If the pay-off aims for the gut and misses, the journey to that point provides a searing microcosm of a corrupt and degrading system.

It all makes for an immersive evocation of time and place, and a more sober, if still stylish, filmmaking flex from Wright. Gone are the trademark crash zooms and whip pans, and the hairpin cuts of his recent action thriller Baby Driver. Gone, too, the comforting cameos and goofy banter of the Pegg and Frost trilogy – in ice-cream parlance, this one is more Twister than Cornetto – and that unmooring from the director’s previous work makes this an especially satisfying trip into the unknown. Like its eerie Soho back alleys, you’re never sure what’s around the next corner.

Things in The Hand of God are often funny and sad – all at the same time.

As a piece of watch-through-your-fingers outdoors filmmaking, The Alpinist stands right up alongside the Oscar-winning Free Solo.

As envisioned by Japanese director Sion Sono, the brains behind blood-drenched show Tokyo Vampire Hotel and flushed turtle-turned kaiju film Love & Peace, it’s a hoot. But Sono fans expecting the combo with Cage to go properly off may be somewhat surprised by a slightly sedate pace.

Ahmed is at his best in Zed’s darkest hour, as he struggles to hold it together in a hospital cubicle. It’s blistering stuff.

It helps that Candyman is exquisitely shot. Right from the first frame, DaCosta is always doing something interesting with the camera. There is smart visual storytelling almost everywhere you look, from the clever use of mirrors, to edgy scene transitions, to set design that starts to mirror Candyman’s look in interesting ways. The jump scares are rare but hardly needed: all this contributes to a growing feeling of dread as the film speeds towards its bold conclusion.

Even though it doesn’t stick the landing, Shang-Chi is one of the better Marvel intros. Thor and Captain America both debuted in films less assured than this, and look how they developed. Shang-Chi would be a welcome addition to any future Marvel movie.

Reminiscence has imagination to spare, but it doesn’t deliver the precious memories it promises.

Long-time fans will love it, even if its charms wear a bit thin for anyone who doesn’t already have Kurupt FM on their dial.

Like those truffles that kick it into gear, this film is a rare treat.

The result is overlong and rarely groundbreaking – there are hints of The Truman Show, Edge of Tomorrow and, visually, Inception – and suffers from some obnoxious filmmaking shorthand in its portrayal of other cultures late on.

Director Michael Caton-Jones’s approach is brash, vigorous, and not always interested in the complex contents of a teenage girl’s head.

Bravo’s movie is so pacy, so compelling that it doesn’t quite have space to land the full horror of Zola and Stefani’s situation. But what it does do is demonstrate that telling your story is a kind of performance, just like stripping is.

Amid lush period costumes, the chemistry between Woodley and Turner proceeds with gratifying slowness, each step down an irreversible path measured and counted.

Many actors hold their secrets and their craft close; Kilmer throws his out to the universe.

While this sounds like it could be a lurid, teen-boy-fever-dream mess, Gunn gels it together with a wicked sense of humour and an evident affection for his characters who, though not so endearing as his Guardians of the Galaxy, are a hoot to hang around with.

Don’t expect anything on the sames scale as Cumberbatch’s last spy thriller, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, because this is a film of claustrophobic interiors and snatched exchanges that eventually tapers down into a man’s quest for survival. If you’re on the hunt for an old-fashioned spy flick, through, The Courier has just enough le Carré-ish thrills to get by.

This ride with Johnson and Blunt is so purely entertaining you may well want to go round again.

What separates the ensuing mayhem from a thousand generic thrillers out there is an impish streak and writing that smartly juggles big ideas, mad gun battles and guilty laughs.

Shyamalan has never excelled at dialogue, but the mangling here is gobsmacking

It’s an exercise in mindfulness that asks you to give yourself over to it lock, stock and barrel. If you’re willing to do that, you can cancel that meditation course.

At 77 minutes, it's short – but it will stay with you for a long, long time.

It’s a film that oozes clear-eyed empathy and has the lived-in feel of a story, director and cast working in strong harmony.

Although Binoche is the film’s star, her presence is smartly muted, allowing us time and space to discover the world as she does, and providing room for complexity in considering the ethics of his character’s work and of Carrère’s film itself.

Mamoru Hosoda’s cyber fairy-tale is basically wall-to-wall bangers, all backdropped by virtual worlds that wash over you in waves of world-building so detailed and epic, they’d make William Gibson’s eyes pop.

It’s not judgy or lecturing, and there’s nothing too didactic here – and maybe not a lot to linger over either. But if you’re looking for a couple of hours of sexy Parisians hooking up, falling out and finding their feet again, all set to pulsing electro and with a baked-in romanticism that makes a built-up corner of Paris feel like Casablanca, Audiard and his co-writers have made the perfect film.

It’s a superb morality play that immerses us deeply in a society’s values and rituals and keeps us guessing right to its powerful final shot.