Manchester Theatre News & Reviews
This Week's Best Movie Releases & £5 Off Cinema Tickets
Discounted Cinema Tickets at Vue
Below, we've rounded up the 11 best films currently screening in Manchester cinemas together with the 11 best releases new to the streaming services (including three 2024 Oscar winners) this week (Updated 26 Apr 2024):
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1 ~ CHALLENGERS
★★★★★ Luca Guadagnino serves up an ace with Challengers, a sexy, funny, emotionally wrought tennis drama set during a single match, but encapsulating 13 years of friendship, rivalry and sexual misadventures. ~ The Scotsman.
★★★★★ Guadagnino’s thrilling new intoxicating and extravagantly sexy tennis psychodrama posits that every conversation is a tennis match, and every tennis match is a sex scene – you will be powerless to resist it. ~ The Independent.
★★★★★ This is the sort of barbed character study that Gudagnino has turned into a fine art throughout his career, delighting in the ways humans are consistently but uniquely callous to one another. ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★★ Operating at the peak of his powers, Luca Guadagnino has the time of his life with this practically sadistic exploration of unrelenting obsession. It is horny, it is hungry, it is phenomenally exciting filmmaking. ~ Empire.
★★★★★ Zendaya’s tennis love triangle serves up racquet-twanging steaminess. Umpiring a rivalry between Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, the star’s romantic thriller is the most purely pleasurable film of the year. ~ The Telegraph.
★★★★★ Zendaya is faultless in the best tennis movie of all. With terrific central performances and director Luca Guadagnino at the top of his game, this is a sexy masterclass in tension and storytelling. ~ The Times.
★★★★ ~ Financial Times.
★★★★ ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ ~ Radio Times.
★★★★ ~ Total Film.
★★★★ ~ NME.
2 ~ KIDNAPPED
~ 2023 Cannes Palme d'Or Nominee.
★★★★★ Marco Bellocchio’s antisemitism drama is a classic in the making. Based on the true story of a young Jewish boy kidnapped by papal authorities, this is a full-tilt melodrama that lays bare tyranny, bigotry and the abuse of power in the Catholic church. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★★ Kidnapped is an expertly paced, gorgeously shot and evocative true story of faith, family, and the power of people coming together to right deeply ingrained wrongs.~ Empire.
3 ~ THERE'S STILL TOMORROW
The most successful film ever directed by an Italian woman, There's Still Tomorrow (C'è Ancora Domani), by 50-year-old actress, writer and singer Paola Cortellesi, became a phenomenon in Italy last year, taking more money than both Barbie and Oppenheimer. ~ BBC.
★★★★ It's a richly and even outrageously sentimental working-class drama of postwar Rome, a story of domestic abuse whose heroine finally escapes from misogyny and cruelty through a piece of narrative sleight-of-hand that borders on magic-neorealism, performed with shameless theatrical flair and marvellously composed in luminous monochrome. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ With meticulous design, and Davide Leone’s pitch-perfect camerawork, this is a thoughtful, emotionally satisfying, immensely entertaining, clever movie about an abusive marriage, with an ending that smartly dynamites our expectations. ~ Financial Times.
4 ~ THE FALL GUY
★★★★ Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt dazzle in this delightful action comedy, a loving and supremely entertaining ode to stunt work based on the 80s TV series. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ A snappy, sharp, sexy screwball romance, with sparking chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, great support from Hannah Waddingham and ace action. ~ Total Film.
★★★★ David Leitch’s sweat-drenched stunt spectacle, a celebration of Hollywood’s most undervalued performers proves that old-fashioned, practical moviemaking is very much back in style. ~ The Independent.
5 ~ SPY X FAMILY CODE: WHITE
★★★★ The Popular manga characters receive their first film adaptation as they seek out a villainous colonel and an elusive dessert, brought off with great style by director Takashi Katagiri. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ Katagiri and screenwriter Ichiro Okouchi perfectly capture what makes the characters likable while still ramping up the action to make full use of their theatrical budget. ~ AllMovie.
