A nifty ‘70s throwback thriller in the vein of The Conversation, Relay offers a fresh new take on the conspiracy sub-genre.

Riz Ahmed is Ash, a “fixer” who assists whistleblowers. He’s going about his work in New York, avoiding identification, living the life of a ghost. His latest client is food industry employee Sarah (Lily James) who uncovered potentially ruinous information that she impulsively made a copy of yet now, after increasingly alarming harassment, she has decided to return. This requires him to act as intermediary, sensitively communicating between the two parties to ensure safety.

Ash communicates with Sarah via a company called The Tri-State Messenger Service that mediates for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The beauty of this is that calls are confidential, and Sarah soon falls into step with Ash’s strange way of doing business. He is, however, a logistical genius and master of disguise, which comes in handy when a team of tech-savvy heavies, led by Sam Worthington, stake out Sarah’s apartment in a sinister black van. The film channels early Brian de Palma and Hitchcock to create a visceral thriller

Josh O’Connor stars as a wannabe criminal who fumbles a small-time art robbery in Kelly Reichardt’s evocation of 1970s suburbia.

James (O’Connor) is an art school dropout and would-be architectural designer with two young sons, married to Terri (Alana Haim). James depends on the social standing of his father Bill (Bill Camp) and is borrowing large sums of money from his patrician mother Sarah (Hope Davis), ostensibly to finance a new project.

But James has something else in mind for the cash. Having established the lax security measures at a local art gallery, he plans to pay two tough guys and a getaway driver to steal four Arthur Dove paintings. But the steps in his grand plan keep wobbling. His two accomplices shortly demonstrate that they’re barely up to the job, and the aftermath becomes the story, from hiding the paintings to going underground.

In The Mastermind, the dreary details of post-heist calamity are as pertinent as the main event. It is this that attracts Reichardt’s observing eye and makes the film so quietly gripping; it is a film that leaves you with something invaluable to gaze upon and reflect.  

Jeremy Allen White is a convincingly tortured rock star in this smartly narrow and specific look at a particular chapter of music history.

Based on Bruce Springsteen's authorised biography of the same name, the film takes place over a pivotal two-year period in the singer/songwriter’s life.

It’s 1981, and Springsteen (White) returns to New Jersey after touring his first No 1 record, The River, on the brink of superstardom but burned out. Record execs want him to strike with more hits while the iron is hot; Bruce wants to hole up in a rental house and tinker with the ideas that will become his 1982 album Nebraska.

It then picks up steam in the aftermath of his genius, as Bruce’s team scramble to preserve the haunted sound of his demos. Meanwhile, Bruce’s mental health crumbles along with his relationship with local waitress Faye (Odessa Young). The fear he often felt around his volatile drunk of a father (Stephen Graham), and the anxiety of his mother (Gaby Hoffman) are still very much with him. Deliver Me from Nowhere is a beautiful, haunting portrayal of a rock superstar.

“What a beautiful feckin’ day!” is how we first meet Sgt Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) of the Galway Garda. It’s a great measure of what is to come.

He is an unconventional policeman, investigating a seemingly random murder.

FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) arrives in Galway to mount an operation to catch a known drugs ring.

At first irritated by Gerry’s manner, the ‘yankie cop’ becomes reluctantly impressed. Sgt Gerry casually connects it all.

“A cracking film. Sgt Gerry a beautifully observed comedy creation.” (Total Film)

“Among the most purely entertaining films of any year, cuts its laughter with a dose of Celtic melancholy.” (Empire)

This is back not just because it is clever, witty and gorgeous, but it is was to celebrate ‘our kid’ on 26th March. Together our birth day always. He would love it for its infectious celtic humour, as will you. And its ruggered grey Atlantic coastline, which he loved so dearly. The pox overtook over us all 3 days before. So it is here - now.

A non-pc take on how-to-get-things-done! (sound familiar? But this is the good guy) “Gleeson relishes John Michael’s delicious dialogue in one bite.” (Hollywood Rep) Come, love it too. Raise another glass with twins. JH

Benny Safdie brings a raw, unfiltered edge to this bracingly authentic portrait of mixed martial arts pioneer Mark Kerr.

