The Duke Of Burgundy (18)
(Peter Strickland, 2014, UK) Sidse Babett Knudsen, Chiara D’Anna. 104 mins
Fifty Shades Of Grey looks positively beige compared to this: a surreal, sensual, genuinely kinky reverie that plays like a lost slice of 1970s arthouse erotica. Its soft focus is a well-heeled lesbian couple whose man-free idyll of elaborate role-playing and entomological inquiry proves to be fragile. The retro trappings are stripped back to get at something stranger, but deeper.
Cake (15)
(Daniel Barnz, 2014, US) Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Anna Kendrick. 102 mins
Aniston acquits herself in a mature, non-comedy role as a woman consumed by debilitating pain, physical and emotional. She’s also difficult to warm to, which makes it hard for us all.
Predestination (15)
(The Spierig Brothers, 2014, Aus) Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor. 95 mins
Cause and effect soon lose track of each other in this tail-chasing, brain-stretching time-travel thriller, which zips around the decades on a terrorist manhunt. Snook’s portrayal of an intersex character is what really stands out. We spoke to Sarah Snook about the role – read the interview here.
Blackhat (15)
(Michael Mann, 2015, US) Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis. 133 mins
Lifeless performances and an unattractive digital aesthetic do little to gee up Mann’s cyber-war thriller, in which Hemsworth’s pardoned hacker goes on the hunt for a rogue baddie with an IT masterplan. Read the Guide’s interview with Michael Mann here.
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (12A)
(David Zellner, 2014, US) Rinko Kikuchi, Nobuyuki Katsube, David Zellner. 105 mins
An unstable Japanese woman hatches a quest to fly to the US and retrieve the loot from the film Fargo (which she thinks is true). As offbeat culture-clash fables go, it’s slow and sparse, but Kikuchi always keeps it watchable.
The Wedding Ringer (15)
(Jeremy Garelick, 2014, US) Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting. 101 mins
Clumsily cut-and-pasted brom-com antics ensue when Gad’s loser groom hires a professional best man and other fake buddies.
Maidan (12A)
(Sergei Loznitsa, 2014, Ukr/Neth) 134 mins
The energy, passion, confusion and sacrifice of the 2013/14 Ukrainian uprising is powerfully conveyed in this wordless documentary, which tracks the progress of the Kiev anti-government protests from idealism to chaos.
Project Almanac (12A)
(Dean Israelite, 2014, US) Jonny Weston, Sofia Black-D’Elia, Sam Lerner. 106 mins
Teens discover time travel, do awesome stuff then pay the price in this Michael Bay-produced “found footage” sci-fi. Deja vu all round, but guilty fun, too.
Kung Fu Killer (15)
(Teddy Chan, 2014, Chi/HK) Donnie Yen, Charlie Yeung, Baoqiang Wang. 96 mins
A serial killer targeting martial-arts instructors? Unlikely, but it’s the perfect set-up for a kick-ass actioner paying homage to old-school kung fu.
Badlapur (15)
(Sriram Raghavan, 2015, Ind) Varun Dhawan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Huma Qureshi. 123 mins
Dhawan ditches the comedy to avenge his murdered family in this dark thriller.
Out from Thursday
Backstreet Boys: Show ’Em What You’re Made Of
The band hit the comeback trail.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Richard Gere spices up the senior shenanigans.
Out from Friday
Catch Me Daddy
Striking British thriller revolving around an Asian Yorkshire girl on the run.
It Follows
Novel horror suspense as a mysterious killer stalks suburban teens.
Focus
Will Smith and Margot Robbie in a trust-no-one con man caper.
White God
Hungarian girl-and-her-dog movie that breaks out of its genre cage.
The Boy Next
Door Jennifer Lopez regrets her cougar ways in this neighbourhood thriller.
Hinterland
Low-budget romantic tale set on the Cornish coast.
A Dark Reflection
Dramatisation of a real-life aviation conspiracy exposed by a Sussex reporter.
The Tales Of Hoffmann
New restoration of the 1951 Technicolor fantasia.
Coming soon
In two weeks... Julianne Moore’s Bafta-winning performance in Still Alice… Robots dream in Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi thriller Chappie…
In three weeks... Liam Neeson does his badass act in Run All Night… Michelle Williams in Nazi occupation drama Suite Française…
In a month... Sean Penn is The Gunman… The animals talk to Ryan Reynolds in The Voices…
