The harrowing story of an intersex teenager struggling to establish her identity. Or is that his identity? See, even we’re confused…

Mike Leigh’s gentle send-up of neighbourly relations is as enjoyable now as it was in the Seventies.

Andrei Filipov was once the greatest conductor the Bolshoi Orchestra had ever seen. Thirty years later, deposed and disgraced, he cleans the theatre where he once strove for musical perfection. His ambitions seem forever lost, until one day he stumbles across a message which promise him a last shot at giving the performance of a lifetime…

With the final instalment of the Toy Story trilogy opening in cinemas this week, it’s no wonder that parents (and grown-ups furtively pretending to be parents in order to justify their DVD collection) are stocking up on the celebrated parts one and two. Already being hailed as one of history’s most successful film trilogies, it looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more DVD love from Woody, Buzz and the entire Toy Story team. And we couldn’t be happier about it.

Is it worse to feel too little, or too much? Leaving, by Catherine Corsini gives us a sharp, tight insight into a life turned upside-down by love, and unflinchingly explores what we are willing to sacrifice for our own happiness. It’s grubby, sweaty, undignified and often difficult to watch, but thanks to excellent direction and gorgeous performances all round this film manages to breathe a cool grace into its hot and sticky material.

Five years seems to be the appropriate mourning period which passes between a humanitarian disaster and its accompanying movies. But after Oliver Stone’s lumpen adaptation of the 9/11 attacks, Rachid Bouchareb’s look at the aftermath of the London bombings is well worth a watch.

When contemplating how I might rate director Claire Dennis’ latest film, I was hit with an odd conundrum. How could I judge this piece of drama as a ‘film’ in..

Whatever happened to SatC’s spark? The programme’s USP was originally its progressive approach to modern women with modern sex lives, but at what point did someone think that ‘Cynthia Nixon getting them out’ constituted a sociosexual statement?

The vampire has become so well integrated into popular culture it is hard to imagine a time when a romance didn’t come with fangs, and their recent resurrection can be attributed to one film: Twilight. With one brooding scowl from R-Pattz the world was divided into two groups: swooning squealing Twi-hards and, well, sane people. Yes, as you may have guessed I am not exactly what you’d call a fan. I have never read the books and anything that makes a teenage girl scream like a banshee in my vicinity was always going to provoke feelings of intense hate from me. However, even I can admit Twilight is not without its good qualities.

Thanks to the tag-line “Ein Zwei Die!”, it was love at first sight for me and Dead Snow, a Norwegian zombie film in which a group of fine young things find themselves conveniently isolated from rescue in a snug, wooden ski cabin.