Writer, director and producer Judd Apatow honed his skills on The Larry Sanders Show, winning a couple of Emmys for his writing. What he took from the experience was that the best comedies are not made up of jokes, but of observations on the ways people act in real-life situations. The first signs that he might just be the funniest man in Hollywood came with The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Apatow, who had worked as a producer on Will Ferrell movies Anchorman and Talladega Nights, took the director’s chair on Virgin and put together a film that blew away many accepted film comedy conventions.

For his second feature, Knocked-Up, Apatow has brought back some of the team from Virgin for another hilarious sex comedy. Katherine Heigl plays Alison Scott, a production assistant who is given her big break as a TV presenter. Out celebrating the new job with her married sister (Leslie Mann) she meets Ben (Seth Rogen) and one thing leads to another. The supporting characters, from Ben’s stoner friends to Paul Rudd playing Alison’s frustrated brother-in-law, are uniformly excellent. It may not be too much of an exaggeration to suggest that Apatow has made the funniest film of the year. Again. (Kaleem Aftab)

Cineworld, Fountainpark, Dundee Street, 0131 228 2688, 19 Aug, 6.30pm, prices start from £6.50 (£4.55).