6 ~ DUNE: PART TWO
★★★★ The second half of the hallucinatory sci-fi epic is a staggering spectacle. Denis Villeneuve’s monumental adaptation expands its extraordinary world of shimmering strangeness. It’s impossible to imagine anyone doing it better. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ Spectacular sequences abound, not least an exhilarating PoV rush through the dunes that leaves you breathless. A colossal gladiatorial arena that seems to touch the sky is shot in a mesmerising mix of monochrome and colour that would not have looked out of place in Fritz Lang’s expressionist masterpiece Metropolis. Stunning work from cinematographer Greig Fraser. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★★ ~ Evening Standard.
★★★★★ ~ The Independent.
★★★★★ ~ Total Film.
★★★★★ ~ RTE.
★★★★✭ ~ AllMovie.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Irish Independent.
★★★★ ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★ ~ Financial Times.
★★★★ ~ Daily Telegraph.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Times.
★★★★ ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ Time Out.
★★★★ ~ Empire.
★★★★ ~ NME.
★★★★ ~ The i.
7 ~ LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
★★★★ This found-footage frightener takes the clichés of the demonic-possession genre and leads them down fresh shock corridors. There's real panache to this low-budget jolter, which manages to be as briskly entertaining as it is consistently unnerving.~ Radio Times.
★★★★ Blending satire and shocks, this sophisticated horror plays like Ghostwatch for the post-truth generation. ~ Total Film.
★★★★✭ The Cairnes brothers still go above and beyond to ensure their application for the cult pantheon is a successful one. Give the Devil his due as soon as you can. ~ RTE.
★★★★ ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ Irish Times.
★★★★ ~ Time Out.
★★★★ ~ Empire.
8 ~ WONKA
★★★★✭ Wonka is delightful and delectable, full of heart, charm and is brilliantly funny, with silly beats throughout. Christmas magic leaps off the screen. ~ RTE.
★★★★★ The most fun you’ll have in a cinema all year. The brains behind Paddington – plus a charming Timothée Chalamet – give Roald Dahl a Goon Show-ish prequel full of irresistible velvety sweetness. ~ Telegraph.
★★★★★ Chalamet's Chocolate Factory prequel is a superbly sweet treat as he leads a beguiling cast in a backstory that rinses away all sourness from Roald Dahl’s embittered chocolatier. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★★ Simply scrumptious, Chalamet is very much the star of the chocolatier's origin story but the flawless ensemble cast, including Hugh Grant as an Ooompa Loompa, bring this rollicking sweet treat to life. ~ Evening Standard.
9 ~ THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE
~ 2024 Oscar Nominee (Best International Picture).
★★★★ A teacher faces a moral minefield in this German-language drama that jangles the nerves from start to finish. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★ A masterclass in playground politics; a teacher’s intervention in a spate of thefts upsets the balance of her school in Ilker Çatak’s taut, Oscar-nominated drama. ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Irish Independent.
★★★★ ~ The Telegraph.
★★★★ ~ The Scotsman.
★★★★ ~ The Times.
★★★★ ~ AllMovie.
10 ~ CIVIL WAR
★★★★ An exceptional war movie that relishes gory details, the director Alex Garland has made a comeback — drawing inspiration from Apocalypse Now, this film is assaulting, unfeasibly loud and is his best yet. ~ The Times.
★★★✭ Not a film one enjoys as much as experiences, Alex Garland's vision of a future America ravaged by conflict is impressively mounted but lacks political bite. ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★★ The Ex Machina director’s vision of an imploding America is neither anti-Trump nor anti-woke. Instead it’s as riveting as cinema gets, an Apocalypse Now for centrists which thrills at every turn. ~ Telegraph.
★★★★ There’s no shortage of horrors in an uncompromising hypothetical drama whose copious thrills come steeped in moral and ethical complexity. ~ Total Film.
