Youth feels like the work of a talented director relaxing into a subject – in fact, a series of subjects – but not in an indulgent or lazy sense. It has a calm beauty in it.

Michael Caine stars as Fred Ballinger, a retired composer taking a break at a luxury Swiss sanatorium. His old friend Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), a much-admired director, is also at the retreat, accompanied by a team of youthful screenwriters collaborating on his next project, which frustratingly none of them can think of an ending for. Fred is described by his doctor as “apathetic”; he seems to accept the process of ageing more quietly than Mick, who still wants to produce art. Fred is retired, and will not compose again, even despite a visit from a royal emissary (Alex Macqueen) who tries his best to draw Fred out of retirement. The rest of the characters – and there are many – flit in and out of the narrative. Most prominently they include Rachel Weisz as Fred’s daughter Lena and Paul Dano as deep thinking but tormented Hollywood A-lister, Jimmy Tree.

Most obviously, the film ruminates on age – indeed, Fred and Mick spend time walking together talking about it – but it also meditates on emotion, communication and understanding. Fred and Mick are in some ways similar, but both have their own ways of thinking that may be flawed. Meanwhile, Jimmy watches the inhabitants of the film’s luxury resort setting (much as we do), and tries to understand them. Sorrentino allows the viewer to float through the resort, almost as if we were inhabitants ourselves, and to contemplate what it all means. Many of the supporting characters are enigmatic, uninhibited by backstory or exposition, and much like in real life, the background they provide is somehow integral to the whole.

The wonderfully talented cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, who has shot many of Sorrentino’s films, understands the way his director wants to tell his story; the two are in harmony throughout. On a simple visual level, the film is stunning to look at. The composition of shots throughout is not only beautiful, but meaningful. Witness, for example, the way numerous shots in water contort and contract our perceptions; or the way the camera focuses more and more closely on an increasingly heated conversation between Mike and one of his old stars (a terrifying Jane Fonda). In one subtly moving scene, Mike uses a telescope to illustrate to one of his young screenwriters how our perceptions change as we get older. It feels lazy to compare Sorrentino’s style to Fellini, because so many have done it before, but the comparison is apt, and complimentary.

As in The Great Beauty, Sorrentino uses music beautifully. Sometimes it enters scenes in the form of live music being performed at the retreat; at other times refrains we’ve heard before re-enter the narrative. The film’s conclusion features an Oscar-nominated piece of original music by David Lang, which helps bring the film to its rousing, overwhelming crescendo.

In the absence of Sorrentino’s regular leading man Toni Servillo, Michael Caine gives an excellent performance. He has said that he considers this the best performance of his career. That will be debated over time, but it is certainly one of his best. Opposite him, Keitel is also on top form, and the supporting cast, in particular Weisz and Dano, provide depth and texture to Sorrentino’s rich tapestry.

At first some of the dialogue feels a little forced, as if Sorrentino (who also wrote the film) wanted to cram every line with a meaningful little nugget. The script soon settles into itself, however, and there is some great writing in here. Only a recurring gag about Fred and Mike wondering what it would’ve been like to have slept with a mutual acquaintance from their past feels like a wrong note; though, to Sorrentino’s credit, even this seemingly throwaway detail is given a satisfactory conclusion. In general, the film balances drama, tragedy and comedy with deft precision; some of the cutaways and musical interludes are perfectly pitched. One mad nightmare sequence makes up for the fact that a certain cameo feels unnecessarily like stunt casting.

In the first act, the film feels a tad overstuffed, as if there are too many characters crammed in, but actually as the film meanders through its carefully constructed narrative, the supporting characters blend into something bizarrely beautiful. There are memorable moments throughout, from Lena’s heartbreaking single-take emotional outburst to Miss Universe (Madalina Diana Ghenea) giving Jimmy an intellectual dressing down in the moonlight. Sorrentino’s screenplay is so well structured that, by the time we reach the final act, each piece seems to be playing its own small but invaluable part; reflecting the film’s own orchestral climax.

