You’ll get a good idea of the tone to expect from sci-fi comedy-horror Cold Storage from its opening info dump. Title cards give a reminder of the (real-life) 1979 incident in which NASA’s Skylab space station fell into the Earth’s atmosphere, with debris scattering over Western Australia. So far, so ominous, until it concludes, ‘Pay attention – this shit is real.’
Reiner Bajo/StudioCanal
From there we have another scene-setting prologue, which takes place in Australia in the 90s. Military types Robert Quinn and Trinny Romano (Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, delightful together in the polar opposite of their last collab, weepie terminal-illness drama Ordinary Love) are called in to help Dr. Hero Martins (Sosie Bacon) investigate an incident relating to a debris site. Strap on your hazmat suit… The film quickly sets out its splattery B-movie stall, before the problematic fungus that’s causing the body horror is secured in an underground facility. Cue a timelapse to the present day where the facility is now a self-storage business, and on shift are former prison inmate Teacake (Joe Keery of Stranger Things and Djo fame) and single mum Naomi (Georgina Campbell).
Reiner Bajo/StudioCanal
The amiable, flirty co-workers go exploring and accidentally disrupt the extraterrestrially-infused sample (you’d think Campbell would know better than to go exploring creepy basements after starring in Barbarian), and this knowing genre piece conspires to bring some of the worst people in their lives – their boss, her ex – to the facility for one gross night. Contact with the fungus will turn a human (or animal, for that matter) into a bloated zombie that will spew infectious vomit before their body bursts. Director Jonny Campbell (best known for TV work such as Westworld) keeps things moving at a clip, with a sure command of tone. Not only do the jokes keep flying amid set-pieces delivered with no small amount of tension, but he understands first and foremost that this kind of high-concept throwback depends on likeable characters, and Keery and Campbell are immensely easy to root for. Neeson further explores his straight-man comedy chops after The Naked Gun, and he sparks winningly with Manville, who also got the memo (and seems to genuinely welcome) the assignment.
Reiner Bajo/StudioCanal
Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp (who adapts his own 2019 novel here) is within his comfort zone, delivering a smartly-paced 99 minutes populated with characters who are either appealing or expendable as appropriate, science that’s just about on the right side of believable, and stakes that actually feel perilous. A horror geared towards cheers and laughs over anything more genuinely unsettling, Cold Storage does a neat job of putting the fun into parasitic fungus.
Reiner Bajo/StudioCanal
Words by MATT MAYTUM Pictures courtesy of StudioCanal Cold Storage is in cinemas now
Return of the king… The maestro of movie showmanship revives the king of rock ’n’ roll with unseen footage of Elvis in Vegas to create a unique cinematic experience. Baz Luhrmann tells Hollywood Authentic how he found treasure in salt mines and made a poem of EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.
Is it ever possible to recapture the thrill of seeing one of the greatest ever music artists live in their prime? Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert answers that question with a resounding yes. The unearthing of new footage of a cultural touchstone is a gift for die-hard Elvis fans, and offers younger generations the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. Much more than a concert movie, EPiC sprang from Luhrmann and his team’s archival discoveries during the making of his blockbuster 2022 feature Elvis, starring Austin Butler.
There’s not a frame of AI or visual effects in this – the only visual effect is the one Elvis has on his audience
Often thought to be apocryphal, lost footage from Elvis’ famous Vegas residency turned out to be more than mere rumour during the making of Elvis. ‘Ernst Jorgensen [author and Elvis expert] said, “You know there are these lost reels of the show?”’ Luhrmann recalls. ‘And I thought to myself, “Wow, maybe we could use that footage in the [Elvis] movie itself, rather than build a stage – because of budgets.”’ The footage – originally shot for doc Elvis: That’s the Way It Is – belonged to MGM and had been stored in salt mines in Kansas, to prevent water from damaging the negative. When Baz’s team went digging, ‘not only did they find the footage,’ he explains between sips of miso soup, ‘they actually found a kind of treasure trove of materials – 69 boxes, 59 hours of footage.’
