Five star - Latest Top Rated Film Reviews from the Guardian

The Last Sacrifice review – how a gruesome rural murder embedded folk-horror in the British psyche
Rupert Russell’s fascinating documentary is a sophisticated analysis of how real life and fiction merged in post-empire Britain in the 1960s and 70s - Phil Hoad
The Choral review – Ralph Fiennes leads the choir in impressively unsentimental Alan Bennett fable
Genteel manners of first world war story about repressed passion delivered with surprising sexual candour - Peter Bradshaw
Train Dreams review – Joel Edgerton superb in Malickian story of trees, grief and railroads
A logger clears a path for change in this sunset-hour-tastic adaptation by Clint Bentley – clearly a director of considerable power and feeling - Peter Bradshaw
The Marbles review – thoughtful outline of case for giving the Parthenon marbles back to Greece
David Wilkinson’s personal exploration of the issues open-mindedly examines both sides of a contentious political debate - Peter Bradshaw
Colossal Wreck review – sharp-eyed dispatch from the Kubrickian weirdness of Dubai during Cop28
Josh Appignanesi’s documentary follows the film-maker to the Kubrickian city built on oil money as it hosts the 2023 climate change summit - Peter Bradshaw
The Lost Boys of Mercury review – heartbreaking film on the enduring wounds of church-school abuse
Clémence Davigo’s uncompromising film gives voice to three survivors of a French correctional school, and the difficult path towards healing - Phil Hoad
Relay review – Riz Ahmed turns potential whistleblowers in smart and twisty surveillance thriller
With a great script from Justin Piasecki this David Mackenzie-directed movie is pleasingly old fashioned, complete with Hitchcockian set piece - Peter Bradshaw
Facing War review – cool customer of a Nato secretary general marshals world on the brink
Gripping documentary follows Jens Stoltenberg through his final year as Nato chief – balancing diplomacy, egos and all-out war with unnerving calm - Peter Bradshaw
Journey Home, David Gulpilil review – an elegant celebration of one of Australia’s great actors
This illuminating, buoyant documentary traces the 4,000km trip to return the legendary Yolŋu actor to remote East Arnhem Land - Luke Buckmaster
Kenny Dalglish review – Liverpool’s everyman football hero who took the city’s woes on his shoulders
Asif Kapadia’s film draws an absorbing portrait of the Liverpool legend whose career was blighted by the Heysel stadium and Hillsborough disasters - Peter Bradshaw
Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost review – Ben Stiller’s moving study on the price his family paid for showbiz
Stiller’s documentary about his parents, comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, is a tender reflection on marriage and what it costs to keep smiling in the entertainment business - Peter Bradshaw
Sketch review – googly-eyed fuzzballs come to glitter-burping life in fun kids fantasy yarn
In this emotionally smart adventure for older kids, a 10-year-old girl’s drawings magically come off the page and wreak havoc - Cath Clarke
The Draft! review – entertaining Indonesian meta-horror goes down the Scream route
The tired old tropes of spooky visions, cursed wells and cookie-cutter characters are gleefully dissected in a fun slasher that trades a cabin in the woods for a villa in the jungle - Catherine Bray
Strange Harvest review – lurid horror expertly disguised as true crime
Stuart Ortiz’s convincingly faked crime documentary details the hunt for a Los Angeles serial killer dubbed Mr Shiny - Catherine Bray
Blue Moon review – Ethan Hawke is terrific in Richard Linklater’s bitter Broadway breakup drama
Hawke plays with campy brilliance and criminal combover the lyricist Lorenz Hart as he spirals into vinegary jilted despair after his split from Richard Rodgers - Peter Bradshaw