Shot with a fly-on-the-wall intensity, it strips away the glamour of sports biopics to reveal the quiet despair and resilience behind the blows.

Dwayne Johnson gives a career-best performance as Kerr, capturing both his physical dominance and emotional fragility. Set between 1997 and 2000, the film follows Kerr’s rise to MMA superstardom, his friendship with fellow fighter Mark Coleman, and his battle with addiction as his body and personal life begin to unravel. Emily Blunt is superb as Dawn, his volatile partner, their relationship rendered with a bruising honesty that echoes well beyond the ring.

In his first solo feature, Safdie’s direction is meticulous and unsentimental, favouring grounded detail over dramatisation, almost cinéma-vérité in practice. The fights are brutal but never glorified, grounded in pain, exhaustion and survival. What emerges is less a sports movie than an exploration of identity, endurance and the price of control. A tough and unflinching character study that champions the idea that real strength has little to do with victory.

Neon dreams and digital chaos collide as the line between human and program grows ever thinner.

Disney is still trying to make Tron a big deal. Nearly four decades after Steven Lisberger’s 1982 original, a film that underwhelmed at the box office but built a massive cult following, the studio is back with a third entry. Tron: Legacy (2010) had stunning visual direction and a fantastic Daft Punk soundtrack but, again, didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Yet Disney presses on, diving once again into the cybernetic world of the Grid.

This time, Eve Kim (Greta Lee), a Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) disciple, searches for his legendary Permanence Code, a key to bringing digital creations fully into the real world. Her rival, Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), and the unpredictable Master Control program Ares (Jared Leto) complicate her mission, leading to a moderately wild ride of neon-lit chaos and destruction.

The film dazzles on a visual level, aided by a pulsing Nine Inch Nails score, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Disney keeps trying to kickstart a franchise that few truly need. Still, it’s a vibrant, entertaining trip.

Nominated for 8 Oscars, sees a powerhouse duo: Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post journalists who uncovered the bones of the legendary Watergate Scandal.

Opening with a bang. It is 1972. A late duty policeman arrests five burglars at the Democrat HQ - Watergate building. Believing it to be a minor news item, the Post sends new boy Woodward (Redford) to cover the story. But when he discovers the burglars were no ordinary chancers, the thrill ride begins.

The cool thoughtful, Woodward is assigned the hasty, ankle biting, over ambitious, Bernstein (Hoffman) to assist. Not a good mix. Somehow, reluctance settles in to a chemistry that bounces.

“Remarkably intelligent, working both as an effective thriller, and as a virtually abstract charting of the dark corridors of corruption and power.” (Time Out)

(research Adam Protz)

A detective thriller of words, notebooks, clacking typewriters and desk telephones (landlines to you) Redford and Hoffman’s ‘Woodstein’ is a subtle double act, on every level. Pakula’s direction is a masterpiece of slow-to-build wordplay, enjoying a beautifully satisfying complex tension. Ahead of its time by 22 years, it is the natural big screen sequel to The Post.

One chance at The Rex, don’t miss it.

Not even five decades can dull the spiky impact of this cinematic gem. Jack Nicholson is at his deranged best long before he even picked up the script to The Shining.

Based on Ken Kesey’s 1962 best-selling novel, Nicholson is Mac McMurphy, the subversive wildman and troublemaker, sent down for statutory rape, whose unstable behaviour gets him a transfer to what he clearly thinks will be the cushy option of the mental institution.

Mac discovers that the set term of his prison sentence has been changed to an open-ended incarceration, dependent on psychiatric assessment. So Mac leads a revolt against the spirit-crushing regime of pills and shock therapy, and against the icy control of Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher).

The film’s simplistic approach to mental illness is not really a fault of the film itself, because it has no interest in being about insanity. It is about a free spirit in a closed system.

It remains enduringly popular as an anti-establishment parable, and McMurphy prevails as a character, despite the imperfections of the film, because he represents that cleansing spirit that comes along now and again to renew us.

