What’s it about?
Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) is a beautiful but damaged women living in Depression-era South Carolina, swept up in a whirlwind romance by logging company owner George (Bradley Cooper). She will go to any lengths to protect her new-found life and happiness.

What did we think?
Alice Barbery says: It’s worth the price of admission just to watch Jennifer’s performance as Serena. This is a sensual film managing to manoeuvre through a complex plot with engaging style. All sins are paid for in this story and while the characters are flawed they remain sympathetic. In the end there are always consequences for actions, and these ensure audience is satisfied with all outcomes. You’ll leave feeling haunted by such an intimately shared depth of love, grief, desperation and ambition.

What’s is about?
Three male entrepreneurs (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis) are scammed out of their own start-up by a slick investor (Christoph Waltz), prompting an attempt to kidnap his hotheaded son (Chris Pine) and use the ransom to keep themselves afloat.

What did we think?
Dominic Barlow says: Terrible, but you’d expect nothing less from the film-maker behind such movies as That’s My Boy and We’re the Millers. When Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis aren’t yabbering at each other, it’s dispensing thuddingly dumb jokes that are sometimes just bold-faced sexism and racism. The caper sequences toward the end have some visual creativity, and the supporting actors (particularly Chris Pine) seem to be having fun, but it’s not nearly enough to make the movie worth seeing.

What’s it about?
In modern-day Texas, three compromised families are fraught with lust, change and despair as they navigate the world found online and off.

What did we think?
Dominic Barlow says: In this soothingly intimate and captivating film, Reitman (the director of Juno and Up in the Air) pulls together various stories in a sincere bid to understand how technology is infused into our lives, by visually representing the characters’ text messages and computer desktops with great flair. His broad approach can sometimes become disaffecting, particularly with a motif involving an intergalactic satellite and narration by Emma Thompson, but his amazing cast of actors (which includes the likes of Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner and Judy Greer) give highly engaging and nuanced performances. It’s unabashedly dramatic, but also quite humorous and much more self-aware than many reviewers give it credit for.

What’s it about?
A thief who witnesses an accident starts a business filming incidents and selling them to local news.

What did we think?
Imogen Chapman says: Jake Gylenhaal is excellent at two things: being super beautiful, and playing intense weirdos. He’s serving the latter in Nightcrawler, and it’s definitely one of his creepy best. This is the kind of movie that will make you feel so morally uncomfortable at what you see happening that you’ll need to take a shower. That being said, it’s amazing. It’s the kind of movie that you keep thinking about for days afterwards. I can still kind of feel JG’s giant eyes staring at me…

What’s it about?
Having been thrust into the the spotlight as the reluctant face of the rebellion, Katniss must help inspire others to overthrow the Capitol.

What did we think?
Elizabeth says: It’s all a bit lather, rinse, repeat at this point of the franchise: Katniss looks horrified at something the Capitol did, Katniss gets upset, Katniss channels her upset into anger, Katniss attacks. Katniss looks horrified again, Katniss gets upset again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It may have made commercial sense to cut the final book of the trilogy into two parts but it leaves us without the payoff this installment sorely needed. It’s entertaining enough and fans will love it regardless of what anyone says but without it’s predecessors, this mockingjay wouldn’t fly.

What’s it about?
Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) the exiled daughter of a Hollywood power couple (John Cusack and Olivia Williams) returns to LA to reconnect with her famous younger brother (Evan Bird). Violence pursues those around her, including a frustrated actor turned chauffeur (Robert Pattinson) and fading star Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore).

What did we think?
Scott Ford says: A cavalcade of stars, commentary on celebrity and self-help, incest and tween violence — director David Cronenberg has packed a lot into this film, but nothing sticks. The plot, which gestures at classical tragedy and references surrealist poetry, is often advanced by the appearance of exposition-spewing phantoms and is entirely forgettable.

Cronenberg’s direction is excellent as ever, dancing the line between alienation and intimacy. The dialogue between tween superstars is a reminder of his talent for making discomfiture compelling. But there are also more than a few regrettable moments. Maps to the Stars is a lot adding up to not much.