1 Spider-Man: Homecoming (12A)
(Jon Watts, 2017, US) 133 mins
A third reboot in 15 years might be overdoing it, but this incarnation at least feels like a teen movie about a superhero, rather than a superhero movie about a teenager. That’s mostly down to Tom Holland, who has the charm and the youth to sell the role of an adolescent eager to join the big boys but still prone to the usual high-school anxieties.
2 Baby Driver (15)
(Edgar Wright, 2017, UK/US) 113 mins
Wright gives the classic American car-chase movie a run for its money, staging joyous, white-knuckle set pieces, even if the chaotic plot threatens to spin out of control. Ansel Elgort is our damaged young hero, a getaway driver whose skills behind the wheel can’t set him free from crime boss Kevin Spacey.
3 It Comes at Night (15)
(Trey Edward Shults, 2017, US) 92 mins
The title and the setting (a post-apocalyptic cabin in the woods) suggest some kind of zombie flick, but the horror is harder to define in a movie that doesn’t play by genre rules. Joel Edgerton is a paranoid patriarch whose family’s regimented survival routine is unsettled by unexpected visitors.
4 Chubby Funny (15)
(Harry Michell, 2016, UK) 89 mins
Authenticity triumphs over budget with this charming, naturalistic London comedy, with a hero (played by Michell himself) who’s refreshingly atypical and endearingly unheroic. His hopes of making it as an actor – despite not being “leading man material” – take a series of knocks, as do his romantic aspirations, and it doesn’t help that his handsome flatmate is getting all the breaks.
5 Song to Song (15)
(Terrence Malick, 2017, US) 129 mins
Genius auteur or poseur? Malick’s latest is unlikely to win him new converts, but he still has an inimitable way of collaging a story together out of sensual imagery and whispered inner thoughts. We’re at the classier end of the music business here, where Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara and Michael Fassbender drift in and out of love against a backdrop of festivals and rock-star cameos.
