10 intriguing film releases to look forward to this year

The season of mega-budget movies is winding down, leaving cinephiles with more offbeat offerings to look forward to — our critic Ben Walters picks 10 films to watch out for over the coming months
French frippery: Emma Stone and Colin Firth in Woody Allen’s charming Magic in the Moonlight
Ben Walters8 August 2014

Pride

The true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, the London-based fundraising group that set up contacts with a small Welsh community during the 1984 miners’ strike. With a top-notch cast including Bill Nighy, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton and Paddy Considine, it’s part culture-clash comedy, part rousing tale of coming together against the odds.

Out September 12

A Most Wanted Man

This John Le Carré adaptation features Philip Seymour Hoffman, in one of his final leading roles, as an understated Hamburg intelligence officer on the trail of a suspected Islamist kingpin. Expect more paperwork than fight scenes but early reports suggest Hoffman is terrific. Rachel McAdams and Willem Dafoe also star and all use German accents.

Out September 12

10 intriguing film releases to look forward to this year

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Magic in the Moonlight

In Woody Allen’s 47th feature, set on the Riviera in the 1920s, Colin Firth plays a famous illusionist recruited to debunk a young medium (played by Emma Stone) whose apparent channel to the spirit world has seen her being taken in by a rich American family. Romance blossoms in a story reportedly more charming than substantial.

Out September 19

The Riot Club

This British film is based on Laura Wade’s hit play Posh — itself inspired by the escapades of Oxford’s ultra-exclusive Bullingdon Club, whose former members include David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Directed by Lone Sherfig (An Education), it promises a punchy take on privilege, entitlement and the abuse of power. Max Irons and Sam Claflin star.

Out September 19

All is By My Side

OutKast’s André 3000 stars as Jimi Hendrix in this take on the legendary singer’s early career in London from writer-director John Ridley (who also wrote 12 Years a Slave). It’s not the only music biopic of the season: September 26 sees the release of Get On Up, about James Brown, co-written by Jez Butterworth.

Out October 10

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn adapts her own hit novel for director David Fincher, whose experience with twisted crime stories such as Fight Club, Zodiac and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should be good preparation for this tale of a man suspected of involvement in his wife’s disappearance. Ben Affleck plays the husband in question.

Out October 3

Mr Turner

Director Mike Leigh and actor Timothy Spall are frequent collaborators but this isn’t a gritty contemporary drama like Life is Sweet or Secrets and Lies. Spall plays the 19th-century painter JMW Turner — a role for which he won the Best Actor prize at Cannes. Focus is split between his equally eventful private and professional lives.

Out October 31

Interstellar

After the bombastic grandeur of his Dark Knight trilogy, film-maker Christopher Nolan goes for something quiet and understated. Just kidding! This sci-fi epic starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Nolan regular Michael Caine is about using galaxy-hopping wormholes to secure the future of humanity after the future of Earth is found to be in jeopardy.

Out November 7

The Imitation Game

The ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch plays the brilliant codebreaker Alan Turing in a film focused on his Enigma machine work during the Second World War. It also explores his unhappy adolescence and post-war suffering after he was criminalised for his homosexuality, eventually committing suicide. With Keira Knightley and Mark Strong.

Out November 14

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

It’s now more or less obligatory that the final instalment of any popular YA fiction franchise must be adapted into not one but two films (see Harry Potter and Twilight). So this November sees the latest serving of dystopian death-match hijinks, with the finale following in 2015. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson star.

Out November 20

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