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.

A credible, if slightly limited, prequel that recaptures the atmosphere if not the originality of Rosemary’s Baby.

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 Crooked Man is at its best in a flavoursome first half that serves up crepuscular, shallow-focus photography (take a bow, DoP Ivan Vatsov) and backwoods dialect as tangy and prickly as wild gooseberries.

A visually striking and inventive overhaul of well-oiled IP that suggests animation was the right path all along. Autobots, roll out!

Exploring how a one-time surrealist art muse fought to report atrocities, this handsome but rather conventional biopic showcases a tip-top Winslet performance, but at times meanders like a weighty Wikipedia entry.

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.

Filmmaker Azazel Jacobs follows up the highly mannered (and highly strung) French Exit (2020) with a slow-burn study of sibling rivalry, parental mortality and the ties that bind.

Part courtroom movie, part behind-bars romance, Folie à Deux is an unconventional musical sequel that fails to hit the high notes.

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.

For those looking for an easy-on-the-eye, brain-in-neutral-thriller, Wolfs still hits the spot.

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.

It's all enough to make you wonder if this is a flight that should have stayed grounded.

It’s just a pity that the storytelling sprawls all over the place, with some plotlines (like the Beetlejuice/Delores discord) failing to pay off. But mostly Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a fun afterlife frolic.

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.

Berry and Wahlberg’s engaging dynamic elevates this nonsensical action caper. Forgettable fun.

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

John Cena’s a joy to watch, but Paul Feig’s latest isn’t quite on the money.

The Gearbox title gamers loved has spawned a frenetic and disorderly shambles they’re likelier to loathe. Claptrap? You said it.

Granted, the Lady Raven sequences go on for a bit too long - M. Night is clearly enamored with his daughter’s talent as a pop singer - but other than that minor indulgence, this is a taught thriller that slowly ties a rope around Hartnett’s throat and squeezes as the gig rolls on.

A serious subject is sensitively handled in a drama that’s otherwise just tear-jerking soap opera.

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

It’s not the sort of family film you’ll wax lyrical about, but there’s enough colorful, chaotic, kid-friendly fun to amply entertain.

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.

The action’s routine (as is the norm for this sub-genre) and the spy plot skimps on mystery and twists. But Bautista and Coleman maintain their winning rapport from the first film, and Schaal’s inappropriate comments never fail to amuse. It’s just about enough.

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.