Neon/Universal Pictures
Neon/Universal Pictures
That incredible haul not only contained footage of Elvis’ 1970 Vegas shows at the International Hotel, shot on anamorphic 35mm over six nights; there was also 16mm film of Elvis on tour, and some 8mm, too. But another unexpected find was the key to making EPiC the extraordinary proposition it is. ‘We also found never-before-heard audio of Elvis telling his story in his own words, which is really unusual,’ says Luhrmann, photographed here by Greg Williams when he was at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, while premiering Elvis there.
Neon/Universal Pictures
‘Jono [Jonathan] Redman, who’s a producer on this, and my editor, and really my co-creator of this whole venture, said, “We’ve got to make something really special. We can’t just heat up the old documentaries. Can we do something unique?”’ Beyond the technical challenge of restoring the negative to a quality that would hold up on IMAX and syncing the sound, there was the unique opportunity to let Elvis speak in his own words – something fans had never heard before. ‘What we decided on was, rather than reheat old documentaries… What if we were to take this audio that we’d found, and Elvis will sing and tell his story in his own words? There have been many good documentaries, but they were always about other people talking about Elvis. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But sometimes you’ll get a guy who knew him for 10 minutes, having an opinion.’ In part, the lack of Presley speaking his own truth was down to how protective manager Colonel Tom Parker (portrayed by Tom Hanks in Baz’s film) was of Elvis. But if 2022’s Elvis told Parker’s version of events, EPiC tells Elvis’ side of the story. ‘Elvis comes to you, almost like in a dream, and he sings, and he tells his story in a way in which he’s never had the platform [for] before.’
Neon/Universal Pictures
Some of the footage in EPiC may have been glimpsed before, in black-and-white and bootleg snippets or from different takes or angles, but much of the material in the film is totally unseen, and certainly never with such clarity, offering an unprecedentedly intimate audience with an icon. ‘You will have never seen all of it reproduced at the level it is,’ asserts Luhrmann. ‘I can categorically tell you: there’s not a frame of AI or visual effects in this, other than the titles. The only visual effect in this movie is the visual effect Elvis has on his audience.’
Neon/Universal Pictures
Neon/Universal Pictures
With the images polished at Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production – where the Kiwi director memorably brought The Beatles: Get Back and Beatles ’64 to vibrant life – a huge challenge involved syncing the sound with the recovered film. ‘While we found all the pictures, it didn’t come with mag tape, which is how they used to record sound, right next to it,’ says Luhrmann. ‘What we were able to do, though, through meticulous research was to get second-generation audio sound. The audio isn’t different. While the picture is different when they strike a print – a work print, to cut and edit – the sound isn’t. So we were able to claw back the original vocal of Elvis and the band.’
Neon/Universal Pictures
It’s actually an expression, I hope, of the essence, the spirit, and the character of Elvis through song and his words. It’s like a poem more than it is a linear expression of Elvis
Neon/Universal Pictures
Luhrmann has always been a pioneer when it comes to melding movies and music, and EPiC sees him push those instincts to new levels. Where the recording of the orchestra was inconsistent, he and his team rebuilt some of the backing music via scoring sessions. The film also moves between the actual sound you would’ve heard had you been in the room to remixes Luhrmann refers to as ‘DNA’, adding his trademark sparkle and oomph to the raw material. ‘It’s more than a documentary, and it’s not a concert film,’ he muses. ‘It’s actually an expression, I hope, of the essence, the spirit, and the character of Elvis through song and his words. It’s like a poem more than it is a linear expression of Elvis.’
Neon/Universal Pictures
And while Luhrmann refuses to speak on behalf of the King of Rock and Roll, he does say that he thinks he would appreciate ‘that he’s being heard and being presented visually and sonically in the best possible quality for the audience and the fans who he dearly loved’. Having worked to craft a big-screen, big-sound cinematic experience that makes viewers feel as though they’ve time-travelled to the International Hotel ballroom with Elvis, Luhrmann intends to get viewers moving, dancing as they did in 1970 and at TIFF when the film premiered. ‘What I hope is that we’ve created a truly theatrical experience, as close to being in the audience as possible.’
