Movie of the Week

• The Roses

Cinemas

• Caught Stealing
• The Toxic Avenger
• Young Mothers
• Big Boys
• Little Trouble Girls

Streaming/On-Demand

• The Thursday Murder Club

Re-Releases

• Jaws
• Dogtooth
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

CAST: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou, Zoë Chao, Hala Finley, Akie Kotabe

CREW: Jay Roach (director, producer), Tony McNamara (writer), Adam Ackland, Tom Carver, Leah Clarke, Michelle Graham and Ed Sinclair (producers), Theodore Shapiro (composer), Florian Hoffmeister (cinematographer), Jon Poll (editor)

PLOT: Theo (Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Colman) are a successful married couple whose lives together are seemingly pitch-perfect, but soon after Theo’s professional dreams come crashing down, a wave of layered resentment breaks the façade and leads to an all-out war between them…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• Love is definitely a fragile thing in director Jay Roach’s darkly funny breakdown of a marriage
• Roach and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony McNamara adapts Warren Adler’s novel The War of the Roses, which was previously turned into a movie by Danny DeVito
• Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are delightfully devious in the main roles, with strong supporting turns from SNL veterans Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, as well as recently departed Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa
• As in the original novel and previous film adaptation, the situation escalates to unbelievably and hilariously cruel heights, much to the delight of the viewer
• Even as you witness people doing horrible things to one another, there’s enough to love and possibly even be inspired to love your other half even more

The Roses is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Live Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne, Bad Bunny, Carol Kane, Tenoch Huerta, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Brill, Action Bronson, George Abud, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Georgia Piña Clark

CREW: Darren Aronofsky (director, producer), Charlie Huston (writer), Jeremy Dawson, Dylan Golden and Ari Handel (producers), Rob Simonsen (composer), Matthew Libatique (cinematographer), Andrew Weisblum (editor)

PLOT: In 1990s New York, Henry Thompson (Butler) is a former baseball player whose punk-rock neighbour Russ (Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, but soon he finds himself inexplicably targeted by a crew of gangsters and must stay alive for long enough to find out why…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• After the heavy drama of The Whale (no pun intended), director Darren Aronofsky lets loose with this hugely entertaining crime thriller
• It is adapted from the first in Charlie Huston’s series of books about the hapless anti-hero Henry Thompson, with the writer also writing the screenplay
• Austin Butler plays Thompson with intense swagger as he encounters several colourful characters portrayed by the likes of Regina King, Vincent D’Onofrio, and former Doctor Who star Matt Smith
• The action has an energetic mix of comedy and suspense, all with Aronofsky’s signature intimate directorial style
• It could launch an all-new film series with a lead who doesn’t always fit the hero mould but is compelling and interesting enough to root for all the same

Caught Stealing is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Sarah Niles, Julia Davis, Julian Kostov, David Yow, Macon Blair, Rebecca O’Mara, Jonny Coyne, Jane Levy, Luisa Guerreiro

CREW: Macon Blair (director, writer), Alex Garcia, Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman and Mary Parent (producers), Brooke Blair and Will Blair (composers), Dana Gonzales (cinematographer), Brett W. Bachman and James Thomas (editors)

PLOT: After a horrific accident, lowly janitor Winston Gooze (Dinklage) is transformed into a hideously deformed but superpowered mutant vigilante known as “the Toxic Avenger”, and with his newfound powers sets out to bring down local gangsters and corrupt businessmen, all while trying to mend the bond between him and his teenage son Wade (Tremblay)…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• Lloyd Kaufman’s cult B-movie classic is revamped with a suitably gory and unhinged new entry that is bloody good fun
• Peter Dinklage brings his reliable gravitas to the title role, which is further brought to life by impressive practical and make-up effects
• Writer-director Macon Blair packs out the rest of the cast with familiar character actors like Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood, as well as Room and The Life of Chuck star Jacob Tremblay
• Despite solid reception at the likes of Fantasia Fest back in 2023, the film struggled for over a year to find a distributor amid fears that the heavily gory movie was “unreleasable”
• Like the original, this is bound to become a midnight favourite for audiences looking for that delightfully oddball mix of over-the-top violence and tongue-in-cheek humour

The Toxic Avenger is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Lucie Laruelle, Babette Verbeek, Elsa Houben, Janaïna Halloy Fokan, Samia Hilmi, Jef Jacobs, Günter Duret, Christelle Cornil, India Hair, Joely Mbundu

CREW: Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (directors, writers, producers), Denis Freyd and Delphine Tomson (producers), Benoît Dervaux (cinematographer), Marie-Hélène Dozo (editor)