Lady review – outrageous mockumentary is like Saltburn on shrooms
With supreme entitlement, Sian Clifford’s Lady Isabella shines as ‘aristocracy’s answer to the Kardashians’ in this barnstorming comedy - Peter Bradshaw
The House at Hallow End review – home renovation horror finds emotional heft among the terror
Angela Gulner’s tragi-horror debut trades jump scares for depth, as a family home turns into a mirror of loss and madness - Catherine Bray
Sunlight review – monkey-suited woman goes on road trip in Nina Conti’s super-quirky directing debut
There are plenty of laughs and a fair bit of trauma to process when a depressed man takes a monkey woman across country - Phil Hoad
Souleymane’s Story review – superb performance ballasts drama of man clinging on in the margins in Paris
Abou Sangaré is magnificent in a story that shines light on the enforced invisibility of economic migrants - Phil Hoad
Cutting Through Rocks review – the female firebrand fighting the patriarchy in rural Iran
Sara Shahverdi refuses to accept the norms of her deeply conservative village as she becomes its first female councillor. But for every step forward, as this dynamic documentary shows, a further obstacle is thrown in her path - Phuong Le
Is This Thing On? review – Bradley Cooper’s comedy of comedians is a charmer
The actor’s third film as director is a gentle romcom of divorce and standup comedy with standout turns from Will Arnett and Laura Dern - Adrian Horton
Good Boy review – Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough turn nasty in Kubrickian absurdist nightmare
London film festival: Jan Komasa’s bracingly wicked tale follows a couple who plan to retrain an delinquent teen with a brutal regimen - Peter Bradshaw
Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story – exhilarating record of game-changing photographer
Brathwaite’s empowering images of African Americans in the 1960s gave a new generation a fresh template for representation, brilliantly honoured here - Peter Bradshaw
The Perfect Neighbor review – a notorious shooting through the eye of a Florida cop’s body-cam
Geeta Gandbhir’s study of the Ajike Owens killing turns police footage into a devastating lens on fear, race and a nation fatally addicted to firearms - Peter Bradshaw
I Swear review – biopic of pioneering Tourette syndrome activist is funny, fierce and full of heart
Kirk Jones’s moving film about of John Davidson, the man who taught Britain about Tourette, offers compassion and catharsis - Peter Bradshaw
Cover-Up review – Laura Poitras’s Seymour Hersh documentary is a thrilling ode to journalism
The acclaimed documentarian follows up All the Beauty and the Bloodshed with another smart and impeccably structured winner - Adrian Horton
A Want in Her review – daughter’s searing portrait of family addiction and mental illness
Film-maker Myrid Carten exposes her relationship with her mother – who has both bipolar disorder and alcoholism – in this painful but powerful documentary - Leslie Felperin
In Your Dreams review – Netflix dreams up solid sub-Pixar adventure
Echoes of Inside Out and Coco in streamer’s engaging enough caper about a brother and sister journeying through their dreams - Benjamin Lee
Anemone review – Daniel Day-Lewis is endlessly watchable as ex-soldier living with guilt
It is a pleasure to see Day-Lewis back on screen, and he dominates a movie of big scenes and big performances, co-written with and directed by his son - Peter Bradshaw
Going to the Dogs review – lovable canines at the heart of a sport in decline
Documentary examines British greyhound racing with affection and respect but doesn’t shy away from the opposing views of animal rights activists - Leslie Felperin