From diamond tears to royal engagement rings, bracelets ready for their close-up to bejewelled crucifixes, Cartier jewels have dazzled onscreen since cinema’s inception…
Cartier is one of cinema’s most enduring characters. Since 1926 – when Rudolph Valentino famously donned an iconic Cartier Tank watch – the luxury Maison has established itself as both a cultural icon and a memorable co-star. Its timeless jewellery has appeared in classic films like Sunset Boulevard and more contemporary works like Ocean’s 8 and The Phoenician Scheme.
CARTIER ROSARY From Wes Anderson’s 2025 film The Phoenician Scheme
The elegant craftsmanship of Cartier’s jewellery has augmented the magical worlds created by skilful filmmakers for generations, helping to bring the stories to life in ways that feel as real as they do transformative. Over the years, hundreds of films and series have featured Cartier pieces – an extraordinary filmography that outshines the careers of many human actors. But Cartier’s contribution to the landscape of cinema wasn’t inevitable. It took a legacy of craftsmanship, some particularly devoted famous fans and a dedication to storytelling that has spanned time and genre.
Perhaps the link between carats and celluloid was inevitable. Maison Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847, only a few decades before the invention of cinema by Auguste and Louis Lumière, who also first presented their work in the French capital. In 1895, the Lumière brothers began filming short scenes using their newly-created cinématographe, an early motion-picture camera. Later that year, they held the first commercial film screening at a café in Paris, an historic moment that for ever changed the landscape of arts and culture. It wasn’t long after that Cartier and cinema embarked on an undeniable relationship that has lasted for a century.
Jean Cocteau
In 1926, Valentino, arguably one of silent film’s most iconic actors, played dual characters in George Fitzmaurice’s The Son of the Sheik – the final starring role of his career. Embodying both a sheik and his rakish son Ahmed, Valentino convinced the director to let him wear his Tank watch in his scenes, simply because he didn’t want to take his beloved timepiece off. Audiences were delighted by the unlikely detail and the Tank rapidly grew in popularity after its on-screen debut.
Cartier soon established itself as an indelible onscreen partner for the most popular performers of every era. In 1946, Jean Cocteau (who habitually wore two of Cartier’s trademark Trinity rings on his left pinkie finger) directed a reimagining of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, titled La Belle et La Bête. In the ethereal film, Belle wept Cartier diamonds instead of tears. ‘A fake diamond doesn’t throw fire,’ Cocteau explained of his artistic vision, ‘only a real diamond shimmers.’ The loaned diamonds underscored the emotional quality of the scene, creating a lasting, surrealist image that has since become interlinked with the history of cinema.
Grace Kelly
Gloria Swanson, too, couldn’t be parted from her Cartier. She was often photographed in her jewels, a signature of her glamorous image. The jewellery accompanied her onscreen Sunset Boulevard: ageing former starlet, Norma Desmond, still sparkled in her choice of jewels if not on the big screen. In the film, Swanson wore two of her own diamond and rock crystal bracelets created in 1930 as part of Desmond’s costume.
In High Society, released in 1956, Grace Kelly wore the jewellery house’s engagement ring, adorned with a 10.48-carat emerald-cut diamond and given to her by Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Like Valentino before her, the actor couldn’t bear to part with it while working, so added the famous ring to the film’s legacy instead. Tracy Lord’s classic platinum and diamond bauble boasted regal veracity for audiences.
More recently, Cartier collaborated on 2018’s Ocean’s 8. The plot centered on the theft of an ornate diamond necklace, made by Maison Cartier and based on a piece created by Cartier London in 1931. Named after Jeanne Toussaint, Cartier’s creative director from 1933 to 1970, the prop mimicked diamonds with zirconium oxides.
Gloria Swanson
The Maison’s skills were again enlisted for Wes Anderson’s recent output, The Phoenician Scheme to recreate a Cartier rosary from the 1880s for the nun protagonist to clutch. ‘It was interesting and fun to do it that way, and I think they look better,’ Anderson said of using actual Cartier jewels in the film.
Cartier has expanded its cinematic presence by contributing new short films to the zeitgeist, and by frequently collaborating with filmmakers such as Johan Renck and Sofia Coppola. ‘Films are made up of many details, and jewellery plays a role in this by showing you the type of character you encounter,’ Coppola noted.
