Nia DaCosta turns things up to 11 with an energized take on the 28 Years Later world. Come for the gore but stay for the surprisingly frequent jokes and a pair of astonishing performances from Ralph Fiennes and Jack O'Connell, whose sadistic Jimmy Crystal is utterly hateful but always compelling.

The most action-packed Avatar yet still has the capacity to dazzle, with Oona Chaplin's Varang turning up the heat. Even if a frustrating lack of resolution and some repetitive storytelling choices make this feel more like The Way of Water part 2.

By swapping gaudy satire for introspection (without losing any of the franchise's trademark flamboyance), Wake Up Dead Man brings Knives Out back to its roots and makes for a sequel that's almost on a par with the original.

A darker and sadder Part 2 brings the story of Oz's witches to a moving close and cements Jon M. Chu's adaptation of Wicked as an absolute triumph. But, For Good suffers slightly from thinner source material and weak new songs.

Predator: Badlands may irk traditionalists, but it's a big swing that just about works. The odd-couple dynamic between Elle Fanning's busted synth and the more human Yautja adds laughs to the usual lacerations for a fun, propulsive, off-world action-adventure.

With a surprisingly effective romance at its centre, and a dynamic ensemble of characters, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc offers more than just visually impressive blood-and-guts spectacle, even if it isn’t able to land every beat of its self-contained story, with the next arc beckoning somewhere on the horizon.

Paul Thomas Anderson's bravura comic satire is a serious film of the year contender, and one of the best studio movies in years. An instant classic.

Series veterans may rue the lack of certain supporting players (the hot-headed Inosuke is largely absent, while usual comic foil Zenitsu is all gritted teeth and gripped swords here) and the lack of levity may sting in a series renowned for its malleable tone and endless charm, but Infinity Castle achieves the impossible by roaring past Mugen Train as Demon Slayer's best adventure yet.

The Long Walk is not for the faint of heart, but it is one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made, and one of the best dystopian sci-fi movies to hit the big screen in a really long time.

Cleaving closely to the source material, del Toro wants to explore the trauma that makes us, mankind's capacity for cruelty, the death we bring on ourselves through war, and the catharsis of forgiveness – all notions that make Frankenstein relevant in current world politics and social media savagery.

Overall, Cregger’s twisted fairytale is not only the best horror movie to come out of an already impressive year for the genre, but Weapons is a positively terrifying, heartwrenching look at a struggling community.

Fantastic Four may not be the confident stride Marvel fans were hoping for but, at the very least, it's a solid first step.

It may not be a perfect movie, but in a word, it’s pretty super.

A lot of campy, silly fun, just like its predecessor, with a few plucky upgrades – just don't go looking for an incisive commentary on AI.

It's clear Wassung and Trachtenberg just get it. Somehow, they're able to push the sci-fi envelope and offer up fresh images and ideas the series has yet to see, while also appealing to diehard fans with Easter eggs.

It makes for a tonally consistent movie, though one that fails to deliver on a deeper emotional level – arguably the element that elevated the franchise above its many clones. It's a shame, because the action really is brilliant, even if the plot gives you a sense of déjà vu. Whoa.

Karate Kids: Legends is a classic story reimagined for the TikTok generation. Ben Wang is a fantastic lead, while Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio have fantastic chemistry – if only they had more screentime. One of the better installments in this mixed franchise.

The Final Reckoning brings both the Dead Reckoning storyline and the franchise as a whole to a satisfying close. As ever, Cruise is in peak condition, front and centre amid some looney stuntwork. If only his antagonist Gabriel was a more worthy opponent.

Uses all the tricks in the Final Destination book to weave an intricate thrill ride packed with jaw-dropping, gasp-inducing, laugh-out-loud moments of gory fatality. With its killer set pieces, blood-soaked spectacle and knowing nods, Bloodlines delivers a worthy addition to a well-loved horror franchise that should satisfy existing fans and garner new ones to boot.

Thunderbolts* is a refreshing offering from the MCU that takes plenty of big swings and only occasionally misses. The movie cares more about the characters and relationships on screen than the franchise at large, and that means we do too.

Mickey 17 is funny and charming from the get-go, building out a fascinating sci-fi world from its central conceit that ends up speaking to powerful and timely concerns through humour, satire and exhilarating genre elements. Bong Joon-ho's best English movie to date and arguably Robert Pattinson's best movie ever.

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep breathes fresh air into The Witcher's increasingly stale franchise. Anchored by a wonderful voice performance from Doug Cockle, small distracting details aren't enough to overwhelm a well-paced and enjoyable new adventure for Geralt of Rivia.