Odyssey review – estate agents, cocaine and mental collapse in a jagged London thriller
Polly Maberly is riveting as a deluded realtor spiralling out of control in director Gerard Johnson’s messy, blackly comic follow-up to Muscle - Leslie Felperin
Belén review – gripping true story of woman unjustly accused of illegal abortion
In Argentina a lawyer fights to free a working-class woman jailed after the miscarriage of her baby in this heartfelt retelling - Cath Clarke
There Was, There Was Not review – how four women’s dreams are destroyed by the shock of war
Emily Mkrtichian’s feature debut was shot in the now defunct republic of Artsakh, a tender, intimate meditation on the impermanence of life - Phuong Le
Fantaisie review – study of a modern Ophelia swamped by audiovisual overwhelm
Isabel Pagliai’s film introduces her central character Louise with a thrillingly eclectic blend of handheld footage and cascades of still images - Phuong Le
The Run review – glowsticks to the fore as interactive horror-thriller aims to get pulses racing
Audience members vote on the path its jogger heroine should take through this Italian-set chase movie – with appearances from genre cinema heroes Franco Nero and Dario Argento - Mike McCahill
A Mother’s Embrace review – woozy serving of trauma horror as a firefighter reckons with a troubled past
Low-key but well-designed Brazil-set chiller, which starts with a mysterious emergency call from a nightmarishly mouldering care home - Catherine Bray
3 Cold Dishes review – Burna Boy produces deftly directed revenge tales with echoes of Kill Bill
Asurf Oluseyi’s thriller threads a trio of stories together with Tarantinoesque swagger but choppy storytelling - Phil Hoad
Winter in Sokcho review – atmospheric slow-burner about family and intimacy in South Korean border city
Koya Kamura’s debut film is about shared identities at the centre of quiet, chilly drama as an enigmatic French writer visits the eponymous town - Phil Hoad
Deeper review – extreme cave diving documentary offers drama but lacks a little oomph
Following a group of divers – including Richard Harris, rescuer of the Thai schoolboys – this doco is interesting but not exactly visually stunning - Luke Buckmaster
Boston Kickout review – John Simm and Andrew Lincoln among 90s teens tearing around Stevenage
Some now famous faces – Lincoln, Simm, Marc Warren – bring plenty of youthful zing to this tale of teenage life in new-town Hertfordshire - Catherine Bray
Palestine 36 review – impassioned epic set during the Arab revolt against British colonial rule
Annemarie Jacir’s emotionally stirring drama follows a year of brutal conflict in the Middle East with a huge cast of characters caught up in the turmoil - Peter Bradshaw
Where Is Heaven? review – absorbing ode to lovers of the off-grid life in rural Devon
The lure of self-sufficiency is explored in this documentary, which follows the ebbs and flows of mostly solo characters who shun the ratrace - Leslie Felperin
In Waves and War review – Navy Seals battle PTSD with psychedelic therapy
Sombre documentary sees US soldiers give brave testimony while undergoing ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment to confront their traumas - Leslie Felperin
Wolfram review – Warwick Thornton’s sequel to Sweet Country never quite comes together
Set four years after Thornton’s blistering neo-western, this film is impressively atmospheric and has strong performances, though Deborah Mailman is criminally underused - Luke Buckmaster
Blue Has No Borders review – hunt for British identity in British seaside town maps the national psyche
Director Jessi Gutch shadows seven Folkestonians from a Syrian refugee, to a drag artist and a Brexiter - Phil Hoad
Canuto’s Transformation review – did a man really turn into a jaguar in Brazil’s remote forest?
