As well as properly rooting itself in the game’s lore – a win for its players, who will find plenty of geeky Easter eggs here – Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves crucially captures the spirit of the game: that sense of gathering with friends to embark on deadly quests, while also having a bloody good laugh.

Director Bienvenu, who also voices helpful robot Mikki in the French version, has crafted a family film that’s offbeat and full of heart.

Very nearly a corking sci-fi lark.

Like any good Western, Slow West percolates with the constant threat of violence, but debuting feature director John Maclean wrings the genre for its mythic value.

The fact that the picture is seamlessly anonymous testifies to the power of star performances rather than to any directorial engagement. The acting is the only reason to watch it.

With his sophomore feature, "Tony Manero" (2008), filmmaker Pablo Larraín gave us both a memorably maniacal main character and a black-joke metaphor about the free-floating psychosis wafting through Pinochet's Chile.

Nothing about the movie is showy, except for Shelton's palpable love of good people making a mess of things. Barring some late-inning coyness, it's some of the truest, dinged-heart couples' circling of the year.

A savage yet evolved slice of Swedish folk-horror, Ari Aster's hallucinatory follow-up to Hereditary proves him a horror director with no peer.

Delon and Crenna paint an idealized portrait of masculine camaraderie, one that’s exposed at the end of Melville’s bracing last testament as a soul-shattering illusion.

More character study than polemic, wonderfully warm and witty in its observation of two women (one black, one white) who not only crash the race barriers in their friendship but successfully go it alone in a man's world, Stahl's version of Fannie Hurst's novel makes fascinating comparison with Sirk's remake.

While O'Quinn is effectively scary, one is left longing for Hitchcock's dark, daring wit and disturbingly amoral insights.

Probably the best of the formula motor racing films, though that isn't saying much. Too long, and the bits in-between are the usual soapy off-track drama.

At once maudlin and doggedly sarcastic, the film gives you the uncomfortable sensation of being condescended to by an idiot; it is, transparently, a product of the advanced technology it purports to despise.

Society of the Snow is careful to memorialise the dead in a moving, meaningful way.

It’s a deeply raw and honest film. It’s bleak, but it also has a musical, black-comic, big-hearted spirit that pulls you through the despair.

Rather than a bruising marital wipeout drama, Is This Thing On? is a film about how new purpose and a new tribe can help you re-evaluate what was there all along (the title, of course, refers to the marriage as well as the mic). It might make you think about relationships differently; it probably won’t make you want to take up stand-up.

Fassbender and his multifaceted allure helps counteract any thematic or conceptual shakiness, as was the case in McQueen's highly uneven debut, "Hunger." One thing's for sure: McQueen has found his De Niro, and he better keep him close.

You doubt Wiseman's sense of pacing. Still, he must have had a good time shooting.

Okuno’s direction and Monroe’s performance, together, create a simmering anxiety that never really relents, not even when we know the answers to the questions that are consuming Julia: is that man really watching me and, if so, what does he want from me?

While this sounds like it could be a lurid, teen-boy-fever-dream mess, Gunn gels it together with a wicked sense of humour and an evident affection for his characters who, though not so endearing as his Guardians of the Galaxy, are a hoot to hang around with.

Director Madeleine Sackler favors an agenda of advocacy over complexity, making The Lottery an effective, if unapologetically one-sided, piece of agitprop.

This fascinatingly knotty movie never becomes a facile screed against the powers that be. Instead, it plays as a more relaxed and leisurely requiem for a slowly vanishing way of life, with sounds and images-a time-lapse contemplation of the cosmos is in the running for scene of the year-that are as mesmerizing as they are subtly pointed.

The funny thing? It all works reasonably well, especially if you have a yen for the urbane register of city kids and their amazingly cool parents.

In the end only Channing, reprising her award-winning stage role, manages to inject some authentic feeling into this somewhat mechanical enterprise.

A movie that could terrify parents while charming them with its compassion.

Bellocchio counters these flaws with an energetically combative aesthetic (he makes you feel like you’re riding out a sociopolitical tempest, careening between perspectives) and an overarching humanism that gives equal weight to the many feelings stirred up by this hot-button situation.

Amer could exist only as a movie, not as a novel or a pop song. If you give it a whirl, you won't simply get drunk on its immediacy; you may throw out plot and character altogether.

Ultimately, it’s [Okada's] attention to the emotional content, honed over years of writing romantic youth dramas (both animated and live action), that makes ‘Maquia’ so compelling. It’s a coming-of-age story, of sorts, even if the main character can’t age.

The final third is a crush of genius, with several Nas tracks (including his lovely, Michael Jackson-sampling “It Ain’t Hard to Tell”) receiving the kind of detailed breakdowns rare in pop-artist conversations.

The acting is strident and overblown, the narrative technique gimmicky and obvious, and the implication that the competitors' situation is a microcosm of a wider-reaching American malaise (though safely distanced by the period and the flash-back-and-forth narrative technique) rather pretentious.

The rare film possessed with the courage required to shine a light into that abyss knowing full well that down is the only way out.