The Choral is a quiet and consistent pleasure: a deeply felt drama which assigns actual passion to the music of Elgar and leaves us with a heartbeat of wit, poignancy and common sense.

With a brand new original screenplay by Alan Bennett (his first in 40 years), it is set during the first world war in a mill town in northern England where the choral society has appointed a new choirmaster, Dr Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes).

As Guthrie and his motley society grow, they struggle to land on a choral composition to perform. Too many of the great composers are (gasp!) German. Eventually, the group agrees to mount a performance of Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Geronitus, a blunt good vs. evil parable that evolves as the group does.

The expected bonding follows: romances take root, more than a few members of the society get tangled up in positively shocking relations, and hearts are broken. But music and song and the possibility of coming together to make something beautiful and potent, if even for a single performance, pushes the society on, just as it pushes The Choral on. Don’t miss.

Julian Fellowes brings Downton to a cosy, affectionate close.

Set in 1930, this final chapter finds British high society adjusting to changing times while life at the Abbey bustles along in its familiar upstairs-downstairs rhythm. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) faces scandal as a divorcee, while Carson (Jim Carter) and Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) prepare for retirement. Lord and Lady Grantham (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) wrestle with financial strain, Uncle Harold (Paul Giamatti) turns up with a dashing advisor (Alessandro Nivola), and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) hatches a plan to restore Mary’s standing with help from Noel Coward (Andrew Froushan). Alongside these threads, Lady Merton (Penelope Wilton) plans the county fair and Moseley (Kevin Doyle) finds comic relief in his screenwriting ambitions.

Fellowes juggles this sprawling cast with brisk pacing, weaving in witty banter and affectionate callbacks to 15 years of stories. While the drama feels gentler than in the show’s early years, the warmth of the ensemble keeps it engaging, with Dockery, McGovern, and Doyle shining in particular.

Light, funny, and steeped in nostalgia, it is less daring than Downton once was but perfectly content to wrap things up with comfort and charm.

A loosely metatextual portrait of its A-list actor, Noah Baumbach’s wistful character study explores the personal cost of fame inherent in being a silver-screen icon.

Baumbach (Marriage Story) gives us a charming satire, packed with in-jokes about film stardom and Hollywood. Jay (Clooney) is told, by his faithful manager Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler), that a beloved mentor has died. So begins the identity crisis at the heart of the story. We glimpse the artifice behind Jay’s seemingly effortless physical splendour. But the question he asks himself now is: what — if anything — lies inside?  The answer is sought in Tuscany, where he is to be honoured at a film festival. The jaunt also means he can hang with his Gen Z daughter on a standard class train through France.

Over the course of the film, we get a break-up in a restaurant; a lovers’ goodbye at a station; a man apprehending a thief who stole an old lady’s handbag; and not one, but two sequences of Clooney running after a departing car. Softer than your typically spiky Baumbach film, Jay Kelly will tug at your heartstrings until they snap clean in two.

Nearly a decade on from the last film, the Four Horsemen — whose numbers now swell to five or even eight — are back.

Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) and his super-pals return — including pork-pie-hat-wearing hypnotist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), assistant-turned-escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and sleight-of-hand trickster Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), dispatching baddies with well-thrown cards.

But the quartet are tricked into a testy reunion when a message from The Eye brings Atlas to the doorstep of a younger trio of similarly gifted magicians: Their task: steal an enormous diamond from money-laundering arms dealer Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), a mission mostly in sync with the new kids’ proclivity for wealth redistribution, albeit more neatly traditional in its choice of evildoer.

The charmingly silly idea of magicians using their illusions to pull off elaborate heists has now overblown into Fast & Furious style levels of ludicrousness. Thankfully, the actors seem specifically delighted to be in a series that doesn’t require a lot of fake gravitas, just straight-enough faces when someone chimes that in these troubling times, we need magic more than ever.

(Subtitled)

Directors Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte breathe new life into the classic revenge tale for a new age.

