The two gifted comedic actresses give their characters depth while also finding moments of lightness that stop the drama from ever bringing the pace down too much. It makes for a wickedly funny spin on the safe old British period drama.

Bob Marley: One Love is a strange mixture of the authentic and the broad. Taking place in a perma-fug of ganja smoke, director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s (King Richard) intermittently engaging portrait of the reggae superstar is shot through with sincere intentions, but too often leans into the trite.

It would have been great to have seen even more myth-busting around weight and health in this doc (presumably that’s covered in her book ‘What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat’), but Gordon is a funny and frank subject: a tour of her vintage diet book collection is a treat.

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.

With top performances and real heart, American Fiction is a film that diagnoses the problem and presents a cure.

Culkin, just as motor-mouthed and f-bombing as Succession’s Roman Roy, but here with an extra slug of despair, is the manic yin to Eisenberg’s neurotic but compassionate yang. It’s an inspired on-screen pairing that plays to both actor’s strengths and finds space for melancholy amid some deeply awkward laughs.

Grief is fertile territory for horror, but while the script picks at Baghead’s thematic underpinnings, Corredor skips all but the most essential exposition, staying focused on delivering what the audience wants.

It is a rich and intensely moving experience.

It’s far from a ham-fisted, tasteless Bialystocky nightmare. But neither does it avoid some jarring dissonance, as Celie, a young Black woman in 1900s Georgia, goes from a deep personal hell to some hard-won peace via slickly choreographed saloon-bar stompers, banjo-picking blues numbers, and an awkwardly-staged soul ballad framed within an RKO-style dream sequence.

If nothing else, Radical Dreamer is a never-ending stream of great anecdotes.

If the film ends up somewhere a little too neat, Comer makes the journey always worthwhile.

2024’s Mean Girls needed to be loud, full-throated and unashamed to steal the original’s glittering plastic tiara: instead, it’s an enjoyable exercise in nostalgia that won’t win too many superfans of its own.

'We need an edge!' is Coach Ulbrickson’s verdict on his crew, and the same can be said about the film as a whole. But there is enough in The Boys in the Boat to keep you invested come the final showdown.

With its intensely-felt performances, haunting winter lighting, and seemingly inescapable claustrophobia, it leaves a mark.

Wilkerson’s book offers a new way to look at age-old concepts. DuVernay’s film gives us a new way to process them.

This has the warm, cosy sense of a film that, even with its few flaws, could very easily become regarded as a festive classic.

Humane to the last, Earth Mama is a vital but all-too-rare exploration of Black motherhood struggling on the margins of American society. Hopefully, there’ll be many more to come.

Where Loving Vincent imagined the great artist’s world in the style of his paintings, The Peasants lacks that same clear purpose. Instead, it’s an animation that feels like a live-action film in disguise.

[Arcel's] crafted a kind of Danish The Last of the Mohicans that’s full of passion and political conviction. It should stand the test of time almost as well as its rugged hero.

With a Bully XL jawline, the scale and intricate design of a Gaudi cathedral and the rage of a grumpy old codger, the subsea icon emerges from the cracks of modern blockbuster-making to remind the world that there is a much better way to make a monster flick.

All of Us Strangers is a miraculously uncheesy study of loneliness, forgiveness and, above all, the power of love.

As a piece of London social history, Scala!!! is winningly leftfield and its spirit is wildly infectious. But you could watch it without having been within a thousand miles of this once-seedy corner of King’s Cross and still get a kick out of it.

Ultimately, though, The Boy and the Heron is yet another testament to Miyazaki’s evergreen ability to embrace philosophical themes with boundless imagination. Jaw-dropping visuals, tender moments, and a pinch of comedy make it the perfect Christmas treat for Ghibli fans.

When even Alan Tudyk can’t rinse laughs from a sidekick role, your script probably needs another sprinkle of magic.

It’s refreshing to see a first feature which isn’t just a calling card, but driven by an authentic need to find a fresh angle on representing an undervalued cultural heritage.

It is art ASMR of the highest order.

Held back by a more conservative aesthetic and emotional approach, One Life comes nowhere near the power and veracity of Steven Spielberg’s film. But it does have an ace in the hole in Anthony Hopkins, whose performance delivers a subtle but profound gut-punch.

Ridley Scott delivers a spectacular but flavourless French history lesson.