UK/USA  2025  100 mins  15

In this dark comedy from Steven Soderbergh Ian McKellen plays Julian, a ‘bad-boy’ painter who decades previously produced two series of portraits called ‘The Christophers’. After suffering creative bloc he left a third series unfinished. With the earlier works worth millions, his dodgy children hire Lori (Michaela Coel), a struggling young artist turned restorer, to pose as his assistant and secretly finish the last series so they can make a fortune on his death. But as the master catches the whiff of a set-up, their great plan begins to go awry. James Corden and Jessica Gunning also star in this merry dance between artist and protégée full of sparring wit, cruel takedowns and savage truths.

Norway  2025  135 mins  15

Stellan Skarsgård gives a career-best performance as narcissistic film director Gustav Borg in Joachim Trier’s Oscar- and BAFTA-winning drama. Rather than confront the anger felt by his anxious actress–daughter Nora (a superb Renate Reinsve), Borg believes he can resolve family differences by casting her in his autobiographical film and using her fame to revive his flagging career. Unlike her happily married sister, Agnes, Nora knows she’s a mess, having never forgiven her father for abandoning them after divorcing their mother, and so resists Borg’s approach. A beautifully crafted and masterfully told tale of the complexities of family life. (S) 

US/UK/Ire/Fr/Ger/It  2025  110 mins  15

Nothing is what it seems in Jim Jarmusch’s Golden Lion-winning portmanteau film, starting in rural America with Tom Waits appearing to be the hard-up ‘Father’ to his two supportive children (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik), but is he? Charlotte Rampling is an imperious ‘Mother’ whose annual tea party for her competing daughters (Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps) is the only time she sees them despite them all living in Dublin. In Paris ‘Sister Brother’ (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) reunite after their parents’ death to lovingly discover their secrets. In each story a Rolex (real or fake?) maintains the intriguing strands of disconnect between individuals for us to puzzle over. 

Wales  2026  90 mins  15

Leisa Gwenllian gives a remarkable performance in Marc Evans’ Welsh-language film adaptation of the successful one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott, a story of survival set in the slate fortress that is now the desperate, boarded-up quarry town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. ‘Life is hard here and the people are tough,’ says Effi, introducing herself by recounting her habitual three-day hangover routine from which she arises to commence the bingeing all over again. Hope arrives in the form of a chance encounter with injured soldier Lee in a Llandudno night club, but will it lead to a better future than watching her grandma work nights in a chip shop to keep the wolf from the door? (S)

Iraq  2025  105 mins  12A

Winner of the Caméra d’Or for best first film at Cannes, The President’s Cake is a humorous, morally complex and touching evocation of the collective trauma experienced by millions of Iraqi children under Saddam Hussein. We see nine-year-old Lamia from the marshlands of southern Iraq become the unfortunate ‘loser’ in the annual classroom draw to select a cake-maker for Hussein’s birthday celebrations. In sanctions-era Iraq this means having to find the money for the luxuries of flour, eggs and sugar, a mission that propels her along with her grandmother Bibi, friend Saeed and pet cockerel on a journey to the city. Chaos and drama ensue. (S)

UK  2025  90 mins  18

A gripping and gritty drama from first-time director Cal McMau, featuring compelling performances and deserving of its BAFTA nomination in the Outstanding British Debut category. Prison cook Taylor has kept his head down while doing 13 years of his sentence and, excited to have made contact with his estranged son, Adam, on the outside, now finds he’s eligible for early release. That is until in swaggers his new cell-mate, Dee. This signals the start of a major upheaval as the cunning Dee sets about taking over the drug deals run by Taylor’s mates, using drone delivery. They do not take this attempted coup lying down. Will Taylor ever get out?

Gre/Ger/Hung  2025  96 mins  15

What do you call a chicken crossing the road? Played primarily by three Leghorn hens with five understudies (for particular skills) Hen’s poultry protagonist spends most of the film fleeing perilous situations before being recaptured. Starting with an escape from an industrial chicken farm to find a safe place to have her chicks, she’s captured by an elderly restaurateur living under the yoke of his daughter’s criminal boyfriend. Planning her next move, our hen witnesses the surrounding human pecking order but her sole concern is for her eggs. Directed by György Pálfi (who brought us the memorable Hukkle) and switching effortlessly from absurd comedy to sinister drama, Hen is definitely… poultry in motion. (S)

USA/Aus  2025  96 mins  12A

In this immersive documentary Baz Luhrmann cuts together two concert films, Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972). Over and around the concert footage, Luhrmann has laid tapes of interviews from the 50s and 60s, using them as connective tissue. It gives us a unique Elvis life story championing the raw stage power of the early 1970s and legendary Las Vegas shows. With unimaginable clarity you see Elvis in his absolute prime working and performing with passionate intensity not just for his music but for every musician, every backing singer and, of course, his audience. He is beautiful, playful, funny, ironic and unbelievably charismatic. A pre-Christmas treat.