★★★★ - EMPIRE - A different beast to Past Lives, this is a razor-sharp look at the competitive marketplace of dating: both rigorously honest and idealistically romantic. - The opening of Materialists is not what you might expect from a modern-day, New York-set romantic-comedy. It begins in a cave…

★★★★ - BBC.COM - captivating romantic drama explores love and money with piercing honesty - If you've seen any of the trailers for Celine Song's Materialists, ignore them. In those previews and on paper, the film seems like a well-cast but stock romantic comedy, with Dakota Johnson as a…

★★★★ - THE POST - Chuck Chuck Baby is this week's unexpected treat - "Hey Graeme, what are you reviewing this week?" "It's a Welsh lesbian musical ... set on a chicken farm." It's no wonder my friends find me impossible to take seriously, when I tell them how I spend my days. And yet, I love…

★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - Louise Brealey plays Helen, a chicken factory worker who gets a second chance at love, in Janis Pugh’s uplifting crowdpleaser. - There is a terrific warmth and emotional generosity to this romantic comedy-drama from the Welsh film-maker Janis Pugh, and if the storytelling in…

★★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - a passionate case against the ruination of the seas. - A visual marvel like all his work, governed by his own matchless authority and striking a steady tonal balance between warning and hope, David Attenborough’s new film about the oceans is absorbing and compelling. He…

★★★★ - EMPIRE - After yet another assassination attempt, tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) appoints his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) as his sole heir. - With every Wes Anderson film, the growing concern is that the idiosyncratic filmmaker is becoming a parody of himself. That is, if you…

★★★★½ - THE POST - The Salt Path is a simple wee gem of a film - Raynor Winn and her husband Moth invested their life savings in a friend's business. When that business failed in 2015 the Winns were naïve in the ways of courts and of bastards, and they lost everything they owned and more. Homeles…

★★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - Cruise does things his way in this eighth and last Mission: Impossible, as his maverick agent Ethan Hunt takes on the ultimate in AI evil - Here it is: the eighth and final film (for now) in the spectacular Mission: Impossible action-thriller franchise, which manifests…

★★★★ - THE POST - Lies We Tell is a historic thriller set to a slow burn - We are in rural Ireland in the 1860s or thereabouts, in a sprawling manor house and estate that goes by the name of Knowl. Nineteen-year-old Maud has inherited Knowl after the death of her beloved dad. Because Maud is so…

★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - An orphaned Irish teenager spars with her scheming uncle in this insightful reworking of Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel - Here is a tightly laced, elegantly cut gothic period drama that might unfairly get overlooked as the barrage of upmarket cinema vying for awards begins. The…

★★★★★ - STUFF - Miki Magasiva's haunting, heart-warming debut simply stunning - Mareta Percival (Anapela Polataivao) has always put her kids’ first. Not necessarily her own flesh and blood – teenage daughter Lanita (Tiare Lily Savea) is more than capable of looking after herself – but rather the…