The movie's first hour happens to be its most absorbing. Director Alexei Popogrebsky sets up the quiet tensions between his two generationally divided characters like a chess match pocked with occasional power grabs.

Overambitiousness can turn a valentine into hot air and white noise, but it can also serve as a calling card for an artist finding his pitch—and Nance is indeed an artist, pure and simple.

The final KO of a brilliant cinematic one-two punch, Leos Carax’s follow-up to his gobsmacking feature debut, Boy Meets Girl (1984), proved this enfant terrible was no one-hit wonder. Boy still meets girl, in the form of feral Denis Levant and gorgeous Juliette Binoche, but this sophomore outing’s real romantic coupling is an artist swooning head over heels for his medium.

Making her radiant Hollywood debut in a part she had played in Sweden, Bergman almost makes you believe the tosh, but Howard (dubbed on violin by Jascha Heifetz) comes on like a smarmy elocution teacher, enunciating atrocious dialogue full of arch emptinesses.

Great fun, provided you disregard the spirit of the original as comprehensively as Disney did. More uneven is the story of bumptious schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and his nemesis the Headless Horseman. It's a trite, chocolate box picture of colonial days - until the Horseman shows up for one of those nightmare sequences with which Uncle Walt so relished terrifying his kiddie audience.

Like a Thunder Road filtered through the perceptions of the '70s, it's an invigorating and touching movie.

The couple's battle to get off the bottle is harrowingly chronicled, so much so that you almost forget it's a Blake Edwards picture - his best by some margin, with a touching score by Henry Mancini.

The film that showed Meyer to have the most dynamic editing style in American cinema, and took him from nudie king to national monument via the most outrageous exploitation of bosom buddydom ever.

Subject acknowledges sensitivities are shifting but also pointedly makes clear, for the damaged souls here, they didn’t change quick enough.

Though not top-notch Powell & Pressburger, an ambitious low-key wartime thriller that totally transcends any propaganda considerations, thanks to sharp characterisation and imaginative scripting.

It’s a reinvented romantic comedy, sassy and fun, that doesn’t necessarily rely on obvious tropes and is worth the wait.

One token racism subplot aside, it juggles big ideas of social justice with more intimate moments of family life beautifully.

Frances Hodgson Burnett's much-loved children's novel could all too easily come across on screen as the last word in period fustian, but the unforced approach of Holland and scriptwriter Caroline Thompson pierces to the emotional core of a still potent tale.

The energy of the music and of the supercharged Day just about prevail over the lethargy of Butler's (non-)direction.

This adaptation of the old Burke and Hare business (based on a Robert Louis Stevenson story) is still great entertainment, with Karloff, Lugosi and Daniell (Hollywood's greatest sourpuss) leaving no dead body unturned in 19th century Edinburgh.

Those unfamiliar with Verdi’s tragedy won’t understand why this production was significant, nor see much of the fruits of such hard work; those onstage may become La Traviata’s tragic characters, but it’s tough not to feel that we, the audience, leave only half-transformed.

It all loses a bit of its circadian rhythm with a tacked-on sci-fi storyline involving social media ‘dreamfluencers’. But as a giddy showcase for a bang-on-form Cage, with some needle-sharp observations about fame in the 21st century, this Ari Aster-produced dark comedy is the best kind of cheese dream.

By far the best of the '50s cycle of 'creature features', Them! and its story of a nest of giant radioactive ants (the result of an atomic test in the New Mexico desert) retains a good part of its power today.

The movie isn’t adventurous, but I’m sure glad it exists.

Herb and Dorothy are adorable enough, but Sasaki’s documentary really shines when she gives center stage to the grateful artists whom they helped nurture.

The animation is fluid and inventive, balancing action and slapstick with aplomb.

There's enough filmmaking talent evident throughout that you wish the journey were more satisfying overall.

