20 new films to get excited about

This year's 'Babadook' scares the hell out of you with the slightest movement and creates a genuinely terrifying new monster. We gave it the full five stars.

This powerful Hungarian drama is the ultimate animal revenge drama, descibed as the canine 'I Spit On Your Grave' in which an abandoned pet goes through hell until enough is enough and the dogs get their own back... Don't think 'Greyfriar's Bobby' - slightly more 'Cujo' on steroids.

Can Will Smith recover from his recent crop of poor films? We're willing him to, and this good-looking con artist flick might give him the boost he needs at the box office.

Rumours abound that Blomkamp and Weaver are working on a new 'Alien' film but, until then, this new one from the director of 'District 9' and 'Elysium' stars Weaver and Hugh Jackman in a tale of a new type of AI.

Julianne Moore's Oscar win this year means we're going to get some fine acting in this drama about a woman, her family and friends learning to deal with the onset of early Alzheimers. It's a five star triumph.

Maxine Peake's sell out performance as Hamlet at Manchester's Royal Exchange last year gets a cinema release. Whilst she is outstanding as the troubled prince, other members of the cast are far from left in the background in this oustanding production.

With cuddly Ken Branagh behind the lens and Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter camping it up as the wicked stepmother and fairy godmother, this lavish Disney production stays true to their animated version, whilst trying to flesh out the characters to be a little less two dimensional.

Russell Crowe in front of the lens and behind it too for the first time in a story based on true events about a father looking for the resting place of his war-dead sons. It's already winning big time awards in its native country.

YES! Back for their second outing, the super-cool superheroes willbe fighting a very formidable foe indeed. Genuis Joss Whedon, for surely his name should be changed to that, is once again the man with the megahorn. And we mean he's directing, not that he's really, really turned on.

Dogme veteran and ‘The Hunt’ director Thomas Vinterberg is in charge, with Carey Mulligan and ‘Bullhead’ actor Matthias Schoenaerts as the romantic leads in this adaptation of the Hardy classic.

It has been 20 years since Mel Gibson and Tina Turner took us beyond thunderdome. Now it's the turn of Tom Hardy, saying barely a word, and Charlize Theron to revisit the post apocolyptic landscape in the more than capable hands of director George Miller. Excited? We are.

In Timbuktu, in the west African state Mali, shepherd Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) lives a quiet life with his wife and child in the dunes. But the life of the village is about to take a turn for the violent as radical Jihadists take over. Where once was beauty and calm, terror seeps in in this wondrous tale of the effects of extremism.

It's over 20 years since 'Jurassic Park' showed us what could be done with CGI, but it would have been nothing in the hands of the wrong director. This time, as the park opens to thoasands of people, it's left to star Chris Pratt to do the rescuing and director Colin Trevorrow to call the shots. No, we don't really know who he is either...

The best thing about the ‘Despicable Me’ franchise get their own family-friendly animated movie in which one of them accidentally gets crowned the King of England... 

He's back. He said he would be. And this time our very own time lord, Matt Smith, is on board too, as is new Oscar winner JK Simmons. Directed by the man who made 'Thor: The Dark World', expect lots of action and very few words from Arnie.

Marvel's new gamble could be a bigger risk than they took with 'Guardians of the Galaxy' - at least that paid off. Here, Paul Rudd (they do have a habbit of casting people you wouldn't think of as their superheroes), goes small rather than big, as scientist Michael Douglas gives him a suit which makes him size of an ant but gives him massive strength. Honey, I shrunk Paul Rudd. Directed by Peyton Reed, who made the vastly underrated 'Down With Love'.

A very lavish trailer heralds this origin story about the boy who would be Peter and the man who would be Hook. Hugh Jackman stars. Yes, he'd make an ideal Hook but he's not playing him... Director Joe Wright ('Atonement') can take things very seriously so let's hope for some levity amongst the swash and buckle.

Back in 1982 the team of Steven Spielberg as writer and producer and Tobe Hooper as director brought us a thrill ride classic which has been revived this year with Sam Raimi producing and Gil Kenan ('Monster House') at the helm. And with Sam Rockwell starring, you hope the script will be a step above the current crop of cheap scare flicks. The kids in the trailer look cute. But not for long. And the clown is back...

Given that Steven Soderbergh was directing, it maybe shouldn't have been that big a surprise that the male stripping Channing Tatum vehical 'Magic Mike' was actually quite superb. The sequel has Soderbergh as exec producer as well as cinematographer and editor, but not director, so let's hope his influence is felt all over this sequel.

Hot on the news that the affable Mr Apatow will be directing the new Pee Wee Herman film - joy of joys - comes the release of his new film. The writer and director of 'The 40 Year Old Virgin' and 'Kncoked Up' tackles the story of a woman who doesn't believe in monogomy but who finds herself falliing in love. It's the first film Apatow has directed from someone else's script but the trialer has all of the Apatow trademarks.