It’s wonderfully creepy and unnervingly familiar, like Alan Partridge by way of The Exorcist. If that doesn’t automatically enter it into the pantheon of classic midnight movies, I don’t know what does.

The backbeat anarchy is fun while it lasts, but without a persuasive purpose, it's all just noise in the end.

The animation is beautifully old-fashioned.

It’s all very theatrically crafted, with sweeping cameras and intricate design, and feels just the right side of an art-world joke: knowing and amusing at points, serious enough, never just a gag. Call me boring, though, but it could have done with some footnotes.

The setup is pure Looney Tunes, and indeed, Despicable Me is at its best when trading in the anything-for-a-laugh prankery that was a specialty of the Termite Terrace crowd.

As a macro- to micro-exploration of guilt—over giving in to sexual deviancy, its use as a psychological crutch or as something that keeps grief from transforming into closure — The Silence speaks volumes.

Crawford has produced an inspiring primer, sure to remind viewers that the power has always been in their hands.

Neil Simon cranks out this kind of fluff before breakfast, but it is enjoyable.

Eileen feels like a less-than-daring portrait of obsession.

As a storyteller Cronenberg usually tells stories with more verve and storytelling power than this.

Half-hearted, half-baked, and at least half-watchable.

The film is weak on its essential indictment, vaguely suggesting a mood of battlefield boredom without quite pinpointing the pathology that would lead military men to squeeze the trigger pell-mell.

Here's the thing: We enjoy a good mindf--- lark as much as the next filmgoer, but such fluid tomfoolery eventually has to add up to something, and The Double Hour ultimately doesn't.

You’ll find yourself scouring the frame for this malign force in the tiniest refraction of light. Whannell knows you’re doing it, too, and lets scenes go on so long, you start to doubt your own eyes. There shouldn’t be any doubting the magnetic Moss, though: she’s the real deal.

And Pattinson? He’s solid enough, but the role seems to neutralise his greatest strengths, stifling his edgy, eccentric charisma under a morose, dutiful shell. He’s just another ever-searching crusader in a shadowy world. Hopefully next time he’ll be able to find the fun.

Mikkelsen is endlessly compelling.

It's a change to see young folk are more obsessed with technology than the promptings of the trouser department, but the gizmo-heavy hi-jinks (fun with helium, frozen gas and other science-class materials) do outstay their welcome.

Moments like these turn the documentary Undefeated into a far greater thing than a real-life "The Blind Side" - it's diving deeply into knotty matters of patience and parenting, along with plenty of unfixables as well.

An admirably balanced, wide-ranging look at the phenomenon of Somali high-seas piracy.

To be sure, the film as a whole feels like a creaky vehicle, belabored with plot strands and stereotypes that only serve to highlight Winstead's ragged commitment to something real.

Gruesome almost to a fault, but not quite, it emerges as an efficient shocker.

The subtle pleasure of watching Tyrel comes from raising an eyebrow at every inferred (implied?) slight.

While the two leads are given every opportunity to impress, it’s the ensemble behind them who give proceedings heart and soul.

Depardieu and Cornillac's sibling rivalry, which segues between mostly verbal smackdowns and liquored-up bursts of merriment, is beautifully observed, as is the relationship between the detective and his devoted wife (the wonderful Marie Bunel). The thriller stuff, by comparison, is just a lot of perfunctory deadweight.

This typical - not unentertaining - mid-'60s Disney live-actioner has Hayley's Siamese following a trail of juicy salmon and unwittingly uncovering a kidnap plot.

Sick of Myself is, for all the dark themes and unsettling imagery, deeply watchable – a perfectly executed black comedy accompanied by humorously viscious counter-culture commentary that cannot be overlooked.

Ahmed is at his best in Zed’s darkest hour, as he struggles to hold it together in a hospital cubicle. It’s blistering stuff.

But take the puppet off his arm and he seems somehow vague and incomplete, like the Wizard of Oz without his curtain.

For those who can't handle graphic scenes of golden showers and cigarettes ground into bare breasts, Leap Year will feel more like a blind leap into the void of art-house cinema du extreme, South of the Border division, than a portrait of urban ennui.

Paul Williams’ annoyingly hummable honky-tonk soundtrack punctuates proceedings, which graze the zenith of that seventies inclination towards sexualising teen performers (think ‘Minipops’ in America).

Comparable works like John Gianvito's "Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind," or nearly anything from cine-essayist Chris Marker's oeuvre, mine similar territory much more rewardingly.

No other filmmaker on the planet can touch Evans for long-take beatdowns and wildly inventive flourishes.

Even though it doesn’t stick the landing, Shang-Chi is one of the better Marvel intros. Thor and Captain America both debuted in films less assured than this, and look how they developed. Shang-Chi would be a welcome addition to any future Marvel movie.

The snoozy summery vibe will suit anyone looking for undemanding viewing for their little ones. With Pixar, though, you always come expecting more.

Aided by a forceful performance from relative newcomer Midthunder, this Predator movie is full of surprises and that makes its alien monster actually scary again.

Totally uncompromising and grindingly repetitive, the film nevertheless accumulates a kind of hallucinatory groove, with unexpected shafts of bizarre humour and vigorous, experimental new wave direction.

Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon’s doc walks the line between a deathwatch film and an uplifting one, rather than simply rubbing the viewer’s nose in the horror of mortality.

Saul Bass' unsettling title sequence sets the scene for the concise articulation of fifty-something bourgeois despair, as visualised by James Wong Howe's distorting camerawork and the edgy discord of Jerry Goldsmith's excoriating score.

Fantastical is what we get: Cameraman is filled with Cardiff's achingly beautiful work.

You walk away with far more questions than answers — a profile foul by any other name.

See it, then go home and wipe your hard drive.

That One Lucky Elephant ultimately comes down on the side of anthropomorphizing Flora and her kind is extremely disappointing - a little clear-eyed ambivalence would have helped the film feel more focused and less like patchwork.

Underdogs are the grist of sports movies; even so, it's unusual to find a hero so ill-equipped for the task at hand. Directed with composure, but no great fervour, the film's conspicuously uninterested in American football, and much concerned with testing the limits and the resilience of the American dream.

Immensely inventive and entertaining, the film may not have the enigmatic elegance or emotional resonance of Barton Fink or Fargo, but it's still a prime example of the Coens' effortless brand of stylistic and storytelling brilliance.

It’s a tremendously enjoyable type of horror, full of giggle-inducing jump scares, but sending you off with some intelligent questions to gnaw on.

Even those who aren’t well-versed in the-’hood-always-wins dramas can see what’s coming. So it’s to newcomer Sally El Hosaini’s credit that she embeds a tangible, lived-in sense of the region’s diaspora community and urban criminal underbelly (wagwan, near-indecipherable East End patois!) that’s leagues away from anthropological fetishizing.

Fate intervenes at an indecent rate, serving up plenty of misunderstandings, but the mise-en-scène is stunning. Go with the floe.

It's the exuberant yin to the stately yang of Jackie Kennedy biopic Jackie, Larrain’s last film, and it’s full of the pheromones of sexual discovery and the piss and vinegar of toxic relationships.

A frustrating film full of overplayed men-as-dogs metaphors, it’s only watchable for Malkovich, who could probably read a social studies exam and still be commanding.

The result is neither blind idolatry nor a definitive portrait; just a major missed opportunity content to loiter in the middle of the road.

Peter Parker’s second Spider-verse adventure suggests that the concept just works – brilliantly.

This riotous, arcade-game-inspired sequel powers up with fresh ideas and some brilliantly-executed pastiching.

Battle offers both a sobering portrait of personal revolt (notably through activist Daniel Goldstein, whose eviction fight landed in the State Supreme Court) and a searing case study of a community dismantled by racial and economic tensions. Alas, it's not much of a battle; more like "Requiem for Brooklyn."

The film's dogged repetitions regarding Nannerl's real-life raw deal dilute the reparative nature of the story after a while, and not even the movie's grainy, retro–art-cinema look can keep viewers from gradually tuning out.

Arguably the finest of Hitchcock's silent films, this tale of a fairground boxer (Brisson) whose wife takes a shine to the far more socially sophisticated new champion (Hunter), sees the young director completely confident in his control of the medium.

Winocour does brilliant work at enlarging the minute details that define the way the wind is blowing in this relationship.

The elliptical story of sibling despondency doesn’t quite hang together, though the groundswell of missed potential doesn’t come into focus until the film’s undeniably powerful closing moments.

Miller unveils some marvellously original cinematic snaps (the lost city of the feral children; Master Blaster, the dwarf-powered giant; Thunderdome itself); and if the thrills and special effects lack a little of the punch of Mad Max 2, there's still enough imagination, wit and ingenuity to put recent Spielberg to shame.

It’s a testament to [Franco's] skill as a storyteller that Memory survives a calamitously mishandled plot point to slowly reveal itself to be his best work since 2012’s After Lucia, the first of three of his films to win awards in Cannes.

The remarkable thing is the way characters, jokes and meaning are dovetailed into a single rhythmic flow that makes the film look like TV's Laugh-In redesigned as a Minnelli musical. Highly enjoyable.

Disney knows how to bewitch a crowd, but the sense that Tangled was made more by corporate mandate than artistic spark remains constant throughout.

Tediousness sets in eventually; there's only so much zoological abyss-gazing one can do.

Once the murderer starts relying on the lad’s kindness, all the preceding kid stuff starts to take on a purposefully sour tang.

Watching the elder statesman spin ring-a-ding wisdom is one thing; witnessing his generosity to another artist who couldn't handle her own talent, however, speaks volumes about what actually lurks under his placid, seemingly imperturbable surface.

Belvaux's tension-building setup is stellar; the follow-through, less so.

Overall, there aren’t many shades of gray in Hacksaw Ridge, but it’s a movie that fulfills its purpose with vigor, confidence and swagger, and those battle scenes are impossible to take your eyes off.

You can tell Ryoo loves Hong Kong action cinema. His camerawork is nimble and elastic, and his starchy diplomats are unexpectedly great at martial arts. But the character scenes are well-handled too, and there’s a smart critique here on a divided country that can’t even be truly unified in a shared crisis.