The Boys are Back doesn’t work as well as it thinks it does. By all accounts, it should be a stand-out for the drama genre this year – a teary but heart-warming memoir of an absentee dad thrust into single parenthood, brought to the screen by the king of the subtle dramatic performance, Clive Owen. Add in some lovely scenic shots of the South Australian coast and acclaimed Shine director Scott Hicks at the helm, and you should be onto a winner. While it’s an interesting look at what loss can do to a family, it’s not exactly a warm-and-fuzzy tale for the ages.

Catholic schools. Priests. Sexual abuse allegations. Does this equal a film we’d want to see? Probably not. At best, it would be dull, at worst quite disturbing. Nevertheless, given the Oscar hype surrounding this adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s play last year, we decided it couldn’t be that bad. In fact, this 1960’s-set drama centring around a nun’s mission to prove a progressive priest guilty of sexual abuse of a student turned out to be quite a unique and thought-provoking film experience.

Gran Torino is vintage Clint Eastwood at his best. From Dirty Harry to Million Dollar Baby, he’s made his signature character into an art form, a hypnotising, hardened beast of a human that you can’t take your eyes off, and yet one that’s never without redeeming qualities either. In this self-directed tale of a bigoted retiree coming to terms with his Asian neighbours in middle America, Eastwood gives us enough bad-ass attitude, along with poignant drama to stand Gran Torino alongside his earlier Oscar-winning efforts.

It’s nice when documentary filmmakers come up with new angles to the ‘poor underdog’ theme. Since the genre first became commercial enough for cinema release, we’ve had our heartstrings pulled every which way, to the point where the concept’s getting old. But Joe Berlinger’s new release Crude, which centres around a class action by a group of Ecuadorian tribes against a US oil giant, manages to raise some unusually interesting points about the nature of the environmentalist movement and just who is right and wrong in a case like this.

The British talent for satire is brilliantly displayed in In the Loop. This film spin-off from the BBC series The Thick of It chronicles the life and times of several US and UK government figureheads in the days before the invasion of Iraq. The cracking script and brilliant cast keep the laughs coming hard and fast, while director Armando Iannucci’s hand-held camera techniques create an almost uncomfortably close-to-the-bone sense of realism. If you missed this film at the cinema, it’s well worth grabbing on DVD for the best laughs you’ve had in ages and one-liners you’ll be repeating for weeks.

Blur was responsible for our generation’s initiation into British rock music. That’s why many nostalgic Gen X’s and Y’s will go to see this new documentary that chronicles the band’s rise and fall and their temporary reunion for a series of tour dates in 2009. It’s a little hero-worshippy, but charmingly filled with ’90s Britpop nostalgia and the concert scenes are brilliantly shot. A worthy tribute to the band that began our musical education.

Denzel Washington crashes onto DVD with the remake of the 1974 Taking of Pelham 123, also starring John Travolta in another of his couldn’t-care-less villain roles. What happened, John? You used to be cool, and you ain’t gonna get another gig like Pulp Fiction anytime soon. Sort it out. And lose some weight.

After the stunner that was Spider-Man 2 (in our humble opinion one of the best superhero films ever made), Spidey 3 certainly had a weight of expectation against it. And unfortunately, it’s not really the send-off the franchise – not the mention the considerable talents of Maguire, Dunst, Raimi et al – deserved.

From the writers of Sexy Beast comes 44 Inch Chest, a new Brit gangster flick starring Ray Winstone, Ian McShane and John Hurt. It’s the story of Col, a cuckolded mob who gathers his friends together to take revenge on his wife’s French lover. But with the loss of his wife imminent, Col starts to reassess his life, suddenly unsure of the abject masculinity he’s surrounded himself with all his life.

Still Walking is quite simply a masterclass in creating subtle, hauntingly moving family drama, and anyone watching it will have a hard time forgetting the relationships it presents us with. It’s rare to come across such a low-key minature masterpiece and is a very welcome reminder of the understated wonder that good cinema can create.