Handsomely mounted by Creed director Ryan Coogler and starring an enviable slate of black actors that makes cameoing comics godhead Stan Lee almost seem lost, the film is provocative and satisfying in ways that are long overdue, like its ornate, culturally dense production design and the deeper subtexts of honor, compassion and destiny.

There’s pleasure to be had in seeing Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens expertly used as a backdrop for bougie romantic frustrations. If you miss the JakeWalk, here’s your opportunity to see the bar revived as the perfect place for neurotic conversations; if you ever ambled down Smith Street in your own mess of emotions, you may be feeling this one.

The sex scenes are, save the occasional bit of exposed flesh or brandished toy, fairly mild—Freed is probably the least provocative film of the trilogy.

Dramatically inert and flatter than a buzz cut, the movie ends up diminishing their moment of heroism by turning it into a defiantly amateurish piece of junior-high-grade theatrics.

It’s certainly a new spin, but those who make the leap will do so vigorously.

A gripping, chastening study in what it’s like to spend your entire life behind enemy lines, A Fantastic Woman offers uplift, too – as well as the odd surreal touch.

It’s well performed and a periodically fascinating study of Bradford’s seedy underbelly that’s rarely seen on film

If it lacks the originality and sheer muscle of the best horror fare, this does offer an astute take on fragile thirtysomething machismo, and Spall treads a convincingly anguished path towards potential redemption.

It’s brimming with fascinating insights into the skill, conviction and sheer slog that went into tackling several rogue states, climate change and the odd dead cockroach on the West Wing floor without losing optimism, sanity or custody of the kids.

Kalashnikov eschews submerging us in twisted metal and carnage. Instead, The Road Movie is a study of human nature under unusual circumstances, revealing the often stoic and nonchalant nature of the Russian character

Clapton has led a fascinating life, and is a contradictory and inspiring figure. Save for a few moments, this film just doesn’t serve him well enough.

Don’t expect Austen-style humour, though: ultimately, you may be frustrated by a narrative that punishes its pleasant protagonist so thoroughly. But credit to Brizé and crew for an impressive piece of filmmaking with a refreshingly contemporary approach.

It seems a strange thing to say about a film featuring a giant man-eating mallard, but a bit more eccentricity wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Any longer-in-the-tooth fans of gritty sci-fi action will find this maze a little too easy to escape.

If you want to feel good about a war with no end, this one’s for you.

This is poor-man's action cinema with zero characterization.

The elements are all in place – superb acting (lead actor Konstantin Lavronenko won the best actor prize at Cannes in 2007), masterly camerawork, an ethereal score, ghostly locations – but the problem is that the story never really connects.

The gang-war intrigue is strictly formula, and too much of Mary’s character development is delivered through expository dialogue.

This bearish sequel will leave you with a heart so warmed, you could trek across the Antarctic in shorts.

It’s a zingy set-up but just as quickly, it hits the skids.

They get at the essence of Vertigo, haunting us via ghostly transmissions.

Hard-core fans get the loud noises they came for, but true fear vaporizes.

Happy End is more meandering and less contained, though, and it doesn’t have a central, gripping mystery like The White Ribbon to make you lean in more than you recoil. Rather, it’s a more diffuse film, and a more despairing one, although there are flashes of gallows humor to lighten the pileup of downers. As for the happy end? Happy hunting.

Ex-Glee geeks and those who sing in the shower: Your passable time-waster has arrived.

Welcome to the Jungle is mostly great fun, with Jack Black outrageously entertaining as a teenage girl. But we need to talk about Karen. As Ruby Roundhouse, Gillan is stuck in less clothes than one of Rihanna’s backing dancers. It’s a dig at the hypersexualization of women in video games, apparently. If so, perhaps the male director (or one of the four male writers) can explain how fixing the camera on a skimpily dressed female character makes the point.

But while it may not be strong on nuance and the story moves with all the careful pacing of a human cannonball, it’s got gusto and verve in abundance. An old-fashioned musical with a none-more-zeitgeisty songsheet, it may not be a flawless piece of storytelling, but it’s a pretty decent show.

A sharply judged edit stitches together three separate timelines, shaping Molly as a complex and razor-sharp character in a world dominated by entitled mansplainers. Forget Rounders—here’s a poker movie to go all-in on.

At times, you'll find yourself wanting more of the perspective of the Cheyenne, but Cooper still does right by his story of historical reconciliation, charting Blocker’s moral transformation plausibly. Hostiles‘ disarming finale packs an earned, radiantly optimistic punch.