The Monkey might be a horror, but it's a laugh riot too, as Osgood Perkins offers up a plethora of inventively gruesome kills and some surprisingly profound ideas surrounding life and death.

Leigh Whannell has done it again, bringing his talents back to the world of Universal monsters with a worthy update to another horror icon. With solid performances, impressive effects and well choreographed action, Wolf Man may be sappy in places but it wears its tragedy on its sleeve to heartrending effect and balances it out with plenty of scares.

Nosferatu delivers a relatively straight re-telling of this classic gothic tale. It looks and sounds stunning and is packed with vampiric horror. It doesn't push many boundaries but if you wanted the classic Dracula narrative feeling exactly like it’s directed by Robert Eggers, you're going to love it.

Moana remains as compelling a protagonist as ever in her much-anticipated sequel, whilst her reunion with Maui showcases the wonderful voice talents of Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. There’s plenty to admire in the animation and rich mythology of the tale, but it rehashes many of the themes and plot points of the original leading to a fun but less vital movie.

If you're a Wicked fan, it's hard to imagine you could want anything more from this thrillifying film adaptation. Ariana Grande's and Cynthia Erivo's performances as Glinda and Elphaba will have you defying gravity.

Not perfect and not a patch on the original film, but the magic of Ridley Scott's direction and Denzel Washington's performance elevates Gladiator 2 into the epic spectacle it needs to be. But best to manage your expectations in comparison to the Oscar-winning film.

Antonio Banderas chews scenery with varying results but Olivia Colman is pitch-perfect as the all-singing all-dancing Reverend Mother. Paddington's latest adventure may be the weakest of the films so far but it remains a total delight.

A little baggy in places with its two-hours-plus runtime, and a touch convoluted too, Smile 2 is a visually impressive sequel with solid performances, an expanding lore, and some genuinely scary moments, making it a very successful follow-up to a recent horror favorite.

An impressively cinematic drama that fully immerses viewers in a time and place but offers links to our divided present.

Mielants, who brilliantly conjures a dank, oppressive mood (even a shot of childhood fave Danger Mouse on TV fails to lift the spirits) skilfully avoids any overwrought confrontations; the film’s understated power only grows as it goes on.

Pedro Almodóvar fans may be wrongfooted by the writer/director’s first full-length English-language feature, an atypically austere entry in his canon that’s nevertheless as vivid and haunting as much of his other work.

Timestalker has something to say about romantic obsession: like a teenager, Agnes is slow to learn from her mistake of idolizing an unsuitable pretty boy. It’s also a neat switch on gender norms in Hollywood comedies past, to which Lowe has fun paying tribute: the '80s will be familiar to fans of everything from Working Girl to Back to the Future.

The gleeful nastiness will be too much for many. Fans, meanwhile, will rejoice as Art wraps intestines around a Christmas tree like tinsel.

A Different Man is in essence a meta-movie, one that cunningly examines issues surrounding beauty and artistic creation.

Compared to the average family-friendly animation, this is very much an upgrade.

It's a puzzler that holds the interest throughout the film, but there's plenty besides to enjoy, from Plaza's mysterious, comical appearances to Stella's candid chats with her friends – including West Side Story’s Maddie Ziegler as Ruthie – about life, relationships and everything.

It’s a triumph of design, offering a creepy twist on such classic monsters as living dolls, the mummy and, in particular, the golem of Jewish folklore, a large clay figure that can be brought to life to do its creator’s bidding...

As impressive as [Berry] is, though, it’s the kids who shine brightest in a drama whose iron hold on the audience’s attention can withstand the odd dip into credulity-stretching implausibility.

Boasting great music cues, vivid 35mm lensing (by, of all people, Avatar actor Giovanni Ribisi, who here makes his classy debut as director of photography), and engaging gender politics that establish Mollner’s interest in more than just the thrill of the chase, Strange Darling is a slick game of cat and mouse.

The best horror remakes are not afraid to push the source material in new directions – exhibit a) The Thing; exhibit b) The Fly – and while Watkins’ movie is nowhere near the level of those masterpieces (few are), it’s shrewd, engrossing and pleasingly nasty.

Tapping into the same rich vein of British folk horror the likes of 2015’s The Witch and 2022’s Enys Men mined so productively, Starve Acre roots its dread in a gloomy past that is mundane, real and tangible.

Touching rather than touchy-feely, it’s a high-stakes story with its fair share of fights, deaths and the jail-or-joy tensions of parole hearings. If it’s also a tad starry-eyed about drama as a cultural cure-all, Kwedar’s empathy for the life-battered inmates makes this a rare, graceful work.

Underpinned by themes of language and identity, writer/director Rich Peppiatt’s rude, raucous film remixes music-movie clichés to Kneecap’s rebel tune with galvanizing verve. Tearing straight outta Belfast on barrelling beats, Kenneth Branagh it ain’t.

Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher) directs with a slow and steady hand, taking time to explore both Rona’s moments of solitude and those in which she encounters others.

Zoë Kravitz makes a phenomenal debut as director with this heightened, gripping thriller.

Sharply observed with a top-notch cast and a pleasing old-school vibe, The Instigators is tremendously entertaining.

The MCU’s self-appointed messiah might not have pulled off a complete course correction, but he delivers an action-packed, gag-stuffed crowdpleaser that gives the franchise a much needed lift. Jackman is worth his weight in adamantium.

Evading easy categorisation, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun’s horror-hued follow-up to We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) can be read as a transgender allegory, one that compellingly explores the idea of being born into one existence, feeling you should be living a different one, but not knowing how to cross over to this other life where it seems you would be happier.

First-time writer/director Josh Margolin sharpens the film into a smart senior thriller, giving us tense geriatric POVs of the challenges that ensue (Thelma is seriously old, not the agile seventy-something of The G, another recent granny-get-your-gun outing).

Glen Powell’s whirlwind ascent continues in a film that does pretty much all you could ask for from a Twisters movie.

The horrors, like Cage himself, are largely kept off-screen for much of the movie’s duration. Yet with its eerie soundscape and sepulchral visuals, Longlegs nevertheless succeeds as a deeply disconcerting experience, one that burrows into the brain as insidiously as the innocuous means its villain employs to disseminate his evil.

While it shares plenty of DNA with the first two films, it has its own distinct character. It's a compelling and moving watch.

Alongside Turning Red and Orion and the Dark, Inside Out 2 offers a timely reflection of the anxiety epidemic among kids. If it doesn’t have the sparkling originality of its predecessor, it has its big heart, keen to show us how complex and gloriously messy teens can be.

It all adds up to a genuinely affecting, Seabiscuit-style underdog tale, which will get you cheering dogged Trudy past 10ft waves, a shoal of stinging jellyfish, and a plague of obstructive men. That salty liquid on your face isn’t sea water – it’s tears.

As time passes, a real sadness creeps in as we suspect that we might be witnessing the extinction of a species, though an inspired sight gag is never far away. This is a film that needs to be seen to be believed.

Baker controls the narrative with real aplomb, crafting a time-bomb mix of physical comedy and high drama. Better still, the final third alights on real pathos.

This is an assured, blackly funny, and outrageous horror that will leave you roaring with approval.

With stellar songs by French singer Camille, a highly original score by Clément Ducol, and striking choreography by Damien Jalet, Emilia Pérez shifts effortlessly from musical extravagances to a gritty underworld milieu.

Delivering her first narrative feature since 2016’s American Honey, Arnold initially seems to be retreading familiar social-realist ground, delving into poverty-stricken working-class lives. But in its second half Bird crosses into fable-like territory, with impressive results.

A rigorous and handsome drama, finely hewn by Costner and his cast, this is an absorbing ride into the Old West.

Is Furiosa as magnificent as Fury Road? No, though not because it’s the first Mad Max movie without Max, whose absence barely registers. At 140 minutes minus credits, it’s a touch unwieldy, while its lament for the inevitability of war and the emptiness of revenge feels hollow given the giddy excitement it stirs from just these things. But what can’t be disputed is that Miller, the Mad genius, has done it again, once more refusing to simply repeat himself and instead choosing to kick up dust rather than gather it as he forges a new path through the Wasteland in often spectacular fashion.

A deliciously silly, spoofy tale of the 60s battle for breakfast domination, filled with high-fructose fun.

You’re left with the feeling that the film could have been made under another title, with no brand recognition, and be no less successful. Still, that’s Hollywood for you; at least the result emerges as a fine tribute to the unsung heroes of the movie business.

It might be too heady a brew for some, especially those whose appreciation of tennis is limited to strawberries and cream. On the acting front, though, it’s a virtual grand slam, Zendaya, Faist, and particularly O’Connor fine-tuning their characters’ 13-year romantic imbroglio into a lusty love match for the ages.

This classy, female-centred Omen prequel is devilishly good at keeping its nun on the run.

In the exquisite gunfight-style tension of the real interview, Gillian Anderson’s uncannily accurate portrayal of Emily Maitlis (that cocked head and laser stare) comes into its own. Yet even she is outclassed by Sewell’s narcissistic but oddly charismatic Prince Andrew.

A savage triumph.

The drifty, dream-punctuated second half might puzzle younger kids, though its universal themes and visual gags are perfectly all-ages appropriate. As is the film’s sweet, un-snarky tone, free from sly Futurama satire or Bojack Horseman raunch.