★★★★ As a political statement, Civil War is provocative and occasionally exasperating; as a purely cinematic experience, it is urgent, heart-in-mouth, extraordinary stuff. ~ Empire.
★★★★★ This teeth-clenching thriller is superbly paced, feels mercilessly realistic, and sees Kirsten Dunst and her co-stars doing some of the best work of their careers when an America of the near future takes its last gasp. ~ RTE.
★★★★ ~ London Evening Standard.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Times.
★★★★ ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ Radio Times.
★★★★ ~ Irish Times.
★★★★ ~ AllMovie.
★★★★ ~ NME.
11 ~ MONKEY MAN
★★★✭ Dev Patel emerges as a compelling action star in his fun if messy directorial debut, a scrappy revenge tale, full of infectious enthusiasm for the genre, set in a fictionalised Indian city where corruption is rife. ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★✭ A surprisingly good film that starts as a gripping drama but morphs into a thrilling action film worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster in the final act. ~ AllMovie.
★★★★ ~ The Independent.
★★★★ ~ Financial Times.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Times.
★★★★ ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ ~ Radio Times.
★★★★ ~ The Times.
★★★★ ~ Total Film.
★★★★ ~ Time Out.
★★★★ ~ Empire.
ALSO SCREENING:
★★★✭ If Only I Could Hibernate.
★★★✭ Swede Caroline.
★★★✭ Sometimes I Think About Dying.
★★★✭ Abigail.
★★★ Ordinary Angels.
★★★ Migration.
★★★ Elaha.
★★★ Wicked Little Letters.
★★★ Immaculate.
★★★ Kung Fu Panda 4.
★★✭ Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.
★★✭ Back to Black.
★★✭ Seize Them!
★★✭ Anyone But You.
★★✭ I.S.S.
★★✭ The American Society of Magical Negroes.
★★ Argylle.
★★ Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
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NEW TO STREAMING:
(Updated 23 Mar 2024):
AMAZON PRIME ~ 12 ANGRY MEN (1957 Version)
1958 BAFTA Winner: Best Foreign Actor (Henry Fonda).
★★★★★ Based on a television play by Reginald Rose about a lone juror holding out for a not guilty verdict with the remaining 11 ready to convict, this marvellous movie has become part of life's currency: there's no courtroom in the world where 12 Angry Men is not either invoked or recalled. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★★ Startlingly moving and powerful for a one-room, wordy drama. ~ Empire.
★★★★✭ A tightly wound top of a movie. Each scene ratchets up the tension another notch as Henry Fonda's character tries desperately to open the minds of his fellow jurors. ~ All Movie.
DISNEY+ ~ ALL OF US STRANGERS
~ 2024 BAFTA Nominee.
★★★★★ Andrew Haigh’s mysterious, beautiful and sentimental film is a fantasy-supernatural romance about loneliness and love. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★★ Based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Japanese writer Taichi Yamada, this dreamy romantic drama from British writer/director Andrew Haigh (45 Years) blurs the lines between past and present, living and dead. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★★ A masterful love story of loneliness and healing. ~ Time Out.
★★★★★ The saddest film of the year. Have a box of tissues (or two) handy for this heartbreaking but beautiful masterpiece. ~ NME.
★★★★★ Two of Ireland’s best-loved actors get down to some notably explicit coupling. ~ Irish Times.
★★★★★ Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott mesmerise as soulmates united in a ghostly love story about a man in despair who seeks and finds approval from his long-dead parents. ~ Irish Independent.
★★★★★ Mescal and Scott star alongside Claire Foy and Jamie Bell in Andrew Haigh's beautifully nuanced film about loss, love and hope. ~ BBC.
★★★★★ Andrew Scott gives the performance of his career in this tender ghost story. ~ The Independent.
★★★★★ Told with economy, and evading any easy genre classification - it’s part romance, part fantasy, part thriller, and more besides - it’s a very moving piece of work, and a testament to the power of love. ~ Total Film.
