Young Mac is decisively upstaged by Wood, but the film's strongest selling point has to be a cliff-top finale in which the tyke's own mother has to choose whether he'll live or die. A summer camp classic.

None of the other recent apocalypse movies has shown so much political or cinematic sophistication.

A likeable shaggy dog of a movie, assuming the music's to your taste.

A justifiably angry film, fast and full of violent action, though there's plenty of humour too; and the lack of originality is amply compensated for by its manifest sincerity.

Thankfully, the proceedings are carefully anchored in what are palpably human concerns, namely the cohabitation of humans and wildlife and the environmental cost of widespread urbanisation, and while this is not quite up there with best of the studio’s output, it’s still a striking and universally pleasurable experience.

Race fans won't be disappointed, but the real bonus comes from a perfect performance of tough understatement from Bonnie Bedelia as the three-time winner. The wheel may be a flash chrome slot-mag, but the heart is gold.

Central to the film's deft balancing act between shaggy dog humour and something just a little more serious is Morton's expressive performance as the alien, though the rest of the cast also plays admirably.

Sporadically very funny indeed, the script features some nicely wicked one-liners, which are well complemented by Zemeckis' sight gags and by performances of great gusto. Far from sophisticated in its satire of narcissism, but enormous fun.

It's all stirringly traditional stuff, with a lively supporting cast, and made very easy on the eye by William Clothier's camerawork.

Saks takes Neil Simon's play pretty much as it comes, but with Lemmon and Matthau to watch, and a generous quota of one-liners, who needs direction?

There's not much story - the lads' experience in Hamburg at the start of the '60s, their disagreements, their acquisition of a loyal club following, and Sutcliffe's appointment with death - so that the film depends for effect on atmosphere, performance and panache. Happily, it largely succeeds in each respect.

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.

The routine story - members of a scientific expedition exploring the Amazon discover and are menaced by an amphibious gill man - is mightily improved by Arnold's sure sense of atmospheric locations and by the often sympathetic portrait of the monster.

Fascinating, and without the pretensions that have marred some of Egoyan's earlier work.

A trifle self-indulgent - well, it is directed by Alan Parker - but never boring.

A sexless, inhuman film, whose power derives from a ruthless subordination of its content to the demands of telling a good story. A glossy, action-packed ritual which is fun to watch but superficial to think about.

With their sloppy slapstick and wet Menudo jokes, one only wonders why more people aren't out to kill them. But Crystal and Hines do flavour the film with genuine warmth, and despite some cheap gags, work well together to produce some truly funny moments.

The escalating tension largely compensates for the lack of character involvement, and the climax will have you reaching for your safety belt.

Despite the scandalised yelps about child pornography, a film of disarmingly subversive innocence.

Though the baseball scenes themselves are secondary and none too convincing, De Niro nails the sentimental tearjerker stuff.

The film uses the CB craze as a metaphor for lack of human communication, and proceeds in a somewhat elliptical manner, but the alternation of moments of black humour and funny-sad incidents lends it a considerable charm.

The film has lost some of its allure over the years, but it's still streets and streets ahead of the addled whimsy favoured by latter-day Hollywood.

Spasmodically effective rather than bitingly funny.

The shimmering light and colour, the conflict of cultures, and the emergence of semi-mystic sexual forces in the desert landscape make this as Roeg-ian a film as The Man Who Fell to Earth or Bad Timing.

Hitchcock's sly blend of fantasy, game-playing and frightening lechery, and his continually inventive visuals, make for an intriguing exploration of '20s high-life.

Lightly brushing at least three separate genres, this good-natured yarn (from a story by Edmund Goulding and Benjamin Glazer) eschews conflict at every turn.

Altman's unexpected follow-up to MASH is pitched fairly successfully between escapist fantasy and satirical comment on the same.

It's certainly not a subtle movie, but with memorable performances, ludicrously over-the-top one-liners and amiable zaniness, it qualifies as a lot of fun.

Despite the barrage of one-liners and almost farcial plot twists, Zieff's light touch and some unselfish ensemble acting make this team genuinely endearing.

But the virtue of Russell's writing is that, for all the cracks, occasional duff lines, and tendency to simplify and stereotype, few can match his ability to make us laugh, cry and ultimately care.

A smoothly efficient variation on the 'frightened lady' thriller.

An engaging attempt to take the piss out of the crocodile tears that have been gleefully exploited since Love Story.

Frank Marshall has crammed the screen with plenty of knee-jerk thrills interlaced with black humour. Designed to reduce the audience to a squirming mass, the film yields plenty of grisly pleasures.

This fizzing cheapo sci-fi actioner from no-frills genre specialist Band is a shameless amalgam of Blade Runner and The Terminator. So shameless, unpretentious and fast-paced, in fact, it's actually a lot of fun.