Does Sorrentino attempt to tackle too much  in this film? Possibly, though I would rather see a director experimenting with too many ideas than scraping the barrel with too few. Youth is a rich and rewarding experience.

The title refers to a method of betting against the housing market which, despite being touted as a booming industry in the period preceding the crash, was actually built on a swamp of bad debt. This is a bet first taken by Michael Burry (Christian Bale) and later by other groups including a unit of Morgan Stanley headed up by Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and a pair of youthful investors backed up by retired banker Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt, also one of the film’s producers).

McKay’s film finds a delicate balance between being slavish to the details while remaining remarkably fleet-footed. There are plenty of scenes in which characters stand around explaining to each other – indeed, often to the camera as well – what the jargon they’re using really means, and these are both welcome and funny. Characters frequently break the fourth wall to make comic quips or get us up to speed on difficult subjects, and this freewheeling sense of fun pervades the film. At no point does the serious subject matter – and the film is deadly serious underneath its comic exterior – ever feel at odds with the jovial tone. In fact, McKay – along with his co-writer Charles Randolph and his actors – have succeeded in achieving what the best politically motivated satire can do: The Big Short is playful, yes, but also furiously angry. Its political points hit harder because it’s funny. On a regular basis, the audience is jolted out of its laughter by the sudden realisation that we’re laughing at a bunch of scandalously well-paid crooks.

McKay is a director best known for his numerous collaborations with Will Ferrell (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys) but in the absence of his regular leading man, he’s made the best film of his career. The Big Short takes the rigour of something like Margin Call and combines it with the excess of The Wolf of Wall Street (both films about the crash) and manages to blend the two together with craft, wit and righteous fury. Martin Scorsese’s film was accused by some of being flippant towards its subject matter, but actually had a crushingly poignant endnote despite its indulgences. What’s great about The Big Short is that it achieves a level of open-mouthed disgust, combined with genuinely funny moments, pretty much from beginning to end.

Yes, this does mean that grouchy Mark Baum (a partly fictionalised version of a real person) in some ways comes to represent the audience’s position of outrage – often spelling out the pretty obvious – but Steve Carell’s excellent performance bridges the gap between this world and ours. Ryan Gosling is also on great form as sleazy trader Jared Vennett, and Christian Bale too as Burry, a heavy-metal obsessed and socially awkward numbers whizz. The supporting cast, who are too numerous to mention here, are on top of their game. There’s a great scene involving two real estate crooks which feels like a comic deleted scene from last year’s 99 Homes, also a post-crash diatribe. Only Marisa Tomei feels wasted as Baum’s wife; like The Wolf of Wall Street, this film depicts a very male world, and as such the women can’t help feeling a little bolted on.

The ‘heroes’ in this story are at best morally ambiguous. We cheer for them because, in their own way, they are fighting the duplicity of the banking machine, but they remain defined, in a sense, by greed. The film is smart enough not to make saints of them, convincingly portraying the idea that the system is so deeply flawed and so massive, so shot-through with, in Vennett’s words, “greed and stupidity”, that individual morality becomes practically irrelevant.

How many comedies inspire this sort of discussion? The Big Short feels like, dare I say it, an important film. It’s directed with palpable anger and verve by Adam McKay, although I have to admit I felt it was a little over-directed at times. There are a lot of visual ticks in the film – extreme close ups, freeze-frames, montages and so on – most of which are great, but which do start to get a little tiresome. At times I wanted the camera to stay still a little more, but in general McKay’s tricks convey the sense of a fast-moving industry too insular to really look at itself. You could also argue there’s very little characterisation in the film, and the small attempts at establishing depth feel a tad perfuncto ry. But it would be unforgivable to end on a sour note for what will surely be one of the year’s most memorable and provocative comedies. It’ll make you angry, but in a good way.

