Michael
(Artificial Eye, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)
A supercool Austrian drama about an average guy who locks a boy in his cellar, Fritzl-style. As paedophile dramas go, this is as matter-of-fact as they come, and all the more powerful for it. Entirely gripping.
A Monster in Paris
(Entertainment One, cert U, Blu-ray/DVD)
Beautifully drawn in the Belleville Rendezvous style, a French animation about a supersized flea who becomes a dancing, guitar-playing sensation on the Parisian stage in the Belle Époque. Madly inventive, refreshingly eccentric.
Coriolanus
(Lionsgate, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
A rolling news/warzone reimagining of Shakespeare’s drama about tyranny — from above and below — with director/star Ralph Fiennes as the great war leader undone by the demands of peacetime. Fiennes, always hard to love, makes the whole thing work by sheer force of will.
Babycall
(Soda, cert 15, DVD)
With the supernatural ambience of Let the Right One In and the quiet anger of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this chilly drama about a mum on an Oslo council estate getting messages from beyond the grave allows Noomi Rapace to show again why she’s in such demand.
Big Miracle
(Universal, cert PG, Blu-ray/DVD)
A sub-Spielbergian wheel of cheese dredged in syrup, starring Drew Barrymore as a Greenpeace activist saving whales in the Arctic. Utterly manipulative, guiltily enjoyable, particularly Ted Danson’s turn as boo-hiss oil baron.
W.E.
(Studio Canal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
Madonna’s film about Wallis Simpson pulls off the curious feat of leaving us knowing less about her subject than we did when we started. It’s not terrible, just terribly incoherent. Watch it for Andrea Riseborough’s amazing (again) performance.