PLOT: Perla (Laruelle), Jessica (Verbeek), Julie (Houben), Ariane (Fokan) and Naïma (Hilmi) are a group of young mothers who are housed with their children in a shelter, where they strive for better futures for their families…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• The Dardenne brothers are back with a heartwarming new drama that highlights the joys and difficulties of motherhood, which will resonate with parents of any age
• As ever, the Belgian filmmaking duo applies a deeply compassionate perspective to real-world issues that humanises, rather than shame or demean, those involved
• The quintet of titular young mothers is played by largely unknown actors who bring a healthy naturalism to their emotionally complex characters
• It won the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Cannes, a festival where the Dardennes have often found success, with at least two Palme D’Or awards to their name
• Whether you had children early or late in life (or maybe even not at all), you’ll identify with the raw human drama at the centre of this endearing feature

Young Mothers is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Isaac Krasner, David Johnson III, Dora Madison Burge, Taj Cross, Emily Deschanel, Marion Van Cuyck, Emma Broz, Jack De Sanz

CREW: Corey Sherman (director, writer, producer, editor), Allison Tate (producer), Will Wiesenfeld (composer), Gus Bendinelli (cinematographer), Erik Vogt-Nilsen (editor)

PLOT: Jamie (Krasner) is a shy young teen who goes on a camping trip with his older cousin Allie (Burge), but when she unexpectedly brings along her boyfriend Dan (Johnson III), who is much more confident and outgoing, Jamie’s initial discomfort morphs into fascination, and soon perhaps something more…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• This charming coming-of-age story blends the joys of adolescence with a gentle queer-coded subtext
• Filmmaker Corey Sherman makes his feature debut with a film that feels fresh and invigorating, despite working from a familiar guideline
• It also offers a breakthrough performance by Isaac Krasner, who as the central teen figuring out his own identity impresses with his winning screen presence
• As of writing, the film has retained a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while both the film and Krasner’s performance were nominated at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards
• There’s plenty of human goodness to go around in a LGBTQIA+-friendly narrative that similarly queer kids will relate to quite a bit

Big Boys is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Jara Sofija Ostan, Mina Švajger, Saša Tabaković, Nataša Burger, Staša Popović, Mateja Strle

CREW: Urška Djukić (director, writer), Maria Bohr (writer), David Cej and Jožko Rutar (producers), Kranjcan Lojze (composer), Lev Predan Kowarski (cinematographer), Vladimir Gojun (editor)

PLOT: Lucia (Ostan) is an introverted teenager who joins her school’s all-girls choir and befriends the more popular senior student Ana-Maria (Švajger), but when they travel to a remote convent for a weekend of rehearsals, the girls’ friendship is tested…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• Slovenian filmmaker Urška Djukić dazzles with a directorial debut that feels like it was made by a seasoned veteran
• Her film, which she co-wrote with Maria Bohr, is a tender and at times surprising coming-of-age story with a heavy focus on the main characters’ sexual awakening
• Young actors Jara Sofija Ostan and Mina Švajger are compelling as choristers who are polar opposites but nonetheless bond in unexpected ways
• It was among the first batch of films selected for the Berlin Film Festival’s inaugural Perspectives competition, a strand that highlights debut features, from which it walked away with the FIPRESCI Prize earlier this year
• Its dazzling imagery and intimate handling of mature themes makes it a gem that you’ll be glad you stumbled upon

Little Trouble Girls is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Richard E. Grant, Tom Ellis, Geoff Bell, Paul Freeman, Sarah Niles, Ingrid Oliver

CREW: Chris Columbus (director, producer), Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote (writers), Jennifer Todd (producer), Thomas Newman (composer), Don Burgess (cinematographer), Dan Zimmerman (editor)

PLOT: In a luxurious retirement village, a group of retired pensioners – former spy Elizabeth Best (Mirren), former union leader Ron Ritchie (Brosnan), former nurse Joyce Meadowcroft (Imrie) and former psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif (Kingsley) – spend their days solving cold case murders for fun, but soon find themselves drawn into a real-life murder mystery…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• The first in Richard Osman’s best-selling series of murder-mystery books is adapted into a thrilling cinematic (or in this case streaming) event
• Chris Columbus, the director of beloved hits like Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter movies, is behind this twisty adaptation
• A triumphant cast of British thespians leads the way, including Oscar-winners Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley, former Bond Pierce Brosnan, and character actors like David Tennant and Jonathan Pryce
• As in the original book, the plot is filled with ingenious twists and turns that rival the works of Agatha Christie in terms of intricate mystery narratives
• With the forthcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery still yet to come this year, Netflix is seriously stepping up its murder-mystery game with this utter firecracker of a crowd-pleaser!

