★★★★½ - THE POST - Conclave will be an award-winner - see it now and avoid the rush - Conclave is based on a 2016 novel by Robert Harris. The film unfolds over 72 hours within the Vatican. The Pope - a popular reformist - has died suddenly of a heart attack, and the College of Cardinals has flown…

★★★★ - THE POST - Flow might be one of the greatest animated films of the last few decades - Flow is set in an unnamed part of the world, in an unnamed time. There have been people here - and they have left deserted houses and battered sail boats behind. But for now, the only living creatures…

★★★★ - EMPIRE - Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) moves from Transylvania to the German city of Wisborg. There, infatuation with Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) consumes him, as his deathly influence consumes others... - “Come to me, hear my call,” murmurs Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) in Robert Eggers’…

★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton give luxuriously self-aware performances as two old friends who are reunited in a doggedly mysterious drama - When this film won the Golden Lion for Pedro Almodóvar at the Venice film festival this summer, there were three kinds of surprised…

★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - Fiennes is broodingly compelling as a potential English pope caught up in murky Vatican intrigue around choosing the next pontiff - Who knew that the laborious process of democracy, of simply voting over and over again, could be so exciting and so amusing? Edward Berger’s…

★★★★★ - TIME OUT - Greatest showman Robbie Williams is monkeying around in a brilliant, bombastic musical biopic - Yes, singer Robbie Williams is a CGI simian in this wildly ambitious musical biopic. But what sounds like it should be buffoonery is actually one of the most inspired bits of casting…

★★★★ - EMPIRE - Sex worker Anora (Mikey Madison) crosses a powerful Russian family after she marries heir Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) in a shotgun wedding. - Sean Baker sees the world differently. He found a magic kingdom in the pastel purple of The Florida Project’s multi-storey inn. Made a washed-up…

★★★★★ - THE GUARDIAN - Payal Kapadia’s glorious film is an absorbing story of three nurses that is full of humanity - There is a freshness and emotional clarity in Payal Kapadia’s Cannes competition selection, an enriching humanity and gentleness which coexist with fervent, languorous eroticism…

★★★★½ - THE POST - An instant Italian classic - We are in Rome in 1946. The war against fascism is over, but the city is still an occupied – and preoccupied – territory. American and allied soldiers are present, guarding against any uprising that might fill the political vacuum before an election…

★★★★ - EMPIRE - Chu amps up the colour and spectacle to extraordinary, almost overwhelming heights, but the real magic comes from Erivo and Grande as the frenemies at the story’s heart. - It’s never easy to adapt a deeply loved story. The musical of Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire’s prequel novel…