The Power of the Dog, Netflix
Benedict Cumberbatch gives a fascinating career-high turn as an embittered, over-educated cowboy who clashes with his new sister-in-law (Kirsten Dunst) and her seemingly effete son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in 1920s Montana. It’s director Jane Campion’s first movie in 12 years. And it’s astounding. Kevin Maher
No Time to Die, Amazon
Daniel Craig’s James Bond swan song is his most monumental as the secret agent. It polarised audiences (“Too long!” they yelled) but the sheer ambition, and the determination to wrap up four previous, sprawling narratives in one nonstop action spectacular, marks it out as a franchise classic. KM
The Father, Amazon
Arriving in UK cinemas two months after its star Anthony Hopkins’s best actor Oscar win, The Father did not disappoint. It’s a beguiling and disturbing portrayal of dementia (a point-of-view journey into mental torment), made palpably tragic by the 83-year-old Welsh maestro, who is on inconceivably compelling form. KM
Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney+
Beating its competitors Luca and Encanto to the title of year’s best animated film, this is Disney at its most refined, delivering a nonstop action adventure about a world, and five quirky characters, trapped in post-apocalyptic grief. The protagonist, Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), is indeed another Disney princess on a quest (to reanimate the dead), but the formula here is tweaked enough and the tear-jerking is powerful enough to make the movie feel fresh. KM
The Rescue, Disney+
The film-makers behind the Oscar-winning climbing documentary Free Solo followed it up with this nail-biting analysis of the Tham Luang cave rescue in 2018. Cave-diver testimonies are intercut with news footage and recreated underwater sequences (filmed in a tank at Pinewood) to create a visceral, near-flawless account of heroism under pressure. KM
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Mothering Sunday, in cinemas
The French director Eva Husson’s interwar drama is up there with Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility and Robert Altman’s Gosford Park as a great film about the British made by an outsider. Loss pervades it, as does tasteful lust — Odessa Young is tremendous as the maid having it off with a toff (Josh O’Connor of The Crown). Ed Potton
Nomadland, Disney+
Let’s draw a veil over Eternals and rewind to the Oscars, when director Chloé Zhao could do no wrong. Her elegiac tale of retirees who invest in “wheel estate” and become “workampers” at Amazon “fulfilment centres” won best picture and a third best actress award for Frances McDormand, while Zhao became only the second woman to win best director. KM
The French Dispatch, in cinemas
Wes Anderson’s tale of a fictional French-based American magazine is another blend of stylised tableaux, esoteric pastiche and deadpan ensemble acting from Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray et al. This time, though, it feels more substantial — perhaps because the affection for France, food, art and The New Yorker is so palpable. EP
Tick, Tick . . . Boom!, Netflix
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ambitious directorial debut is king of this year’s musicals. Combining postmodern jiggery-pokery with brilliant tunes — Louder than Words is a humdinger — it’s anchored by a performance of real emotional wallop from Andrew Garfield. EP
The Green Knight, Amazon
Although Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel trounces it in the silly haircut stakes, David Lowery’s vivid retelling of the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an otherwise superior neo-medieval yarn. It’s full of breathtaking, meditative images, and Dev Patel burnishes his reputation as one of the most sympathetic leading men in the business. EP
And one turkey . . .
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Locked Down, Amazon
A miserably undernourished idea about a heist in Harrods (conceived of during lockdown by director Doug Liman and writer Steven Knight) results in a jaw-dropping abomination. False notes, terrible lines and nauseatingly self-indulgent characters are, ahem, “brought to life” by Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a film so difficult to endure it makes you crave the end of cinema itself for daring to produce such a dud. KM
