All recommended films

You might already know how the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 turned out: how over 300,000 mainly British troops escaped from the beach and harbour of a northern French port while being bombarded by the Nazis. But the power of Christopher Nolan’sharrowing, unusual war film is that it tries hard, with real success, not to make any of this feel like just another war movie. 

Music sounds better when you’re on the road. In ‘Baby Driver’, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ director Edgar Wright takes the car-chase action film – loaded with tyre squeals – and weds it to a cracking jukebox playlist. The result is the most supercharged piece of motorised choreography since John Landis destroyed a fleet of cop cars in ‘The Blues Brothers’. Wright’s hero, Baby (‘The Fault in Our Stars’ actor Ansel Elgort), still has a hint of peach fuzz on his cheeks, but he’s a genius with a gearstick. 

They’re full of whirling metal parts, but the ‘Transformers’ movies haven't always run like clockwork. Michael Bay may be Hollywood's poet laureate of pyrotechnics, but rarely has he made these 'bot epics sing, much less flow in a coherent way. Regardless, all the films bear his undeniable signature (something that can't be said for most action directors): gorgeous moments of billowing catastrophe, lens-flared beauty and pure lunkheadedness. 

Musician Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) sits down at a Los Angeles diner, where he instantly takes an interest in waitress Julie Peters (Mare Winningham). The feeling is mutual, too, so the pair arranges a date for later that day. But things go awry when Harry picks up a random pay phone call from a frantic soldier who warns of a nuclear attack that will hit L.A. within the hour. Scrambling, Harry finds Julie and the two do everything they can to escape to safety.

In the opening frames of this murky megabudget monster mash, the famous Universal logo – a twinkling globe – revolves and dims, revealing the words ‘DARK UNIVERSE’ in glowering block capitals. We’re not messing about, the new emblem screams. This cinematic franchise we’re building, set to incorporate Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, will be every bit as vast and sprawling as anything Marvel or DC have to offer. 

A prodigiously talented cast is drowned out by a cacophony of gunshots in ‘High-Rise’ director Ben Wheatley’s entertainingly absurd riff on a ‘Reservoir Dogs’-style crooks ’n’ quips caper. It's the kind of guns-blazing free-for-all that might be described as a 'bullet ballet'. 

Before seeing ‘Wonder Woman’, I got a sinking feeling. It’s been more than a decade since a woman headlining a superhero film saved the world. I had visions of middle-aged male studio execs huddled together in a conference room Googling feminism and group-thinking how to make a lady-hero. 

U.S. soldiers Allan "Ize" Isaac and Shane Matthews answer a distress call in the desert of postwar Iraq. Suddenly, gunshots erupt, leaving Shane badly injured and Allan with a bullet in his leg. Forced to take cover behind a crumbling stone wall, Isaac now finds himself in a fight for survival against an unseen sniper who has all of the advantages.

It’s set in southern France, but this low-key, bleak film is a very British drama. A mum (Juliet Stevenson) and her teenage son, Elliot (Alex Lawther), are both facing emotional difficulties (her marriage is crumbling; he thinks he’s gay). And both deal with their problems in a very British way, by isolating themselves from each other and occasionally freaking out. 

Fearful of repeating the invasion of Gallipoli in 1915, Winston Churchill attempts to stop the planned invasion of Normandy in 1944. Only the support of Churchill's wife, Clementine, can halt the prime minister's physical and mental collapse.