When it comes to human emotions, however, the filmmaker is all thumbs, crassly fumbling for audience response via clichéd uses of dropped-out sound and the occasional twinkling piano.

Make room for the modest but affecting pleasures of veteran actors tearing into the subject of golden-years resignation.

Sidney Hayers shoots the whole thing with an almost Wellesian flourish, and the script (by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson) is structured with incredible tightness as the sane, rational outlook of the hero (Wyngarde) is gradually dislocated by the world of madness and dreams.

Curtiz knocks it together without so much as breaking sweat.

Delightful screwball comedy.

If the film was clearly a sincere castigation of the militarist fervour that swept Japan during the war, it nevertheless suffers from its rather deliberate heart-warming tone and a too leisurely pace that tends to over-emphasise moments of pathos. That said, it is hard not to be swayed by the pacifist sentiments.

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.

Smart storytelling and snappy editing elevate the jokes and enrich the emotions.

Barely 17 when she had Thomas, she's more like a peer than a parent, enough so that their uncomfortable relationship starts to take on a smattering of sexual tension. There's a nagging vagueness to this aspect of the movie, one that's difficult to square with the opening claim that it's based on real events; at a certain point, you may wonder which events they mean.

Something, Anything doesn’t really engage with issues of faith or materialism.

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.

As a piece of gore, Train to Busan takes the swiftest path from A to Z.

Hauntingly sad, the film elegantly deranges the viewer's sense of time: this seemingly unchanging world is in fact riven by off-screen incidents - which change everything.

Maybe this is a good time to mention that the director is Richard Linklater, usually a lot more versatile. Try to imagine a version of Linklater’s "School of Rock" that didn’t pivot on the manic music teacher played by Jack Black but instead, perhaps, on his boring roommate.

American Sniper is a superbly subtle critique made by an especially young 84-year-old.

No one else has come close to translating England's homegrown blend of deadpan and madcap for a younger audience, much less with such impressive Claymated technique. You couldn't ask for better lesson in "Anglo-Absurdism for Beginners."

The tone sometimes wavers into self-parody, and there are occasional crude patches, but overall this edge-of-seat revenge movie marks the most exciting debut from an Australian director since Peter Weir.

Still a mystery: Harlan’s own sense of guilt. But there’s plenty to go around.

No matter how sincere, Marston's effort also suffers from the lack of a burning lead as he had in Maria's Catalina Sandino Moreno. Fierce acting is a virtue you don't have to travel the world to find - or to lose sight of.

This is a movie about a subculture, made for that subculture; only hard-core Xboxers need apply.

Parenting relies on stamina as much as compassion, and Donzelli has, against all odds, crafted a genuinely moving ode to both the tenacity of filial love under extreme circumstances and the toll it extracts. Consider this a coup.

The blend of humor, pathos and wall-crawling antics is perfectly judged. After a handful of overblown misfires, Marvel appears to have rediscovered its heart.

Prince Avalanche — Green has admitted that the unrelated title came to him in a dream — evaporates after a while, although it’s never less than quizzical and charming.

For this rites-of-passage drama, screenwriter Jenny Wingfield draws on personal recollections; but while she brings intelligence to the depiction of teen angst, her attempt to follow formula means that the heart-warming tone steadily becomes overheated.

The Grandmaster, five years in the making, feels like a waste of Wong’s talents.

Set in WWI France, the film is Garbo's even before she appears on screen to dazzle her willing audience; once there, it becomes impossible to dissociate the legend of the star from the myth of Mata Hari.

Taking on tricky subject matter with gravity and depth, Honey Boy can’t be dismissed as yet another LaBeouf caper. It’s a reminder of a talent that, despite its own worst instincts, refuses to be snuffed out.

Like a hollow-point shell, David Fincher’s slickly enjoyable assassin thriller is explosive but empty.