During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes.

After another day of Mark Spitz winning swimming gold medals, gunshots are heard at the Olympic Village, just a few blocks away from ABC’s temporary headquarters. The broadcast team includes the executive in charge Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard); smart and testy head of operations Marvin (Ben Chaplin); local German translator Marianne (Leonie Benesch); and young producer Geoff (John Magaro), meant to cover an uneventful day of boxing and volleyball, who winds up landing on something much more significant. The film details all the logistical hurdles the team needed to scale so they could capture the crisis as it happened, relying on massive TV cameras, smuggled 16mm film stock, a slew of walkie talkies and plenty of ingenuity. Even more importantly, the movie tackles the tough questions faced by several hardworking newsmen - and one vital female translator - as they dealt with a situation in which many human lives hung in the balance. The film focuses mainly on the coverage of the situation, not really concerning itself with the politics behind it – it can be compared to Spielberg’s ‘The Post’. (Some subtitles)

Germany 2024 Tim Fehlbaum 91m

Legendary British filmmaker Mike Leigh skilfully presents a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses.

Reunited with Leigh for the first time since Oscar-nominated ‘Secrets and Lies’, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. Meanwhile, her easy-going younger sister (Michele Austin), is a single mother with a life as different from Pansy's as their clashing temperaments. After ‘Mr. Turner’ (2014) and ‘Peterloo’ (2018) Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers what is sure to be one of the best performances of the year, in this stunning film full of heart and compassion.

UK 2024 Mike Leigh 97m

Gobangiri

Japan’s beloved period film genre is taken into contemporary hands. This is a lovingly conceived and meticulously executed throwback that revitalizes the genre.

Yanagida Kakunoshin (Kusanagi Tsuyoshi) was accused of a crime he did not commit. Having lost his wife and been chased out of his hometown of Hikone, he now lives with his daughter Okinu (Kiyohara Kaya) as a ronin (unemployed samurai) in a poor tenement house in Edo. Kakunoshin is an honest man, and also an expert go player; even on the go board is he a paragon of samurai virtue, never stooping to tricks to win. One day, Kakunoshin learns the truth about the false accusation that brought these tragic circumstances upon him from his former colleagues. Together, he and his daughter resolve to take revenge for the sake of their honour. This period drama shines a contemporary light on the genre’s very traditional subject matters, presenting conflicts of honour and revenge punctuated by emotional abysses, flashes of violence and battles on the go board. (Subtitles)

Japan 2024 Shiraishi Kazuya 129m

2024 Palme d’Or Winner! A young sex worker from Brooklyn meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch, but once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

Anora (Mikey Madison) is a New York escort and table dancer. One night, her club manager announces that a high roller is in the house, asking for a dancer who can speak Russian. Ani, who is from an Uzbek background, volunteers. The man is the sweet-faced but otherwise appalling and entitled son of an oligarch, and he quickly takes her back to his luxurious apartment and proposes a Vegas marriage. When Vanya’s less-than-delighted father hears the news, he sends some goons round to sort out the situation with his boneheaded son. Scene-stealing leading lady Madison is surely destined for stardom thanks to her role in this high-energy panic comedy that offers a more realistic take than ‘Pretty Woman’.

USA 2024 Sean Baker 139m

In this psychological thriller, two young women of religion are drawn into a game of cat-and-mouse in the house of a strange man.

Hugh Grant is arguably delivering career-best work here as the sinister Mr. Reed, a theologist who engages in a riveting game of matching wits and beliefs with Sisters Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Paxton (Chloe East), two Mormon missionaries, who visit his seemingly humble abode with the initial intention of converting him. ‘Heretic’ brings an incredibly sharp religious thriller script to life through a chilling and charismatic performance by Grant. Most of the movie's horror and tension is achieved through dialogue and conversations about faith and power. It's provocative, divisive and challenges the audience to question their own convictions when it comes to faith.

USA 2024 Scott Beck & Bryan Woods 110m