★★★★★ After an impressive body of work, Andrew Haigh levels up even further, with a flawless film that reaches for the stars, and gets there. It aches and shimmers. ~ Empire.
★★★★★ Adapted by Haigh from a Japanese ghost story, this unusual romance is aching, gorgeously shot and shimmering with sadness while Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal’s chemistry is off the charts. ~ Telegraph.
★★★★★ A supernova of a film; delicate and devastating in the same breath. ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★★ I can’t think of another film that moved me the way this one did. ~ Irish Sunday Independent.
★★★★★ This deeply personal portrait of newfound love and a traumatic past is an emotionally wrenching masterpiece. ~ The Observer.
★★★★★ Andrew Haigh’s utterly magnificent All of Us Strangers summons such depth of feeling — and by such subtle magic — that you may feel blindsided by it. Do not operate heavy machinery after watching. ~ Sunday Times.
NETFLIX ~ TO KILL A TIGER
~ 2024 Oscar Nominee: Best Documentary.
★★★★✭ ~ AllMovie.
In India, a land where it’s all too common, a woman is said to be sexually assaulted every 20 minutes. This documentary follows the story of a family who sought justice against the odds. ~ Washington Post.
DISNEY+ ~ POOR THINGS
~ 2024 Oscar Winner: Best Actress (Emma Stone) + Best Costume + Best Makeup & Hair + Best Production Design.
★★★★★ A funny, sad, bawdy, beautiful concoction. ~ Total Film.
★★★★★ The director of The Favourite teams up again with the fearless Hollywood star in a funny, filthy and explosively inventive spin on Frankenstein. ~ The Observer.
★★★★★ Stone’s raunchy gothic comedy is unlike anything you’ve seen in years. A young woman with an infant’s brain cuts a swathe through Europe in a madcap creation myth full of sex and substance. ~ The Telegraph.
★★★★★ Yorgos Lanthimos’s feminist Frankenstein comedy is scabrous, smart and obscenely funny. ~ Time Out.
★★★★★ There's Emma Stone slaying, Mark Ruffalo simping, Willem Dafoe burping, and countless more joys to experience. ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★★ Stone gives a hilarious, beyond-next-level performance as Bella Baxter, the experimental subject of a troubled Victorian anatomist, in Lanthimos’s toweringly bizarre comedy. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★★ Lanthimos’s films are always strange, and this is perhaps the most peculiar but also the most relatable of them all, while Emma Stone is magnificent as a sex-obsessed Victorian. ~ The i.
★★★★★ Lanthimos’ surreal twist on Frankenstein is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Emma Stone is extraordinary as a young woman brought back to life with the mind of a toddler. ~ Irish Independent.
★★★★★ Stone gives one of the bravest and boldest performances we’ve seen in a long time. Unpredictable but completely natural, heightened but sympathetic, hilarious but heart-wrenching. Her portrayal of the quickly maturing woman is a delight to watch. ~ RTE.
★★★★★ A sly and hilarious tale of sexual adventure. The team behind The Favourite reunite in this tale of a rampantly curious 19th-century woman, played in Oscar-worthy style by Emma Stone. ~ The Times.
★★★★★ After The Favourite, this new offering will cement the director's reputation as a brilliant popular filmmaker. ~ Evening Standard.
★★★★★ No other mainstream director today is making movies this visually bold and brilliantly realised. ~ Financial Times.
★★★★★ Absolutely batshit, utterly filthy and a true original: Poor Things is as good as Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone have ever been. ~ Empire.
BBC iPLAYER ~ NOW, VOYAGER
★★★★ A classic of the weepy genre so have some toilet roll handy. ~ Empire.
★★★★★ Adapted by Casey Robinson from the Olive Higgins Prouty best-seller, complete with large chunks of the novel's dialogue, Now, Voyager (1942) became one of Bette Davis's most adored women's pictures. ~ AllMovie.
