Species aims for the top of its class, but falls into the trap of trying too much, offering frustratingly little flesh to back up its lofty ambitions.

While Josephine may have big names like Tatum in its cast, a star is born with Reeves playing the titular role. It is not an overstatement to say that this is one of the best child performances of all time—Reeves is acting beyond her years and with such maturity, which feels like a parallel journey with the loss of innocence her character is forced to confront.

Like all of Wilson’s works, it’s a film that begins with one thing (concrete) and very quickly becomes about everything, recognising the socio-industrial ecosystem that governs the modern world.

But of course Minotaur was still a slog to sit through for a portion of its time. There’s an enjoyable thriller in it, but that comes from the really great stretch in its second half.

Is there still a way to make this somewhat tired trope fresh and original again? Yesterday Island, a little Australian indie dark comedy, proves that there certainly is.

The vampire film has long been a profoundly expressive, free-flowing canvas of cinematic decadence, and Nadja glides like an echo through a shroud of distinctly 90s sensibilities.

Intended meaning may get lost between original dialogue and translated subtitles, but camp humour, thankfully, does not. The Blood Countess is a grandiose and hyperbolic rendition of the terrifying myth behind its titular character, Erzsébet Báthory (Isabelle Huppert), that does not shy away from the tale’s queer undertones.

The Rivals of Amziah King goes above and beyond the standard for mass produced Hollywood dramas, but isn’t immune to some of its most common pitfalls.

Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man is a terrible movie that is a dark omen for the AI slop that could be present in Hollywood films to come. Don’t watch this movie. I have no mouth and Ice must Cream.

Ahead of the already polarising Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a Marvel movie that feels like a Marvel film.

But it’s difficult to regard this as anything but a triumph for independent filmmaking: a maverick trans director getting the stars and budget to realise their genuinely bold and original vision, built off the ashes of failed franchises.

What’s most impressive about The Odyssey isn’t its scale - it’s that the bigger Nolan’s filmmaking gets, the more human it becomes.

This is the tension through which Jackass is at its most thematically resonant: the belief that their careers as stuntmen could end at any moment, one way or another.

If you’re looking for answers, Mungiu and his film don’t have them, just the questions. It’s up to you to decide how you want to answer them.

Charting the collision between academia and spirituality over the course of 100 years, Hungarian auteur Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend is an enthralling study of both scientific and personal discovery.

It would have been logical for Robinson to leverage his Hollywood connections and his talent for incendiary imagery into a provocative, starry filmmaking debut. But First Light, his first feature as writer and director, is a determinedly minimalistic effort.

Supergirl still manages to soar high enough to keep faith instilled in Gunn’s new universe. If the studio keeps heading in this direction, it appears there is a lot to look forward to for comic book fans.