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