BRACELET, CARTIER PARIS, 1930 Platinum, Diamonds, Rock Crystal
The Maison is also a main sponsor of the annual Venice International Film Festival, an opportunity that more deeply connects Cartier with new and important works from the global cinematic community. Over the years, the jewellery house has hosted Maison ambassadors like Monica Bellucci and Rami Malek, and bestowed the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award to legends like Wes Anderson. This year, Cartier celebrated BAFTA with a glamorous dinner held ahead of the annual EE BAFTA Film Awards, drawing a full-circle movie moment between Valentino’s watch obsession a hundred years ago.
Cinema and jewellery share a commonality in the often unseen craftsmanship that goes on behind the scenes to create the magic onscreen. Like movie productions, Cartier boasts many specialised metiers who craft their own sort of creative sorcery to produce a dazzling work of art. And BAFTA and Cartier share a similarly long history and legacy in showcasing quality and artistry. Though founded in Paris in 1847, a Cartier boutique has stood in London’s New Burlington Street since 1902 and held warrants from members of the British Royal family since 1904. Just steps away, BAFTA HQ resides with a similar dedication to creative excellence and links to the royals. Established in 1947 as the British Film Academy, the organisation became BAFTA eleven years later, with the opening of its Piccadilly home in 1976.
Together, both Cartier and BAFTA have left a lasting mark on our cultural consciousness that continues to sparkle.
Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you’ve been missing until you get the chance to sample it again. This supremely slick crime thriller is an emphatic reminder of the pleasures of smart, mainstream entertainment for grown-ups, playing in a cinema rather than episodically on the small screen. A theatrical staple for decades, this kind of star-powered vehicle has lost ground in multiplexes to franchise fare and IP with built-in awareness. But it’s good to have it back.
Amazon MGM Studios
This film marks the fully fledged ‘fictional feature’ debut of writer/director Bart Layton, who previously made terrific fact/fiction-blending documentaries The Imposter and American Animals, the latter particularly blurring the lines as it intercuts between the real people involved in a university book heist and dramatic recreations. Though not based on a true story, Crime 101 – which is adapted from a novella by Don Winslow – has the rigour of a deeply researched undertaking. It stars Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry and Mark Ruffalo, whose narrative strands soon become entwined. Hemsworth is lone-wolf jewel thief Davis, whose MO is committing meticulously researched jobs along California’s 101 freeway. No one gets hurt, no trace of evidence remains. Detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) is working a theory that some of these robberies might be connected. Meanwhile, insurance broker Sharon (Berry) sells eye-wateringly high-value policies to extremely wealthy clients, in return for little to no respect from colleagues at her firm.
Amazon MGM Studios
This trio will soon be on a collision course catalysed by wild card crim Ormon (Barry Keoghan, reuniting with Layton after American Animals), who lobs a spanner in the works by taking on a job that Davis deemed too risky. Working with A-list and Oscar-celebrated talent, Layton seems to be a natural at eliciting top-end performances. Hemsworth tamps down his superhero rizz to play the nomadic thief living without any real social connection, and his Marvel ‘friend from work’ Ruffalo is compelling as ever as a stretched-thin cop whose obsessive nature is wrecking his homelife. Berry – in her most gratifying role for some time – gets to dig beneath the surface glamour as a woman coming to see with clarity how her experience and intelligence is being overlooked. Keoghan, meanwhile, is the firecracker popping off chaotically.
Amazon MGM Studios
Adding to the sheen of class is the fact that even minor supporting roles are filled with significant talent – Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, Corey Hawkins – and Monica Barbaro makes the most of limited screentime in Maya, a love interest who cracks Davis’ hermetically sealed shell. It’s also edited with confidence by Jacob Secher Schulsinger and Julian Hart, the separate story strands blended skilfully and often overlapping before you’ve even realised it. It all drives towards a satisfying conclusion that makes good on the build-up’s promise. And while there is a focus on character in this somewhat grounded world, there are a couple of impressively muscular, plot-serving car chases to get the adrenaline pumping, and the whole thing is shot sharply (with some innovative vehicle mounts) by DoP Erik Wilson. The pulsing electronic score by Blanck Mass also sets off the tone nicely.
Michael Mann’s Heat and Thief are clear touchstones, as is William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A., and while it’s practically impossible for any new film to live up to those genre titans, it sure is enjoyable seeing someone giving it a go.