Ariel Kuaray Ortega’s complex docufiction sifts through the mysterious story of a man who, during the military tyranny, is said to have become a big cat - Peter Bradshaw
Writing Hawa review – Afghan woman fights for freedom as the Taliban close in
Najiba Noori’s thought-provoking documentary follows her mother, finally getting her chance at autonomy just as the Taliban retake the country - Phuong Le
Hedda review – Ibsen meets Downton Abbey in Nia DaCosta’s exotic rendering of classic play
High society in 1950s Britain is the setting in which the free-spirited but manipulative Hedda marries for money. Cue jaded pleasure and absurdity - Peter Bradshaw
Chain Reactions review – famous fans of Texas Chain Saw Massacre go deep into the legendary slasher
Stephen King, Takashi Miike and Karyn Kusama are among the contributors to this documentary about Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror masterpiece - Leslie Felperin
The Spin review – laughter and vinyl in wacky Irish road movie as pals try to save their record store
Bizarre dialogue riffs add flavour to this likable film about two friends on a road trip to track down some super rare records - Peter Bradshaw
Love+War review – Lynsey Addario’s courageous photojournalism shines out in occasionally odd study
The Pulitzer prize-winner has worked across the developing world, braved war zones and been taken hostage in Libya, but do we really need a tour of her beautiful home? - Peter Bradshaw
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle review – serviceable 90s thriller remake
There are some smart updates to the psycho-nanny hit but without the searing presence of Rebecca De Mornay, this one is unlikely to stick around for quite so long - Benjamin Lee
It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This review – DIY found-footage horror looks for chills in a new home
Film-makers Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti play new owners of a haunted house in a DIY effort that is fun but fatally unscary - Cath Clarke
100 Nights of Hero review – Emma Corrin leads starry cast in a queer fable with a serious streak
Gender, sexuality, status and power are all in flux in Julia Jackman’s playful medieval fairytale, adapted from Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel, also starring Maika Monroe and Charli xcx - Peter Bradshaw
Wilfred Buck review – rewarding life of Indigenous American astronomer laid out in the stars
This hybrid documentary about the Cree astronomer offers evocative, poetic insight into a formidable community leader - Phuong Le
Mr Scorsese review – five hours isn’t nearly long enough to do justice to history’s greatest film-maker
There are volcanic tales of his explosive temper, shocking footage of nuns protesting his Christ movie and vast amounts of detail in this rich, info-packed docuseries. Then it reaches the 90s and it all peters out - Stuart Heritage
Ballad of a Small Player review – Colin Farrell seeks redemption in Edward Berger’s high-stakes gambling yarn
Debts, secrets and a cartoonish Tilda Swinton catch up with Farrell’s self-styled ‘Lord Doyle’ as he confronts his own destiny in a chance to win salvation - Peter Bradshaw
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie review – sunny, wholesome cat-obsessed tale that knows its audience
Kristen Wiig goes all Cruella as the evil cat lady pitted against Gabby and her grandma, Gloria Estefan, desperate as she is to get her hands on that doll’s house - Cath Clarke
The Secret of Me review – documentary tells tragic story of childhood intersex reassignment surgery
Grace Hughes-Hallett’s film focuses on the story of Jim Ambrose, who was raised female after he was born with atypical genitals - Leslie Felperin
H is for Hawk review – Claire Foy is tremendously authentic in eccentric grief drama
Foy convinces as a grieving academic who trains a goshawk in this film based on Helen Macdonald’s bestselling nature memoir - Peter Bradshaw
Tomorrow I Leave review – poignant portrait of a care worker sacrificing her home life for her work
The paradoxical emotional push and pull of those forced to migrate for work is vividly captured in Maria Lisa Pichler and Lukas Schöffel’s intimate portrait - Phuong Le
Operation Pope review – hard-bitten thriller about a true-life papal assassination plot
Audiences will obviously be aware the secret plan to kill John Paul II did not succeed, but despite a baggy narrative the high-stakes espionage is still compelling - Catherine Bray
John Candy: I Like Me review – starry but treacly tribute to comedy legend
The much loved actor has no shortage of celebrity fans, but this documentary avoids his more complex traits in favour of his sweet-natured on-screen person - Peter Bradshaw
Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation review – revisiting the legacy of a counterculture classic
Wild-spirited but laced with dim views on race and women, On the Road is due a reckoning. This elegant talking-head doc works best when its unpicking is most forensic - Leslie Felperin
Iron Ladies review – inspiring account of the women on the miners’ strike picket lines
Fascinating exploration of the women inspired to activism in the Margaret Thatcher era of union-bashing - Cath Clarke
Paris 75 review – passionate fans-eye view reanimates tales of the 70s Leeds United golden years
Revisiting forgotten storms over Leeds’ European cup final defeat 50 years on, this unashamedly partisan take unearths a lost era of team loyalty - Andrew Pulver
Grow review – polished pumpkin growing caper stuffed with perky charm and comedy talent
Featuring the likes of Nick Frost, Jane Horrocks and Golda Rosheuvel, this family heartwarmer makes for perfectly serviceable seasonal fare - Leslie Felperin
Night of the Zoopocalypse review – Clive Barker story becomes zombified animal caper for horror-hungry kids
Perhaps the first animated animal adventure based on a story by Hellraiser writer Barker, with commendably scary baddies and a lemur who is a horror-movie buff - Catherine Bray
Under the Open Sky review – camels and turbines in absorbing portrait of a threatened way of life
Intimate, unhurried documentary follows a family of nomadic herders on the plains of western India - Phuong Le
The Burden review – deeply personal portrait of living with Aids in secret
Elvis Sabin Ngaibino’s poignant documentary shows the pressures faced by family members forced to keep their condition hidden in their deeply religious community - Phuong Le
A Tooth Fairy Tale review – animated adventure with a sprinkling of family-friendly tween romance
A child-suitable romantic subplot underpins this enjoyable story of fairies putting their long-standing differences with goblins aside to defeat a common enemy - Catherine Bray
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror review – insiders’ account of cult musical 50 years on
Stars including Richard O’Brien, Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry line up to recount the endearing origin story of the perennial crowdpleaser - Leslie Felperin
Predator: Badlands review – a pointless but unkillable franchise that has started to eat itself
The toothy villain is humanised and made sympathetic in this disappointing horror sci-fi – at which point it ceases to be the Predator - Peter Bradshaw
Don’t Trip review – lo-fi comedy shocker sets out to find the horror in Hollywood
What starts as a compelling satire of the film industry turns into an unconvincing schlocky mess that even Fred Melamed can’t save - Peter Bradshaw
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc review – gore-soaked demonic anime squats in the manosphere
Tatsuki Fujimoto’s coming-of-age saga continues with a surreal encounter with a chainsaw-wielding demon living in a teenager’s soul - Mike McCahill
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere review – brooding, earnest portrait of the Boss’s crisis years
Jeremy Allen White gives a committed performance in this awkward biopic, stranded between rock mythology and pop-psych melodrama - Peter Bradshaw
Regretting You review – sudsy Colleen Hoover adaptation is no It Ends with Us
The second big screen take on one of the hugely successful author’s trauma dramas is a bland misfire and wastes Girls actor Allison Williams in the lead - Adrian Horton
Diablo review – Scott Adkins enters Cormac McCarthy territory in over-the-border revenge thriller
Its deranged antagonist might be an Anton Chigurh rip-off, but some fantastically flailing fight scenes almost lift this otherwise humdrum action romp - Phil Hoad
Diamond Sky review – fairytale heist thriller has its head in the clouds
Mesmerising leads Hassan Najib and Elena Rivers play a pair of young hotel workers who carry out high-end robberies in this oddly unconvincing story - Leslie Felperin
Levers review – gloom-laden experimental eclipse drama about the play of light and darkness
An opaque, inert film by Canadian director Rhayne Vermette despite its scrupulously intended meanings - Peter Bradshaw
Giant review – Prince Naseem biopic with Pierce Brosnan on hand misses the punch
Despite the odd laugh, the story of the boxer’s path from Sheffield gyms to global stardom and his break with mentor Brendan Ingle feels dramatically underweight - Peter Bradshaw
& Sons review – Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton’s riveting showdown rescues a laborious plot