The connection can be too deep to allow for creativity or necessary levels of editing (case in point: Zack Snyder’s Watchmen). There is no doubt JJ Abrams loves Star Wars, and make no mistake he had a tough job on his hands choosing to play in the well-moneyed intergalactic sandbox vacated by series creator George Lucas. It is a great relief for me to say that in most respects, Abrams was the right man to take on the job.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be many things to many people, but it is primarily a sequel to Return of the Jedi, the final part in Lucas’ original trilogy, which was released in 1983. It also functions as a sort-of reimagining of the originals, mostly in a positive sense. There is no doubt it will induct a legion of new young fans, while the hardcore faithful will probably still be debating its merits in 50 years’ time.

If Abrams had made something bad, or even average, there’s a good chance he would’ve been pilloried for life, something even the series’ progenitor George Lucas has had to endure following the poorly received prequel trilogy which began in 1999 with The Phantom Menace. This film is in many ways a return to form. It’s thrilling, fantastical and feels like Star Wars. Abrams has spoken in the past of how stressful he found the process of making the film feel like it fit in with the others, although Lucas himself – after selling the rights to Star Wars to Disney – has not had creative input in this film.

We begin (after a brief introduction), as A New Hope did, on a barren, desert world – this time Jakku – where hard-up scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) comes into possession of an adorable droid, BB-8, who is carrying some important information needed by the Resistance (aka the Rebellion of old). A chance series of events sees her partner up with Finn (John Boyega), a runaway stormtrooper who has turned on the First Order, a dark faction which has risen from the ashes of the original trilogy’s Empire.

If most of that sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The film consistently, and intentionally, mirrors the storyline of A New Hope, and has references to Empire and Jedi. That’s not to say the storyline is the same, but it’s definitely close, in both theme and structure. Once we get into space, and Rey and Finn meet up with wandering spacers Han Solo (a returning Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca, this feeling of warm familiarity sets in even further. But crucially, Abrams keeps the new characters as the focus of the film. It’s exciting to see old favourites return, but this film is about a new generation of heroes.

That said, although the film is about its new protagonists, their actual character development is relatively minimal. Both leave lasting positive impressions thanks to engaging and likeable performances from Ridley and Boyega, but at present they’re being carried along by the narrative rather than driving it. Similarly, the fast-paced narrative leaves little room for returning faces such as General (formerly Princess) Leia to make much of an impression beyond the joy of simply seeing them in this world again, and some new characters – in particular ace pilot Poe Dameron, played with verve by Oscar Isaac – are pretty one-dimensional roles.

Luke Skywalker is conspicuous by his absence. Indeed, an intergalactic search for Luke – from both the First Order and the Resistance – is the central thrust of the plot, although as is traditional, there’s a giant space base to be attacked in the final act.

On the villainous side of things, the film gives us a new and memorable character. Kylo Ren, played behind an ominous mask by Adam Driver, is a temperamental, dangerous force, and not without inner demons, which the film is bold enough to face up to.

The Force Awakens – officially titled Episode VII in the traditional opening text crawl – injects much-needed life into the franchise. Abrams’ film romps along at a pleasing pace, isn’t afraid to fill the corners of its screen with titbits and oddities (as Lucas himself was prone to do), and delivers both spectacle and charismatic characters.

Why, then, only four stars? Perhaps because it feels too safe. As a long-time Star Wars fan, I wanted to see a new director – crucially, one given free reign in this universe, as Abrams was – be more daring with the material. In places, it’s just a little bit too familiar, even down to replicated shots, lines and narrative arcs.

But I understand that to new viewers, and to those who haven’t seen the original films countless times, that point of view may not apply. Which is why I’m ending the revi ew by reiterating that I had a huge amount of fun with The Force Awakens, an encouraging and relieving beginning to a new trilogy. Star Wars is back, and the Force is with it.

Not primarily because they both depict lesbian relationships, but because they both offer a thoroughly entertaining and believable drama bound together by two excellent lead performances.

The titular Carol is played with svelte precision by Cate Blanchett, and we first meet her in a toy store where Terese (Rooney Mara) sells her a trainset for her daughter. Carol leaves her gloves behind and Terese returns them to her, and those events clearly share the same ulterior motive, powered by immediate attraction. We are also introduced to the fact that Carol is going through a divorce from her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler), and is concerned about losing custody over their daughter, Rindy.

