Tangled
The Scene: Our supposed prince charming of the piece, Flynn, is tied up by Rapunzel. Unconscious, Rapunzel’s pet chameleon inspects the strange specimen – and takes a liking to sticking his tongue in Flynn’s ear.
Best Bit: “May I just say? Hi,” smoulders Flynn. And Rapunzel knocks him out with a frying pan.
Contagion
The Scene: The film’s closing moments, in which we discover just how the MEV-1 virus was created – by pigs eating bananas containing a bat virus. You couldn’t make this stuff up. (Or, OK, you could.)
Best Bit: The not-so-subtle finger pointing at deforestation as the cause of most of our planet’s problems.
Dont Be Afraid Of The Dark
The Scene: Director Troy Nixey sets up a deliciously dark mood in his film’s disturbing prologue, in which a desperate man bashes out the teeth of one of his maids using a chisel.
Best Bit: We don’t see a single tooth get busted, but we do hear them scatter across the stone floor. Shudder.
The Ides Of March
The Scene: Political campaign-worker Stephen (Ryan Gosling) turns from meek underling to demanding shark as he confronts presidential candidate Mike (George Clooney) in a dark kitchen, and threatens to expose his secrets.
Best Bit: The biting interplay between the characters, as each attempts to better the other.
127 Hours
The Scene: Aron (James Franco) finally gets to a point where he’ll actually cut off his own arm in order to escape the rocky hell he’s landed in. In a moment that’ll cause most heart palpitations, he breaks his arm and then begins to saw through it with a blunt knife.
Best Bit: That stomach-churning moment when Aron’s forced to sever the nerve in his arm. We all scream along with the soundtrack.
Hanna
The Scene: Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), trapped in a CIA safe house, kills evil Marissa’s double and makes a bid for freedom – taking down numerous security guards on her way.
Best Bit: The whole giddy sequence is a masterful bit of suspense – boosted brilliantly by the Chemical Brothers’ fantastic score.
Rabbit Hole
The Scene: Mourning couple Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie Corbett (Aaron Eckhart) attend grief counselling with other grieving couples, and have to sit and listen to absolute tosh like: “God had to take her. He needed another angel.”
Best Bit: “Why didn’t he just make one?” counters Becca, who’s not feeling the schmaltz.
Scream 4
The Scene: At the climax of the slasher fourquel, Jill (Emma Roberts) reveals her twisted motivation for killing all of her friends – and attempting to kill cousin Sidney. “I don’t need friends, I need fans!” How very modern of her.
Best Bit: In order to make her cover story look legit, Jill throws herself into walls and coffee tables to beat herself up. Total psycho.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows
The Scene: Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr), Watson (Jude Law) and fortune teller Sim (Noomi Rapace) are chased through a frosty forest, where bullets whistle past their ears and splinter trees.
Best Bit : The big guns are brought out – literally – as a formidable new firearm is unleashed on our trio.
Tree Of Life
The Scene: We watch the creation of the universe, as galaxies develop and we zoom in on a newborn Earth, where volcanoes vomit fire, dinosaurs wage their own private war, and asteroids rain down on the planet.
Best Bit: A meat-eating Ornithomimus takes pity on an injured Parasaurolophus and leaves it be.
Adventures Of Tintin: Secret Of The Unicorn
The Scene: Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) suffers from dehydration in the desert and begins to recall stories about his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, captain of the Unicorn.
Best Bit: The dastardly Red Rackham emerges, swathed in shadows, as the boat burns around him. A fantastic image.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Scene: Cross your legs gentlemen (and ladies, actually), as Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) doles out her own super-physical, super-violent vengeance against sadistic rapist Nils (Yorick van Wageningen).
Best Bit: Lisbeth says: “Hold still, I’ve never done this before.” Then gets out the tattooing needle.
Super 8
The Scene: As Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and his gang shoot a film by the rail track, a pick-up truck drives right in front of an oncoming train, causing one heck of an almighty crash.
Best Bit: The train buckles and explodes as our central gang attempt to escape getting smashed to smithereens.
Drive
The Scene: We get a demonstration of Driver’s (Ryan Gosling) skills behind the wheel right at the start of the film, as he evades the cops during a job not by burning the rubber, but by working calmly and efficiently.
Best Bit: The part where Driver hides in a well-placed parking lot, knowing the authorities won’t find them there.
Incendies
The Scene: Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) pretends to be a Muslim in order to board a bus that will take her to the orphanage where her son has been taken.
Best Bit: The bus is attacked by Christians with guns. Showing her cross, Nawal escapes death, but the rest of the travellers are not so lucky, as the bus is burnt to cinders.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Scene: Hermione (Emma Watson) drinks some polyjuice potion and transforms herself into a Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) lookalike in order to break into Gringotts Bank.
Best Bit: Any bit where Carter perfectly nails Watson’s body language. It really is uncanny.
Bridemaids
The Scene: Getting the shits is never funny – unless you’re in a spiffing wedding dress shop trying on bridesmaids outfits when they strike. See boys, girls can be funny. And gross.
Best Bit: Bride Lillian (Maya Rudolph) legs it out into the street, only to suffer the same indignity as her friends. Crestfallen, she sinks to her knees on the tarmac.
X-Men: First Class
The Scene: Bondian guitars twang in the background as Magneto (Michael Fassbender) heads to Argentina and takes down two of Sebastian Shaw’s ex-henchmen in a bar.
Best Bit: Magneto uses the bartender’s gun to shoot one of the Germans. He then hurls a knife at the bartender before telekinetically zapping it back into his hand to use against the remaining baddie. This guy’s cool.
