Summed up in a sentence: Keeley Hawes puts in a fantastic performance in a hugely fun thriller about a menopausal hitwoman who ends up having to go on the run with her adult son.
"The Assassin is perfectly crafted preposterousness. It is stylish, witty, tightly written, even more tightly paced and takes the job of massively entertaining us at every turn with the proper amount of seriousness."
Lucy Mangan
Further reading 'Must-have genre' for uncertain times: why spy thrillers have taken over TV
Summed up in a sentence: A rich, subtle and sophisticated drama about child sexual abuse from renowned writer Jimmy McGovern.
"It is an altogether richer, more subtle and more sophisticated creation than, say, Adolescence, to which it is likely to be compared; as such, it is unlikely to be adopted as a pseudo policy document by the government. More's the pity."
Lucy Mangan
Further reading 'I danced my little bottom off!' Anna Friel on a rejuvenating Oasis gig - and her new Jimmy McGovern drama
Summed up in a sentence: A visceral, passionate adaptation of a Booker prize-winning novel that's set in three separate timelines.
"The Narrow Road to the Deep North is not an easy prospect, but it is an immensely powerful one, driven by strong performances and a bracing confidence in its ability to tell this story, at its own pace, in its own way."
Rebecca Nicholson
Summed up in a sentence: As he grieves his beloved father, the atheist broadcaster sets off on a pilgrimage that takes him on a surprisingly glorious spiritual adventure.
"What Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges expresses most powerfully of all, certainly to this fellow bereaved Hindu, are the irresolvable particularities, and commonalities, of second-generation grief."
Chitra Ramaswamy
Summed up in a sentence: Creepy and tense noir chiller with hints of Lynch and Cronenberg and star and co-writer Ariella Mastroianni radiating suppressed anguish and rage.
"A genuine skin-crawling unease seeps out of the screen for every second of its running time, helped by a brooding, moaning electronic score by Steve Matthew Carter."
Peter Bradshaw
Summed up in a sentence: Lars Eidinger plays a man embarking on a major orchestral project, but whose professional status is threatened by family turmoil behind the scenes.
"This is a bleak, bold, extravagantly crazy story which is emotionally incorrect at all times. Perhaps it could have been produced as a streaming-TV production but that would have deprived audiences of the pleasures of swallowing it whole."
Peter Bradshaw
Summed up in a sentence: Marvel offers a superhero family sitcom with Mr Fantastic and Sue Storm living together as a dysfunctional family in a retro-futurist version of early 1960s New York.
"The result hangs together as an entertaining spectacle in its own innocent self-enclosed universe of fantasy wackiness, where real people actually read the comic books that have made mythic legends of the real Four."
Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Whiteboard warrior: Marvel is priming Mister Fantastic to be the new leader of the Avengers
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence: F Murray Abraham mesmerises as bland court composer Salieri who is eclipsed by Tom Hulce's nitrogen-voiced genius Mozart in Miloš Forman's masterpiece.
"The pure gorgeous villainy of F Murray Abraham once again floods the screen, as saturnine and sulphurous as ever, in this new rerelease of Amadeus in its original 1984 theatrical cut."
Peter Bradshaw
Summed up in a sentence: Saule Bliuvaite's debut feature follows two Lithuanian teens seduced by a "modelling school" promising to take them away from their tough home town.
"Bliuvaite and her cinematographer Vytautas Katkus contrive striking tableaux and ambient setpieces, creating an emotional context for this drama: a world of alienation and desperate need, but also resilient humour."
Peter Bradshaw
Summed up in a sentence: The posthumously published final collection from a leading poet of our age.
"It's our great good fortune that Burnside's closing work is also one of his finest. He is attentive to the degradation of nature; staring it in the face and obliging us to stare at it, too. But more often than not, it's the beauty that possesses him."
Sarah Crown
Further reading John Burnside: 'My stoner friends were into The Hobbit, but Gormenghast was darker'
Reviewed by Blake Morrison
Summed up in a sentence: A writer's reflections as she walks the coast to coast path.
"What's captivating about her book is all the thinking she does mid- or post-trek: on writing, friendship, welfare, illness, climate change, protest marches, knitting, and why it is that in popular mythology 'walking women' are either models on a catwalk or sex workers."
What our reviewer said"A critique of disruptor-era genius is less important here than feeling and friendship; the winningly Edwardian, even Victorian, approach to storytelling extends right to the heart-swelling deathbed climax."
Summed up in a sentence: A slippery coming-of-age story about infatuation and ambiguity.
"The teenage girl, in Forrest's capable and unusual fifth novel, is a kind of bottomless pit of need - for desire, attention and the world to come."
Further reading 'It was my gateway drug to self-harm': a writer's journey to finding the joy in makeup
Reviewed by Alex Clark
Summed up in a sentence: A surprising and playful study of the art of translation.
"Shepherding a piece of writing from one language into another requires so many minute responses, thought processes and decisions that the translator would find it impossible to suppress their own voice."
What our reviewer said"Hedgehogs were reputed to sneak into human settlements at night and steal eggs (true) and suck the udders of sleeping cows (almost certainly false)."
Summed up in a sentence: The soul-searching of last year's Chromakopia is expelled - for the most part - by half an hour of early 80s rhythms and slick one-liners with the IDGAF attitude of his early years.
"Almost all of its 10 tracks seem fixated on the dancefloor. There are 808 beats, Kraftwerk-y electronics, a noticeable smattering of Zapp-like vocoder and electro, among other early 80s genres. The musical reference points are deployed with an evident love and understanding of the source material, never feeling like box-ticking or pastiche; the hooks work with enviable efficiency."
Alexis Petridis
Summed up in a sentence: Almost three decades on, Madonna finally releases the long-promised Ray of Light remix collection.
"For diehards, the promised record is something of a holy grail. The old demo Gone Gone Gone is brilliantly weird, a wistful breakup ballad set to a squelchy electro beat that gives a surprising amount of insight into Madonna's creative state at the time: here is one of the biggest stars in the world, in her creative prime, throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks."
Shaad D'Souza
Summed up in a sentence: The free-collective energy of one of Braxton's most intuitive groups jostles and enchants on this live recording - salvaged from cassettes - from a 1985 UK tour.
"Salvaged by state-of-the-art tech methods from former Wire magazine writer and Braxton chronicler Graham Lock's original lo-fi cassette recordings, the set celebrates Braxton's conviction that triggering loose improv through tightly challenging compositions can mirror the everyday flux of living."
John Fordham
Summed up in a sentence: Led by Wendy Eisenberg, the Massachusetts band's third album explores communication challenges in an articulate and exhilarating rock fusion.
"Editrix make complex music feel organic, like the natural thing to do, and imply that sound succeeds where words often fail us."
Katie Hawthorne
Summed up in a sentence: Once part of the Ohio noise scene, the US producer has moved to Athens, Greece, and makes oscillating bass flute music inspired by the view of the Parthenon from his window.
"This is blissful ambient music that resonates with a similar depth - though more warmth - to Kali Malone's The Sacrificial Code, and stands to have just as much staying power."
Laura Snapes