What films are out in UK cinemas this week? Reviews from I'm Still Here to The Monkey

Meanwhile, the other major release this weekend sees the return of director Osgood Perkins less than a year after his breakout horror sensation Longlegs. His new film, The Monkey, is something a little different – check out what we thought of it and the week's other new releases below.

And of course, several other great films are also still playing in cinemas – including Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy – and you can also find our reviews of the pick of the films still out in the UK below.

Read on for your weekly round-up of all the films currently showing in UK cinemas.

What films are released in UK cinemas this week? 21st-27th February

I'm Still Here

Director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, On the Road) returns to his native Brazil for an elegant drama that blends the political and the personal. Oscar-nominated for best picture, this true story, set in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1970s, follows the Paiva family – former congressman Rubens (Selton Mello), wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and their five children.

With Brazil ruled by a military dictatorship, Rubens is arrested, with absolutely no information passed to the family as to his fate. Much of the focus is on Eunice, who herself suffers in this oppressed regime; the sublime Torres, an Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance, plays the character with real strength.

Adapted from the book by Eunice's son Marcelo Rubens Paiva, this is subtly directed by Salles, who creates a fine film about resistance. Notably, I'm Still Here also offers a reunion with Fernanda Montenegro – Torres's real-life mother and star of Salles's 1998 Oscar nominee Central Station – who plays the older Eunice, in the film’s poignant coda. – James Mottram

The Monkey

Writer-director Osgood Perkins follows up his breakout hit Longlegs with another horror film – albeit one operating in a very different mode.

Adapted from Stephen King’s short story of the same name, The Monkey follows mismatched twin brothers Hal and Bill (played in dual roles by Christian Convery as children and Theo James as adults) after the discovery of a cursed wind-up monkey among their father’s old junk. When the toy suddenly resurfaces 25 years later, a series of increasingly gruesome deaths provokes the now estranged brothers to re-establish contact.

Perkins displayed a great command of atmosphere in his previous film, but the tone here is far more jumbled, never finding the right balance between its hit-and-miss comedic elements and the more overt horror. It does raise some interesting points about the random, chaotic nature of death, while the elaborate kill scenes are carried out with gleeful invention. But there’s not enough substance to sustain a feature, especially as the narrative becomes increasingly wayward in its second half.

Meanwhile, in his dual role, James turns in half a good performance; impressive as the disillusioned Hal but failing to convince as the more deranged Bill. – Patrick Cremona

• Read our full The Monkey review

September Says

Two school-age siblings shut out the world around them in this curious but vivid British-set coming-of-age drama, based on Daisy Johnson’s 2020 novel Sisters.

July (Mia Tharia) and the more dominant September (Pascale Kann) are blessed (or cursed) with overly active imaginations that exclude others. Bullied at school for being weird, they retreat into their own shared world.

Debut feature director Ariane Labed adopts a sensorial, expressionistic style that uses sound and image smartly to convey this idiosyncratic adolescence. There’s a jarring and frustrating time-jump partway through that sees the girls holing up in a rural Irish cottage, but Labed does fine work in drawing excellent performances throughout from her young stars.

Like The Silent Twins (2022) and Hoard (2023), two other British films that use left-field approaches to explore growing pains, this is an original oddity. – James Mottram

Best of the rest still showing in UK cinemas

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Renée Zellweger returns as Bridget Jones for a splendid fourth feature. Bridget is single again, but this time she is a widow, her beloved Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) having died four years ago, leaving her with two children. She reluctantly enters the world of dating apps – meeting 29-year-old horticulturalist Roxster (One Day’s swoon-worthy Leo Woodall).

The well-crafted script nails exactly what it’s like to be middle-aged and female in the shark-infested world of online romance, and Zellweger is once again effortless in the central role. Director Michael Morris (To Leslie) smartly integrates returning characters – Hugh Grant has a riot as Bridget’s ex-boss – with newbies, including Chiwetel Ejiofor’s whistle-happy science teacher.

