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.

Does for Norman’s place what Room 237 did for the Overlook: reopens old haunts for welcome re-investigation.

Drawing on their traditions of oral storytelling, it’s lushly photographed and costumed, plus dreamily confusing, yet it vividly brings a past to life.

A sombre, ’70s-flavoured crime drama with strong, interior performances from Hardy, Gandolfini and Rapace. Feel the (slow)burn.

Over-long, but a work of great artistry and emotion. As the woodcutter says upon finding our heroine: “A gift from heaven”.

The breakout stars of the Despicable Me franchise seize the spotlight in an enjoyably demented off-shoot that is guaranteed to send their young fans bananas.

An emotionally tough watch – though an exhilarating one tahnks to Aaron Sorkin's reliably taught script and direction

The low-key tone and casual pacing create an atmosphere akin to a fly-on-the-wall doc, while a nuanced moral conflict builds through the plight of the title character.

If not quite on a par with PTA’s best, this is still a richly intoxicating brew of humour, violence and melancholy.

Boasting a fantastic turn from Ethan Hawke, this is bold indie filmmaking. Budreau and his stars deserve a fanfare.

Sofia, so good. Coppola takes Manhattan with a breezy, beautifully observed daddy-daughter portrait.

As Jonathan Pryce reads passages and academic voices take turns to chew over Sebald's visionary opus, B&W footage of country roadsides and wind-blasted coastlines turns rural Suffolk into something truly otherworldly.

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

If some of the stormy relationship stories seem old, the wealth of archive material is gob-smacking: early rehearsals, gig footage and intimate phone calls.

Packing two terrific turns and an offbeat spirit, this coming-of-middle-age comedy is an unexpected treat.

Wiig and Hader give winning, finely nuanced turns in a film that deftly mixes light and dark. Also features the best use of ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ since Mannequin…

After "Frozen," Disney delivers a heart-melter. The sweet, witty main pairing focuses a potentially busy, derivative super-group tale. Stay for the sting: Big Hero 7 is practically a given.

Taking the original and successfully transplanting it into an ambitious new world, José Padilha’s english-language debut is an exciting, pacey and thoughtful sci-fi actioner.

Anyone expecting opera and opium will be disappointed. But a majestic McKellen rescues a safe script, giving us a fresh look at an icon even the most casual viewer will be (over)familar with.

The result is so far-fetchedly entertaining it feels like a fantasist’s fevered imaginings. Which, in a way, it is.

Torn between mountains and karaoke bars, Tharlo looks as lost as his lamb: a parallel delicately developed in this warm, wise fable of uncertainty.

The cumulative effect is overwhelming. Poetically shot by a dozen DoPs, including Christopher Doyle, a powerful portrait of horror, hope and humanity emerges.

Gently joyous, from soup to nuts. Take your grandparents and they’ll enjoy it as much as you.

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.

The resulting drama offers a great showcase for Dyrholm, whose slide towards instability is the film’s core.

A pitch-perfect performance from Dern graces Alexander Payne’s latest roadmovie – another bittersweet meditation on the sad, comic futility of life.

The music busts a gut straining for weepie affect, but you might shed a few yourself when the five-year battle reaches its jubilant, justified climax.

Joachim Lafosse’s drama is an unsentimentally observed, credibly acted study of a marriage turned sour.

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.

Between its genre know-how and furious anger, King’s biopic makes damn sure you feel the weight of Hampton’s loss – and the need for his legacy to be honoured.

Sex, drugs, murder, radical verse and Radcliffe make persuasive bedfellows in Krokidas’ live-wire lit-pic. It gets busy, but fizzy direction and Rad’s rigour help to keep its pulse alive.

Even now we know he’ll thrive post-Hogwarts, Radcliffe impresses as Arthur Kipps, the solicitor, widower and father with an invested interest in the afterlife.

Arrietty’s craft and charm will invite universal acclaim.

Exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure – a decent approximation of how the characters feel – Mommy puts us through every setting on the emotional wringer.

