The new Woody Allen film, Irrational Man, is neither one to win over those unfamiliar with the director’s style, nor one to please his current fans

Despite a strong double-lead performance from Tom Hardy, this biopic fails to live up to the ambition of its title

Our pick for what to watch this Welcome Week is the Manchester-set 70s crime drama Life on Mars

Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People serves as an excellent crash-course in Manchester’s music history

A fresher from last year shares her advice for all of this year’s new faces in Manchester about how to indulge your passion for film as a student

Spencer Finch says that this relative “return to form” from M. Night Shyamalan suffers from a lack of imagination and misjudged attempts at humour

Imran Bukhari reckons that this Sundance hit is a believable teen drama that successfully transcends many conventions of the genre

Sarah Wolff gives us another show to add to our Netflix lists

Hassam Ahmed says that Suite Française fails due to its lifeless romance story

Tom Bruce reviews the authenticity of various on-screen representations of journalist Hunter S. Thompson, comparing them with the books and with the man himself

Arne Dumez reckons that Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t come close to deserving her wide acclaim

Sarah Wolff gives us her picks for the greatest moments in movies that draw out the stares, for better or for worse

We conducted a poll of our contributors in which we asked them to name their five favourite films released during the 2014/15 academic year. Having scored all the lists together, we can now reveal that the Mancunion’s Top 5 Movies of 2014/15 are:

Ross Huskisson talks about the hotly anticipated prequel to Breaking Bad

Isabelle Bowen says that Into the Woods will give fans of movie musicals what they want, even though it lacks perfection

Please turn off your phone when you go to the movies. And if your sense of humour is still in the ‘haha fat man fall down’ stage, switch that off too

With the centenary of the outbreak of WWI in mind, Adam Waterfield looks back at Kubrick’s Paths of Glory

James Moules reckons that Black Mirror is a bleak masterpiece of 21st Century television

James Moules shares the results of The Mancunion’s Oscar Predictions Poll, in which the Film Section’s editors and contributors told us who they think will win in the major categories on Oscar night, and who they reckon should win if it were solely down to them

Presented by the Official (poor) Judgement Panel of the Alc-ademy Awards.