The flow of the date doesn’t roll as smoothly as Linklater’s best walk-and-talkers, but that doesn’t mar the effectiveness of this refreshingly smart date movie.

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

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.

Bigger and better – 22 Jump Street joins the exclusive list of sequels that out-gun their originals. We’re already knocking at the door of no.23.

Disturbing and often distressing, but compulsively watchable.

A cunning, suspenseful thriller that bears comparison to the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple, Blue Ruin is an impossible-to-ignore calling card from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. Hollywood awaits.

A few damp squibs aside, Bird’s sensibilities make for the most animated Mission to date. Don’t see in IMAX if you’re a vertigo sufferer, though.

True, it has a tendency to meander and lands Last Night in Soho’s Thomasin McKenzie with an underwritten role. But at its heart is a brooding Cumberbatch, offering one of the shrewdest performances of his career. The Road’s Smit-McPhee also impresses, especially as his character grows more important in the film’s final, unexpected third.

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.

It’s the fully invested leads and graceful, poetic direction that give this study of emotional interiors its subtly heartbreaking power.

A feel good sequel only marmalade haters could resist.

Acutely acted, The Fencer strikes home.

An exquisitely rendered period tale, The World To Come is a slow-burning but ultimately rewarding drama of the heart.

Most alluring are the crumbling neon cityscapes, real world/cyberspace fusion and the musings on identity.

[A] mesmerising film.

A road movie with heart, humour and a lead prepared to give his youthful co-stars their share of the limelight.

Aronofsky’s first bona-fide blockbuster is a sweat-stained labour of love. Audacious and uncompromising, it’s a legitimate epic.

It’s also enlightening, the Spicers and us learning things about Tom that inform, move, humanise and suck us into his story.

As their early fights give way to growing respect, it’s a beautifully calibrated relationship, with small moments gradually building into something much bigger. A gem.

Warm, witty and full of wonder, Afterlife reanimates a franchise without spitting on its grave.

Hogg humanises the set-up with ripples of warmth, but it’s her evocation of a horror-style psychodrama through hints of domestic disquiet that lingers with you.

No Badlands, but the best of the recent minor Malicks. And it features Val Kilmer with a chainsaw.

Turtle Power is back, thanks to a potent combo of winning humour and gnarly animation. Cowabunga!

Neeson’s knees hold up in an oddball thriller that’s more interested in smirks than smashing things to smithereens.

It may not dazzle as much as Attack the Block, but Cornish’s second feature is a fun family adventure.

With the scares stealthy, Gavin’s parable draws power from the heart’s shadows: the climax may alienate some, but its audacity is earned.

Most importantly, The Long Good Friday features one of Bob Hoskins' best performances, as Harold Shand, the patriotic mobster who's heading for a fall. Without this towering central performance, it's likely that The Long Good Friday would have been sidelined as "that dodgy '80s gangster film" years ago.

An uncompromisingly bleak slow burn, it leaves the pulse frantic and nerves frayed.

Thrilling and haunting, pitching the power of adventure and friendship against the day-to-day horrors of childhood and a chilling Pennywise. An absolute scream.

When the sentiment threatens to turn gloopy, Ali and Mortensen’s terrific leads steer Farrelly back on-track.

Taken as a throwback to the thrillers of Carpenter and Spielberg’s cinema of wonder, it is special indeed. Not least because it honours its influences and yet remains, first and foremost, a Jeff Nichols film.

The burgeoning bond between man and monster hits soaring emotional heights, even if the new world feels a little under-developed.

In long, static takes, Hogg calmly exposes the gulf between polite facades and repressed resentments.

The ensuing drama is typically Scandinavian in the best way possible – the setting's beautiful, the tensions slow-burning. Meanwhile, musical interludes courtesy of a barbershop quartet lend a playful undertone.

Nasheed may be a small fish in a big geopolitical pond, but his enterprise and optimism are a welcome complement to eco doc doom and gloom.

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.

Taraji P. Henson excels in a heart-warming history lesson that proves not only rocket men had The Right Stuff.

With the characters rarely verbalising their attraction, Ribeiro impresses by conveying Leonardo’s awakening through elegant long takes and the actors’ endearing chemistry.

About as funny and charming as superhero movies get. Expect it to make household names out of its title character and leading man.

Zellweger knocks it out of the park, lighting up this punchy and moving late-life biopic with big-hearted, big-voiced panache.

It's perfectly possible to like the title character of Lauren Greenfield's documentary – Jackie Siegel – while detesting everything she represents: grotesque financial inequality, jaw-dropping ignorance and appalling bad taste.

The Hateful Eight brands the western with a big ‘QT’. All you’d expect from a Tarantino movie and more besides. Saddle up.

Confident, assured and athletic filmmaking. And with Boseman on such dignified, dynamic form, his Infinity War return can’t come soon enough.

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

Not without glitches but an energetic study of one woman’s refusal to settle for anything less than her share of the American Dream.

This oblique and understated tale of lost innocence conveys both an individual’s experiences and a powerful sense of a ruined nation.

Whether visual or thematic, Folman’s bold, eccentric ideas never fail to astound; but they also never truly cohere into a satisfying narrative throughline.

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.

A superb satirical swipe at the worst excesses of the social media generation.

Blow for blow Creed 2 is a closer match for its heavyweight predecessors than anyone dared hope. Transparently formulaic at times – but boy will it get your blood pumping.

Playful, patient and finally poignant, Schreier’s deceptively placid odd-couple winner runs the risk of looking minor. But it carefully exceeds expectation, helped in no small measure by Langella’s wily, wistful lead.