This is a mature and incisive outing, beautifully shot, and blending humour and emotion into the perfect movie martini. – James Mottram

• Read our full Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy review
• Read our interview with Renée Zellweger
• Read our interview with Leo Woodall
• Read our interview with Michael Morris

Memoir of a Snail

This delightfully dark and quirky adult animated film follows the tragi-comic life of a snail-loving girl who learns how to come out of her shell. Glass-half-full Gracie (voiced by Sarah Snook) and glass-half-empty Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are twins orphaned at a young age, then separated to live with different foster families on opposite sides of Australia.

Gracie dreams of becoming an animator while Gilbert wants to be a Parisian street performer, but randy gerbils, religious cults and a microwave oven salesman stand in their way, before Gracie finds inspiration in a free-spirited old woman with an eccentric history.

This is the second feature from esoteric Aussie stop-motion animator Adam Elliot, arriving some 15 years after the excellent Mary and Max. The cute-but-scuzzy animation style is unmistakable, and thematically, it’s very similar; a biographical movie about bullied, working class kids growing into dysfunctional adults who learn to love themselves (think Tim Burton meets Ken Loach).

Thankfully, it’s every bit as good as its highly praised predecessor, bursting with wit, invention, charm, poignancy and moments of exquisite vulgarity. – Kevin Harley

Hard Truths

Mike Leigh is on familiar but fruitful ground with this London-set family drama. The story of two siblings with very different attitudes to life, it’s a potent examination of not only sisterhood but also marriage and mental ill health.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, reuniting with Leigh for the first since since 1996’s Secrets & Lies, plays Pansy, a troubled mother-of-one who is permanently angry at the world. She's particularly resentful of her laidback sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a hairdresser who has a loving relationship with her two daughters.

Exploring issues of anxiety and grief, this highly empathetic tale is Leigh’s first film with an almost entirely black cast. Jean-Baptiste gives one of her finest performances, and some scenes (notably a get-together at Chantelle’s flat) are almost unbearably uncomfortable to watch.

Some stock characters are recognisable from earlier Leigh films – Pansy’s insular, overweight son Moses recalls James Corden in All or Nothing – but overall this is a finely etched character study, and Leigh and his cast offer engagingly nuanced work. – James Mottram

• Read our full Hard Truths review
• Read our interview with Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Companion

Resembling The Notebook via TV's Black Mirror, writer/director Drew Hancock’s feature debut is a darkly mischievous horror comedy with a feminist thrust. Sophie Thatcher plays Iris, a robot companion whose partner (Jack Quaid) takes her to a lakeside retreat with his friends, who plainly dislike her.

The mood is tense, but when the property’s owner sexually assaults Iris and she kills him, events spiral messily out of control. Following a careful build-up to the film's first major reveal, Hancock juggles genres and themes nimbly, weaving critiques of toxic masculinity into noirish developments and romcom stylings.

Sci-fi elements are playfully handled and the twists are plentiful, though the script is never quite as funny or surprising as it could’ve been, especially for anyone familiar with films about AI or gender conflicts. However, Quaid and Thatcher’s superb turns compensate right up to the climax, where Companion lands its blood-soaked pay-offs and punchlines with vigour, wit and the niftiest misuse of kitchenware since Don’t Breathe’s infamous meat-baster moment. – Kevin Harley

The Brutalist

As an upside-down Statue of Liberty drifts into view; it’s clear that The Brutalist will not be a straightforward, flag-waving take on the American Dream.

Director/co-writer Brady Corbet (The Childhood of a Leader) takes his film-making to another level with the ambitious story of fictional architect Laszlo Toth, who arrives in America following the Second World War.

After an ignominious start, this Hungarian Jew is taken under the wing of Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr (Guy Pearce), who commissions him to work on a cultural centre in tribute to his late mother. The building’s construction takes its toll on both men, while later Laszlo is reunited with his wife (Felicity Jones) and niece (Raffey Cassidy).

