Screening Room

February 13, 2026

Words by MATT MAYTUM

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.

Barry Keoghan, Chris Hemsworth, Crime 101, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo, Monica Barbaro — 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.

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.

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.

Pictures courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
Crime 101 opens in cinemas on 13 February

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

February 10, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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).

Alison Oliver, Emerald Fennell, Hong Chau, Jacob Elordi, Margot Robbie, Shazad Latif — 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.

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.

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

Screening Room

NOUVELLE VAGUE

January 24, 2026

Words by MATT MAYTUM

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).

Aubry Dullin, Guillaume Marbeck, Richard Linklater, Zoey Deutch — 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.

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

Screening Room

RENTAL FAMILY

January 16, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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.

Brendan Fraser, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Takehiro Hira — *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?

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.

Pictures courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Rental Family is in cinemas now

Screening Room

HAMNET

January 9, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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.

Chloé Zhao, Jessie Buckley, Joe Alwyn, Paul Mescal, Zac Wishart — *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.

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.

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
Hamnet is in cinemas now

Screening Room

SONG SUNG BLUE

December 23, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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.

Ella Anderson, Fisher Stevens, Hugh Jackman, Jim Belushi, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Mustafa Shakir — *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.

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

Screening Room

MARTY SUPREME

December 22, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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.

Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Tyler The Creator, Abel Ferrara, Josh Safdie — 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.

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.

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!

Pictures courtesy of A24/Central Pictures
Marty Supreme is in cinemas now

Screening Room

THE HOUSEMAID

December 19, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Who wears a push up bra to bed? If you wore exclusively white, wouldn’t there be a lot of laundry? Does liking Barry Lyndon make you a monster? Questions you will ask while watching Paul Feig’s knowing, horny, beach read of a movie that zips along breathlessly but leaves gaping holes in logic if you really think about it. That is not to say it’s bad – this is the sort of bonkbuster thrill-ride you’d consume on a sun lounger and feel satiated without ever declaring it a work of art.

Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Paul Feig — Daniel McFadden/Lionsgate

The set-up: Ex-con Millie (Sydney Sweeney) needs a job and interviews as a housekeeper for the picture-perfect, wealthy Winchesters; cream cashmere-clad wife, Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and hunky hubby Andrew (Brandon Sklenar). Miraculously, Millie gets the gig – which fulfils her parole conditions and provides a home. But within days Nina has turned from calm delight to feral psycho, while Andrew simmers with disapproval, regret and a propensity to lurk around the house in a white vest that shows off his guns. So far, so Jane Eyre.

What is really going on in the Winchesters’ dynamic? Who is a reliable narrator? Why does the window not open in the housemaid’s room? How does Millie have this many Abercrombie & Fitch saucy-student outfits in her bag of meagre possessions? Why does the gardener look like a dancer from a Magic Mike show? As Nina turns to shrieking hysteria, Millie and Andrew start flirting over Junior Mints in the den and things flip to ‘thriller’ in ways that are easily pre-plotted by aficionados of the genre.

But sometimes, that’s exactly what you want. With dialogue that is knowingly camp, sex scenes that tap into Mills & Boon tropes and a performance by Seyfried that feels designed to let you in on the secret while Sweeney flaunts, The Housemaid is a wilfully trashy ride that should be enjoyed with a beverage and a side of self-awareness. The only trigger warning is to not watch if you like china sets or dentistry.

Pictures courtesy of Lionsgate
The Housemaid is in cinemas now

Screening Room

ELEANOR THE GREAT

December 12, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Feisty Eleanor (June Squibb) is 94 years young and still enjoys trolling her neighbours and bossing grocery store clerks around to fetch pickles. But when her bestie Bessie (Rita Zohar) passes away, Eleanor is lost. She and Bessie, a Holocaust survivor, had lived together in Florida – sleeping in matching twin beds, bitching together over the kitchen table – and Eleanor’s daughter decides to move her Ma closer to her, in Manhattan.

