Spielberg gets the chance to do something he’s never done before and make a miniature high-school film full of giddy subversions and emotional truths.

Across 146 minutes, the film does its best to cram in every detail on the pop singer and actor (played by Naomi Ackie) and her meteoric ascent from the gospel choir to the Superbowl. Such a tack normally spells only the most surface level engagement with the subject. Unfortunately for this biopic, it follows suit.

Women Talking imagines female emancipation as an honest, raging, caring experience.

Its plot is riddled with holes and its ending is overcooked, but it’s packed with terrific actors – Toby Jones, Gillian Anderson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, even Robert Duvall – and achieves the light chill of a Christmas ghost story. Not one Poe would have been proud to write, but perhaps the sort of thing he’d read on holiday.

Chilly, severe, distancing, utterly captivating and made with formidable filmmaking IQ, Tár is a movie very much in the mold of its ever-present central character: world-renowned conductor and fully functioning sociopath Lydia Tár.

Deadwyler shows us the essential truth of being Black in 1950s America: that it was a tightwire, living-on-tenterhooks ordeal. Frighteningly – and this may be Till’s most vital message – it’s a reality that exists even today.

‘The most dangerous thing about Pandora,’ someone muses sagely at one point, ‘is that you grow to love it too much.’ Jim Cameron disagrees. He can’t love this place enough – and it’s infectious. 

In this fun action-thriller, David Harbour’s Santa is less Saint Nick and more John Wick.

It leaves the impression of a eulogy rather than a clear-eyed documentary.

Whether for little kids or very big ones, this Matilda is fantastically fun. Great songs, great performances and plenty of baddies to boo.

As you’d expect from the Mexican master, this is rich with macabre imagination and tiptoes between dreaminess and nightmarishness. In a contest with 2022’s other Pinocchio, Disney’s drab live-action redo, this wins by far more than a nose.

Kids will love its primary-coloured wonderland that teems with weird and wonderful beasts, and only the stoniest-hearted grown-up won’t be moved by its inclusive celebration of family across generations.

Not all heroes wear capes, some wear swimming caps – and The Swimmers is an empowering reminder that it is a human right to live safely, no matter where you come from.

If the storytelling sometimes feels straightforward, it’s more than merited by its captivating story and powerful message.

The film flows like a Joy Division song: moody and ethereal until it escalates into a burst of sonic violence.

Legendary Iranian director Jafar Panahi (Closed Curtain, Taxi Tehran) explores ideas of freedom, and what they mean to two very different couples in No Bears, his latest film about life in the homeland that currently has him cruelly incarcerated.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has more going for it than those MCU B-sides, but it still falls a long way short of recapturing the exhilarating glories of director Ryan Coogler’s 2018 smash hit. The visual and storytelling flaws here are only exacerbated by the seriously unsnappy runtime (they’re really not kidding with the whole ‘forever’ thing).

It’s a winning combo of satire and sleuthing – Succession with police tape – and a perfect slice of high-calorie escapism.

It has a scrappy, throat-grabbing energy and a sincerity that never feels hectoring.

Hunt is a film stuck entirely in fifth, racing from one sudden shootout to another at the expense of the labyrinthine plot.

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?

It’s an astonishingly assured and emotionally engrossing debut. Grisi’s background as an award-winning photographer is evident in the composition of every shot, almost any one of which could hang on the wall of a gallery wall. Yet his narrative focus is always on Virginio and Sisa, whose expressions of intimacy and love are largely non-verbal yet deeply felt.

For an evening in, it’s reliable entertainment. That’s thanks mainly to Stranger Things’ charismatic Millie Bobby Brown, whose charming, brilliant and surprisingly fighty sleuth steps out from the shadows of her more famous brother, Sherlock (Henry Cavill), in a sparky story of young feminists socking it to corrupt 19th century gents and bent coppers.

By leaning into those relatable complexities, Causeway will offer plenty for fans of thoughtful, quality dramas that touch on humanity, trauma, connection and the kindness of strangers.

The non-judgmental message – that there are endless routes to finding love and that no one owns the map – may not be revolutionary, but Jemima Khan’s modern, personal spin on the concept gives it a likeable new freshness.

Cregger plays brilliantly with your expectations throughout. The characters constantly make the wrong choices – peeking round dark corners, going back to check out a noise – but those choices don’t go in the usual directions. Cregger isn’t smug or sly about that. He isn’t winking at the audience. He’s using your horror knowledge against you by rarely giving you what the genre has conditioned you to anticipate.

The situation in Myanmar remains tense and ethnic cleansing continues, yet Snow Hnin finds grace notes of optimism to offset the bitterness of the film’s backdrop. It makes Midwives a thoughtful, empathetic and powerful insight into the region – and its women.

Few of the laughs land, either.