The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
A small British zombie film that thinks harder than its budget, built on a remarkable child performance and an idea most of the genre never reaches for. 8/10.
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Jason Bourne (2016)
Damon and Greengrass are back after nine years away from the role, with the same shaky-cam fury and a new surveillance war to fight. The plot is familiar but the engine still runs hot. 8/10.
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Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Justin Lin steers the rebooted Enterprise back to its roots, trading portentous spectacle for a fast, warm-hearted away mission. The least fashionable of the three, and quietly the most likeable. 8/10.
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Captain America - Civil War (2016)
The Russos turn the thirteenth Marvel film into a paranoid loyalty thriller, hold a dozen heroes in tension without dropping one, and stage the best superhero set piece yet filmed. 8.5/10.
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Midnight Special (2016)
Jeff Nichols points his small-town dread at the stars and makes a chase thriller that trusts you to fill in the gaps. Restrained, atmospheric, and built on a father's fear rather than the spectacle. 8/10.
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The Revenant (2015)
Inarritu marches DiCaprio through the frozen wilderness on a thin thread of plot and an extraordinary amount of craft. A punishing watch and a beautiful one, and it earns more than its gruelling reputation suggests. 8.5/10.
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Star Wars - The Force Awakens (2015)
J. J. Abrams hands the franchise back to the fans by handing them the film they already loved, with a sharp new cast doing the heavy lifting. Familiar to a fault, but alive in a way the prequels never were. 8/10.
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Bridge of Spies (2015)
Spielberg and the Coen brothers turn a real Cold War prisoner swap into a quiet, beautifully made thriller about one stubborn man and his principles. Restrained, grown up, and led by a near silent Mark Rylance. 8.5/10.
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Black Mass (2015)
Johnny Depp disappears into Whitey Bulger and Scott Cooper builds a cold, watchful Boston gangster film around him. The story is familiar, the menace is not, and on sheer screen presence it earns its place near the front of the genre. 8/10.
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The Hunger Games - Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
The four-film saga ends not with an arena but with a march on the Capitol, and a heroine asking whether the people who armed her are any better than the ones she is shooting at. A grim, satisfying close. 8/10.
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