Dwan's deft handling of the action counteracts the dramatic clichés of the conflict between Wayne and his rebellious substitute son, Agar.

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.

A typical Road movie (Utopia being Alaska), this has Lamour oscillating between Bob and Bing for possession of both halves of the map to her goldmine. But kiss-kiss and moonlight serenading aside, it's always the quipping rivalry of the duo that rules.

An adept turn from Murphy as San Francisco hostage negotiator Scott Roper knits together a functional assembly of stock cop-movie elements. This is probably the closest to a genuine dramatic part Murphy's ever played, and his snappy patter is persuasively integrated into Roper's daily routine.

A trio of contrasting personalities, the veterans bring both a mischievous wit and a sense of subdued anger to a familiar comic plotline, and the film achieves a rare balance of laughter and compassion.

Fine enlarged production design and effects, and appealing acting from the little and the large.

Phoenix is fine in an odd, transitional role, but Mathis (who looks more like his sister than his girlfriend) really steals the show with a bright, sassy performance.

Though by no means a perfect film, it is a much more coherent work than it is given credit, held together by Siegel's exuberant eye for the incongruous.

While lacking the clarity and breathtaking speed which Spielberg brings to this type of material, it's agreeable enough entertainment.

This adaptation (by Rupert Walters) of Rose Tremain's brilliant Booker-shortlisted novel is a lot better than rumours about its frantic, lengthy post-production might have suggested. Engaging if uneven.

A winning, if uneven, blend of affectionate nostalgia and supernatural scariness.

Between Lecce's illicit courtship and Reimers' consternation, there are some hearty laughs of a juvenile nature.

The well paced script is an effective mixture of worldliness and naïveté: despite the couple's graphic sparring scenes, in which Eastwood more than meets his match, their relationship remains curiously innocent; a kind of fugitive romanticism pervades.

The cast is good (though it remains very much Lester's film), the fights appropriately energetic, and it all moves along at a fair pace, sprinkled with a number of good gags.

Some amusement is derived from watching a film that so obviously had to be worked out backwards. The bits in between feature likeable Martin as a keen but clumsy detective - with all the good lines, which is no bad thing because he's the best part of this fairly amusing, clever exercise in editing.

Sprightly dialogue, nice performances.

The most cinematic of film musicals and the one most given to dance, On the Town is exhilarating, brash spectacle, all rip-snorting, wisecracking attack, and maybe just a teensy bit unlikeable.

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.

Low key and, despite the music, rather likeable.

Konchalovsky handles the slam-bang action with robust efficiency, but what makes this shoot-'em-up nonsense surprisingly watchable is Randy Feldman's rapid-fire dialogue, which constantly undercuts the macho posturings while parodying Stallone's screen image...even though the spectacularly empty finale eschews character-based comedy in favour of Bond-style megabuck explosions and gadgetry.

It's amazing how impressive Richard Wordsworth's performance remains.

Mottola's dysfunctional family comedy is a bit arch, but sometimes sharp. Indie cinema and Neil Simon intersect on the corner of pathos and farce.

Inevitably softened by hints of self-congratulation concerning the success of Woodward and Bernstein's uncovering of the Watergate affair, Pakula's film is nevertheless remarkably intelligent, working both as an effective thriller (even though we know the outcome of their investigations) and as a virtually abstract charting of the dark corridors of corruption and power.

The film's triumph is Mitchum's definitive Marlowe, which captures perfectly the character's down-at-heel integrity and erratic emotional involvement with his cases.

Page won an Oscar nomination for this, her first film role, but Wayne's guileless performance is even better: gently self-mocking, while still every inch the embodiment of the conviction that "a man ought to do what he thinks is best."

Spacek herself is given free rein, and turns in all that you'd expect and more, including a number of marvelous little insights from her own Texas childhood. Something as slight as this could never have got off the ground without her, but she makes you glad it did.

A fairly routine thriller, noted chiefly for its cheating flashback, though with much more to enjoy than its detractors - including Hitchcock - make out.

While Victor Hugo might not entirely recognise his novel, this Disney animated blockbuster more or less remakes the formidable 1939 Charles Laughton version, marking another milestone for the studio with its dazzling technique and surprisingly mature content.

With the exception of an unnecessary spectacular climax, this is a restrained, haunting chiller which stimulates the adrenalin and intellect alike.

Siegel devotees will find much to enjoy in the languid but not unexciting story by Budd Boetticher.

Witty despite Hiller's direction.

A magnificent melodrama, even more visually sumptuous and emotionally draining than the same director's earlier Red Sorghum, even though its cruel tale of adultery and revenge constitutes, to some extent, a blatant reworking of themes.

