A young woman faces a terrifying ordeal in J Blakeson’s accomplished feature directorial debut. The Disappearance Of Alice Creed is an edge of seat thriller that by its simple design – three characters trapped predominantly in one location – could easily have started life on the stage. The intimacy of the set-up works in the film’s favour, forcing Blakeson to develop his protagonists to sustain our interest and the dramatic momentum.

Regular visitors to Best For Film will know that we’re a little bit sceptical when it comes to films that rely primarily on CGI effects to impress. Add to that we’re not exactly smitten with the oeuvre of serial planet-abuser Roland Emmerich (seriously, the guy’s destroyed the planet so many times he makes Galactus looks like a sulky toddler in a sand pit) and 2012 isn’t exactly the kind of film we usually look forward to

After the gross exercise in smug self-indulgence that was Kill Bill and the sadly inconsequential tackiness of Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino looks to be back on form in the utterly demented joy that is Inglourious Basterds.

Zombieland comes lurching out of the same genre as that of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, a film which set the bar for the zomcom, and it set it pretty high. Luckily, Zombieland has still got enough going for it to compare favorably with the yardstick.

The Fourth Kind has been endlessly marketed as the next big thing in the docu-drama niche, touting its real-to-life credentials with all the po-faced gravitas of a clinically depressed geography teacher. A cursory glance, let alone a detailed investigation, is all you need to discover that somebody, somewhere, is covering up the truth regarding their background material…

Micmacs, or to give it its full French title, Micmacs à tire-larigot, is the sixth feature from French auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet. A comic tale of revenge and the joy of personal expression, it’s a film that sits admirably alongside Jeunet’s previous iconoclastic offerings Amélie and Delicatessen. Fans of Jeunet will enjoy immersing themselves in the director’s trademark visual style and quirkiness while newcomers will come away hungry to check out more of his work.

Joel Silver has announced to the LA Times that Guy Ritchie set to be back for the second Sherlock Holmes film. With Robert Downey Jr. having recently dropped out of John Favreau’s inelegantly-titled Cowboys And Aliens, it seems the Baker Street boys are having a sequel rushed through production. There’s already plot info in the works, and with Ritchie dropping his current project Lobo, we’d be highly surprised if we didn’t see Homles 2 sometime in the latter half of the year…

Stunningly good, A Prophet, the latest film from The Beat That My Heart Skipped director Jacques Auidiard grabs you from the start, pulls a burlap sack over your head and doesn’t let up with its intensity and drive for any one of its 155 minutes. A gruelling masterclass in taut, engaging and wholly believable cinema, A Prophet is one release that’s going to be essential not only for fans of crime drama, but also those who like to take their cinema seriously.

Planned Hobbit films get year-long delay. Planned for a December 2011 release, Variety hinted that Guillermo del Toro’s highly-anticipated adaptation won’t been seen until the “fourth quarter 2012”. As well as delays in writing the second film’s script, MGM’s upcoming sale has also thrown a spanner into the works.

New Gremlins 3D on the way? A new film in the Gremlins has been talked out pretty much since Gremlins 2: The New Batch hit our screens back in 1990. Though Joe Dante has publicly stated he won’t be involved (speaking to horror movie site Bloody Disgusting last year, he didn’t exactly mix his words: “They won’t be coming to me. I can tell you that for a fact.”) the studio bods seem keen.