Into this walks the innocent, unsure Terese, who, like the audience, is initially unaware of quite the effect she could have. Her hobby is photography, but she feels turning her lens on human beings is intrusive; something to be shied away from. Carol awakens her more adventurous side. Terese has the attention of a number of men, but doesn’t seem interested.

Hayne’s film is structured around a glimpsed conversation in a restaurant at the beginning of the film, from which we flash back to the beginning of Carol and Terese’s romance. His direction establishes mood in the right places, lingering here and there on the faces of his protagonists, sometimes allowing stray bits of the set to obstruct the camera slightly; an indication that there will be obstacles to this burgeoning relationship. Huge credit should go to Edward Lachman’s terrific cinematography; the film was shot on Super 16, a format which contains all the warmth and naturalism that the story requires, and also helps to bring out the lovely period detail.

Carol is shorter and more focused than Blue is the Warmest Colour, but Haynes fills his frames with charm and sentiment. There are some gorgeous images in here; from a shot of the two lovers’ interlinked arms, to ripples on developing photographs, shimmering into focus like memories. Phyllis Nagy’s tender script adapts the source material (Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt) adeptly, finding a balance between emotion and subtlety. Only on a couple of occasions (most notably a repeated description of Terese as having been”flung out of space”) does it stray away from believability. This film doesn’t indulge in the lovemaking scenes in the way that Kechihe’s film did, and that is a wise decision – it would’ve seemed out of place in this more mannered, less overtly passionate production.

What the two films do share is strong performances. Blanchett excellently conveys a woman desperate to maintain a relationship with her child while rapt by the charms of her younger lover. Mara must portray a transition from innocence to something approaching understanding, and does it admirably. Credit too to Kyle Chandler, who plays Harge as a conflicted figure – not brutish but unable to understand what has happened to his marriage. His could’ve been a trite villainous role, but the script is sensible enough to shy away from easy stereotypes. Carol is a n excellent film, full of warmth and romance. There’s really very little wrong with it, and if it isn’t in my top 10 at the end of the year, I’ll be very surprised.

Submitted by Jordan for the Oscar for foreign language film, Theeb is actually an “Eastern”. Art-house festival pickups are usually the only Arab films that get distributed outside their domestic fortresses. The ones that escape are typically controversial and held on a pedestal by liberal Western critics. But Theeb seems to be an anomaly; Western critics (winning Best Director at Venice last year) and Arab audiences both love it. This film is an endearing testament to the power of classic Hollywood storytelling and its ability to cross the boundaries of race, religion and rigidity.

A detailed portrait of Bedouin tribes in a remote portion of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, Naji Abu Nowar, Theeb’s first-time feature director, crafts a twisted world: a wild, wild East. Amidst the vast expanse of the desert and picturesque sand, bandits and revolutionaries overrun the trails. Rather than idealize nature, Nowar views it as dangerous and oppressive, budding with pesky flies and bugs. The landscapes are something you could see in a John Ford classic and the plot might resemble the typical Western formula, but don’t be misled, Theeb is a masterfully layered story dressed in an accessible and familiar package.

Despite some similarities to True Grit and a prop that is almost used as a McGuffin, Theeb’s uniqueness is not only in its appropriation of the Western genre to tell an Eastern story but it also has an interesting perspective on the Ottoman Empire during the Great War. The film mainly centers on Theeb, a boy coming of age, as he accompanies his older brother who is directing a mysterious Englishman (probably one of TE Lawrence’s guys) and his Arab companion. Theeb is frightened yet enchanted by the Englishmen. He knows nothing of the war and has presumably never seen a white man.

The way the film handles their relationship is masterful, balancing a kind of subtle playfulness with a lurking sense of dread. In one of the film’s best moments, Theeb puts his ear to the British man’s watch as he curiously listens to it mechanically tick forward. Time will move on. Modernity will progress forwards. And it will be the English who help to disband the Ottoman Empire and alter the region’s historical trajectory.