The direction is sharp, the camerawork in-your-face, and the lilting synth score by Piotr Kurek recalls Drive – as do Sylwia’s neon outfits. And through it all, Koleśnik gives a remarkable performance that nails the public/private schism at the heart of Instagram celebrity.

Dree Hemingway, daughter of Mariel, commits to some unnecessary nudity, but also impresses with her subtlety.

If it weren't for the gimmicks (and the sadism is so gratuitous it could be nothing else), then the film could easily pass for a minor caper thriller of the '60s, all convoluted plot and calculated kookiness. But cyphers (both female leads) and question-marks (who'll get the money, who'll survive - who cares?) dominate the script as every labyrinthine twist becomes more plodding.

Genre fans will admire the ceaseless mayhem of this rare Indian entry to the carnage canon. It’s not The Raid, or even this year’s Monkey Man, but it’s got some slick moves of its own.

This time around, the director documents a 2011 Young solo show in Toronto (the musician's birthplace), but in an intentionally fractured way.

It’s both a sly piece of ethnography and a social satire that reads like a cosmic joke…right up until its climax makes the chuckle catch in your throat.

It’s a lot of passion and restless, sometimes misdirected energy to channel through this film, but Miranda marshalls it effectively, communicating Larson’s talent and drive without obscuring the fact that he could, sometimes, be a bit wearisome about it.

If the storytelling sometimes feels straightforward, it’s more than merited by its captivating story and powerful message.

What begins as a tense, inventive suspense film becomes, to paraphrase Doctor Who, a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, mushy-wushy mess. That's decidedly NOT fantastic.

Immaculately composed yet skittish, edgy and surprising, this impressive debut by writer-director Michael Pearce emanates a chill that will have you hugging your sides.

It’s undoubtedly the consistency of the excellent musical numbers – from the opening ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ to the stirring ‘Oklahoma’ finale – that sustains the interest as two trios of lovers bicker and dally over their consummation.

Yet Green, as is his wont, too often strains for poetic effect through flowery voiceover and tone-deaf interactions — like those between Joe and his latest short-term girlfriend — that undercut the genuineness.

It’s an astonishingly assured and emotionally engrossing debut. Grisi’s background as an award-winning photographer is evident in the composition of every shot, almost any one of which could hang on the wall of a gallery wall. Yet his narrative focus is always on Virginio and Sisa, whose expressions of intimacy and love are largely non-verbal yet deeply felt.

Despite its reputation, a rather overrated police-procedure thriller which has gained its seminal status simply by its accent on ordinariness and by its adherence to the ideal of shooting on location.

In a world of portentous blockbusters getting ever darker, it’s a joy to see one throwing on the disco lights.

Ping-ponging between grisly South of the Border carnage and Angeleno musician Edgar Quintero’s growing success as one of the subgenre’s stars, you start to see how this parasitic relationship works.

If ever a film puts its arm round a kid and says: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you’, that’s Bird and Bailey. She’s a character you feel Arnold would lie on railtracks to protect – and that’s a powerful, moving instinct to share.

It’s absolutely a period piece (heightened by being in black and white), but its humanity is ageless, serving up an irresistible amount of thrills, spills and jaw-aches.

It’s a film that oozes clear-eyed empathy and has the lived-in feel of a story, director and cast working in strong harmony.

Combining the knowingly arch style of Abbas Kiarostami (whose "Certified Copy" towers over and belittles this film) with the didactically educational passion of your favorite art professor, La Sapienza alternately feels like a self-reflexive love story or a haunted history lesson—its best scenes play like both.

But for every Thelma & Louise–like golden-hour drive into the sunset (there are several too many), you wish the movie also had the sophistication to cram from that classic script’s complex sense of injustice, one that had room for a subplot involving a sympathetic lawman. Believe in Matsoukas, though; she’s the real deal and she’ll get better material.

Betts aims divinely high and succeeds in both understanding and respectfully critiquing organized religion. Is faith escapism or an act of surrender? In grappling with the essence of spirituality, Novitiate—not unlike Martin Scorsese’s Silence—asks more questions than it supplies answers.