Sprinting to the edge of preposterousness and back, this deliriously entertaining day-glo noir of fried brains and blown fuses denotes a director at the top of his game.

A timely, gut-wrenching but ultimately hopeful work.

A fleet-footed and boisterously enjoyable Dickens adaptation that breathes new life into a well-worn story. A winning Dev Patel leads a highly amusing cast.

Emmanuel Gras’ film may be a doc, but with its luscious compositions and heart-rending score it plays like some post-apocalyptic Malick movie: thick dust storms, whispered prayers and an aching empathy for people scraping a living amid utter deprivation.

In Suzume, though, Shinkai goes full Ghibli, peppering his story of a teenage girl (voiced by Nanoka Hara) on a mission with oddball elements that would feel off-puttingly bizarre were they not incorporated so seamlessly within its epic grand design.

Tom Hanks, his dog and a robot charm in a post-apocalyptic road movie assembled with care and a light touch.

A once-in-a-lifetime subject, sensitively brought to the screen, the Angulos’ story makes the strange seem ordinary and the ordinary, insane.

It has an unpredictability that keeps you on your toes and a bitter pathos that gives every laugh (of which there are many) a note of tragic despair.

Mixing a rom-coma into the romcom, this smart, sweet and highly personal love story finds a winning formula.

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).

Trumpeted by Netflix as a ‘new-school western’, The Harder They Fall in fact takes the staples of old-school westerns (bandits, bank jobs, train robberies, rowdy taverns, shootouts) but blends them all together in a manner that feels fresh and vibrant.

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.

A playful, punchy tale that spills the beans about those Babies. Zach Galafianakis’ tantrum-prone tycoon transfixes.

As The Palaces Burn ends up as gripping and unexpectedly moving as anything John Grisham’s ever scribbled.

Moore gives a controlled portrait of emotional implosion, bringing quietly heartbreaking nuances to a calm, considered treatment of a life-shattering situation.

Funny, twisty and thrilling, this is shellhead’s most entertaining solo flight to date. It’s also an impressive pace-setter for this summer’s barrage of big movies.

Taking a cold, cruel plunge into its sociopath’s world, Winterbottom’s latest genre swerve is an accomplished neo-noir.

This franchise is never happy to cruise - and M:I 7 goes all-out. It judders at times, but when it delivers, it delivers big time.

Every bit as compelling as any Hollywood political thriller.

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.

In today’s world, silence is a highly prized virtue, as this vital documentary exploring the philosophy, spirituality and practice of silence points out.

Proving there’s life in the zom-com yet, Forsythe’s down under rib-tickler might just be 2019’s funniest film.

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

There is some doubt as to the facts of the story (isn’t there always, with Hollywood biopics?), and Longoria hardly shakes up the biopic formula. But the result is a tasty treat that will satisfy a thirst for entertainment.

If you’re willing to let a few things slide, this is one of the best family blockbusters in years. Clooney and Robertson (literally) soar, the madcap action always feels grounded and Bird’s world is bursting with visual invention.

Clever, violent, and wicked, with a fabulously unhinged turn from Goth, West’s period psycho tale truly does have the X Factor.

Packed with fine performances, this attack on suburban conformity is surprising, darkly hilarious and cleverly leaves the insanity judgement to its audience.

Willow Creek is a movie to believe in.

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?

With echoes of the Dardennes and Lucrecia Martel, Corpo Celeste's acute sense of place, feel for adolescent confusion and miraculous resolution suggest that Rohrwacher is a talent to watch.

Not quite the intimate parable of the first movie nor a balls-to-the-wall battlefield extravaganza, Dawn is pitched somewhere in the middle, with much of its two hour-plus running time powered by the simmering, expertly sustained tension both between and within the two species.

Forget what you think you know… The Matrix Resurrections is a twisty metanarrative anchored by a love story for the ages.

“You did well!” Bening tells Driver. Writer/director Burns deserves the same praise, and more besides.

A superbly detailed account of a notorious miscarriage of justice and how it was gradually unravelled. It's a tad overlong, but the passion, skill and revelations on display will captivate you.

An existential flipbook and a heartbreaking black joke: stickmen have never looked so alive.

With A+ acting, a solid script and sensitive handling, there’s enough here to move even the hardest of souls.

Chazelle broadens his horizons with this superbly detailed account of the Moon landing. Gosling and especially Foy are out of this world.

Making his feature debut after directing a couple of Pixar shorts and co-writing Inside Out, Josh Cooley proves there’s life beyond the trilogy.

The sight of SPECTRE’s alligator-jawed spacecraft, its maw opening like an evil steel bloom, is one of the single most brilliant visuals in the Bond canon.

Marshalling formidable technique and force of feeling, Bayona's tale of courage and empathy in the face of catastrophe fulfils his debut's promise, its harrowing conviction hammered home even harder by the spot-on casting.

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

Al-Mansour carefully dodges easy uplift, but her message of hope to future generations of Saudi women is clear.

Bleak as a morgue, even more brutal than the play, Kurzel’s stark psycho-drama can’t unseat its source, but is still mighty screen Shakespeare.

Thankfully, the Russos imbue the often grim proceedings with the right amounts of light and levity to keep you gripped. Meanwhile, the subversive humor peppered throughout lends an anarchic energy that entertains as well as it moves.

With a string of gratifying action sequences, and a breakneck pace leavened by a frequently witty script, The Winter Soldier stands alone as a solidly entertaining blockbuster.

Their wry, odd-couple chemistry is comfortingly familiar, but kept fresh by an insouciant realism that deftly avoids exotic cliché.

An engrossing, influential movie, which screams to be watched on the big screen. Few films will provoke your thoughts so fiercely.