A large part of this film’s success is owed to the nearly wordless performance by the non-professional child actor Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat, who plays the boy like a young Clint Eastwood, internalizing all his emotions and silently hinting a development towards the predatory nature that his name implies (Theeb means wolf). Theeb is a delightful surprise . It’s not boring. It’s not shallow. It’s not predictable. Watching this film is like opening a generic Carlton card to find powerful and poignant poetry written inside.

The letter informs Geoff (Tom Courtenay) that the body of his past love Katya, who died on a walking trip before he met his current wife Kate (Charlotte Rampling), has been found in the Swiss mountains.

Kate initially responds to the news in a logical way: how can she be angry (or jealous, even) about something that happened before she was on the scene? But is there more to it than that? Geoff seems to be affected by the news a little too deeply, and the run-up to their 45th wedding anniversary, which is to be celebrated with a big party, begins to take on a sense of foreboding. The film considers the ideas of regret and missed opportunities, but it is happy to be ambiguous in these considerations. Has the letter caused a fissure in their relationship, or simply revealed the rickety foundations it has always stood on? The final scenes are painfully unyielding, and contain enough emotional curveballs to leave us frustrated in the most satisfying way.

Rampling and Courtenay are very good, conveying a mixture of affection and disaffection, though with the exception of one scene near the end, the film is not reliant on grandiose displays of emotion. 45 Years plays out in small moments that are purposefully symbolic and suggestive, such as when Kate raises her hand to the closed loft door, swirling her fingers to feel the movement of the air. There are also subtle hints in the dialogue, for example when Kate bemoans the ability of humans to forget the things that make them happy. This results in one of the film’s most clearly metaphorical scenes, in which Kate performs a beautiful melody on the piano – only it is pockmarked with mistakes and the creaks of the stool underneath her. The message is clear, but no less effective for it. Indeed, music plays a key role: all of it is diagetic and has some relevance for the characters, whether happy or sad.

The film builds quietly to its powerful conclusion, subtly play ing with our expectations. There are one or two moments where the script is a little too forthright, but this is well-acted double-header directed with poise and confidence by Haigh.

The men in question are Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), secret agents for the US and Russia respectively, who are forced to team up in order to uncover a nuclear plot. They are joined by Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), whose father may or may not be helping build a bomb for some bad people.

Although Gaby plays a fairly crucial role in the narrative (and is nicely played by Vikander), the film is primarily about the suave, comedy-inflected hijinks of Solo and Kuryakin, and it has to be said that Ritchie and his co-writer Lionel Wigram have penned a script which is frequently pretty funny. It helps that the two leads, in particular Cavill, give confident performances that play to their strengths. Cavill – in a role originally earmarked for George Clooney – shows heretofore unseen comic talents, delivering a few brilliantly droll one liners, while Hammer does well opposite him in a slightly less glamorous, slightly more straight role.

Ritchie and his set/costume designers conjure up a believably comic-book take on the 1960s – the film is an adrenaline shot of colour and whimsy, not attempting to portray an entirely ‘real’ world. In much the same way that he did with Sherlock Holmes, Ritchie chooses a world that his style can inflect, but wisely chooses to keep his more flamboyant directorial urges to a minimum, making this a much more enjoyable experience than, say, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, in which he let his attempts at flair inhibit the fun.

First and foremost this is a fun ride. The plot, if one actually looks at it, isn’t as complex as the film would like us to believe, but that doesn’t matter because the interplay between the characters is winning, and some of the set pieces – in particular an escape involving a speedboat and a truck – are genuinely memorable. There are instances in the first act where the script isn’t quite so slick, but as the characters settle down, these are mostly ironed out. There’s good support, too, from Elizabeth Debicki as chief villain Victoria Vinciguerra and a cameoing Hugh Grant, who gets some terrific lines late on.

It’s not all entirely smooth sailing – one action set piece involving a three-way chase across an island is pretty dull – but this a gutsy and broadly successful attempt at establishing, let’s face it, a new franchise. It’s been compared to the Bond films, inevitably, and the comparisons certainly ring true (just don’t expect any Daniel Craig-era brooding), but this is a far funnier film than Kingsman: The Secret Service, which was more farcical but occupied broadly similar territory.

