Which summer movies deserve your time? Leigh Paatsch has the answers

THE summer season brings a bevy of new movies to the screen - but how do you choose one that's right for you? Critic Leigh Paatsch rates them all.

Highbrow or lowbrow, this year's crop of summer movies is notable for its diversity.

This time of year has traditionally been dominated by kids' flicks and big dumb blockbusters.

The summer of 2014 has all that, with the addition of what promises to be some clever cinema as well.News_Image_File: For the kids ... Frozen. Picture: AP Photo/Disney

Barring an outbreak of an airborne disease in every cinema across the land, the second instalment in the three part Hobbit series, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, will be the number one film come January.

For those after a Boxing Day adventure of a different kind there's Ben Stiller's remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, about a man escaping his humdrum existence via a vibrant fantasy world.

News_Module: nnd summer movie guide - multipromo

And for kids, the traditional animated movie promises to be a good one, with Frozen nominated in the best animated film category at the 2014 Golden Globes. Loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, it's set against a Nordic background and follows a snowman and a princess as they embark on a desperate search for her sister.News_Image_File: For the adults ... August: Osage County. Picture: AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, Claire Folger

Beyond Boxing Day there are films for grown ups, such as August: Osage County, with Meryl Streep as a pill-popping matriarch and Juliette Lewis, Julia Roberts and Julianne Nicholson as her troubled daughters; The Book Thief, based on Australian author Markus Zusak's book of the same name about a young girl who escapes into books in WW2 Germany; Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom; and Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman as Princess Grace.