Amazon MGM Studios
Pictures courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios Crime 101opens in cinemas on 13 February
Designed to titillate with its tongue very much in its flushed cheek, Emerald Fennell’s raunchy take on Charlotte Bronte’s doomy classic sets its stall out from the opening as a hanged man gets an erection, prompting carnality from the assembled crowd – including a shuddering nun. Death and sex continue to be inextricably linked in this tale of two Victorian pseudo-siblings who run wild on the Yorkshire moors and through each others’ dreams as they grow from children to cruel adults locked in a toxic romance. Jettisoning the novel’s bookended story of the fate of the family home, Wuthering Heights, and the generational trauma of the Earnshaws, screenwriter and director, Fennell concentrates on the lethal enmeshment of Cathy (Margot Robbie) and her adopted brother, Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) which sees them devouring each other in the rain, masturbating on rocky outcrops and smearing fingers through any wet thing they can find (snail trail, damp dough, a gelatined fish mouth, blood).
Warner Bros. Pictures
Designed in narrative and production aesthetic as a heaving Mills & Boon cover come to life, Fennell’s iteration has no interest in historical accuracy, Victorian properness or faithfulness to the source. Like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, this version of Wuthering Heights is more interested in vibe and feelings. So while Charli XCX’s anachronistic soundtrack thrums over the visuals-destined-to-be-memes, Heathcliff and Cathy pant over each other in deliberately artificial and heightened environments from Suzie Davis that will enrage purists but provide content for TikTokers. Wuthering Heights looks like a tiled abattoir, Thrushcross Grange belonging to third wheel love interest, Edgar (Shazad Latif, bringing real depth to a cock-blocked cuckold) is a pop music video dollhouse (scarlet lacquers floors, flesh walls, lurid gardens), a moors sunset is an atomic orange. And the costumes… Jacqueline Durran’s imagination is unfettered: a Gone With The Wind gown, a busty milkmaid get-up, neon ribboned fripperies for ditzy Isabella (Alison Oliver), a wedding night outfit that wraps Cathy like a boiled sweet. Put it this way, there’s plenty to go at for Halloween hot looks.
Warner Bros. Pictures
While the willful artifice will surely attract awards attention, the relationship at the (raging) heart of this tale needs to convince and Fennell is predictably unphased by making her characters complicated, messy. Cathy, in Robbie’s hands, is an intriguing OG drama queen, a prick tease, a brat. As he did in Frankenstein, Elordi does considerable heavy lifting in humanising a damaged man; seducing Cathy and audience alike with a spot-on West Yorkshire accent, palpable yearning and a mean streak a mile wide. If anyone needed more evidence that Elordi is destined to be a generational great, Wuthering Heights demonstrates his ability to play convincingly into lusty tropes (the way he says ‘I know’ at one point is likely to rival Colin Firth’s lake swim or Matthew McFadyen’s hand flex in bodice-buster obsessions) but also tap into the psychology of Heathcliff (Fennell’s most modern and interesting scene is a moment of consent in a coercive relationship) and almost single-handedly sell the tragedy of the piece. When he mourns the love lost while wind-whipped on the moors or clings to a silk bedsheet like drowning man, the truth and authenticity of Bronte’s prose is captured.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Flashy, brash, bombastic, hot and heavy – this Wuthering Heights is like no other, fully committing to its horny-teen concept with all the headlong passion of a ‘handsome brute’ falling for the wrong girl. On that level alone it’s worth seeing and debating. And as they say in Yorkshire: where there’s muck, there’s brass…
Pictures courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures Wuthering Heights is in cinemas now
Literally translated as ‘New Wave’, the term Nouvelle Vague refers to the movement in French cinema that began in the late 1950s and continued throughout the 60s, when a group of rule-breaking critics-turned-auteurs started defying conventions of film storytelling and grammar. It’s no surprise that director Richard Linklater would feel drawn to the movement – over a directing career that has spanned almost four decades, he’s been inventive and experimental in his own unshowy way, playing with time, fact/fiction, animation techniques and more. Here he documents the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic À bout de souffle (aka Breathless).