The Man Fr om U.N.C.L.E. is pulpy and fluffy, but knows it is, and never sacrifices its joie de vivre. I’d like to see this cast together again – it’d probably be a lot of fun.

Marielle Heller’s debut feature as a director is a triumphant tale of sexual discovery, yes, but also a delicate depiction of the transition from youth to adulthood, from innocence to experience. The Diary of a Teenage Girl – which tells the story of 15-year-old Minnie (Bel Powley), who engages in an affair with her mum’s 35-year-old boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård) – reminded me in some ways of Abdellatif Kechiche’s terrific Blue is the Warmest Colour, and I mean that as a huge compliment. That film was driven by an outstanding performance from Adele Exarchopoulos as a young woman transitioning into adulthood, and this film boasts a bewitching, powerfully rich turn from British actress Bel Powley (playing drastically below her age) as a teenager discovering sex, powerful emotions and art for the first time.

The success of Heller’s film is that it allows its subject matter to be both deadly serious and playfully funny. It smartly seeds the character traits we see in its protagonists, but we are never encouraged to think that single events or signifiers have solely defined these characters. Minnie’s burgeoning sexual identity, although it is initially drawn out in a corrupted sort of way by the much older Monroe, is portrayed as life-affirming, because Minnie is a smart young woman determined to understand just what on Earth this ‘growing up’ business is all about. She records her feelings out loud in audio logs (the diary of the title), and expresses herself by drawing her fantasies and inner thoughts as cartoons and sketches, some of which come to life in the form of brief animations that segue into and out of the live action. The film portrays the journey of an adolescent mind through Powley’s performance and through its visuals, which is a smart move that gives the film (alongside its well-realised 70s setting) an identity of its own.

At no point does the film forget that what is happening between Minnie and Monroe is fundamentally wrong, but nor does it make any excuses for it. In fact the un-histrionic way Heller deals with this relationship is one of the film’s strengths. It’s also helped by the fact that Bel Powley is so good at portraying on the one hand a mature, smart girl who is keen to explore her sexuality, but on the other an indisputably young and emotionally undeveloped person who, despite her precociousness, is simply not fully ready to experience the things headed her way. Alexander Skarsgård has a tough job on his hands here playing a character who is simultaneously charming and pitiable, a cowboy and a creep. Their relationship is convincing, eerily so at times, but their emotional engagement, particularly in the lovemaking scenes, always carries a profound sense of the out of place, often of the genuinely harrowing. It is to both actors’ credit that they convince as a couple that should never be, and which we as an audience are always torn between wanting to watch and wanting to look away from.

There’s also an excellent supporting cast to enjoy, including Kristen Wiig as Minnie’s mother, who has her own issues behind the scenes, Abigail Wait as Minnie’s adorable sister Gretel, and, in a short cameo, Christopher Meloni as their mother’s ex. Heller allows these characters to breathe just enough that they play important roles but do not intrude on what is fundamentally Minnie’s story, while Nate Heller’s soundtrack coats the whole thing in nostalgia and charm.

If one wanted to be picky, it could be argued that there are times when the script states things a little too obviously, with a whiff of cliché, but it would more apt to champion what is good about the script, which is pretty much everything else. Although some of the film’s content dictates that much of its target audience may not immediately be able to see it (it is rated 18  in the UK), The Diary of a Teenage Girl is surely destined to become a tentpole coming-of-age movie and, I imagine, a significant vehicle for the careers of everyone involved.

Since the extraordinary run of success Pixar put together in the second half of the noughties (beginning with Ratatouille and ending with Toy Story 3), there has been, by the company’s high standards, a bit of a lull. Cars 2 was light, not matching its predecessor (which was itself one of the studio’s lesser pictures), Brave was sweet but ultimately unmemorable, and Monsters University, while very good, wasn’t up to the level of the original. So while it would be unfair to say Pixar had something to prove, it’s fair to say that Inside Out, the studio’s latest feature directed by Up’s Pete Docter (alongside Ronnie del Carmen), had a fair amount riding on it. This could, and hopefully will be, the start of a new ‘golden era’ at Pixar. Inside Out is everything the studio can be when at its absolute best.

