By far the best and most compelling of the oddest franchise behemoth of the decade, one that exploded onto the scene and seemed to immediately recede from view with every subsequent release, ending on a dark elliptical note, with a couple of awful middle films along the way. But taken alone the original packs a thematic punch and has the hero to match it in Jennifer Lawrence.

What it says on the tin - my round up of my favorite and least favorite films of 2014.

Damien Chazelle's major debut is so thunderously exciting you almost forget the dreadful La La Land ever existed. The brilliant JK Simmons trades drumsticks with a nearly as great Miles Teller.

The occasionally complex and nuanced direction of Clint Eastwood gives way to a more black and white Spielberg pallet in this Bradley Cooper starring biopic.

Peter Jackson's terribly misguided attempt at stretching the tiny Hobbit novel across seven hours trundles unsatisfying to an end.