Altitude
That film remains vital and fresh today, its jump-cut editing and propulsive momentum as influential as its nonchalantly amoral heroes; it’s a fixture of Greatest Films of All Time lists and Film Studies courses. Risky territory for a contemporary filmmaker to explore, then, but Linklater manages to turn what could’ve felt either dryly academic or wilfully sacrilegious into an extremely fun hangout movie. If it is an exercise, it’s an immensely enjoyable one, carried off with no shortage of style and character. Cinematographer David Chambille shoots in black and white in Academy ratio. The score consists of jazzy, era-specific tracks. The dialogue is (almost entirely) in French, and even the subtitles have a pleasingly retro style. (Now and then, you can even see faux ‘cigarette burns’ pop up in the corner of the screen.) The storytelling is choppy and loose. It’s an extremely convincing recreation of the spirit of the era, and a pleasure to be immersed in.
Altitude
The casting, too, is spot on. As Godard, Guillaume Marbeck has the necessary charisma to justify why the crew would continue to follow such a chaotic and capricious leader. He also has the insouciance to casually deliver some of the JLG’s celebrated aphorisms; “The best way to criticise a film is to make one,” he says early on of his transition from criticism to directing. Zoey Deutch (from Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!) is a fantastic foil as American actress Jean Seberg, providing valuable perspective on Godard’s often frustrating methods, and, like the audience, slowly warming to her new collaborators. Some of the supporting casting is uncannily physically uncanny: Aubry Dullin is an absolute doppelganger for Breathless actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, in looks and screen presence.
At times you even wonder if the film will get finished, as Godard continually seems to get in his own way with on-the-fly script revisions, short shooting days and tricky camera moves; it’s no wonder he ends up in a scuffle with his producer Georges ‘Beau Beau’ de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) at one point. But throughout, there’s such an infectious spirit of creation, it’s like Linklater is making a rallying cry to grab a camera, get out there and just create. With friends, with conviction, and with gusto.
Pictures courtesy of Altitude Nouvelle Vague is in cinemas now
Brendan Fraser’s innate likeability is tapped for feel-good warmth in this lightweight drama following a washed-up actor eking out a living in Tokyo and finding an unexpected sense of family. Fraser plays the thesp, Phillip Vanderploeg, with the same sweetness he deployed in The Whale – less gay porn and gorging, but that perennially hopeful expression as he takes unfulfilling bit parts and shonky commercials, the glory days that brought him to Japan clearly long gone. When he’s called to play ‘sad American’ at a funeral (a lovely piece of physical comedy from Fraser as he uncomfortably tries to be inobtrusive) a new world of acting opens up.
James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures
A rental service run by Shinji (Takehiro Hira) offers him a gig as a ‘token white guy’ taking on roles in real people’s lives. Need a fake boyfriend, fake boss, fake journalist to prevent embarrassment at social gatherings? Call big Phil. After a stumble playing a groom to a gay bride who is trying to mollify her trad parents, Phillip gets into the swing of turning up into domestic situations and putting his actor training to good use. So he’s easy-breezy when he’s booked to play a fake dad to a young girl, Mia,(Shannon Mahina Gorman) whose single mum thinks having two parents will go over better for a posh school application. Mia isn’t told of the ruse, she thinks Phillip is her real father, returned after an absence and, after a bumpy start, the duo start to gel. What could possibly go wrong?
James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures
Following a well-worn arc, this gentle comedy-drama may not surprise, but that it moves nonetheless is down to Fraser’s delightful screen presence. Whether squashed into the Japanese metro or watching the lives of his neighbours from his apartment window, Fraser exudes a forlorn yearning and optimism for connection that is immediately endearing. When he arrives in his clients’ lives he is respectful, engaged, gentle – less a conman than a guardian angel, his good intentions shining from his open face. And when he begins to bond with Mia, Phillip’s own childhood is revealed, adding emotional depth to a trope as old as Chaplin’s The Kid. Plus, in terms of travel porn, Rental Family makes Japan look beguiling; from a cosy izakaya and a quirky cat festival to Tokyo twinkling neon at night, to karaoke bars and lush green forests. It’s a trip worth taking.