The year is 1815 in Marseille, France. A 22-year-old Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney) is promoted to the captain and eagerly awaits marrying his fiancée, Mercédès. But when jealous peers frame him for a crime he didn’t commit, he winds up in the Château d'If dungeons for over a decade. Following a daring escape, he discovers a vast fortune and returns to France under the guise of the "Count of Monte Cristo," a persona he adopts to seek revenge on those who destroyed his life.

Every second of 180 minute runtime screams epic. Niney carries the film with ease, managing to depict Dantès’ journey from young charmer through righteous crusader to jaded old man wondering if revenge was what he should have lived for. The relentless push of his story ensures that you’re riveted to the bitter end.

Just like last year’s fantastic two-part adaptation of The Three Musketeers, this is an expert adaptation of a huge tale, told with appropriate passion and scope, and certain to ensure the French film industry continues to have a great time bringing its classics home.

(Subtitled)

Laurent Tirard’s fun and frothy French comedy sees a peloton of nuns race for renovation of their dilapidated hospice.

When the local nursing home is on the brink of collapse, it falls to Mother Veronique (Valérie Bonneton) and the five quirky sisters of the St. Benedict convent to find a solution. Their big break comes when they spot a poster for a bike race offering a €25,000 cash prize and a trip to the Vatican for the winner. It seems like the perfect opportunity, but there's one major problem: none of the sisters are skilled cyclists. To make matters worse, their rival convent, led by Mother Veronique's childhood nemesis, Mother Josephine (Sidse Babett Knudsen), has their own plans for the prize money. But as they say, God works in mysterious ways.

Tirard, a versatile filmmaker with a talent for balancing lighthearted narratives with emotional depth, died at the age of 57 last September following a long illness. Here, the stunning landscapes of France’s Jura region provide a beautiful backdrop for his final film, a heartfelt and uplifting tale of resilience, camaraderie, and faith.

The second dystopian Stephen King adaptation in the same year (after The Long Walk), The Running Man sees Glenn Powell hunted across the US with a chance to win a huge cash prize.

Powell is Ben Richards, a construction worker who is financially up against it after getting fired for speaking out over working conditions. His child is sick and in need of expensive medication so, reluctantly, he auditions for The Running Man – one of several twisted reality shows designed by an all-powerful television network run by Josh Brolin’s slimy executive Dan Killian.

Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Hot Fuzz) infuses the film with his distinct kinetic style and cheeky sense of humour. The result is something akin to the ’80s urban nightmare of RoboCop. It even has Home Alone-esque booby-trap sequences. It’s Wright’s biggest, boldest canvas yet, and while it is less funny or flashily directed than his earlier fare, he doesn’t miss a chance to rib American popular culture or the capitalist horrors it fostered, as King once did, while also nodding to citizen journalists and social-media creators. It’s a wild ride; strap in

James Vanderbilt turns the Nuremberg trials into a tense, sharply crafted historical thriller that plays with the urgency of a political nail-biter.

Drawing on firsthand accounts, this post-war drama follows the scramble to bring Nazi leadership to justice after Hitler’s death. When Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) is captured, military psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) is dispatched to assess him, working closely with translator Howie (Fabien Frankel). As Kelley probes Göring’s charm and cunning, US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) fights to build a legally sound tribunal that the world will accept. With atrocities emerging and political pressure mounting, the question becomes not just how to try these men, but what justice can look like in the aftermath of unimaginable horror.

Vanderbilt keeps the drama lively with vivid behind-the-scenes details and a large, engaging ensemble. Crowe’s magnetic swagger makes Göring a disturbingly compelling presence, while Malek brings a cool, coiled intelligence that turns their exchanges into the film’s sharpest scenes. Frankel adds warmth as the quietly perceptive translator, and the supporting cast contribute texture even when the script gives them limited space.

Handsomely mounted and briskly paced, Vanderbilt’s film balances procedural intrigue with psychological tension, offering a fresh, absorbing retelling of history without overstating its conclusions

Ron Howard and Jim Carrey turn up the holiday chaos in this sparkling, over-the-top modern Christmas classic.

