Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Essential as the start of the third trilogy, and it is a film with one job that it performs extremely well: convincing a very large audience that Star Wars was back. J. J. Abrams made it by rebuilding the shape of the 1977 film almost beat for beat, which is the standing criticism and was, commercially, exactly the right call.

The recycling is real. A droid carrying vital information, a desert scavenger with no family, a cantina, a superweapon that destroys planets and has a vulnerability, and a trench run. Several of those are acknowledged in dialogue, which is cheeky rather than a defence.

What it adds is the cast, and the cast is the trilogy's best asset. Daisy Ridley's Rey is written as competent and lonely rather than chosen, John Boyega's Finn is the first stormtrooper the films have treated as a person, and Adam Driver's Kylo Ren is the most interesting idea in the trilogy: a villain who is not composed, who throws tantrums, and who is painfully aware that he is failing to live up to the mask he has chosen to wear. The scene on the bridge is the trilogy's strongest.

It is also a return to real sets, location shooting and practical creatures after the prequels, and the difference is immediately visible. The weakness is that it opens a dozen questions without a plan for any of them, which is the problem the next two films inherit.