The Thursday Murder Club is streaming exclusively on Netflix from Thursday 28 August 2025

CAST: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Lee Fierro, Peter Benchley

CREW: Steven Spielberg (director), Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb (writers), David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck (producers), John Williams (composer), Bill Butler (cinematographer), Verna Fields (editor)

PLOT: After a giant killer shark begins terrorising the beach community of Amity Island, police chief Brody (Scheider) teams with marine biologist Hooper (Dreyfuss) and local shark hunter Quint (Shaw) to hunt down and destroy the creature…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• The blockbuster that started them all celebrates its landmark 50th anniversary with an all-new theatrical re-release
• It launched the career of then-obscure director Steven Spielberg, who adapted Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel of the same name
• Production was famously troubled, mostly due to the constant malfunctioning of the mechanical shark and shooting the film on the ocean, the first feature film to do so
• Not only did the film become an immediate hit with critics and audiences, but its success is widely believed to have ushered in a major new era of filmmaking, and continues to be cited as one of the best films of Spielberg’s career but also the 70s as a whole
• Need we mention the iconic musical score by John Williams? You know exactly the one we mean. In fact, you’re probably humming it to yourself right now, aren’t you? Yeah, you are.

Jaws is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Christos Stergioglou, Michelle Valley, Angeliki Papoulia, Christos Passalis, Mary Tsoni, Anna Kalaitzidou, Steve Krikris, Athanasia Petropoulou, Alexander Voulgaris

CREW: Yorgos Lanthimos (director, writer), Efthymis Filippou (writer), Yorgos Tsourgiannis (producer), Thimios Bakatakis (cinematographer), Yorgos Mavropsaridis (editor)

PLOT: A father (Stergioglou) and mother (Valley) keep their adult children, including one son (Passalis) and two daughters (Papoulia and Tsoni), imprisoned within their secluded compound, where they are given no knowledge of the outside world and are kept in a continuous state of childhood…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• The international breakthrough movie for Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos returns to the big screen with an all-new 4K restoration
• Lanthimos’s third feature first gained attention when it won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, after shocking audiences with its rather provocative subject matter
• The film went on to receive further international acclaim from critics, and was even nominated for the International Feature Film Oscar (then known as Best Foreign Language Film)
• Today, it is regarded as one of the finest films of the Greek Weird Wave, with its disturbing levels of absurdism that offer plenty of pitch-black laughs
• With Lanthimos set to debut his newest feature Bugonia later this year, this is an excellent opportunity to catch one of the earlier works of an increasingly prolific director

Dogtooth is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025

CAST: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall, James Phelps, Oliver Phelps, Bonnie Wright, Mark Williams, Tom Felton, Jamie Waylett, Joshua Herdman, Matthew Lewis, Devon Murray, Alfred Enoch, David Bradley, Warwick Davis, Shirley Henderson, Robert Hardy, Louis Doyle, Charlotte Skeoch, Robert Pattinson, Jeff Rawle, David Tennant, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Katie Leung, Clémence Poésy, Stanislav Ianevski, Miranda Richardson, Predrag Bjelac, Frances de la Tour, Shefali Chowdhury, Afshan Azad, Eric Sykes

CREW: Mike Newell (director), Steve Kloves (writer), David Heyman (producer), Patrick Doyle (composer), Roger Pratt (cinematographer), Mick Audsley (editor)

PLOT: Harry Potter (Radcliffe) and his friends Ron Weasley (Grint) and Hermione Granger (Watson) enter their fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where they learn that the school is to play host to the Triwizard Tournament, a series of challenges that involve other wizarding schools from around the world. However, when Harry is unexpectedly chosen to participate, despite being too young, he is forced to prepare for the gruelling challenges that may bring him face to face with a resurrected foe…

FIVE REASONS TO BE EXCITED:

• The fourth film in the revered fantasy film series is brought back in time for its 20th anniversary
• It marks a significant turning point in the franchise, both in terms of its overall tone and the much larger multi-year narrative
• Daniel Radcliffe and his regular co-stars continue to carry the escalating adolescent drama, while facing off against new additions like Brendan Gleeson as an eccentric new teacher and Ralph Fiennes as a certain Dark Lord (one who shall not be named)
• There are some exceptional sequences that bring out some of the most stunning sets and costumes in the entire series, including the spectacular Yule Ball and a gothic cemetery-set climax
• Whatever your opinions are of the franchise (and in light of recent controversies, they may well be less forgiving than before), this is a blast from the past that fans can still watch with plenty of magical glee

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is showing in cinemas from Friday 29 August 2025