London film festival: Nighy stars as a boozy literary has-been and Staunton his estranged wife in Pablo Trapero’s unconvincing adaptation of David Gilbert’s 2013 novel - Peter Bradshaw
Don’t Look Now review – Du Maurier’s Venetian chiller has its dread shredded
A couple mourn the loss of their daughter in an adaptation that is far better at conveying sadness than suspense - Chris Wiegand
Black Phone 2 review – hit horror sequel lumbers toward Elm Street
Ethan Hawke’s child-killing murderer returns from the dead to become a joke-free, low-rent Freddy Krueger in a follow-up that leaves us cold - Benjamin Lee
The Twits review – Americanised Roald Dahl is gruesome in all the wrong ways
Netflix’s animation mangles and sentimentalises Dahl’s black comedy about a gross and detestable married couple – relocating the action to Texas and introducing a plucky orphan heroine - Cath Clarke
Our Fault review – ultra-glossy Spanish step-sibling melodrama is too bland to be annoying
Third film adapted from the romance novels by Mercedes Ron, originally written in Spanish, feels clunky and cliched - Leslie Felperin
Moss and Freud review – Kate meets Lucian and they get on brilliantly with absolutely no funny business at all
London film festival: The supermodel comes across as a dippy trustafarian and the artist like her soppy old grandpa in this bland, legacy-protecting depiction of their friendship - Peter Bradshaw at London film festival
Forgive Us All review – a dead-boring zombie film? That’s unforgivable
Handsome cinematography and New Zealand landscapes can’t revive this dreary movie – and where on earth is Richard Roxburgh’s accent from? - Luke Buckmaster
The Woman in Cabin 10 review – silliness of Keira Knightley megayacht thriller tips it overboard
Keira Knightley is twice dunked in the briny as she tries to uncover what’s going on aboard Guy Pearce’s boat in this soggy Agatha-Christie-ish mystery - Peter Bradshaw
Vicious review – Dakota Fanning’s evil box horror is an open-and-shut dud
The Strangers writer-director Brian Bertino struggles to get scares out of this poorly paced and increasingly incoherent disappointment - Benjamin Lee
The Travellers review – sentiment smothers Bruce Beresford’s heartfelt film
Bryan Brown, Luke Bracey and Susie Porter give great performances in this story about a theatre-maker returning home to Australia from Europe to farewell his dying mother - Luke Buckmaster
Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World review – a narrow view of beauty from a borderline stalker
The ‘King of Vogue’ was a desperate social climber and the world on view here seems constricted and parochial. Still, his backdrops are fabulous – usually more interesting than his subjects - Charlotte Jansen
Plainclothes review – shame and anxiety in entrapment yarn about a gay cop going undercover
A quietly observed New York police story explores desire, friendship and the pressures of identity – though its impact is undercut by an implausible final twist - Peter Bradshaw
London Calling review – Tarantino-esque caper in which a hitman takes a kid on work experience
A washed-up killer-for-hire is charged with making callow gamer Jeremy Ray Taylor into a killer like his dad, but much of the humour fails to land - Phil Hoad
Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird review – Mars Volta bromance looks for time out
Exhaustive documentary tracking the sweet fraternity between Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala goes a little sour - Phil Hoad
Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl review – lazy big screen cash-in
The megastar’s underwhelming new album gets a suitably sub-par cinematic accompaniment offering very little for even the most devoted of fans - Adrian Horton
Shell review – Elisabeth Moss gets Substance-d by Kate Hudson in schlocky curio
Max Minghella directs an incredibly silly yet frustratingly un-fun LA-set horror about an actor trying to look beautiful - Benjamin Lee
Shelby Oaks review – junky Halloween horror delivers zero scares
There is really nothing to be scared of in this clumsy hodgepodge of found footage, mockumentary and conventional narrative - Benjamin Lee
Maintenance Required review – Amazon’s synthetic You’ve Got Mail rip-off
The beats of the 1998 romcom, which was itself a re-imagining of The Shop Around the Corner, are shamelessly regurgitated for this charmless copycat - Benjamin Lee
Tron: Ares review – even Gillian Anderson can’t slap this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi into shape
Pointless threequel delivers a leaden cameo from a white-robed Jeff Bridges and an irritating turn from Jared Leto as a hipster-haired humanoid - Peter Bradshaw