★★★★★ One of the all-time great weepies, it has gone down in the annals of cinema history for Paul Henreid's lighting of two cigarettes scene and a tear-jerking speech from Davis, at her best in front of a moonlit sky. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★★ Exquisitely crafted and passionately acted, the towering 1942 romantic melodrama has been re-released, and its audiences will once again get swept away in the emotional tsunami created by Max Steiner’s orchestral score; the music’s almost outrageous grandiloquence matches the passion and absolute seriousness of the film, and underscores Steiner’s reputation as the Tchaikovsky of the Hollywood golden age. ~ The Guardian.
DISNEY+ ~ TAYLOR SWIFT - ERAS TOUR
★★★★★ Better than a Swiftie’s wildest dreams. ~ Little White Lies.
★★★★ Coming right now to a cinema near you: three hours of slick, lovingly shot footage of a modern pop star operating at the very peak of her powers. ~ NME.
★★★★ A cacophonous testament to megastardom, the concert film captures 2023’s biggest pop culture event with breathless fervour and crystal clarity – honing in on the details easily missed in the live shows. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★✭ Through careful camera work and stunning visuals, director Sam Wrench manages to convey a real sense of being present in the arena with the best seats in the house. It has all the excitement of attending a live concert without the five-hour wait to get out of the parking lot. ~ AllMovie.
★★★★★ Unless you’re a devoted fan, concert films can be a rather dreary experience but the sheer spectacle and energy of The Eras Tour film is enough to convert even the most rabid anti-Swiftite. It will have you dancing in the aisles. ~ The Telegraph.
★★★★★ The film more than justifies the hype and rather than a rushed cash-in, Swift has gifted her fans a spectacular, lovingly crafted movie that somehow captures everything great about the live show. The star’s concert movie is a thriller. ~ The Times.
CHANNEL 4 ~ 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL
~ 2024 Oscar Winner: Best Documentary Feature.
★★★★★ The beginning of Russia's 2022 assault on Ukraine is captured in unflinching detail in this harrowing and vital documentary. It's a pacey and immersive feat of first-hand reportage that uses its humble cinematic tools to remarkable effect. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★★ Film-maker Mstyslav Chernov risked everything to document Russia’s attack from within the besieged city, recording unthinkable horrors in this vital account; his searing film bears terrible witness to a brutal siege. ~ The Guardian
★★★★★ ~ Financial Times.
★★★★★ ~ The Times.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Times.
★★★★ ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ Time Out.
★★★★ ~ All Movie.
CHANNEL 4 ~ HOBSON'S CHOICE
~ Made in Manchester.
~ 1955 BAFTA Winner: Best British Film.
★★★★ Hobson's Choice is one of director David Lean's best comedies, featuring a fine performance by Charles Laughton as the domineering boot-shop owner whose drunken behavior causes his family to rebel. ~ AllMovie.
★★★★ Filmed on location in Salford, England, Hobson's Choice marvelously recreates the late Victorian era, and makes a credible stab at the linguistic flavor of the region. ~ AllMovie.
★★★★ The role of the Salford cobbler at war with his wilful daughter is tailor-made for Laughton (who had previously enjoyed much stage success in the role of Henry Horatio Hobson), and he gives one of his very best performances. ~ Radio Times.
★★★★ The slick by-play between the leads belies the fact that Laughton detested Brenda de Banzie as Maggie and resented John Mills for landing the son-in-law part he wanted to go to Robert Donat. ~ Radio Times.
CHANNEL 4 & AMAZON PRIME ~ THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY
★★★★★ A benchmark British gangster classic with spot-on performances all round and a near wordless end scene that diplays some of the finest screen acting ever from Bob Hoskins. ~ Empire.
★★★★★ Sheer, ground-breaking brilliance; a superb script and great turns from Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are the making of John Mackenzie’s classic London gangland thriller. ~ Mark Kermode, The Observer.