Pretensions are kept nicely damped down by the performances (all four principals are great) and by Wong Howe's magnificent camerawork.

Opening with a brilliant sequence in which Segal is reborn on the operating table, and building towards a finale in which the scientists realise that they can do nothing to control this hi-tech monster of their own making, the film's bleak futuristic vision also benefits greatly from some extraordinary sets, and from writer/producer/director Hodges' confident direction.

In the aggressive self-confidence, the use of rock music, and the perceptive observation, Scorsese reveals an anthropological feel for street life and the attitudes of male adolescence, particularly how introversion and weakness are reserved for moments with the opposite sex, kept carefully apart from the mainstream of life.

Rather groovy little fable, based on Peter Beagle's fantasy about a unicorn's search for company.

So here we have God's views on most things from TV to avocados, all enunciated in Burns' inimitably crisp'n'dry manner. Fun ultimately falters with some routine satire, but when the Devil's having such a time at the box-office, this comes as a welcome comic riposte from the other side.

Unsatisfactory as a whole, the film is hilarious and tense in bits.

The haphazardness of the film's structure mutes the power of the subjects' recollections.

It’s not wildly original, but it’s steely and stylish, and as a story it has a ruthless streak to it that’s weirdly appealing.

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 is a pleasant but overgenerous and predictable film, so eager to embrace the good in people that it never fully succeeds as drama.

An "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" retread told from a postoccupation vantage point, this adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s YA romance novel unfolds in a dystopian future when alien parasites have nearly won the battle for Earth.

The supporting cast is flawless, with a special mention owed to Brad Dourif as poor, doomed Billy Bibbit. But the script lacks the woozy, otherworldly subtlety of Kesey’s book, relying instead on pop psychology and finger-pointing: once again, it turns out women are to blame for pretty much everything.

These artists are risking everything by playing Western-influenced music; that Ghobadi cheapens and cheeses up their subversion with Hollywood tricks makes for a seriously bitter irony.

As Farhadi casts his roving, distracted eye over this unhappy community, sharing his story in a choppy, documentary style, it ends up feeling like a curiously detached exercise, more academic than wholly satisfying.

Whether he’s delivering a monologue about anal beads or singing ‘The Hokey Cokey’ while sledgehammering a pool table, Cage’s performance is wildly in sync with Brian Taylor’s over-caffeinated direction.

The problem is, Lewis Tan’s cardboard hero Cole (new to the game lore) is deathly dull. As are the rest of the amorphous blob of goodies, including United States Special Forces soldiers Jax (Mehcad Brooks) and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee).

Yet after the actorcentric fireworks of Cianfrance’s "Blue Valentine" (2010), it’s impressive to see him going after a wider sociopolitical scope, one that would have been better served by a less repetitive structure.

For 
the most part, you’re in the hands of a capable lunatic who has a tale to tell.

Damon and Bale are unfailingly enjoyable company to be among, steering the psychology away from alpha-male dominance to something more complex and occasionally mystical.

With no Ghibli film in the offing (although My Neighbor Totoro is getting a UK cinema re-release in August), The Imaginary is an often delightful way to fill the anime gap.

The Aatsinki siblings never rise past a kind of rotely anonymous masculinity, and overall the film tends to lull rather than engage the senses.

A too-pat ending also spoils Rubberneck (shorter: Mommy made me do it!), though it doesn’t ruin the steely pleasures of the filmmaking.

The navel-gazing artist class that gave Williamsburg its character (now more of a marketable “brand”) has in Friedrich both a vigorous defender and, it must be said, something close to an angry parody of itself.

With its engaging story, energetic soundtrack and slick production values, Nerve is an easy watch for restless young minds.

In the cold light of day, it must be admitted that Landis leans too heavily on the shock effects provided by Rick Baker's lycanthropic transformation make-up.

Unlike a great Morris film such as "Gates of Heaven" or "Mr. Death," where the quirks of character feel connected to a larger, profoundly insightful vision of humanity, Tabloid never gets beyond its idiosyncratic surface.

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.

The film’s themes of inclusion, family and multiculturalism may be broadly delivered, but they definitely don’t all miss the mark.

Circo zeroes in on the interpersonal strife within this collapsing clan - an angle that only occasionally lifts the film above confessional exotica.

Atrociously directed and full of groan-making jokes, but the cast are having such a good time that it's difficult not to respond in a similar way.

Director Ted Demme (Jonathan's nephew) never applies the scalpel where a blunt instrument will do, and the screenplay by Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss does become a mite repetitive. Nevertheless the film has a caustic edge and energy which keeps the laughs flowing.

It’s exciting to see this underground scene finding an outlet on screen. As an exploration of contemporary youth culture, masculinity, identity and sexuality, as well as life at the margins, VS. is topical and energising.