Grindhouse with giggles, this potboiler parody offers just enough to avoid being a curio – not least Ferrell at his straight-faced best. Arriba!

Flawlessly designed, with the beautiful 3D cinematography contrasting the clean white futurism of Prometheus' interiors with the black corporeal surfaces of the alien catacombs.

 It might not pack the unbearable menace or blazing horror of the saga's first two movies, but it utterly eclipses the last two. It's exciting, tense and fully impregnated for sequels.

A visually inventive, deliciously dark fairytale reheat. The story's far from the stuff of legend, but Theron makes for a ferocious meanie, helping to flush away "Mirror Mirror's" sugary aftertaste.

Its overview of the baby experience is obscured by a family-values lens – no single/same-sex parents - resulting in an awful ensemble comedy to complete that "Valentine's Day" / "New Year's Eve" box-set, complete with sexist clichés.

Tarr risks self-parody with recurring scenes of the pair tucking into scalding potatoes, but if you've got the stomach for it this is an intoxicating vision of life at the end of its tether.

Anders Danielsen Lie gives a compelling, deep-etched lead turn, and you'll find yourself drawn in as he searches for a reason to continue living.

Fleet, funny, impeccably orchestrated: whimsical Wes returns on top of his game. Non-fans might call it over-familiar comfort cinema but with the craft so loving and new elements so well-integrated, his singular pitch remains a thing to cherish.

In a summer hardly starved of comic-book properties, this redundant extension of a series that ran out of gas a decade ago doesn't need a neuralyzer to be forgettable.

"Welcome to rock bottom!" sighs Hasselhoff at one stage, pretty much summing up this textbook exercise in sloppy seconds. Here's hoping the piranhas have a better agent than he does.

Cool cast, hip directors, but a movie that's less than the sum of both. Like its title character, Jeff is gentle, warm but a little forgettable.

Outrageous, outlandish and overboard, The Dictator will satisfy Cohen's army of fans. But it never feels as funny, full-on or fresh as "Borat" and "Brüno."

One of the strangest mainstream releases of recent times, Dark Shadows' demented gothic melodrama/fish-out-of-water comedy/creature feature feels like you've slipped into a Burton fever-dream.

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.

A through-and-through weepie that's unlikely to convert any Sparks naysayers. The darker hues of its war-based story nonetheless make the sugary excesses easier to swallow.

With Yakin's all-action plot operating like clockwork, an on-song Statham proves anything but expendable in a genre he dominates. Predictable, sure, but equally pleasurable.

The result is a shrewd look at classroom etiquette and an achingly sad study of grief-stricken solitude, built on ace performances by Fellag and the kids-especially 11-year-old scene stealer Sophie Nélisse.

Technically impressive, genre-smart and nerve-shredding while it lasts, Silent House is really just a fun campfire horror tale.

It's not quite "Before Sunrise" with mud and portaloos then, but warm vibes, buzzy crowd scenes and the two leads' enthusiasm will pull you through to the morning after.

Too long and with too many characters to get through, Mother's Day holds effective sequences, ramming home its (recycled) message: the animal lurks in us all.

Warning: contains Jason Biggs' wang and the contents of Stifler's bowels. Happily, the fourth, funny, (possibly) final serving of American Pie is also warm and nostalgic enough to satisfy.

Some will find Camille too self-absorbed, yet writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve (Father Of My Children) conjures poignancy, grace and a feel for symbolic seasonal change that's positively Renoir-esque.

The pleasure of seeing a supergroup of Brit-veterans soon withers in an OAP comedy that plumps for light laughs over deeper insights.

While the marriage of fluffy comedy and terminal illness was always going to be an uncomfortable one, this is an understated, genuinely poignant weepie bolstered by a top-drawer cast.

Kirk, who wed Fischer in 2010, perfectly captures her all-thumbs charm, and ubiquitous character actor Messina steps into the lead with ease, showing off some impressive mime skills to boot.

Big, brash and very funny, Joss Whedon's Avengers Assemble is equal to the sum of its parts – and for once, that's no faint praise. Suit up.

Binoche is, as always, superb, but Malgorzata Szumowska's film won't tell you much about the oldest profession that you didn't already know – and Binoche's marital clashes feel like a standard feminist tract circa 1975.

A mixed return for Stillman, Damsels is so whimsically out of step it's like a time-travel comedy without the time travel. Fortunately, Gerwig and some dazzling dialogue save his blushes.

Tamer than the book and not as funny, this is Salmon filleted. But McGregor and Blunt make fetching lovebirds, while Kristin Scott Thomas is off the scale in a rare comic outing.