Inside Out’s main characters are the emotions inside a girl called Riley’s mind. Together, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust must program this developing human brain to comprehend and react to the situations around it. They store Riley’s memories, recalling them when necessary, and decide how she should react in the real world. All of this is set inside the abstract canvas of the mind: an endlessly changing landscape filled with thoughts, memories and islands representing key personality deciders, including ‘family’, ‘friendship’ and ‘honesty’. When Riley’s home life is disturbed by her parents’ intention to move to the city, the emotions must find a way for her to deal with change, and the inherent issues of growing up. Problem is, Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) have become lost in Riley’s mind, leaving the more combustible emotions in charge.

The film is an emotional rollercoaster, pun intended, a visual treat and a triumph of dramatic imagination. It, like all the best family films, is smart and un-patronising, both for kids and adults alike. The ideas are as colossal as ‘imagination’, ‘memory’ and ‘emotion’ but the film dramatises all of this through the medium of adorable, lovable and beautifully written characters. Riley’s reactions feel real, as does the sometimes twisted logic of her emotional controllers, but the film doesn’t ever relax too much into its winning setup; instead, Docter constantly pushes his film towards the next idea, the next logical progression of this metaphorical world, and the film, as a result, is not only emotionally complex and richly rewarding, but also varied and thrilling. The fight to restore Riley’s emotional balance, while retaining the core memories that make her who she is, is achingly beautiful, and the film regularly pulls on the heartstrings in the most raw and satisfying ways.

Inside Out’s brilliant screenplay, by Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, allows its characters time to breathe without scrimping on dramatic and action sequences to keep everything moving, but dedicates real love to all of its characters, even the minor ones. There are so many details in here – even in throwaway elements such as the imaginary boyfriend generator in Riley’s mind – to make the whole thing a joy. What’s even more impressive is that the film is only 90 minutes long. How they squeezed such a dense tapestry into such a tight runtime is a minor miracle.

I haven’t even mentioned Michael Giacchino’s tender score or the quality of the voice acting. The quality of the animation we can take as read. Suffice it to say, all of Inside Out’s elements come together to make it a memorable addition to Pixar’s list of hits. Docter’s film builds on the emotional resonance achieved in earlier Pixar films, in particular his own Up, and eloquently expresses those feelings on a canvas rich with invention. There’s even time for an amusing coda showing the activities of emotions in the brains of minor characters, and as always there’s a charming short film preceding the feature, in this case Lava , written and directed by James Ford Murphy, which isn’t one of Pixar’s very best shorts, but will raise a smile nonetheless. All in all, Pixar’s latest is an unmissable treat.

The story, as in many Westerns, is simple: young Scotsman Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is making his way across Colorado (represented by beautiful New Zealand shooting locations) when he meets a drifter by the name of Silas (Michael Fassbender), who offers to keep Jay safe for money. Jay is searching for his lost love Rose (Caren Pistorius), but Silas may well have his own reasons for wanting to find her.

Silas impresses upon Jay the dangerous nature of the territory he’s rather naively stumbling into, but Maclean allows his film to meander along at an unhurried pace, refreshingly choosing to eschew the traditional ‘dangers’ we might see in Westerns in favour of chance, almost whimsical, meetings with idiosyncratic individuals and situations. In traditional Western fashion, it all ends with a shootout, but even then it’s one full of twists and surprises.

And black comedy. Indeed, the darkly humorous edge of Maclean’s film is part of its individuality, and the director relishes in subverting what we might be expecting. There are even one or two moments of outright slapstick – unexpected but oddly fitting in Maclean’s version of the Old West.

If the film is little light in terms of character development or emotional depth, it’s not to any great detriment. The characters work, the landscapes are shot beautifully and there’s a lovely soundtrack accompanying the action. Whe n the action breaks out, Maclean has a keen grip on that, too. This quirky, confident Western belies the fact it is the director’s first feature, and marks him out as one to watch.