Stonehearst Asylum (2014)

Madness and Civilisation: The Masterpiece Theatre edition!

Jack and the Cuckoo-clock Heart (Jack et la mécanique du cœur) (2013)

Everything old is new again as modern animation finds ways to tell a story differently

Paradise in Service (軍中樂園) (2014)

Asians are politically incorrect. Proof: The comfort women issue gets a Wonder Years treatment in Paradise in Service!

The Judge (2014)

Stuffed with downer endings and sucker punchlines, The Judge is the Game of Thrones of courtroom dramas and dysfunctional family dramas!

Brotherhood of Blades (绣春刀) (2014)

Once more, the Ming dynasty and its political intrigues are a big thing in Chinese film

Lupin III (2014)

Madcap, frenetic, and cheekily good-humoured, Lupin III is a great introduction to a manga classic

The Babadook (2014)

Scary children's book freaks out family when monster literally pops up to haunt them!

Life of Crime (2013)

Little known fact: Robert de Niro and Samuel L Jackson play the same characters in the sequel to this film!

The Giver (2014)

In the future, there is no racism, sexism, inequality, or discrimination of any kind. Look what we did to eradicate all these evils!

The Four 3 (四大名捕 3) (2014)

Hong Kong’s Gordon Chan concludes his Chinese X-Men franchise with sound, fury, and a flurry of carebear stares!

Soekarno: Indonesia Merdeka (2013)

Finally, a WW2 film made by the Allies that has a positive portrayal of the Japanese!

Ju-on: The beginning of the end (呪怨: 終わりの始まり) (2014)

Despite its title, Ju-on 7 is the beginning of the remake of the franchise

Hateship, Loveship (2013)

The post-feminist age bottles up Cinderella as a suburban wish fulfilment fantasy for all the Mary Sues out there

Make Me Shudder 2: Shudder Me Mae Nak (มัธยมปากหมาท้าแม่นาค) (2014)

Make Me Shudder 2 is a decent enough amusement if you can speak Thai. Otherwise, you’ll miss more than half of the jokes

Under the Skin (2013)

Scarlett Johansson oozes sex appeal that can melt a man into a puddle in this update of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s Elizabeth Arden advertisement

Chef (2014)

America... on the road Again

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Is it a stinker or a hit? I admit I watched this just to see Tom Cruise die over and over again!

Fading Gigolo (2013)

John Turturro serves up a sex comedy that's a cross between Woody Allen and the Coen brothers

The Zero Theorem (2013)

Watch Brazil instead

The Best Offer (La migliore offerta) (2013)

Artsy art porn take on classic tale of conman getting beaten at his own game

Transcendence (2014)

Transcendence is this decade's The Net!

Noah (2014)

Visionary auteur meets studio, agrees to make the ultimate disaster movie. Hilarity ensues.

Black Butler (黒執事) (2014)

Black Butler takes extraordinary liberties with its source material—and pulls off something most interesting

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

A fastidious hotel concierge (Ralph Fiennes) who’s a hit with the elderly ladies is willed a priceless masterpiece of a painting when a dowager (Tilda Swinton in baroque old age makeup) inevitably expires. He hasn’t got any time to enjoy it thanks to the machinations of a moustache-twirling evil heir (Adrien Brody) and his violent henchman (Willem Dafoe), but you have about over 90 minutes to savour a carefully-crafted comic caper.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Poor Captain America. The superhero just got thawed out of an ice block. Yet before he’s had time for enough fish out of water shenanigans to fuel an SNL special, he’s had to fight off an alien invasion and now a global espionage conspiracy that may have compromised or even subverted SHIELD, his new employer.

Project Hashima (ฮาชิมะ โปรเจกต์) (2013)

A bunch of ill-fated unemployed Thai youngsters struggling for their first big break take an assignment to shoot an episode for a trashy horror-travel programme and end up getting spooked to within an inch of their lives.

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

With the ever-shouting King Leonidas dead at the end of 300, the Greco-Persian war shifts to the naval Battle of Salamis, with Athenian general Thermistocles and Queen Artemisia I as the feuding commanders. If you really want to find out how the battle went, don’t watch this film; it butchers history far worse than 300.

Epic (2013)

If you ever wondered why Epic didn’t feel engaging, this is my answer

Days and Clouds (Giorni e nuvole) (2007)

A comfortably rich couple are financially ruined and in the devastation of the Italian economy, find themselves sinking down the class ladder faster than their cash is running out.

Filth (2013)

Can no film top the genius that was Trainspotting?

3 Days to Kill (2014)

A dying CIA assassin takes the retirement package, travelling to Paris to spend quality time with his estranged wife and kid. The CIA however wants him for one last job.

The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ) (2013)

In the interwar years, a boy obsessed with airplanes grows up into an aviation designer wunderkind. His talent and his passion will be his triumph and his tragedy.

Out of the Furnace (2013)

The modern western gets a modern runtime; western fans may want Out of the Furnace

August: Osage County (2013)

Let me tell you a story and you tell me: is it material for a comedy or a tragedy?

--Melinda and Melinda

Two Moons (두 개의 달) (2012)

Two Moons is what you get when the mystery and horror genres get crossed in a most unholy union

Her (2013)

Joaquin Phoenix has a meaningful relationship with his personal computer in Spike Jonze’s scifi arthouse take on Chobits

The Legend of Hercules (2014)

The legend of who again?

The Four 2 (四大名捕 2) (2013)

Hong Kong’s Gordan Chan wants to redo the X-Men as a wuxia franchise

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street is more Dr Strangelove than Wall Street