Carrey stars as the green, grumbling curmudgeon whose mission is simple; ruin Christmas for the impossibly cheerful Whos of Whoville. From sneaky break-ins to slapstick sleigh rides gone spectacularly wrong, the antics never stop. Cindy Lou Who, tiny but determined, becomes the unlikely foil to his schemes, bringing a bit of heart, clever mischief, and unexpected delight to the wild, unrelenting chaos that sweeps through the town.

Whoville itself is a candy-coated explosion of festive excess; twirling gingerbread streets, glittering ornaments, and hairdos that defy gravity. Every frame pops with charm, while Carrey’s trademark elastic expressions and manic spark carry things along with relentless energy. The jaunty soundtrack and playful sound effects add extra pep, making it a riot of colour, humour, seasonal mischief, and gleeful absurdity.

Loud, silly, utterly indulgent and embracing its own ridiculousness without apology, this is perfect for families looking for laughter, colourful mayhem, outrageous antics, and a reminder that Christmas is best when it’s a little messy

Lucile Hadžihalilović’s otherworldly coming-of-age story drifts between fairytale and filmmaking with a dreamy, unsettling pull.

Set in a 1970s mountain village, the film follows 15-year-old Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who flees her orphanage and stumbles onto the set of The Snow Queen. Already obsessed with the tale, she slips into a new identity and becomes drawn to its star, Cristina Van Der Berg (Marion Cotillard), whose cool, magnetic presence blurs the line between fantasy and something more dangerous. As Jeanne works as an extra, her fixation deepens, and the film smartly keeps the nature of their bond hovering just out of reach.

Hadžihalilović weaves the story with a hazy tension, folding reality into the film-within-a-film through playful shifts that reveal how easily cinema can distort longing. Cotillard adds an enigmatic charge, offering flashes of fragility beneath the Snow Queen’s poise, while Pacini is a striking newcomer, grounding Jeanne’s curiosity and confusion with real emotional weight.

It’s less as a puzzle to be solved than an experience to drift through, Gorgeous cinematography, evocative ‘70s design, and a lush score heighten that spell. The result is a hypnotic, elegant tale about desire, identity, and the allure of stepping into someone else’s story.

Mystery, passion and art collide in this compelling cinematic exploration of Caravaggio, one of history’s most enigmatic painters.

Multi-award-winning filmmakers Phil Grabsky and David Bickerstaff peel back the layers of his turbulent life, examining the hidden narratives woven into his masterpieces and the man behind them. The film traces Caravaggio’s trajectory from revolutionary talent to fugitive, fleeing from Rome in 1606 after committing murder and spending the last four years of his life in exile, moving between Naples, Malta, and Sicily before dying in mysterious circumstances in 1610.

Highlighting the dramatic intensity, bold realism, and striking chiaroscuro that made his work instantly recognisable, the documentary presents each masterpiece as both visual spectacle and psychological clue, featuring testimony from leading art historians. It’s a deeply immersive experience, blending rigorous scholarship with cinematic flair, and showcasing the timeless power of Caravaggio’s art to captivate, unsettle and provoke.

Five years in the making, this film is a thrilling, immersive portrait of a man who lived fast, painted furiously, and left the world mesmerised by his daring vision

Love actually is all around.

What more to be said of this fabulous heartwarming gallic spark? A huge true-story hit around the world, no moreso than at here the Rex where it has/will run and run.

The film chronicles the unlikely burgeoning friendship between Philippe (Cluzet) a wealthy and cultured quadriplegic, and Driss (Omar Sy) a young banlieue (slum) dwelling French West African hired to be his reluctant carer.  This routine ‘odd-couple’ story works on some other level, simultaneously wry, tender and hard-hitting. Perhaps inevitably, Philippe and Driss find their cosmic differences reveal more about... Philippe's reluctant romantic involvement with a pen-friend; Driss with his flirtatious, mischievous ways and his deep rooted immigrant poverty and consequent daily family earthquakes.  “Untouchable’s moral is conservative optimism: give a man responsibility and he will act responsibly? Might charm, but wont change the world…” (Oh yeah? Telegraph) It will move yours.

