Gladiator II
(15, 148mins) Starring: Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Tim McInnerny. Director: Ridley Scott
RIDLEY Scott’s enjoyably over-the-top sequel finds Paul Mescal’s son-of-Gladiator gamely battling slaves, soldiers and a menagerie of vicious CGI animals in the arena while Denzel Washington attempts to steal the movie out from under him.
To be fair, Washington himself is almost upstaged by a real monkey in this inessential yet thoroughly enjoyable follow-up to the Oscar-winning original.
On the subject of Oscars, while Washington’s cunning and conniving character is unlikely to return for the mooted third Gladiator instalment, the Hollywood veteran might yet have the last laugh come March 2.
Where to watch: Prime Video from December 24
Love Lies Bleeding
(15, 104mins) Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Dave Franco. Director: Rose Glass
THIS grimy, 1980s-set thriller from Saint Maud director Rose Glass centres on troubled New Mexico gym owner Lou (Kristen Stewart) and runaway wannabe bodybuilding champ Jackie (Katy O’Brian).
The pair embark on a torrid affair as they are drawn deeper and deeper into an increasingly deadly tangle with Lou’s dodgy father (a truly chilling turn from Ed Harris) who’s high on the FBI’s to-do list.
Glass expertly ratchets up the tension to unbearable levels as she hones in on the frantic, highly memorable climax to her stylish, sexy, semi-psychedelic film.
Definitely the best queer crime thriller bodybuilding romance you’ll see all year.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Sky Store, Google Play Movies and Apple TV+
Small Things Like These
(12, 99mins) Starring: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Emily Watson, Zara Devlin. Director: Tim Mielants
ADAPTED from Claire Keegan’s award-winning novel, director Tim Mielants' slow-burning adaptation puts the audience right inside the anguished head of kindly Co Wexford coalman, Bill (Cillian Murphy).
Having witnessed parents dumping their terrified pregnant teen (Cookstown actor Zara Devlin) at the local ‘convent’ - in reality a Magdalene Laundry, run by the fearsome Sister Mary (Emily Watson) - Bill wrestles with doing the right thing despite his family’s fortunes being tied up staying in the Church’s good books.
Oscar-winner Murphy’s soulful screen presence does as much heavy lifting as his coal sack-lugging character here: another Oscar-nod surely beckons.
Where to watch: Apple TV+, Prime Video, Sky Store, Google Play Movies
Kneecap at the Oscars? Hollywood won’t know what’s hit it.
Kneecap
(15, 105mins) Starring: Móglaí Bap/Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Mo Chara/Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, DJ Próvaí/JJ Ó Dochartaigh, Michael Fassbender. Director: Rich Peppiatt
ON THE subject of Oscars, a year ago no-one could have predicted that the Kneecap movie would be an Academy Award contender. However, then came an award-winning premiere at Sundance and an avalanche of positive reviews from the international press when the Rich Peppiatt-directed semi-fictional biopic hit cinemas.
Co-starring Michael Fassbender alongside the musical trio, Derry man DJ Próvaí aka JJ Ó Dochartaigh proves to be the band’s secret weapon: he turns in a brilliant performance as a failed beatmaker turned Irish language teacher who gets sucked into the as Gaeilge Belfast rappers' orbit as they attempt to get their musical career off the ground.
A scabrous, ultra-stylish comedy drama, Ireland’s official entry for the 2025 Oscars provides an entertainingly wild ride that’s better than it has any right to be.
Kneecap at the Oscars? Hollywood won’t know what’s hit it.
Where to watch: Prime Video, YouTube Movies, Sky Store, Apple TV+, Google Play Movies
Rebel Ridge
(15, 131mins) Starring: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zsane Jhe, David Dennman, James Cromwell. Director: Jeremy Saulnier
INFORMED by First Blood and the Jack Reacher series, Rebel Ridge is a superlative ‘corrupt small town cops mess with the wrong guy’ action flick with plenty of brains to go with the considerable brawn supplied by leading man, Aaron Pierre.
Things don’t go quite according to plan for the good ole boys in blue, led by Don Johnson’s ice-cool s***heel of a police chief, when they deliberately knock Terry Richmond (Pierre) off his bicycle.