June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Scarlett Johansson — TriStar Pictures

Floundering in the big city, Eleanor joins a Jewish OAP group at a local community centre to make new friends, only realising once she’s part of the gang that they are all Holocaust survivors who regularly share their stories. Not wishing to differentiate herself, Eleanor fibs – recounting the experience she’s heard many times from Bessie as her own. And when a young journalism student (Erin Kellyman) asks to profile her, she agrees. What harm can it do?

Of course, this is no simple white lie in a world where faux Holocaust survivors threaten the authenticity of the events of WW2 for those wishing to deny it, but this is a gentle comedy designed to make audiences like Eleanor despite her misjudgements. That’s easy to do as played by Squibb, a cute granny with a comedically sharp tongue, but the film – directed by Scarlett Johansson in her helming debut – is soft around the edges.

A tinkling piano score suggests all proceedings should be viewed as quirky cute, but the way Eleanor’s lie builds out to take in the grief of a father (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and easy forgiveness, it’s territory seen numerous times before in Lifetime movies. And tonally, it’s a hard line to walk as it wanders through generational trauma, trips to Coney Island, family farce and a crisis of faith. Johansson doesn’t always manage to overcome the disconnects.

The treat therefore, is in watching Squibb twinkle her way through various situations – compelling as a fallible older woman, even if the material doesn’t meet her in quality.

Pictures courtesy of TriStar Pictures
Eleanor the Great is in cinemas now

Screening Room

GOODBYE JUNE

December 12, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

There are two types of people in the world: Christmas movie people and non-Christmas movie people. If you’re in the former group, you’ll likely love Richard Curtis, John Lewis adverts and enjoy Kate Winslet in the The Holiday. And Winslet’s directorial debut sits comfortably within that vibe, a festive comi-weepie with a star-studded cast, cute kids and a closer that will make you want to give your family members a good squeeze (even the grouchy ones). It’s unapologetically tinsel-y, emotionally manipulative and loaded with Britishisms – in other words, a successor to Love, Actually and exactly the type of movie you might want to watch post-turkey with the fam when it debuts on Netflix.

Andrea Riseborough, Fisayo Akinade, Helen Mirren, Johnny Flynn, Kate Winslet, Timothy Spall, Toni Collette — Kimberley French/Netflix

Written by Winslet’s son, Joe Anders, the titular June at the centre of a scrapping family is a granny matriarch (Helen Mirren) with terminal cancer, whose pre-Christmas fall puts her in hospital under the eye of nurse Angel (the absolutely delightful, Fisayo Akinade). June’s grown kids don’t really gel: bossy career woman Julia (Winslet) and abrasive organic-only Molly (Andrea Riseborough) fight; rumpled Connor (Johnny Flynn) doesn’t get out of his parents’ house much, and hippy Helen (Toni Collette) hasn’t been home from LA for years. Crammed together in a hospital room with various offspring (directed with appealing authenticity so as not to come over as stage-school brats) and a daft dad (Timothy Spall), June’s family unravels and binds tightly together again as she takes her final breaths…

Family squabbling is sketched with relaxed realism as the siblings talk over each other, tell their dad to shut up and get so infuriated by one another a visiting rota is drawn up. A vase is broken, people confess jealousy over vending machine snacks and there’s a gooey nativity with Christmas lights. None of it is deep, but the family dynamics feel recognisable even if death is somewhat sanitised. Winslet’s direction is assured, and regardless of whether Yuletide cheese is your bag or not, this is a confident start for an actor making their foray to the other side of the camera. It bodes well for what Winslet might do next.

Pictures courtesy of Netflix
Goodbye June is in cinemas now

Screening Room

CRIME 101

February 13, 2026

Screening Room

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

February 10, 2026

Screening Room

NOUVELLE VAGUE

January 24, 2026

Screening Room

RENTAL FAMILY

January 16, 2026

Screening Room

HAMNET

January 9, 2026

Screening Room

SONG SUNG BLUE

December 23, 2025

Screening Room

MARTY SUPREME

December 22, 2025

Screening Room

THE HOUSEMAID

December 19, 2025

Screening Room

ELEANOR THE GREAT

December 12, 2025

Screening Room

GOODBYE JUNE

December 12, 2025

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