From its opening ambiguity, it draws you in, teasing an uncertain tension, before you fall in love. Only the French seem to understand how to tell a fundamental human tale to touch us all across barriers of language and… borders. At the closing of a bad year, come: be uplifted by a European Country’s effortless art of screen story telling; perhaps France’s greatest export gift…

The BFI’s meticulously restored White Christmas is a treasure trove of Irving Berlin classics: ‘Sisters’, ‘Blue Skies’, and of course… Two song-and-dance men (Crosby and Kaye, actually only one, Bing can’t dance) team up after the war to become one of the hottest acts in show-biz. One winter, after joining forces with a sister act (Gorgeous George’s aunt, Rosemary Clooney and stunning Vera Ellen) they hit the road. The real ‘adventure’ starts at a gig in Vermont. The run-down Inn belongs to their old army General. The result is unabashed sentimental slush, an immortal, perennial Christmas favourite unlikely to fade. 1950s: America’s boom decade. Was it a fabulous time there? Bogart, Brando and Doris Day; the cars, the romance, the Technicolor, with Ella and Sinatra in their prime. At the Pictures every home had a piano and a fridge while we were still rationing carrots and living in forty shades of grey (without a trace of smut) enjoying scrubbed necks, goose grease, darned everything, nits and the unforgiving one-pair of shoes worn too long for growing toes. But somehow Christmas always brought the annuals: Beano and Dandy and that single precious Mars bar. No television! There-there now… ‘The Past is another Country’. White Christmas remains a borderless fantasy passport.

It doesn’t matter if there are carollers outside, or if

it’s slap bang in the middle of the hottest summer,

there’s always time for Die Hard. The quintessential

action movie of well, ever, sees Bruce Willis trade in

his sitcom origins for a dirty vest and a Beretta.

New York cop John Mcclane’s (Willis), holiday

season is about to get a whole lot worse. When

Alan Rickman and his band of not-so-merry men

shoot their way into an LA skyscraper and hold the

partying office workers hostage, Mcclane happens

to find himself in the wrong place at the right time.

Leader of this German ‘terrorist’ group, Hans Gruber,

is not just my favourite Rickman role (dodgy accent

aside) but perhaps the greatest villain in Hollywood

history.

Director John McTiernan, fresh off of the surprise

hit Predator, delivers this masterclass in tension

and set-piece action only a year later, making Willis

a household name in the process. A myriad of

copycats, including four sequels(!), over the years

did little to dilute the impact the original had, and

still has to this day, thirty years later. (Jack Whiting)

This Chris Columbus exploritory slapstick classic comes to Christmas again, and what better way to fall into it than witnessing the antics of a 10-year-old defending his home from a couple of hapless burglars?

Playing out like a live action Tom & Jerry skit for kids, Home Alone finds young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) accidentally left behind at home as the family jet off to Paris for Christmas.

Generally perceived by his family as a helpless, hopeless little geek, Kevin is at first delighted to be rid of them, gorging on forbidden junk food and violent videos, but when a couple of bandits (Pesci & Stern) begin circling his house, he realises he's on his own.

Home Alone rapidly transforms in to what could be described as Straw Dogs for kids with nail guns, falling irons and swinging paint tins standing between Kevin and his assailants. Not many films draw such sympathy for the bad guys.

One could argue, writer the late, great John Hughes, doesn't conjure the same magical script qualities found in Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but Home Alone is too busy setting alight to poor Joe Pesci to bother with tales of morality. (Jack Whiting) Come alone.

A smooth, swaggering slice of old-school cool, this breezy Vegas caper is defined as much by the Rat Pack’s effortless charm as by its iconic heist.

The plot is straight-forward; Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) rounds up a crew of old army pals to pull off an audacious five-casino robbery in a single night. What follows isn’t a tightly wound thriller so much as a stylish hangout movie, one that revels in smoky bars and the relaxed confidence of men who look like they were born in tuxedos. The heist is fun, the stakes clear, and the laid-back pacing gives it a distinct, almost cosy throwback appeal.