It possesses a mythic clarity, yet there's also a welcome complexity at work, in the vivid characterisations and the unsentimental celebration of community and collective action. The result is witty, astute, and finally very moving.

Roxanne is far and away [Martin's] richest film to date, lyrical, sweet-natured, touching, and very, very funny.

Urushadze’s excellent cast imbues their thinly drawn characters with a great deal of life, but the roles are so transparent that the film feels like more of an advertisement for peace than it does an argument for it.

While the film glides from Malcolm's early years as a hustler and petty criminal to his emergence in the Nation of Islam, it plays surprisingly safe as a solidly crafted trawl through the didactic/hagiographic conventions of the mainstream biopic.

This movie does exactly what a horror reboot should, taking the best bits of the original and heading in a smart, inventive new direction. There’s minimal reliance on nostalgia. It’s daft as hell and a heck of a good time.

It’s a compelling, edgy story of exploitation with no easy answers.

Much like the case itself, a crime drama performed and crafted with this level of care and social resonance is well worth investigating.

The film’s release after weeks of Black Lives Matter protests may be coincidental, but Miss Juneteenth rises to the moment.

With tinkling thriller music and dramatic voiceover narration, this modest but engrossing first-person documentary comes on like a true crime caper.

West is far more adept at and interested in sustaining an unrelentingly ominous mood than in executing the genre-required spook shocks.

The handling of the drama is always sensitive, anchored by a perception-busting performance from Efron. Even the High School Musical phobic would have to admit that he’s a revelation here.

For all his brilliance with choreography, Woo is flummoxed by the thousands of actual human extras, though there’s no denying his commitment to the finer points of battle tactics (yawn).

Lyrical touches and the most moving use ever of Katy Perry's "Firework" almost cancel out a cheap-shot third-act tragedy, yet it's the actors that save the film from soaping itself into Euro-miserablist irrelevance.

Many actors hold their secrets and their craft close; Kilmer throws his out to the universe.

Even if you’re not boned up on your classic Ozu family tragedies, see it before Spielberg does his remake.

Kubrick himself rarely spoke about his work – which means this is a valuable insight into Kubrick's character and filmmaking process, as well as a frank look at what it means to give up your life to work at the side of a difficult creative genius.

Reisz nimbly avoids the Big Theme style, finds the pace of his material early, and sustains it brilliantly, emerging with a contemporary classic of hard-edged adventure and three superb character studies.

As the tragedy unfolds, there’s a strange solace in seeing this captivating enigma somehow emerging intact.

There is plenty to relish, notably Newton and Morley hamming it up (as, respectively, the rumbustious Bill Walker and the overbearing tycoon), and Deborah Kerr in her debut; but it does tend to just sit there.

What really makes the film stand out is its focus on the women, identifying Davis and her girlfriends as the unsung heroines of a cruel economic and social trap; even at their moment of triumph, the girls' future is defined by an uncertain and unsettling fog.

Seems doomed to remain a period piece.

The result is an empathetic, emotionally candid treat – Pixar’s own brains trust back at full capacity.

This documentary raises enough questions about the ends justifying the means during an era of endless war that it earns the right to be called essential viewing.

It's a rich, ambitious film, repetitive and voyeuristic in its eroticism, but exhilarating in its blend of documentary and fictional recreation to depict the Soviet invasion.

It's one of those rare movies, like King Hu's Touch of Zen, that handles its historical imagery so cleanly, and contains its pretensions so solidly within sure characterisation and plotting, that it is often sublimely expressive.

With The Fall Guy, stuntman-turned-filmmaker David Leitch and his bang-on-form stars, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, have nestled a frisky, winsome romantic comedy inside the framework of an old-school, full-throttle action movie and conjured up a pretty perfect Friday night at the movies in the process.

