pyrotechnically impressive, something important is missing. In this case it’s tension, originality and memorable characters.

Only Lovers Left Alive drags its feet and shows serious signs of anaemia as a story.

There are some gorgeous Disney touches, rabble-rousing songs on the pirate ship and the usual ‘best friends for ever’ message.

This is a slicker, shinier, admittedly inferior affair. But with a strong cast, a roaring pace and at least one genuinely unforgettable scene, it’s by no means a write-off.

Not exactly arthouse, but as subtitled fluff goes, we’re talking première classe.

Pettyfer and Wilde (both Brits) look the part in a soft-drinks-commercial way, but their characters might as well be called Ken and Barbie for all the depth they bring to this wish-fulfilment fantasy of social mobility.

[An] amiable but flat-footed debut feature.

Her is a keeper of a film, quietly dazzling.

Full of Anderson’s visual signatures – cameras that swerve, quick zooms, speedy montages – it’s familiar in style, refreshing in tone and one of Anderson’s very best films.

The LEGO Movie is sheer joy: the script is witty, the satire surprisingly pointed and the animation tactile and imaginative.

This feature-length Mr Peabody and Sherman is by no means unbearable: there are a few decent gags, and the episodic plot just about manages to hold the interest. But there’s little here for any but the most easy-to-please youngsters.

The Invisible Woman is only partly a romance; it’s the tragedy of Nelly’s life that makes itself more powerfully heard.

What will take your breath away is how viciously Armstrong crushed and humiliated anyone who dared to make allegations against him, and that includes former teammates he’d doped with.

Neither an anti-war tract nor a jingoistic rallying cry, the brutal but humane Lone Survivor instead registers as a howl of despair for so many young men and women lost in war.

Bale is as good as it gets, Harrelson shows us why he is Hollywood’s favourite psycho and Willem Dafoe is terrific as a sleazy drug dealer. The rest of the film is without a bat squeak of authenticity.

The actors – who seem to have been involved in a hideous industrial accident that’s left them with the superpower of repelling all comic timing – are spectacularly unfunny.