What films are out in UK cinemas this week? Reviews from Sinners to Warfare

Meanwhile, one year after he had a hit with Civil War, Alex Garland is back with another war film, this time co-directed with former US Navy Seal Ray Mendoza.

Warfare seems likely to be a little divisive, but there's no doubting the technical prowess on display – and the intense impact of the film's portrayal of combat can't be denied.

Also out this week are The Penguin Lessons – the aforementioned charmer about a teacher in '70s Argentina whose perspective is changed by adopting an unusual pet – and genre flick Freaky Tales, which is helmed by Captain Marvel duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck and boasts Pedro Pascal in its cast.

Of course, several other great films are also still playing in cinemas – including Drop – 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? 81th April - 24th April

Sinners

Director Ryan Coogler’s fifth feature is a messy, muscular mash-up of historical drama and trigger-happy horror. It follows bootlegging brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B Jordan), who return home to Mississippi after years working for Al Capone.

With plans to set up the Delta’s greatest juke joint, they recruit their young cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a promising bluesman whose preacher father warns against playing the devil’s music. But Sammie can’t resist, and it’s his artistry that becomes the catalyst for the horrors that follow. Soon, silver-tongued vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell) wants an invitation to the party, too.

Coming after Coogler's stint directing two Black Panther films for Marvel, Sinners asks prickly questions about creativity and the price of assimilation. What parts of your culture might you be willing to give up in the name of fellowship and love? And what good is harmony if you can’t play your own music? The film’s grandstanding centrepiece truncates a centuries-long timeline of cultural expression into one literally barn-burning anachronistic musical number. It’s the most ambitious moment in a movie loaded with them. – Sean McGeady

• Read our full Sinners review
• Read our interview with stars Hailee Steinfeld and Wunmi Mosaku

Warfare

This viscerally intense Iraq War film is co-directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina) and former US Navy Seal Ray Mendoza, who had previously worked as a military supervisor on Garland's previous effort, Civil War (2024). Based on Mendoza’s own experiences, it follows a platoon of American soldiers in real time after a botched surveillance mission sees some of their number sustaining life-threatening injuries.

The film is unsparing in its depiction of the senseless barbarity of war, and includes several blood-curdling moments which will cause viewers to swiftly avert their eyes. Meanwhile, the young cast – which includes Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor and Joseph Quinn – all turn in impressive, highly committed performances.

But while it is undoubtedly well crafted, barely putting a foot wrong from a technical standpoint, the film suffers from a lack of strong character work amid the relentless onslaught of gunfire and becomes difficult to fully engage with. Beyond the admirable but fairly rudimentary notion that war is hell, Warfare doesn’t leave the audience with much to chew on. – Patrick Cremona

The Penguin Lessons

Steve Coogan leads this modest drama as a world-weary British teacher at a boys’ boarding school in 1970s Argentina who rescues an oil-soaked penguin from a beach. Following unsuccessful attempts to return the animal to the water, an unlikely bond develops between man and bird, a heart-warming friendship played out against the backdrop of the country’s so-called Dirty War period of political turmoil.

Based on a 2015 memoir by author Tom Michell, the film is a curious hybrid of light comedy and a more pointed examination of military conflict, bombings and kidnappings. Director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) doesn’t always get the balancing act right, relying heavily on his star to pull it all together as the middle-aged man on a path to an emotional awakening.

Coogan imbues the character with attractively dry humour, and there’s solid support from Jonathan Pryce as his stuffy headmaster. Ultimately, though, the lovable, scene-stealing seabird of the title seems at odds with a story hoping to make more serious observations about compassion and vulnerability. – Terry Staunton

• Read our interview with Steve Coogan

Freaky Tales

This marvellous soufflé of gonzo comedy action and 1980s pop-culture worship delivers four loosely interconnected stories that play out in 1987 Oakland, California. From a Nazi skinhead wrecking crew and fixed rap battle to a criminal debt collector in personal crisis and an NBA All-star going psycho, the freewheeling events are linked by a weird green glow in the sky.

Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Captain Marvel), the film works as a love letter to the films of David Cronenberg, John Carpenter and Brian De Palma, and the stunning kung fu bloodbath finale is a clear nod to Quentin Tarantino.

