As ever, it’s Zellweger that provides the secret sauce.

Endgame often pays tribute to itself, which makes it as fascinating as it is self-serious. It taps into a live wire of doomy tragedy and phoenix-like rebirth that comics do so well.

Encounter has a whole lot of heart and takes a sensitive approach to PTSD that is underscored by a cultural tension that comes to a head in its high-octane, action-packed final act.

Modern cynicism and efficient acting hold the potential mushiness at bay, and the pair's picaresque odyssey through the Kansas dustbowl, during which they vie for control over their increasingly bizarre partnership, is admirably served by Laszlo Kovacs' marvellous monochrome camerawork.

A gritty, naturalistic comedy blessed with a wry, affectionate eye for the absurdities of the band's various rivalries and ambitions; and the songs are matchless.

Sure, Raimi’s latest Marvel entry is a theme-park ride, lighter on character development and heavier on gnarly sh*t that may signal a shift into a darker, more deranged phase of superhero storytelling. But it’s one hell of a ride.

You’ll get several movies for the price of a single ticket in Ryan Coogler’s (Creed) period drama-thriller-romance-musical Sinners. And while some of these disparate elements are more successful than others, the combination is audacious enough to leave you simultaneously awed and overwhelmed by his outsized ambitions.

Would be fascinating by virtue of its subject alone. But the filmmaker wisely emphasizes how Harris also represents something bigger; this isn’t just the story of one man but also the dawning of the virtual über alles age and the death of privacy.

There are none of the usual artist-biopic clichés here. Frame, as embodied by three uncannily-matched actresses, is bright but intensely, awkwardly passive, and inhabits a chaotic, arbitrary universe. Watching her hard, slow struggle for self-respect, happiness and peace becomes a profoundly moving, strangely affirmative experience.

His own worst enemy, Finkelstein has both trouble and tragic writ large on his brow.

Ocean’s 8 sticks to the formula, though Ross never quite matches the breezy vigour of the Soderbergh-directed trilogy, but the jokes land and there’s a satisfying twist to bring down the curtain.

A brilliantly staged early scare signals that the safety rails are off and, despite an unexpected, last-minute swerve into the supernatural realm, the edge-of-the-seat tension is sustained to the very last second.

Mainly, it’s a fun and boisterous countdown to the big meal.

The concept is a doozy, ripe with comedic juice and packed with visual thrills.

Ferrara’s unconventional methods only manage to serve Chelsea on the Rocks, his loving portrait of Manhattan’s boho landmark, the Chelsea Hotel.

It's overlong, but that reflects the nature of Mexican cooking: like water for chocolate, which must be brought to the boil three times, the characters continually bubble and boil over.

Challenging, witty, adventurous and utterly singular.

One by one, all the Western clichés are turned upside down and reinvented, with William Bowers' fine script proliferating enough invention and wonderful gags to make one forgive the occasional sag.

If you know nothing of the concentrated work of France's Robert Bresson, it's almost a crime to start here - like launching yourself, on the "expert" level, into the most boring, baguette-laden video game ever.

The result is a supercharged piece of fun unlike any motorized choreography since John Landis destroyed a fleet of cop cars in "The Blues Brothers."

This is still one of his (Berlinger) most ambitious films, vibrating with the same municipal unease as "Chinatown."

Censor wears its genre influences on its sleeve – The Shining, Cronenberg, Carrie and Peter Strickland’s similarly themed Berberian Sound Studio – but it’s very much its own thing.

The strength of Animal Kingdom is its slow-building fatalism; the criminals' luck runs out, but then finds depressing extension via an out-of-left-field collaborator. It's a movie that has very little faith in authority, not even in Guy Pearce's righteous detective. The only law here is Darwin's.

Like an updated The Commitments in rouge (liberally applied), Sing Street nails the details.

The mostly dialogue-free middle section is a scare-film master class - and when a becalmed smile does finally cross his lips, it's in the most giddily mordant of circumstances. As Arthur embraces the darkness, so does the darkness embrace us.

Actor-turned-director Olivia Wilde (shockingly, this is her behind-the-camera feature debut) shows off something rarer than technique or comic timing. She’s got loads of compassion and has somehow managed to make a high-school movie without villains.

The film isn't blinded by Candy's beauty and celebrity; it digs critically, if still empathetically, beneath.

Jean Gentil shares a certain searching quality that marked the best of Bresson's films - and for once, the inevitable analogy with his work seems appropriate.