★★★★★ Although The Long Good Friday is firmly rooted in a very different era - early 1980s Britain is another country entirely - the film still feels fresh and uncompromisingly tough. ~ The Times
CHANNEL 4 & NETFLIX ~ TOP GUN: MAVERICK
~ 2023 Oscar Winner: Best Sound.
★★★★★ Tom Cruise makes an absurdly exciting return to the skies. Thrilling, moving and gloriously Cruisey, Joseph Kosinski's sequel to the 1986 hit is unquestionably the best studio action film in years. ~ The Telegraph.
★★★★★ A thunderously enjoyable blockbuster. No cynicism, just on-point sentiment and scintillating set-pieces. TG:M scores a direct hit on its twin targets of nostalgia and adrenaline. ~ Total Film.
★★★★★ Avoiding the danger zone of mere retread, Kosinski and co deliver all the Top Gun feels and then some: slick visuals, crew camaraderie, thrilling aerial action, a surprising emotional wallop and, in Tom Cruise, a magnetic movie-star performance as comforting as an old leather jacket. Punching the air is mandatory. ~ Empire.
★★★★★ With a smarter story, funnier dialogue and more nausea-inducing aerial stunts, Top Gun: Maverick outpaces the 1986 original. ~ BBC.
★★★★✭ The cinematography is phenomenal. It should be because the actors had to sign a form stating they had no fear of flying. ~ AllMovie.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Irish Independent.
★★★★ ~ London Evening Standard.
★★★★ ~ The Independent.
★★★★ ~ The Irish Times.
★★★★ ~ Financial Times.
★★★★ ~ Sunday Times.
★★★★ ~ The Scotsman.
★★★★ ~ The Observer.
★★★★ ~ The Times.
★★★★ ~ Time Out.
★★★★ ~ The i.
AMAZON PRIME ~ AMERICAN FICTION
~ 2024 Oscar Winner: Best Adapted Screenplay.
★★★★★ This comedy drama about a pretentious academic has been deservedly nominated for five Oscars. ~ The Times.
★★★★ Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K Brown are marvellous in Cord Jefferson’s touching, funny dramedy. A sharp satire on Black stereotypes and the white people who love them. ~ The Independent.
★★★★ Jefferson’s razor-sharp comedy is a joyfully barbed satire on race and writing. ~ Financial Times.
★★★★ Jefferson marries broad humour with affecting familial dysfunction and biting observations on race while Jeffrey Wright gives a knockout performance in this edgy, Oscar-nominated comedy. ~ Irish Times.
★★★★ Wright leads a note-perfect cast as an author pandering to a white appetite for Black trauma in an impressive incisive literary satire which takes no prisoners. ~ The Observer.
★★★★ Wright is marvellous in a tart comic drama that pokes fun at white stereotypes of blackness. ~ Irish Independent.
★★★★ American Fiction is a film that diagnoses the problem and presents a cure. ~ Time Out.
★★★★ Elegantly walking a line between absurdist satire and family drama, this is a clever send-up of how the broadness of Black culture gets reduced to cliché. ~ Empire.
★★★★ A superb send up of the depiction of the black experience in popular culture, in skewering stereotypes this biting satire holds a mirror up to its audience. ~ Evening Standard.
★★★★ This biting race satire will make white viewers squirm. As a struggling author who is rightfully angry at the world but also consumed by self-hatred, Jeffrey Wright has never been better.~ The i.
★★★★ Wright hits a career high in a film that’s terrifically funny, beautifully written, thoughtful, and provocative. ~ Total Film.
★★★★ An entertaining comedy collision of race, class and envy, this enjoyable meta-level adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure tackles black-victimhood stereotypes, showcasing Jeffrey Wright and Issa Rae as rival writers. ~ The Guardian.
★★★★ Absurd without ever feeling outlandish, Jefferson's film delivers cutting and insightful commentary with playful style. ~ Radio Times.
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