Some bumpiness does undercut the eccentric flow, but Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn and Jay Ellis are in splendid form among the cast, and the film’s grungy comic-book energy never flags, delivering a fun, funny and funky ride. – Alan Jones

Best of the rest still showing in UK cinemas

Drop

Smartphone tech and old-school star power combine in this pleasingly constructed romantic thriller from director Christopher Landon (Freaky). Meghann Fahy plays Violet, a single mum and domestic abuse survivor visiting a skyscraper restaurant to meet Henry (Brandon Sklenar), her first date in years. Soon, AirDrop-style messages on her phone reveal that there’s a masked man in her home who’ll kill her sister and son if Violet doesn’t obey orders to secretly poison Henry.

Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach’s script simmers nicely with first-date nerves and deadlier anxieties, and handles its abuse subtext well. Establishing that the message sender must be in close proximity to Violet, the writers also play up the paranoia by weaving in plenty of vivid support characters, all of them fun potential villains.

Landon’s flair for juggling tension and comedy proves agile, too. While the plot logic and climax don’t withstand scrutiny, terrific turns from Sklenar and a persuasively fraught Fahy help to ensure you don’t care too much in the moment. – Kevin Harley

• Read our interview with director Christopher Landon

The Return

Previous adaptations of The Odyssey featured Kirk Douglas and Armand Assante as the wily warrior Odysseus, whose wooden horse helped to end the siege of Troy after 10 long years. However, this languid dramatisation has stripped down Homer’s epic poem to its final chapters when the battered king of Ithaca (a sinewy Ralph Fiennes) fetches up on the shores of his island realm after a further decade battling gods, monsters and the elements to get home.

Meanwhile, his redoubtable widow Penelope (Juliette Binoche) is menaced by depraved suitors who are out to take the kingdom by marrying her and killing Odysseus’s grown-up son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer). Devoid of immortal intervention and fantastical exploits, director Uberto Pasolini’s low-key and bravely reflective take on the legend may disappoint purists and action fans.

Yet, it remains a riveting experience thanks to powerhouse performances from the leads. Binoche is understated but commanding, while a mesmerising Fiennes is akin to a shell-shocked soldier, but one also burdened by age, guilt, shame and regret, not least for being an absent husband and father.

For Odysseus, his heroism is as hollow as the Trojan Horse itself. – Jeremy Aspinall

One To One: John & Yoko

An archival mosaic with airbrushed edges, this is clearly the approved version of how John Lennon and Yoko Ono became scenesters after settling in New York in September 1971. Despite obvious evasions, it provides a fascinating insight into how one of the most famous men on the planet sought to use his influence for good after he ceased to be a Beatle.

The couple's commitment to peace, social justice, and racial and gender equality were never anything but sincere, as witnessed by the 1972 One to One benefit, which turned out to be Lennon's final full concert. Kevin Macdonald and co-director/editor Sam Rice-Edwards use copious TV snippets to show how the Lennons gauged the mood of the nation at a time of unprecedented upheaval under Richard Nixon, who had the couple's phone bugged to enhance his chances of getting Lennon deported.

The cascade of images, ideas, and information can feel overwhelming, but it cannily recreates the sense of frantic flux that eventually pitched Lennon into his Lost Weekend. – David Parkinson

A Minecraft Movie

A Minecraft Movie does its level best to bring us the joy of this wildly popular 3D sandbox game. Led by Jack Black, he’s joined by the muscle-bound Jason Momoa and The White Lotus’s comic goddess Jennifer Coolidge, each bringing their own brand of lunacy to the Minecraft universe.

Their combined energy powers this film through, even when the plot flags or gets bogged down by visual effects. Meanwhile, despite all the Easter eggs for gamers, there’s plenty of other things for non-players to enjoy, with Jack Black going full Tenacious D (yes, he sings) and the long-haired Momoa looking amusingly lame in retro outfits (leather jackets, with tassles).