James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures
Pictures courtesy of Searchlight Pictures Rental Familyis in cinemas now
It’s a matter of common knowledge that Shakespeare lost a son, Hamnet, and his subsequent grief informed the crafting of one of his one most celebrated plays delving into sorrow, parenthood and death; Hamlet. The theatrical, narrative and emotionally resonant feat that Chloe Zhao pulls off with Hamnet – blindsiding audiences with devastation despite this prior intel – is uncommon, remarkable.
Focus Features/Universal Pictures
Adapted by Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell (whose bestseller it is based on), Hamnet charts the romance of the Bard (Paul Mescal) with Agnes (Jessie Buckley) through to their shattering as a family and the premiere performance of Hamlet. While Will is a man of ideas (scraping money together as a teacher while he pens his masterpieces by candlelight at night), Agnes is of the earth – an elemental woman who practices folk magic, wanders the woods in her muddy dress and snoozes in piles of leaves at the foot of mossy, towering oak trees. She burns as brightly as her scarlet gown, a force of nature that knocks Shakespeare off his feet, their hot and fast romance quickly begetting an imminent child and a marriage. Their children are brought up in an atmosphere of love and respect for the earth, closely bonded to each other. Shakespeare travels to London to ply his playwriting, bidding fond farewells to his brood as he commutes (a bittersweet parting moment at a street corner will be recognised by all parents), and the spectre of the plague takes hold.
Death sits alongside family life; is examined when a pet dies, is fought when illness descends. Death destroys and remakes, renders the Shakepeares strangers to each other and also, ultimately, connects them. In exploring the undertow of grief – in a feral howl, in despair, in process and in using it as a tool, Zhao and O’Farrell unpick the universal experience of losing a loved one while also celebrating the power and yes, necessity, of art to reflect, unite and heal.
Focus Features/Universal Pictures
Key to that transference is the ability of Mescal and Buckley to fully inhabit their characters, convincing immediately of their connection, lust and love – and of their adoration of their onscreen children. Jacobi Jupe (brother of Noah) is astonishing as the boy at the centre of an experience that breaks them; cheeky, sweet, afraid, and vulnerable. The black hole to hell seen at the beginning of the film, the gaping mouth of a dank tunnel in the roots of a tree promises a dark journey of the heart, but even prepared for an emotional assault, what follows is heartbreaking.
Focus Features/Universal Pictures
Buckley is understandably getting awards heat for her delicate sketching of a woman out of time; both too modern and too grounded in ancient spirituality for Elizabethan life, a ‘witch’ whose ferocious fight for her child is painful and beautiful to watch. Mescal meets her at every step though his role is necessarily more contained, while the Tudor home and village that the couple inhabited (Weobley in Hertfordshire standing in for Stratford) is brought to such visceral life that it seems we can smell the fire smoke and the poultices, taste the food Agnes puts on her heavy wooden table, feel the cool mud splatter in the street. Zhao’s eye for detail and beauty has never been better.
One critic has gone so far as to call Hamnet the ‘greatest film ever made’ and while that description might be up to interpretation of each viewer, what is undeniable is that this is a picture of great humanity, artistry and heart – heavy though it may be.
Pictures courtesy of Focus Features/Universal Pictures Hamnetis in cinemas now
The warmth of the real-life story of the Neil Diamond tribute band, Lightning & Thunder (aka Mike and Claire Sardina), gets a jukebox sorta-musical treatment in this sentimental fable of second chances, perseverance and hope. After the challenging year we’ve had with 2025, ringing in ’26 with a bit of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and human kindness might be just the ticket.
Focus Features/Universal Pictures
For those who didn’t catch the 2008 documentary of the same name, the Sardinas found each other on the Milwaukee tribute circuit, two people who had already been through the ringer but who lived in optimism and joy. We first meet single dad Mike (Hugh Jackman in an alarming wig) as he strums his Neil Diamond anthem at an AA meeting, perennially grateful to have survived the military and alcoholism but still looking for a happily ever after. Mike steps on stage as ‘Lightning’, not exactly a Diamond impersonator, more of a channeller of the songwriter’s music. That’s not a niche that’s working out for him until he meets single mom, Claire (Kate Hudson in an alarming mullet) who does a mean Patsy Cline impression. Sparks fly, music is played and the duo blend their talents, families and possessions as a unique double-act, both on and off stage.
