The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug provides a response to critics of the first film, opening and closing with two enormous action set pieces
All Is Lost works on a number of levels, but the most meaningful one may be how it relates specifically to star Robert Redford
Filth, from the unfilmable novel by Irvine Welsh, is the scummiest, most depressing Christmas movie you’ll ever see
A decade after Chan-wook Park’s original Oldboy, the remake has finally hit with a most unusual choice for director: Spike Lee
Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt star in this brilliant neo-noir gem from Cormac McCarthy and Ridley Scott
The Factory tells the story of Gary Heidnik, a serial killer who kidnapped six women in Pennsylvania in 1986-7 and kept them captive
Delivery Man is a schmaltzy, easy-going drama with some lightly comedic scenes between Vince Vaughn and Chris Pratt
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire represents a more-than-solid entry in the post-apocalyptic young adult franchise
Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips is a no-nonsense thriller that grabs you from the outset and never lets go
Byzantium, a gorgeously-photographed, full-bodied vamp tale, looks and feels so good that it overcomes some basic storytelling flaws
The Family is some kind of loopy fish-out-of-water comedy that tries to blend the real-world consequences of its setting into a light-hearted frame
Insidious: Chapter 2 delivers some creepy atmosphere and a few surprising jolts in the friendly confines of a routine J-horror ghost story
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is a brilliantly staged and edited master class from Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek
Redemption is a somber drama about an ex-Special Forces soldier who served in Afghanistan and now survives on the streets of London
The Butler (officially titled Lee Daniels’ The Butler for legal reasons) boasts a notable cast filled with familiar faces in the smallest roles
About Time spices up the usual rom-com sentimentality with a sci-fi twist: our hero can travel in time at will
Thor: The Dark World gets that mostly right, too, and exhibits (in spurts) the same goofy charm of the original
The apocalypse comes to Hollywood in the uproariously funny This is the End, which pits a star-studded cast against the rapture
Ender’s Game takes place in the not-so-distant future, years after an alien race called the Formics has attacked Earth
A fitting finale to director Edgar Wright’s trilogy, The World’s End is an inventively-told and frequently uproarious pub crawl
If there’s one reason to see Machete Kills, it’s Mel Gibson’s loopy performance as a cult leader and supervillain
Donšajni (The Don Juans in English), the latest film from acclaimed director Jiří Menzel, often feels like a personal reflection on the loneliness
Stallone and Schwarzenegger are together at last in this by-the-numbers prison breakout movie
Broken is an affecting portrait of life in suburban North England told from the point of view of its 11-year-old protagonist