Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3
Marvel’s cartoony interstellar defenders in garish outfits are back to, er, yet again stop someone mashing up the universe. It’s got the same all-star cast (Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Elizabeth Debicki, Sylvester Stallone and that bloke who looks like Sam Smith) and, says Bautista, a much ‘deeper, emotional’ plot. There’ll be plenty of funny one-liners, there’ll be gigatonne explosions and there’ll most likely be an undestroyed galaxy once the fun is over. Out 3 May
Pamfir
Understandably, you won’t see a whole bunch of Ukrainian movies this year, especially ones that don’t mention the war. This rather confident debut from Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk was filmed just weeks before Putin’s invasion and there is eerily not even a whisper of the conflict. When Leonid returns from abroad and immediately ravishes his wife while constantly growling like a wild bear, you know things could get grisly. He wants to do good, but after his son accidentally burns down the local church, Leonid promises to pay for the damage by… returning to his bad old ways as a smuggler. But it’s more complex than just a violent villain failing to go straight. There’s the inner battle between human and animal desires, and it’s set in a village where God and the Devil might well be the same thing… Out 5 May
Love Again
Kleenex/vom buckets at the ready, this romcom looks like a proper soppy slush-fest. Priyanka Chopra Jonas is grieving the death of her fiancé by continuing to send him romantic texts. Luckily for the course of true love, his phone number has been reassigned to hot dude Sam Heughan. And we’re sure everyone’s heart will go on and the power of love will conquer any patchy cellphone coverage, because Heughan has none other than Céline Dion (the actual Céline f***ing Dion!) coaching him. Out 10 May
Book Club: The Next Chapter
The first Book Club film saw lifelong friends Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen read Fifty Shades of Grey and collectively regain their appetites for eating men for breakfast. It wasn’t very good, they should have pulped it. This time the septuagenarians travel to Italy for a bachelorette party and deliver ageing innuendos that are strictly for the easily pleased – imagine your knob gag when seeing a naked Michelangelo statue and, believe me, it will be way funnier than Fonda’s. Nevertheless, an ‘epilogue’ will doubtless follow this… Out 12 May
The Eight Mountains
Superlative alert! It’s glacial in pace, it’s foreign in language, it’s lacking in action scenes (unless you count a man falling over in the snow)… but this is the film of the month. Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s gorgeously shot and sublimely tender story follows the lifelong friendship of two young boys who meet in the Italian Alps. Bruno stubbornly believes his fate is to be born and die on the same mountain, while Peitro is the city boy searching for his true path among a whole world of lofty peaks. Their journey is gently epic, profoundly human and – for a movie that takes its time – totally gripping. Out 12 May
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Pre-adolescents looking for movies that speak to them really do have slim pickings. So thank, well, God for this treasure of an adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic 1970 novel – and director Kelly Fremon Craig, of course. Eleven-year-old Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is desperate for her first period to arrive to distract her from her worries about whether there is a God. Besides a heartfelt and sensitive preoccupation with sanitary pads, the oncoming world of boys looms large among Margaret and her friends. Ryder Fortson could well be a huge new-found talent, while Rachel McAdams is equally impressive as her mum. While the coming of age movies can wait, this the perfect stepping stone. Out 19 May
Fast X
‘We need cars and we need guns,’ says one character in the 10th instalment of the unfailingly entertaining Fast and Furious franchise. Upping the ante on the previous nine films, Vin Diesel and co get even more wheels and weapons to play with. Which means we get bigger and better crash, bang, wallops to enjoy. Hell, there’s even some weird giant bomb rolling through the streets of Rome. This time, the son of a drug lord (played by beef mountain Jason Momoa) is out to destroy Diesel’s family to avenge the death of his father way back in Fast Five. I know, it took him four films to get his shit together! Out 19 May
Beau is Afraid
One of two things is going to happen if you visit the cinema to see this. 1) You will exit exhausted and gleeful after three hours going, “WTF just happened?!” Or 2) You will exit demoralised and furious after only one or two hours going, “WTF just happened?!” Yep, Midsommar director Ari Aster’s epic fever dream is true Marmite material. Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is sad, he’s scared, he’s popping a lot of meds (although you would be too if your street was crawling with naked, knife-wielding maniacs). He has to make a long-distance trip to visit his mum, which isn’t so simple when every step of the journey is like an acid nightmare. There’s at least six dozen suitcases of elusive symbolism to unpack with this (fear of life and of being judged for starters) but, from this viewer’s seat, and to borrow a phrase, Beau is Afraid is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Out 19 May
The Little Mermaid
Come half term holidays, come the inevitable kids’ release. Don’t sigh like jaded old gits, parents; the flow looks good with this Disney live-action remake of the, er, Disney animation. Halle Bailey (an actual good singer) plays Ariel, Javier Bardem (a proper actor) is King Triton, while Melissa McCarthy and Awkwafina (genuinely entertaining and funny human beings) are wicked Ursula and an animated bird respectively. Theatre OGs Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken are in charge of the songs and Rob Marshall (Mary Poppins Returns) directs, so what’s not to like? Oh, singing half-women, half-fish aren’t your thing? Fair enough. Out 26 May
Hypnotic
Cop Ben Affleck’s daughter is missing, banks are being robbed in a very weird way, and there’s a secret government programme… What’s real? What’s purely in Affleck’s mind? Or anyone’s mind?! Psychic Alice Braga thinks she knows. Do you know? Look at the title of the film! Clue: it rhymes with Hip Moses. Robert Rodriquez (From Dusk Till Dawn) directs kinetically, so just plug in and enjoy the brain-warping ride. Out 26 May
About My Father
Robert De Niro’s comedy career usually consists of him playing an embarrassing dad (Meet the Parents, The Fockers, etc) or a lascivious grandparent (Dirty Grandpa). So no revelation here when De Niro crashes his son Sebastian Maniscalco’s invite to his girlfriend’s palatial family mansion for the weekend. Cue a goofy culture clash between Italian-American chutzpah and eccentric Ivy League wealth, with the comic cojones of Kim Cattrall thrown in for good measure. Out 26 May
