Critical Week: The world in his hands

Awards season is cranking up earlier than usual this year, kicking off even before the Toronto International Film Festival finished. So screenings have kept me on the run this week. The biggest was the world premiere royal performance of Digger, with Tom Cruise, Alejandro G Iñárritu and the cast on hand to watch this astonishingly enormous movie. People will love or hate it, but it's undeniably full-on. I also had screenings of two Toronto titles: the hugely crowd-pleasing biopic I Play Rocky features an amazing performance by Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone makes of his classic underdog movie. And Rhys Ifans and Laura Linney star in Onwards and Sideways, an involving romance that knowingly takes on Parkinson's.

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Elsewhere, Emilia Jones and Nick Robinson star in Charlie Harper, which gets a little over-emotive as it spirals around a love story. Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton lead Nicolas Winding Refn's fantastical futuristic thriller Her Private Hell, which looks amazing but doesn't hold together. From Belgium, the gorgeously animated drama In Waves is a superbly moving true story about surfers. I also enjoyed De Gaulle: Liberté, the expertly made conclusion of the two-part biopic starring Simon Abkarian as the French general, this time covering the final years of WWII. The German satire Babystar is witty and very pointed as it sharply lampoons social media culture. The Filipino black comedy Filipiñana is simply stunning: funny, skilfully shot and darkly powerful. And Juliette Binoche directed In-I in Motion, tracing her collaboration with choreographer Akram Khan on a stage show. She presented the screening herself, and held a terrific Q&A at the end. I also had a live performance of the National Dance Company Wales' show Blue | Glas.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Sebastian Stan in the Cannes winner Fjord, the dramatic thriller Child, the Spanish drama The Portuguese House and three documentaries: The Last First: Winter K2, How Deep Is Your Love and Kikuyu Land, plus live performances of Deepfake and Flamenc Oh!

Critical Week: Fashion victim

This past week, I caught up with Elle Fanning in Nicolas Winding Refn's new horror drama The Neon Demon, the latest slick, lurid, fascinating, infuriating film from the Danish filmmaker. Another stylish thriller, Nerve, stars Emma Roberts and Dave Franco (sorry, comments are embargoed). And then there was some comedy: Ghostbusters entertainingly reboots the franchise with a terrific quartet of comedic actresses, while Ice Age: Collision Course carries on the ridiculous antics of that growing herd of loveable but random prehistoric critters.

Further afield, Pedro Almodovar's Julieta is a fluid, beautifully emotive drama with a twisty story and a terrific cast. The acclaimed Greek comedy-drama Chevalier is a fiercely clever dissection of masculine bravado. K-Shop is a solidly made British horror thriller with blackly comical overtones. And the latest collection from Peccadillo, Boys on Film 15: Time & Tied, features nine strikingly well-made short films addressing issues of gender and sexuality from a variety of astute, personal angles.

This coming week we have the long-awaited Matt Damon-starring sequel Jason Bourne, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl's The BFG, Disney's remake of Pete's Dragon, Chris Pine in Hell or High Water and the oddly titled journalist doc Jim: The James Foley Story.