It’s loose, playful, and packed with easy one-liners. Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. headline with the sort of chemistry that can’t be manufactured. Alongside them are Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop and Angie Dickinson. The camaraderie is the film’s pulse, elevating even its lighter, more meandering stretches. And the long-gone spectacle of 1960s Las Vegas shines like a city gleaming with promise.

More charming than suspenseful but endlessly watchable, it’s a glamorous time capsule of star-powered escapism.

Rivalling Love Actually for the ultimate seasonal guilty pleasure; this glutinous, Christmas pudding of a film is coated in a kind of buttery, golden glow of sickly sweet romance.

Cameron Diaz - her beaming, hyperactive face almost entirely devoid of ordinary human emotion - plays Amanda, a movie trailer editor who has come to England on a cute "house swap" holiday with a stressed English journalist called Iris (Kate Winslet). Iris has had her heart broken and strikes various Bridget Jonesy poses of snuffly, tissuey, jumper-wearing despair around the house, before snapping up the house-swap offer and zipping over to live in Amanda's spiffy Los Angeles home for Christmas, leaving behind her roguish brother, Graham. This is the impossibly handsome Jude Law, a book editor with whom Amanda has raunchy sex with her bra on. Back in LA, Kate Winslet finds herself drawn to quirky, vulnerable musician Miles (Jack Black) - chubby, yet clearly hubby material.

Winslet and Black come off better as the more engaging, loveable pairing; I kept hoping we would stay in LA, only to keep away from the, frankly, creepy Graham. You’re better than that Amanda

Welcome to our 17th anniversary Christmas, with the same old irresistible film we’ve been showing since the Rex re-opened in December 2004. It was a flop at the box office when it first appeared in 1946. After the war, the USA celebrated the brave new world with fashion, cars and fridges. We had bomb-sites, functional clothes, cold water, rations, war debts and the grey 1950’s but with essential, fabulous and much missed old City trams in every corner of Britain. Accidentally, it became essential TV viewing in the UK during the mid 70s, hence a new part of Christmas itself. You couldn’t see it at the cinema until independents got it re-released nineteen years ago. Now thanks to the BFI, this beautifully restored digital copy, is here again at the hand-restored Rex (and Odyssey) for Christmas 2019. Our cinemamatic Christmas would not now be the same without Clarence (angel 2nd class) showing George Bailey how terrible life would be in Bedford Falls, had he not been born. The simplest universal message: without that One in your life, your world is diminished. Happy Christmas. Have fun, go easy and raise a glass to a world with a George Bailey-like future for future children.

One Christmas Eve a small baby at an orphanage crawls into Santa’s bag of toys… only to be accidentally carried back to Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. Although he is raised to be an elf, as he grows to be ten times bigger than everyone else it becomes clear that Buddy (Ferrell) will never truly fit into the elf world. One Christmas, Buddy finally decides to find his real family, and sets off for New York City to track down his roots, but soon finds himself as much an outsider there as back at the North Pole. In fact, everyone in New York seems to have forgotten the true spirit of Christmas. So Buddy takes it upon himself to win over his family, realise his destiny, and save Christmas. Another family delight with Will Ferrell gangling in every direction to make the whole film into fabulous chaos. Very silly and very funny, somehow his antics get funnier every year. Don’t dare miss this fabulously silly Christmas treat in this stop-start year on a huge elfin screen - that lives on, while all around it… the grown-up corporate gainsayers, fall apart. Not gloating just green.

