USA  2024  18  139 mins

American writer-director Sean Baker’s Oscar-winning new film is a screwball tale: frenetic and funny, fiery and profane. Like Pretty Woman but with an edge. Ani works in a strip club where she meets Vanya, the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch. Their transactional relationship quickly develops into marriage. But the trouble starts when a pair of hapless Russian goons arrive with instructions to annul the union. Baker’s previous film, The Florida Project, set in the outskirts of Disneyland, examined similar themes of the possibility of escape from life in the margins. In Anora, Ani’s feisty determination not to lose those possibilities carries the audience along as she fights for her dreams.

Braz/Fra  2024  15  137 mins

A heartfelt, true-life drama feature from Brazilian director Walter Salles about a family navigating the repression of Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1970s. It was a time when anyone considered a threat risked immediate arrest, and the country ran on fear. Salles knew the Paivas family and that closeness comes through in the way he makes us care for them too. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, Fernanda Torres gives a riveting performance as the wife and mother of five who has to come to terms with the unthinkable as she campaigns for her husband’s safe return. At its screening at the Venice Film Festival it was greeted by a 10-minute standing ovation, along with the award for Best Screenplay. Unmissable. (S)

UK  2025  12A  89 mins

Following her documentary on artist Eric Ravilious and his wartime paintings, director Margy Kinmonth turns her attention to the little-explored subject of women war artists and their perspective on conflict. Presented as a series of profiles and interviews, the narrative features official war artists Dame Laura Knight, who famously depicted the Nuremberg trials in 1946, and Falkland war artist Linda Kitson, as well as photographer Lee Miller and Maggi Hambling, among others. But probably Kinmouth’s most compelling subjects are those working in active war zones, such as Ukrainian Zhanna Kadyrova making work from found objects, and Sudanese graffiti artist Assil Diab, who paints murals of the forgotten dead. The essential question is, what do women see that men don’t?

France  2025  15  104 mins

For all its darkness and drama the mood of François Ozon’s crime thriller is calm and restrained. In a picturesque Burgundy village, Michelle (81-year-old Hélène Vincent) is enjoying what looks like blissful rural retirement close to her old friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko). But tensions between Michelle and her hostile, permanently angry daughter and the return of Marie-Claude’s scoundrel son from prison begin to cause trouble. The film steadily picks apart the bucolic idyll of Michelle’s golden years, sliding in the process from ambling character study to cool-blooded thriller in the spirit of Simenon. The film succeeds as an empathetic psychological portrait, a feminist drama and an anti-ageism statement — all executed with subtlety, craft and wit. (S)

Sweden  2024  PG  95 mins

A moving and funny documentary in which Swedish TV presenters Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson – like Ant and Dec they come as a pair – embark on a road trip with Filip’s father Lars in an attempt to rekindle his zest for life. The pair’s easy banter smooths the journey. Their destination is an apartment in the South of France they used to rent every summer, and their vehicle of choice an ancient Renault 4 similar to the one they once owned. There are some tear-jerking scenes when Hammar persuades his dad to cook his old standby, ratatouille, but poor Lars can barely slice an aubergine. Hammar’s love for his father is hugely touching and a reminder to parents everywhere of the essential truth – that you get out what you put in. (S)

Swe/Den/Turk/Georgia  2024  15  106 mins

An emotionally engaging and highly intelligent film from Georgian-Swedish director Levan Akin. Lia, a retired Georgian teacher, has promised to find her long-lost niece, Tekla. The search takes her to Istanbul, a city that seems full of connections and possibilities. She reluctantly takes along Achi, a restless teen whose mother went to work in the Turkish capital and never returned. He claims to know where her niece might be staying. Once there they meet Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights, and Tekla starts to feel closer than ever. Sweet without being cloying, it’s a love letter to the shared sensibilities of Georgian and Turkish culture and reminds us that it’s never too late to change for the better. (S)

Ita/Fra/Bel  2024  15  119 mins

Winner of a raft of awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, this is a slow-burn family saga of immense subtlety and quiet observation. It's 1944 in Vermiglio, a remote Italian Alpine village where the war is a distant but still omnipresent threat. However, the unexpected arrival of a runaway soldier, Pietro, disrupts the dynamics of the local schoolmaster’s large family for ever. The love that develops between Pietro and the schoolmaster’s eldest daughter, Lucia, leads not only to their marriage but is also the catalyst for an unexpected and surprising destiny. The beauty of the Alpine environment is revealed to us in gorgeously muted cinematography that allows our eyes the space to roam. An unsentimental film of great beauty and restraint. (S)

France  2024  15  98 mins

Camille Rutherford is outstanding in this funny and smart French comedy. She plays Agathe, a Parisian bookshop owner (specialising in English books) who is also an aspiring writer. Agathe feels out of place and out of time but, through the intervention of a friend, wins a place on a Jane Austen writing retreat run by the author’s descendants. A trip across the Channel ensues. Classic Austen themes of romance, doubt and expectation are exported to the 21^st century and explored with cringe-free wit and charm as she interacts with the rest of the writing group. A perfect pre-Christmas treat. (S)