Another home run for the MCU that puts Pete’s responsibilities in a post-Iron Man world front and centre during a rib-tickling summer romance. Whatever you do, don’t skip the credits.

Theron is totally badass in a relentless thriller that never takes its foot off the gas. Bold and brash, with some of the year’s most bruising fight scenes.

There's something rotten in Denmark, as Mean Streets meets GoodFellas in Copenhagen, and while it could never rival either of the above, this striking, powerfully gritty tale about a week in the life of a drug dealer is still well worth seeing. A promising debut.

By turns dynamic, dangerous and bursting with passion, Out In The Dark is a stark, swoonsome romantic drama.

Patient, non-judgemental docu-making yields psychologically rich results in Jesse Moss’s potent dispatch from recession-hit America.

Bright, lively and funny.

The sense of angry desperation overwhelms.

As far as sports movies go, there’s no reinventing of the wheel. All the requisite beats are hit, albeit with self-deprecating humour and knowing genre references. But within that familiar framework, the underdog story is very effectively delivered, thanks in large part to a charming bunch of supporting characters, and a consistently funny script by Waititi and the Inbetweeners’ Iain Morris.

Certain Women won’t challenge Transformers 5 at the box office, but it’s a deeply affecting triumph.

It lacks the subtlety of Night of the Living Dead, but deftly balances laughs and bloody thrills.

Wheatley, Jump, Hiddleston and co occupy Ballard’s towering inferno with brazen style. If the plot wobbles precipitously, chalk it up to the high-rise ambition of a genuinely wayward Brit-film one-off.

Cut from the same cloth as I, Daniel Blake, Loach’s latest is a powerful state-of-the-nation dispatch.

Where family films so often falter, choking on their own contrived sentimentality and/or cool, Paddington is sweet and silly and, at times, edge-of-the-seat stuff.

Kijak finds poignancy behind the pomp as he builds to a fist-pumping finale.

Jillian Bell goes the distance in an inspirational comedy that’s funny, fresh and feelgood.

With measure and muscle, Lawrences Jennifer and Francis nail the job of selling the long, twisting road towards revolution.

Blurring documentary/fiction boundaries, writer/director Jem Cohen’s film is deceptively simple.

It’s as mad as a box of frogs, but a strain of melancholy romance adds emotional backbone to the gags, gore and kung fu.

Crime, romance, fast cars, hot tunes... slicker than your chrome hubcaps, Baby Driver is the summer’s coolest movie.

Lowery’s understated authority lifts his tragic romance above mere Malick mimicry, while Affleck and Mara bring heart to the scrupulous artistry. All you need is a little patience...

Ridiculously funny and meticulously detailed, The LEGO Movie is far better than a toy tie-in movie has any right to be. Despite a couple of dips, you’ll be grinning throughout.

Overlords has its share of clunky moments yet nonetheless proves, like Monsters before it, what can be achieved when you’re short of cash but rich in imagination.

A super-entertaining, super-slick love/hate letter to horror with a final 20 minutes that's stunningly bonkers.

Nods to "Hostel" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" make for a cine-literate affair further buffered by a smart cameo from erstwhile Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy.

A superior thriller, with Cruise and McQuarrie slotting together like a bullet in a clip. Like Reacher on the firing range, the aim isn't always true – but the misses are fractional.

Not the deepest western you’ll ever see, but it sure knows how to pack a punch (and fire off a round). Fans of the genre will get their kicks.

Farrier doesn’t overlook the amusing oddness of such a strange corner of the internet, but treats the subjects of the videos respectfully.

Skvortsov gives a scarily grim-faced performance, with biology teacher Elena (Viktoriya Isakova) increasingly beleaguered as the only one resisting him.

Offering a fascinating window into a world often distorted and oversimplified, this is informative, stimulating and moving stuff.