Welcome back to Aardman Animations and Sony Pictures Animation teamwork on this whimsical, and fabulous festive tale of the ‘Family Christmas’. It’s the night before Christmas, and the logistical complexity of Father Christmas’ (Jim Broadbent) annual trek is laid bare. How DOES he get all those presents to all those children all over the world? Ah ha… His eldest son, technocrat Steve (Hugh Lawrie), runs the entire operation with military precision and a covert army of elves equipped with much high-tech gadgetry. When one present goes astray, youngest son Arthur (James McAvoy) takes it upon himself to ensure that one little girl is not left out on Christmas morning… Masterfully written by Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith, and fantastically rendered, Arthur Christmas has much to delight the tiniest and the eldest. “It's playful, observant, sentimental without being slushy, and boasts the kind of jokes that will still sound funny when your children quote them in April.” (Telegraph) “Aardman films' yuletide offering is both a heartwarmer and a sly dig at the gospel of family togetherness, a witty wonder of invention.” (Independent). Watch the elves spring into Mission Impossible stuntmen as a child begins to wake, and note Steve Christmas’s ‘ridic’ festive goatee.

Magic, courage, and the power of friendship ignite this spellbinding finale that brings Elphaba and Glinda’s journey to a thundering close.

Elphaba, now the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, hides in exile while fighting for the freedom of Oz’s silenced Animals, while Glinda revels in the perks of fame and glamour as the city’s beloved new symbol of good. Under Madame Morrible’s watchful eye, Glinda tries to mediate between Elphaba and the Wizard, but escalating tensions push them further apart. As the kingdom teeters on the brink, Fiyero, Boq, Nessarose, and even a girl from Kansas are drawn into a tornado of loyalty, love, and long-suppressed truths.

Superior to Act Two on stage, the film builds out the world and delivers an emotional gut punch. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande deliver career-high performances, capturing every nuance of their characters’ emotions, while the new songs “There’s No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble” soar with memorable energy.

Already generating strong awards buzz and poised to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps at the Oscars, it’s a triumphant, heart-stirring conclusion.

Back, for as long as it likes. From nowhere in 2006 A-list big man Liev Schreiber on a-day-off from tough-guy, turned in this extraordinarily beautiful piece of storytelling from script to made-look-easy directing. And what a timeless treasure it is.

Eugene Hutz’s perplexed Alex, our ‘guide’, his straight-faced story telling and of the haunting film-score is from him too, and his real-life band: ‘Gogol Bordello’ (they are at the train-station)

A heartstopping surprise from its first outing at the Rex 15 years ago, Jonathan Safran Foer’s real family tale and best-seller.

Geeky ‘Jonfen’ (Elijah Wood) travels from America in search of Augustine, whom he believes saved his grandfather during the Nazis razing of Trachimbrod a now lost, Ukranian town. It was wiped-out. Armed with a yellowing photograph, he begins his search with the unlikely Alex, his grandfather (Boris Leskin) and his ‘seeing-eye bitch’. Alex’s butchery of the English language and passion for all things American is a tragi-comic joy from the start. You will be glad to be in the presence of every word and gesture. It is as unexpected as it is beautiful. It will touch you now. Then, it will fill your hearts long after and for years to come…

This is one film we cannot resist. Whistle the tune in the street and we’ll show it! It all begins in 1927, Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont (the show stealing Jean Hagen) are the darlings of the silent screen. Off screen, Don, aided by Cosmo Brown (the sensational Donald O’Connor) has to dodge Lina's romantic overtures especially when he falls for chorus girl Kathy Selden (the lovely, then 19 year old Debbie Reynolds). With the advent of the ‘Talkies’, Don and Lina's new film will be all singing, dancing and… talking! Unfortunately, Lina's voice would make gums bleed (think: Kate Bush screeching Sinatra). Kathy is hired to secretly dub Lina’s voice off screen while Gene K goes off splashing in the street, to make B-Movie Musical history. When Lina (who steals the show) finds out, run for cover. For Gene’s famous splash dance, the rain was lit from behind so primative acetate film might capture the downpour, and Gene had the flu! One single take, no waste or mishap after just three dry runs. Ouch! Witness too the fabulous Donald O’Connor’s unparalleled screen masterpiece “Make ’em Laugh” (one take?). What greater celebration of family cinema. New Years Eve. A timeless 1952 classic to dance us into 2020… Irresistible.