The final act loses its way, with a boring battle that feels inconsequential, but for the most part, this strikes a neat balance for aficionados and newbies. And however wayward the last portion is, there’s a voice cameo from a well-known comedian that is truly a moment of beauty. – James Mottram

• Read our full A Minecraft Movie review
• Read our interview with director Jared Hess

Mr Burton

The formative years of Richard Burton come under the microscope in an absorbing drama chronicling the actor’s relationship with the inspirational teacher from whom he took his professional name. Set in post-war South Wales, the film features Toby Jones as mild-mannered educator and aspiring playwright Philip Burton, who sees something special in the teenaged Richard Jenkins (Harry Lawtey), but must help the lad overcome the hurdles of a staunchly working-class upbringing and potentially destructive self-doubt.

Beautifully photographed and richly atmospheric, director Marc Evans creates an engrossing study of an initially unlikely friendship between two individuals striving for better things. Jones turns in a masterful, sympathetic performance, and there’s eye-catching support from Lesley Manville as his landlady and Aimee Ffion-Edwards as Richard’s encouraging older sister.

However, Lawtey is the true star of the piece, a mesmerising presence both in early scenes as the rough-around-the-edges pupil and in latter stages of the narrative, when his volatile personality threatens to derail a thespian career before it’s barely begun. – Terry Staunton

• Read our interview with Harry Lawtey
• Read our interview with Kate Burton

Black Bag

Steven Soderbergh and a crack cast have great fun with a stylish spy yarn that’s pitched, delightfully, as a domestic chamber piece. Dapper intelligence operative George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is informed that there’s a mole in his workplace, and his elegant wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) is one of the five key suspects.

Seemingly unfazed, George invites the unsuspecting parties (all of whom are romantically linked) to a dinner at his and Kathryn’s luxury London townhouse. Once he spikes the meal with truth serum, the gathering gets off to the races.

David Koepp’s witty, erudite screenplay recalls the acerbic drama of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf as the guests – played beautifully by Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page and Industry star Marisa Abela – are denuded of their inhibitions.

Words are louder than actions throughout, but Soderbergh’s deft handling of the material (as director, cinematographer and editor) ensures that the absence of any expected punch-ups never matters.

Fassbender proves a mesmerising presence throughout, whether putting his suspects through a polygraph test or facing the possibility his wife may be involved with stealing a device that would cause nuclear meltdown. – Jeremy Aspinall

• Read our full Black Bag review

Snow White

Rachel Zegler sings her heart out as the title character in Disney’s live action update of its first-ever animated feature. After her mother dies, Snow White’s father (Hadley Fraser) remarries before disappearing off to war. Following a period relegated to the castle kitchens, the innocent Snow White is sent to die in a forest by her jealous stepmother (Gal Gadot) – but our heroine instead stumbles upon a gaggle of friendly dwarves.

These seven no-longer-titular characters were a source of controversy during production, and the studio’s solution is to render them entirely in CGI to match their original 1937 designs, maintaining an air of cartoonish unreality. This only partly works, not least because the dwarves remain paper-thin as characters. Gadot, meanwhile, is far too buttoned-up to truly terrify as the story’s classic villain.

Yet, there’s still a lot to like about this remake; it remains a charming, if not necessarily timeless, fairy tale and provides a fine showcase for Zegler to embody – and carefully update – the original Disney princess. – Jayne Nelson

• Read our full Snow White review

Mickey 17

Robert Pattinson is the hapless soul who gets to die another day in this slick sci-fi comedic parable from Parasite director Bong Joon-ho. Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes escapes his troubles on Earth, signing up for a space colonisation mission led by Mark Ruffalo’s Trump-like megalomaniac.

A so-called ‘expendable’, Mickey gives his life to keep others safe. If he perishes, the boffins on board simply ‘re-print’ another iteration. But trouble brews when the seventeenth Mickey survives certain death and returns to the ship to find his follow-up clone.

A wild mix of physical comedy, especially from Pattinson, social satire and absurdist humour, it’s a visually engrossing ride into the future in much the way Bong’s 2013 film Snowpiercer was. Adapted from Edward Ashton’s novel, it’s packed with weirdness – from cute/creepy CG critters to comedian Tim Key in a pigeon costume to the most disturbing ménage à trois you’ll ever see (with Naomi Ackie and two Pattinsons). Like a demented twist on Douglas Adams, it’s another fearless work from the Korean filmmaker. – James Mottram

• Read our full Mickey 17 review

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