This should be the second act both players have been hoping for – complete with benediction from Pearl Jam (yes, really) and sell-out shows – but disaster strikes. How unconditional love, resolve and Diamond’s choice back catalogue sustain a family through dark times is how Song Sung Blue earns its emotional resonance. Jackman can of course sing and emote to tear-inducing levels, but twinned with Hudson’s bubbly persona and a bleak narrative arc, he’s perhaps the best he’s ever been in this genre. He embodies optimism, even when it’s hard to find, and his lusty renditions of ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’, ‘Crunchy Granola Suite’ and Diamond’s bonkers ‘Soolaimon’ are a cinematic euphoria shot. Hudson meets him musically and emotionally, delivering a weepie solo of ‘I’ve Been This Way Before’ in a button-pushing moment that is played tonally – like the rest of the movie – with such sweet sincerity that cynicism struggles to have a place.
Focus Features/Universal Pictures
If that sounds cheesy it’s because it is. Song Sung Blue (written and directed by Craig Brewer) unapologetically embraces dreamers, rhinestones and yes, the healing power of a banger tune; offering a chorus line of nice, earnest people just struggling to get by. There’s no worldwide fame or cash windfall at stake here; this is a film about the elation of being your true authentic self, of finding your tribe, of getting up when you’re knocked down. It’s a portrait of a small but good life, and the love that sustained it. Sweet, feel-good and positive, it also reminds audiences of how many Diamond songs are on the cultural hard drive. You’ll be adding to your karaoke list post-watch…
Pictures courtesy of Focus Features/Universal Pictures Song Sung Blue is in cinemas now
Timothée Chalamet has already been testing the tensile nature of likeability with his recent promo stunts for this frantic, nervy sorta-triumph of the underdog story from Josh Safdie. With his viral marketing strategy (blimp, orange, ‘schwep!’) and unapologetic declarations about striving for greatness, Chalamet has been prepping audiences for his turn as fifties New York grifter Marty Mauser, a bombastic motormouth who wants to change his humdrum life as a shoe clerk for fame on the international stage as a table tennis champion. Marty will do anything (and anyone) to get that dream; his childhood married sweetheart (Odessa A’zion) or the movie star wife of a prospective sponsor (Gwyneth Paltrow), leading his bestie (Tyler, The Creator) into danger or pissing off a mobster (Abel Ferrara) with a beloved dog. His exploits leave him running as fast as his mouth, always one dollar away from triumph or disaster.
A24/Central Pictures
Written by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein and loosely inspired by real-life table tennis star Marty Reisman, Marty Supreme is a tale of America, of ambition, of audacity, of balls – orange ping pongs and the cajones required to con. As Marty races through Manhattan streets, to London (where he represents the USA on a shoestring), to dangerous New Jersey hinterlands and onward to Japan for an all-on-the-line bout, the film unpacks the psyche of a winner… who actually doesn’t win anything. Marty is a mythomanic whose tenacity and self-belief moulds reality, his want naked and feral. Modern parallels can be drawn between American foreign policy, the prostrating of contestants on talent shows telling judges they’ll ‘give it 110 percent’, the performative nature of social media existence.
A24/Central Pictures
Marty isn’t ethical or good, but he’s multi-dimensional and magnetic – whether he’s falling through a ceiling in a bath or acing a ping pong into a fruit bowl. There’s something to admire in his endless drive for success despite the odds being stacked against him. Much of that charm is down to Chalamet’s ballsy and unapologetic performance, rattling through the picture like a live wire, his activities soundtracked by anachronistic needle drops. The more Marty fails, the harder he tries, the more sure of his eminence he becomes. The verve and swagger of the kid is hypnotic, impressive.
A24/Central Pictures
Directed with kinetic energy by Safdie, watching Marty Supreme is like playing one of the matches so entertainingly essayed in the film. When the lights go up, the feeling is one of exhaustion and relief. And of certainty; that this is Chalamet’s best work of his career, that he is pursuing greatness as fervently as Marty. It is award-winning stuff and worthy of a big orange blimp. Schwep!
A24/Central Pictures
Pictures courtesy of A24/Central Pictures Marty Supremeis in cinemas now