As a celebrity’s-eye-view apocalypse movie, This Is The End delivers huge guffaws and large-scale carnage with enough gusto to mask the indulgences. You’ll never look at Michael Cera in the same way again.

A huge, CGI-heavy popcorner that still feels personal. Come for the epic monster-on-mecha showdowns, stay for the likeable humans.

Some strained metaphors and character tics aside, this proves both Polley's perceptive eye and Williams' ability to explore life-scuffed emotions. Wry, risqué and real.

Submit to Corbet’s vision and you’ll find something original and unsettling.

Wes Anderson’s eighth feature has a heft beneath its icing, heart behind its artifice. Check in, and you won’t want to leave.

Alongside Sheehan’s charms, it’s Belleville’s intoxicating visuals that truly fire the imagination. India has rarely seemed so seductive.

A lot of thrilling, dazzling, sometimes frightening fun.

For most of the film’s running time, Wain refuses to give in to mush or melodrama, preferring to prod hopelessly dysfunctional characters into uneasy duels, just to see who blinks first.

Guileless performances, understated direction and bucolic Belgian scenery combine to create a quiet gem of a film.

Ends up an impressive addiction drama. Stay with it and it’ll stay with you.

A nice blend of Scandinavian sophistication and Hollywood slickness, Headhunters is an entertaining Nordic noir achievement – and sure to be tagged as this year's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo."

Slasher smarts with guts and heart. Town is no Scream but it’s still one of the most entertaining, enterprising remakes in recent memory.

The greatest trick he pulls is making you think he’s not genuine: beneath befuddling, bracing digressions on Picasso, Howard Hughes, biography, confidence tricks, growing beards and “girl-watching” lies a searching interrogation of ideas of authorship.

Anderson visits fresh frontiers with a close encounter of the quirky kind, holding wit, whimsy and sly wisdom in supple balance.

Third time’s the charm for a franchise that’s found its groove, ironically by changing the record.

Forgive the blasts of nu-metal. Forget the blunted satire. And allow for the obligatory, they-have-our-blessing cameos. This, as Snyder puts it, is Dawn Of The Dead on "steroids". And it's a blast.

Impressively acted and compassionately observed, it hovers intriguingly between reality and dream-state.

With characters you care about – principally Teresa Palmer’s appealingly edgy, cliché-bucking Rebecca – and a poignant denouement, this is horror with guts as well as gore.

A touching tribute interweaves with tough storytelling.

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.

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.

Coupled with the extraordinary lush visuals and fluid camerawork – moulding the ocean’s many moods and textures till it’s practically a character – Moana essays a rich, vivid feel. It might not be a whole new world, but it’s a fantastic voyage.

Foster and McKenzie thoroughly convince in the hands of Granik, who moulds a subtle, assured, and often powerful tale.

The Dardenne brothers deliver a perceptive portrait of professional integrity under pressure.

Benson and Moorhead’s sophisticated sci-fi/horror features minimal SFX but more ideas than a TED talk. Uncanny, and uncannily good.

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

Singer has refreshed the series with blasts of his original entries’ X-factors: vim, levity, clarity and a sincere, soulful grip on the emotional stakes involved.

Right from the first frame the urgency rarely wanes as Lee juggles fireworks, firearms and feminism.

Gormican’s script is the film’s big strength; the dialogue fizzes while the set-pieces pay off handsomely.

Don’t worry, baby: Pohlad’s biopic is reverent, duly, but also rich, clever, warm and sensitive. Banks and Giamatti provide anchor, Cusack impresses and Dano surfs to glory.

Slicker than the original without the sudden lurches in quality, this second shaky-cam horror anthology still has a standout sequence by which all the others must be judged.

This classy adap of a much-garlanded stage play will appeal to discerning audiences who can tolerate unpleasant characters with potty mouths if they're played by Oscar winners.

An engrossing biopic. More than just another author/creation story, Curtis’ film has things to say about celebrity, wartime and family.

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

Visceral, vital and anchored by its earnest performances, this is a potent portrait of a shameful historical truth.