Simran Hans

There is about as much jeopardy as you’d expect from an action thriller about an obscure land dispute; a tense encounter with an angry polar bear and a phantom hot air balloon are highlights during the endless plodding across the frozen wilderness.

Letts gives thoughtful context to the way he was able to straddle the racially delineated worlds of dub reggae and punk rock, drawing parallels between the merging of subcultures in 1970s London, and the intersection of hip-hop and rock’n’roll in 1980s New York.

Poehler, herself a gifted comedian, doesn’t include her own voice in the film, though we still get a sense of her feminist perspective.

Basholli understands that healing is possible, even if closure isn’t.

Despite the inherent silliness, the actors play it straight. There’s an earnestness to Rylance’s performance, which encourages us to find inspiration in the underdog.

Diallo utilises the visual language of horror – red lighting, empty shower stalls, a gnarled hand that emerges from under the bed – to express the terror of racism and the rot of its legacy.

The latest film from horror director Ti West (The House of the Devil), about a porn movie shoot gone wrong, is ripe with playful winks and nudges.

Zoë Kravitz is a highlight as cocktail waitress turned cat burglar Selina Kyle.

Ostrochovský’s camera emphasises the constricting architecture of both church and state, with its black and white morality and a claustrophobic central courtyard, frequently portrayed via stiff, judgmental God’s-eye shots.

The film’s message is a beautiful one: to integrate our real-life vulnerabilities with the persona we project is to become all the more powerful.

When Fine encourages him to elaborate, Wilson isn’t especially articulate, but his emotional responses to the individual songs are often lucid and revealing.

Hadjithomas and Joreige thoughtfully explore trauma while remaining joyful, animating Maia’s photos, which fizz, crackle and dance to life on screen.

Adams is a vivacious screen presence with a twinkle in her eye, and Jordan can’t quite match her, unable to draw out any real inner turmoil in a character who is respectable to a fault.

Kenneth Branagh’s unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.

The film is obsessed with deconstructing good screenwriting, the way a line lands, and ensuring clear character motivation.

The smug asides plastered on screen, and the hyperactive inserts of nature documentary footage do nothing to raise the film’s real-life stakes.

Jóhannsson teases the possibility of a monster, but waits to reveal his hand. When he does, there’s more than a touch of gallows humour. I laughed out loud at his audacity, and had nightmares later.

The film is best when it sticks to children’s caper mode, jostled along by gentle toilet humour, bad-tempered barnyard animals and a scene of two kids driving a van across Manhattan.

This thoughtful documentary about Arthur Ashe, the first African American man to win Wimbledon in 1975, understands that representation is only one step towards equality.

The film is a utopian riff on the apocalyptic source material, a Technicolor reimagining flooded with light and optimism.

The film has a cold, abstract beauty.

The film can’t resist revelling in a conservative conclusion outside Buckingham Palace, with a victory banner fluttering against a smattering of St George’s flags.

The film’s bluesy woodwind score has a teasing, goading quality that feels tinged with melancholy; the spectre of Aids hovers around the film’s edges.

Film-maker Jamila Wignot pays particular attention to the specificity of Ailey’s black influences: the church, blues music and his southern upbringing, all of which informed his best-known work, Revelations (1960).

Refreshingly, Farhadi is ambivalent towards his “hero”, and his control over the film’s tone is masterful; what begins as funny and almost farcical, soon shifts into something much sadder and more sobering.

MacKay is muted; his character is teased for his reserve, a quality he shares with the film. Niewöhner gives the sparkier performance, as a passionate German nationalist whose loyalty has flipped.

Simon Kinberg’s film feels aggressively focus-grouped for the girl-boss crowd.

It’s a bouncy, grin-inducing romp through Caribbean takeaways, designer boutiques stacked with Moschino streetwear and one ill-advised trip south of the river.