Film picks
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
Aardman’s egg-streamly belated sequel to the 2000 animation is another gadget-packed treat. After the Great Escape of the first film, Ginger and Rocky (now voiced by Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi) are living in seclusion on an island in a lake. But then their adventurous daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey) runs off to investigate a nearby chicken farm, which turns out to be a Bond villain-style fortified factory with a disturbing new product line. Cue cunning plans, outwitted humans and bracing British comedy.
Out now, Netflix
Maestro
Director, co-writer and star Bradley Cooper’s captivating follow-up to A Star Is Born is Oscars catnip – a biopic of a celebrated but conflicted male artist, suffused with pain and redemption, featuring a strong female lead. Cooper is superb as the charismatic Leonard Bernstein, one of the most celebrated American conductors and composers of his age, with Carey Mulligan his equal as his less-showy actor wife, Felicia. It is that relationship, more than his musical creations, that is the focus of this exquisitely shot film: a love story in which Bernstein’s bisexuality slowly shreds their marriage.
Wednesday 20 December, Netflix
Our Ladies
This boisterous screen treatment of Alan Warner’s novel The Sopranos follows five Catholic girls from Fort William on a school choir day trip to Edinburgh in 1996. But singing comes a distant second to illicit drinking and trying to get laid in a frank, funny drama packed with coming-of-age poignancy. In lesser hands, the teenage friends could be reduced to stereotypes but director Michael Caton-Jones and his superb young cast (particularly Abigail Lawrie and Tallulah Greive) stretch our expectations and make the quintet all too believable.
Tuesday 19 December, 9pm, Film4
Cyrano
Photograph: Peter Mountain/MGM/Allstar
Joe Wright’s glowing adaptation of the stage musical centres on a masterly performance by Peter Dinklage in the title role. The poet-swordsman’s long nose from the original tale is replaced by a focus on his small stature, which prevents the otherwise eloquent Cyrano from expressing his love for Roxanne (Haley Bennett). Instead, he lends the handsome but simple Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr) his “wit” to woo her. The songs by the National’s Dessner brothers aren’t that memorable but Dinklage – swashbuckling, quick-witted, lovesick – is heartbreakingly good.
Tuesday 19 December, 10pm, BBC Two
Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire
Free to let his sci-fi imagination go wild after leaving Superman and his DC gang, Zack Snyder has instead come up with a film that’s content to play in the ball park built by Star Wars and Seven Samurai. There’s a rebel alliance fighting an evil empire, led by Ed Skrein as a lubriciously evil baddie in the Vader vein. Still, you get a lot of bang for your buck in the first of his expansive two-part space opera, not least from Sofia Boutella as plucky, haunted warrior-in-hiding Kora, who crosses the galaxy to recruit renegades to defend her adopted farming community.
Friday 22 December, Netflix
Simple Minds: Everything Is Possible
The main take-away from Joss Crowley’s documentary about the Scottish rock band is what very nice people Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill appear to be. Self-critical (even if it is largely in hindsight) and grateful for the success they’ve had, the childhood friends guide us from their working-class Glasgow upbringing and punk origins as Johnny & the Self Abusers to the “bombastic” (in Kerr’s words) music that brought them global fame in the 80s. Then, the political stances – the Mandela Day concert, single Belfast Child – that signalled the end of their time at the top.
Friday 22 December, Paramount+
Saltburn
Brideshead Revisited meets The Talented Mr Ripley in Emerald Fennell’s glossy, twisty satire set in 2006, which aims to stick it to the upper classes but can’t resist wallowing in the privilege on display. Barry Keoghan plays Oxford University scholarship student Oliver, befriended by Jacob Elordi’s popular rich boy Felix and invited back to the titular family estate for the summer. As he inveigles his way into the clan’s good graces, social critique tips into WTF rug-pulling thriller.
Friday 22 December, Prime Video
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The sequel to genius animated superhero adventure Into the Spider-Verse feels like the middle part of the trilogy it is – the same glorious, giddying visuals but more open-ended plot threads. As a result of the explosion at the end of part one, a scientist from Miles Morales’s Earth has become the Spot, able to cross universes and wreak destruction. Miles (Shameik Moore) reunites with Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and the vast Spider-Society to try to stop him, but a multiverse of Spideys have a multitude of motives – and time gets mangled in the process.
Friday 22 December, noon, 6.30pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
House of Gucci
Adam Driver seems to be working his way through all the big Italian business figures of the mid-20th century. His Enzo Ferrari is coming soon, but in Ridley Scott’s ripe fact-based drama he is Maurizio Gucci, scion of the fashion brand. Lady Gaga dominates as his wife Patrizia, from a working-class background and ruthlessly driven, who propels Maurizio into taking control of the failing family business. But her passion is twisted when he falls out of love with her. If you can handle the Italian accents (Jared Leto as cousin Paolo is the worst offender), it’s a glam, splashy spectacle.
Friday 22 December, 9pm, BBC Two
Allelujah
Richard Eyre’s surprisingly angry film of the Alan Bennett play is set in “the Beth”, the Bethlehem geriatric hospital in Wakefield, which is threatened with closure. As optimistic medic Dr Valentine (Bally Gill) and bluff head nurse Sister Gilpin (Jennifer Saunders) interact with the patients, the witty drama questions society’s treatment of the old, celebrates the NHS and forcefully rages against those who would put efficiency before humanity.
Christmas Eve, 8.45am, 7.30pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
The Flash
DC speedster superhero the Flash’s standalone feature debut is played winningly for laughs, with star Ezra Miller convincing as double Barry Allen. The self-styled “janitor of the Justice League”, Barry realises that if he runs quickly enough he can turn back time and effect real change. But stopping his mother being killed when he was a child just makes things worse – he meets an impulsive 18-year-old version of himself, a long-retired Batman (a welcome return for Michael Keaton), and not Kal-El but his cousin Kara (Sasha Calle). There is all the expected world-splitting action but the easy wit takes precedence.
Christmas Day, Prime Video
Toy Story 4
It’s not a sequel anyone needed, but this 2019 culmination of Woody’s story is so perfect it now feels like the obvious move. The jovial cowboy is still owned by Bonnie, along with Buzz and the other regulars, but he’s feeling neglected, especially when she makes a new favourite toy from a spork, named Forky (Tony Hale). But then a family road trip leads to Forky being kidnapped by a malevolent doll, Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), and a reunion with Bo Beep (Annie Potts), who is now the leader of the “lost toys”.
Christmas Day, 3.10pm, BBC One
Titanic
In that three-hour pause between Christmas dinner and whatever you can be bothered to reheat in the evening, here’s James Cameron with a cinematic amuse-bouche. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and despite its length it won’t sit too heavily in your brain. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are the cherries on top of the sweeping drama as Rose and Jack, the class-defying lovers who meet-cute on the Atlantic liner, until the world’s largest ice cube puts paid to their canoodling. Find your nearest ship’s bow and join in the romance.
Christmas Day, 5.15pm, Film4
