The Duke, directed by the late Roger Michell (1956-2021), is a delight. At its heart is a towering, defining performance from Jim Broadbent and an unforgettably surprising role for Helen Mirren.

Broadbent plays a real-life character, the Newcastle taxi driver Kempton Bunton (1904-1976), who stole Francisco Goya's "Portrait of the Duke of Wellington" from the National Gallery in 1961. He returned the picture much later and also confessed to the theft.

Edmond Rostand’s familiar story of ventriloquised love becomes a sensual, sacrificial tragedy, in Joe Wright’s heady cinematic Valentine, adapted by screenwriter Erica Schmidt from her own stage musical, with music by members of The National.

La Mif is French slang for family  - it’s the cool kids practice of reversing key words known as ‘verlan’ (itself l’envers backwards) to create their own language.

You generally find that a movie with Andrea Riseborough in it is worth a look, and so it proves here.

Even today, Charlie Chaplin still earns glowing accolades from critics for his work during the formative years of cinema, though a contemporary viewing public saturated in CGI and superheroes might struggle to see the allure of his oeuvre as the “Little Tramp”.

Publishing this review of In the Realm of the Senses the day after Valentine’s Day feels very strange. Nagisa Ōshima’s 1976 film is about sex and obsession. Sexual games that start with insatiable lust progress to hitting, a choking to death, and a particular kind of dismemberment. What's love got to do with it? Good question.

With some films it’s all about the editing, a brisk parade of striking images accompanied by a kinetic score.  And then there are films like Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and the Oscar-nominated Drive My Car, where the camera stays still and watches the performers watching each other talk.

Lots of drama follows well-worn paths; just as we expect that in a tragedy that Chekhov's gun (or variants of it) will deliver the denouement, so we know that in a romcom the two leads will end up together. So – no spoilers, but you know the drill – Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson's characters overcome all sorts of obstacles that could thwart their romance.

Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh's second visit to Agatha Christie's oeuvre, was supposed to be released in November 2020 but Covid, a studio sale and some embarrassing revelations about one of its cast members put paid to that. Was it worth the wait? Not really.