Taken as speculative fantasy, however, Civil War is never less than vividly, chillingly authentic.

Shot on digital video with a non-professional cast, Lovely Rita intelligently conveys the stifling nature of Rita's home and educational environments, and benefits from refusing to spell out character motivations. Newcomer Osika's subtle and often wordless central performance, meanwhile, seals the film's success.

Dastmalchian shines as Delroy, mugging to the studio audience as things spiral out of control, all the while rubbing his hands that he has managed to create the TV event of the decade. And along the way, the filmmakers pull off some rather nasty surprises.

More fever dream than film, Love Lies Bleeding shows that Glass is the real deal. Who knows what sights she has to show us next?

This is an impactful and at times profound film, with a hauntingly lovely turn from Sandler.

Part Two is an inarguable marvel technically, almost leaving its Oscar-grade predecessor for dust.

Chastain and Sarsgaard make a riveting duo in a film that – like Franco’s Tim Roth double Chronic and Sundown before it – is in no great hurry to elucidate its mysteries.

Triumph and tragedy form an inseparable tag team in writer/director Sean Durkin’s (Martha Marcy May Marlene) emotional chronicle of the Von Erich clan, a close-knit family of sibling wrestlers whose rise to prominence in 1980s Texas was accompanied by a remorseless, almost Shakespearean succession of setbacks.

Despite the slightly uneven pacing, Wright’s sturdy performance keeps things on an even keel. The result is a fiendishly sharp poke at questionable notions of Black representation in the modern world.

This is a clever, all-ages charmer.

While the film occasionally pushes you to feel as deeply as Benji, something it can’t quite pull off, there is a profundity to David and Benji’s pilgrimage that leaves an unmistakable impression.

A brief cameo from producer Benedict Cumberbatch provides some additional mid-film star wattage. Yet who needs it when you have Comer, a force of nature to rival any city-swamping deluge?

King’s flair for transposing peak British TV comedy’s character to film is also apparent, thanks to a fine support haul of Peep Show and Ghosts alumni.

Blending OTT gore, devilish humor and on-the-nose satire, this is sick, twisted and hugely enjoyable.

Epic in scope, intimate in execution, Napoleon is a thrilling, surprisingly funny account of the infamous French Emperor’s rise and fall.

For a while, the film seems unsure which direction to take. But a darker third act sees Paul’s benign personality begin to warp in people’s dreams, impacting his entire life. Meanwhile, echoing the work of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich in particular), Dream Scenario morphs into a wickedly funny satire on the pernicious nature of social media.

Refusing to become a cautionary tale, How to Have Sex explores the pitfalls as well as the pleasures of teen-holiday hook-ups; it also brings an admirably fresh, female POV to the subject of sexual consent.

It’s a straightforward morality story at heart, reminiscent at times of A Bronx Tale and with a sagacious neighbourhood DJ (played, rather fabulously, by ex-footballer Ian Wright) cut from the same cloth as Do the Right Thing’s Mister Señor Love Daddy. Yet it is such a stunningly and meticulously designed film that it continually captivates.

You don’t need to be a Swiftie to admire the astonishing staging, endless creativity, and the spectacle of an artist giving her all.

Rounding things off in grisly fashion, the Bristol studio manages to get away with a dark, tongue-in-cheek chick-flick that will have you thinking twice before ordering your next takeaway.

The Holdovers is a loving testament to the power of the human spirit, albeit one that favours subtle, melancholic grace notes over any need to shout. Though tinged with sadness - be prepared to shed a tear - it’s sure to become a feel-good, festive favourite.

With a quality cast (which also includes Lena Olin as Winton’s wife and Jonathan Pryce as his friend), this is a finely crafted film that unfolds with great care, building towards a cathartic climax.

The film thrives on fascinating juxtapositions, Haynes striking a keen balance between true-life complexities and theatrical melodrama.

While the style seems familiar, the material feels fresh: a testament not only to how Nichols lovingly crafts a fictional story around the photos Danny Lyon took for his seminal 1968 book The Bikeriders, but also to the flesh his actors put on the bones of the archetypes who populate it.

Admittedly, the film’s oddly paced, elliptical middle section may leave you scratching your head. But then the twisty third act pulls it all together, sending shivers down the spine.

Domont is too smart to go full Fatal Attraction, largely restricting the violence in the piece to the emotional and the verbal.

Even in a crowded AI-movie market, Edwards’s stellar sci-fi is a terrific achievement. See it on the largest, loudest screen possible.

While the biopic is determinedly feel-good, and sometimes a little over the top, Williams holds true to the spirit of someone who - like Gael García Bernal - was a born entertainer.