For the next month or so, as is the case at the beginning of every year, cinema loses the run of itself, in the UK at least. Every week brings a barrel-load of new movies, more than any adult human with a job has time to watch. Even worse, with it being Oscar season a lot of the films getting released at this time of year are genuinely good or even great, and there are so many to cram in.
It’s all a bit exhausting, to be honest, and it doesn’t really have to be this way. The UK could have had these films weeks or months before, when they were released in the US. But, due to a combination of reasons – a desire to drum up buzz in the run up to the Baftas or it just being how things have always been done – this is what we’re stuck with.
So rather than moaning we should embrace the glut. After all, come mid February, feast tends to become famine, and this year is likely to be worse than usual thanks to the writers’ strikes. Soon we’ll be practically begging for an underpowered superhero movie or sappy biopic to fill the gaps in the cinema schedules.
Here, then, is a week-by-week survival guide. For each week we’ve nominated the film that you must see if you only have time for one, as well as a few extra options for those planning to essentially squat in the cinema for the next five weeks and never leave.
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This weekend
If you only watch one | Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s portrait of Priscilla Presley. Few are better than Coppola at capturing “the view from a gilded cage”, as the Observer’s Wendy Ide puts it, and this depicts Presley’s life at Graceland in all its constrictive, gaudy weirdness.
Time for two? | Scala!!!, a documentary that riotously brings back to life London’s most out-there cinema with memories from John Waters, Thurston Moore and others. Trash, in the best possible sense.
Desperate for more? | One Life, with Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton, the rescuer of 669 mainly Jewish refugee children in the second world war. Expect a solidly told biopic elevated by its central performances.
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12 January
If you only watch one | Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest blast of freakery, with Emma Stone as a sort of Frankenstein’s Monster/Eliza Doolittle hybrid in a steampunk Victorian London. Funny, inventive, a bit horrible, genuinely great.
Time for two? | The Beekeeper, which has Jason Statham Stathaming it up as an aggrieved former member of a shadowy society called the Beekeepers … oh and he’s also an actual beekeper. It looks a right laugh.
Desperate for more? | The Boys in the Boat, a Berlin Olympics-set historical sports drama and George Clooney’s latest doomed attempt at proving he’s an actual director. Not sure he’s cracked it, judging by some savage reviews.
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19 January
If you only watch one | The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s lovely homage to the early 70s comedies of Hal Ashby and co. Features a knockout debut performance from future star Dominic Sessa, and Paul Giamatti is on dynamite form.
Time for two? | Mean Girls, which bewilderingly is a film adaptation of the stage musical adaptation of the 2004 original. Could go either way, but the presence of Tina Fey on screenwriting duties gives us some real hope.
Desperate for more? | The End We Start From, which might be the feelbad film champion of January, with Jodie Comer starring as a mum trying to keep her daughter afloat after floods overwhelm London.
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26 January
If you only watch one | All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh’s ghost story of sorts starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal (above). Quite possibly the best film of the post-Christmas rush – and of the year. Read more here.
Time for two? | The Colour Purple, a new musical big-screen adaptation of the Alice Walker novel. It doesn’t entirely hold together, particularly the musical moments, but packs a real punch and the cast is universally strong.
Desperate for more? | Samsara, an intriguing drama from Spanish film-maker Lois Patiño that features, among many fantastical elements, a scene where audience members are asked to shut their eyes and take in the colour being pulsed at them.
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2 February
If you only watch one | The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s unsettling, blankly told account of the day to day life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family. Challenging? Yes, but unquestionably a work of daring art.
Time for two? | American Fiction, the surprise hit of the Toronto festival. Jeffrey Wright stars as an author who writes a satire of Black American poverty porn fiction, only for it to become a sincerely read literary sensation.
Desperate for more? | Argylle, the latest stylish spy comedy from Matthew Vaughn, though this looks less hyperviolent than his Kingsman films. Another hefty cast: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell and, curiously, Dua Lipa star.
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9 February
If you only watch one | The Iron Claw, a moving, intense retelling of the doomed lives of the Von Erich wrestling family. Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Southcliffe) directs, while Zac Efron and Jeremy “The Bear” Allen White star.
Time for two? | Origin, Ava DuVernay’s account of how journalist Isabel Wilkerson wrote her landmark book on race, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. A companion of sorts to DuVernay’s documentary 13th – though this time it’s a dramatisation.
Desperate for more? | Occupied City, Steve McQueen’s documentary about life in Amsterdam under the Nazis, told via modern day footage of the Dutch city. You’ll really need time for this one: it’s 242 minutes long.
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