This richly detailed film speaks volumes about America’s uneasy relationship with immigration. It captures the poison chalice of philanthropy through Pearce’s searing portrayal of the monstrous Van Buren, with Brody nailing the torment of a proud, talented man who cannot help but absorb the hatred of others.

Seven years in the making and shot in the defunct large-scale VistaVision format, the film is epic in its length, weight and ambition, like a modern-day Orson Welles picture. It’s a timely examination of how modern America came into existence, and the resentments that lurk beneath its surface. – Emma Simmonds

• Read our full The Brutalist review
• Read our interview with Felicity Jones

A Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet excels as Bob Dylan in an absorbing biopic that charts the iconic singer/songwriter’s early career, with a dash of dramatic licence.

The narrative follows the aspiring musician’s arrival in New York in 1961, continues through his burgeoning success and popularity, and culminates four years later when Dylan incurred the wrath of folk purists by going electric.

Director James Mangold and co-screenwriter Jay Cocks take a few liberties with events, times and names, but nonetheless paint an evocative portrait of a superstar in the making and his growing disenchantment with fame, thanks to a compelling, layered portrayal by Chalamet. The actor projects his subject’s physicality and speech patterns perfectly, and especially impresses in his performances of the generation-defining songs, eloquently capturing the essence of Dylan.

In a strong supporting cast, Edward Norton stands out as Pete Seeger, the folk music traditionalist and civil rights activist who became Dylan’s most important mentor. He superbly conveys conflict and heartbreak as his role in the singer’s ascent to the A-list shifts from proud father figure to reluctant adversary. – Terry Staunton

• Read our full A Complete Unknown review
• Read our interview with Timothée Chalamet

A Real Pain

Jesse Eisenberg writes, directs and stars in this touching comedy drama, which is loosely inspired by his own family history. He plays David, a well-adjusted if rather uptight New Yorker embarking on a tour of Poland with his semi-estranged cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin), who leads a notably less settled life. The trip is intended to honour their late grandmother, who had survived the Holocaust before emigrating to the US.

As the cousins wrestle with this deep-rooted family trauma, though, the focus also extends to painful memories in the more recent past. Eisenberg’s sharp, witty script expertly teases out an emotionally complex history between the pair, and their dynamic – by turns tetchy and tender – feels totally genuine. Culkin, in particular, is in fine form, especially as it becomes clear that Benji’s brash, impulsive demeanour is masking a deep vulnerability.

Despite the heavy subject matter, it’s a fairly breezy film with a light touch, a commendable lack of self-importance and several laugh-out-loud moments, which ensures its emotional high-points are all the more potent. – Patrick Cremona

• Read our interview with Jesse Eisenberg
• Read our interview with Kieran Culkin

Nosferatu

FW Murnau's classic 1922 riff on Dracula gets a stylish, visually dynamic remake from director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse). Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter, a young clerk in 19th century Germany sent on business to Transylvania where he encounters Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård).

The ailing aristocrat boasts an unquenchable bloodlust, one that is soon focused terrifyingly on Hutter’s wife (Lily-Rose Depp). Strong support sees Emma Corrin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson play the Hutters's family friends, while Willem Dafoe (who played original Orlok actor Max Schreck in 2000's Shadow of the Vampire) appears as an expert on the occult.

Eggers remains faithful to the spirit of the original film, but works wonders with his creative team to craft a masterclass in gloomy, gothic atmosphere. Unrecognisable under prosthetics, Skarsgård is terrific, adding to his litany of fine horror-movie performances (It, Barbarian).

Hoult is a sturdy presence, while Depp brings the requisite purity. But really, this is Eggers’s baby: you’ll be left marvelling at the ominous, shadowy visuals and the creeping sense of dread that envelops the whole movie. – James Mottram

• Read our full Nosferatu review
• Read our interview with stars Bill Skarsgård and Nicholas Hoult and director Robert Eggers

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