There’s enough excitement and heart in its familiar pleasures and fresher twists on the franchise’s sports-movie thrills, showing that it has plenty of fight in it even without the rehashed Rocky myths.

You’d need an army of flying monkeys to find a Wicked fan with a grumble about this film.

Tuschi leans too far into an admiring position, and you thirst for some commonsense critique. It's all a bit rich.

Forgive this film its marvelous moodiness — someone needs to go there once in a while.

Frothily enjoyable, although in comparison with (say) the battle-of-the-sexes comedies of Hawks, it often seems complacent and shallow.

A taut kidnapping drama, this ferocious Australian export leaves no doubt about the limitless potential of a handful of characters in close quarters.

Far from a slick, record-label-sanctioned promotional film, blur: To the End is a fly-on-the-wall look at a band coming to terms with themselves and their shared history and destiny.

Disappointing plod of an espionage thriller.

Amazingly, Gere keeps it all together, via a kind of seething anti-rage that speaks reams to the character's survival instincts.

The most impressive aspect of Breillat’s feature is that it agitates like the best fairy tales, seducing us with otherworldliness before sticking the knife in and permanently inscribing the moral.

Eye-candy–wise, the film plants a big wet smooch; everything else about this happily-ever-after tale, however, feels like a mere air-kiss.

Coldly described, the set and costume design and the hothouse atmosphere represent so much high-camp gloss; but once again this careful stylisation enables Fassbinder to balance between parody of an emotional stance and intense commitment to it. He films in long, elegant takes, completely at the service of his all-female cast, who are uniformly sensational.

Even the admittedly thrilling gameplay footage and time-capsule news reports are couched in contexts that seem crudely sketched out.

The movie’s b&w images of craggy landscapes and shirtless young men have never looked more vibrant.

Sheridan can’t quite shake a hint of Silence of the Lambs–esque familiarity, but that’s a wonderful standard to be reaching for. More to his credit, he fills his thriller with sharp observations among his Native American characters (not merely paid lip service), as well as the sudden crack of gunfire. You learn to look for tracks and clues; it’s a film that makes you a better viewer.

Marvellous one-liners, of course, and Cagney, spitting out his lines with machine-gun rapidity in his final film until his belated appearance in 'Ragtime', is superb (and superbly backed by a fine cast). But the targets of Wilder's satire - go-getting, up-to-the-minute, consumer America versus the poverty and outdatedness of Communist culture - are rather too obvious.

A mostly CG-free, witty, grown-up drama that revels in strong, propulsive storytelling? Sometimes they do make ’em like they used to.

Hardly the trippy icon the doc’s title suggests, the artist is now more like everyone’s slightly seedy hedonistic granduncle, happiest sketching cartoon pigs and walking the moors of County Cork.

Apart from the confetti-cannon finale, this isn’t the hackneyed stereoscopic where things burst through the screen, but an immersive front row and on-stage spot at Billie Eilish’s 2025 world tour.

It's as sour a vision of male-female interaction as Vertigo, though far less bleak and universal in its implications. That said, it's still thrilling to watch, lush, cool and oddly moving.

We’re here for the rigorously conceived, blessedly coherent action showdowns, the work of director Chad Stahelski.

There are moments when The Raid: Redemption doesn't feel like an action movie so much as pure action itself, delivered in strong, undiluted doses and with the sort of creative one-upmanship capable of rejuvenating a stale, seen-it-all genre.

Challenging, witty, adventurous and utterly singular.

As usual with film noir, however, it is the villain who steals the heart and one is rooting for in the breathtaking showdown high up in the cogs and ratchets of Big Ben.

The injection of humour into HP Lovecraft's 1922 tale is what saves this splatterfest from being mere fodder for gorehounds.

Frankenheimer's fascination with gadgetry is used to create a striking visual metaphor for control by the military machine. Highly enjoyable.

Harry Mcqueen keeps the film's emotional temperature in check, and Tucci and Firth do the rest, with sparingly expressive performances.