To tell you much more would be spoiling the fun, but if there was any justice in the world, this hugely entertaining flick from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room, Blue Ruin) would be the birth of a new action franchise combining smart writing, explosive action and a refreshingly low body count.
Where to watch: Netflix
Dune: Part Two
(15, 167mins) Starring: Timothée Chalomet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Josh Brolin. Director: Denis Villeneuve
THE Spice continues to flow in epic, visually stunning style through Denis Villeneuve’s second, world-expanding instalment of his epic Frank Herbert adaptation.
This return to Arrakis finds Spice mining royalty Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalomet) embracing his destiny as the baby-faced blue-eyed saviour of the Fremen people, romancing the beautiful Chani (Zendaya) while leading a rebellion against the House Harkonnen which almost wiped out his family in Part One.
However, then the vicious Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) is dispatched to tighten House Harkonnen’s grip on the desert planet’s precious resources.
Roll on Part Three in 2026.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Sky Store, NOW, Google Play Movies
All of Us Strangers
(15, 105mins) Starring: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, Claire Foy. Director: Andrew Haigh
ALL of Us Strangers is an engrossing indie drama featuring a tour de force lead performance from Andrew Scott as Adam, a lonely writer holed up in a largely deserted London high-rise who begins to finally embrace life when he strikes up a relationship with his hunky neighbour, Harry (Paul Mescal).
As their affair progresses, Adam begins to revisit his childhood home, and that’s where things get weird: his parents appear just as they were the last time Adam saw them, in 1987, when he was 12.
Andrew Haigh’s affecting film is imbued with a dreamlike quality which means viewers are never quite sure what’s ‘real’ and what’s just taking place in Adam’s fertile imagination.
Spoiler alert: the ‘big reveal’ is devastating.
Where to watch: Disney+, Prime Video, Sky Store, Apple TV+, Google Play Movies
The Outrun
(15, 114mins) Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Dillane, Saskia Reeves. Director: Nora Fingscheidt
SAOIRSE Ronan is never less than 100 per cent convincing in this slow-burning yet utterly absorbing adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s best-selling memoir recounting how she survived a rollercoaster of addiction to successfully recalibrate her life with the help of Mother Nature.
Director Nora Fingscheidt ensures that the bright lights of Hackney’s hipster mecca and the wind and salt spray-blasted wilds of the Orkney Islands are their own characters within the film, bringing the highs and lows of both settings to life via inventive visuals and immersive sound design.
Stellar turns from the likes of Paapa Essiedu, Saskia Reeves and Stephen Dillane help sweeten the deal, but this is very much Ronan’s film: could it be fifth time lucky for her at the Oscars?
Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV+, Sky Store, YouTube, Google Play Movies
American Fiction
(15, 117mins) Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Erika Alexander, Issa Rae, John Ortiz, Leslie Uggams, Sterling K Brown. Director: Cord Jefferson
JEFFREY Wright may have lost the Best Actor Oscar to ‘our Cillian’, but he is absolutely brilliant in American Fiction as Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison, a struggling writer who scores an accidental best-seller with his vicious, pseudonymous send-up of stereotypical ‘black literature’.
Writer/director Cord Jefferson’s emotionally rich and frequently hilarious directorial debut expertly skewers the publishing industry and Hollywood while providing Wright with the opportunity to prove he can ‘carry’ an entire feature – and a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar-winner at that.
Where to watch: Prime Video
Fréwaka
(15, 103mins) Starring: Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya. Director: Aislinn Clarke
GLEEFULLY embracing haunted house tropes while pulling from The Wicker Man’s basket of folk horror tricks, director Aislinn Clarke’s Irish language horror Fréwaka taps into Ireland’s rich seams of weird religious folklore and painful generational trauma.
Having recently lost her estranged mother to suicide, careworker Shoo (Clare Monnelly) is tasked with providing live-in support to Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain), a vulnerable woman living alone in a remote rural village populated by unfriendly locals.
Initially, Shoo puts the curmudgeon’s superstitious rituals down to mental instability, but soon Shoo’s own mental health struggles are confusing her (and us) about whether the increasingly creepy goings on in the house are Satanic/supernatural phenomena or just in her head.
Low on startling ‘cross yourself’ moments it may be, but Fréwaka is still a memorably stylish exercise in slow-creeping claustrophobic dread.
