Wreck-It Ralph aside, Disney never makes proper big-screen sequels to its cartoons. But Frozen was the highest grossing film of 2013 and, until The Lion King remake overtook it, it was the highest grossing animated film ever, so it’s hardly surprising that the studio made an exception in this case. To put it another way: they couldn’t let it go. The premise of Frozen II is that Elsa, Anna, Olaf and Kristoff leave Arendelle to seek the source of Elsa’s icy magic. Although the millions of children who loved the first film are older now, so they might give it a frosty reception.
Queen, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles... they’ve all inspired nostalgic films in the last couple of years. And now it’s George Michael’s turn. A festive romantic comedy, Last Christmas stars Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) as a Bridget Jones-y shop assistant whose life in London is a mess, and Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) as the eligible bachelor who tidies it up. What’s any of that got to do with George Michael? That would be telling, but the film’s director, Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), and co-writer, Emma Thompson, promise that the connection is there. You just gotta have faith.
Tom Hanks stars in A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood as the only American celebrity more saintly than he is. As the host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for more than 30 years, Fred Rogers was an icon of pre-school children’s television, and last year’s documentary about his uplifting life and work, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, was a box office smash. Now Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive me?) directs a biopic in which a troubled journalist (Matthew Rhys) is assigned to interview him. BBC Culture’s Caryn James admires the “authentic heartfelt emotion”, and says that “Heller’s wise, sophisticated A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood turns out to be something rare – a warm-hearted film that even cynics can love”.
It’s been a long wait, but Martin Scorsese has finally made another virtuosic gangster saga with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, the stars of Goodfellas and Casino. If that weren’t exciting enough, he’s invited along Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel, too. The Irishman is the true story of a mafia hitman (De Niro) who does the bidding of a quietly terrifying Philadelphia godfather (Joe Pesci) and a loud-mouthed union boss (Al Pacino). Opinions are divided on the digital de-ageing, but Linda Marric at HeyUGuys hails Scorsese’s three-and-half-hour masterpiece as “a beautifully precise, intricate and genuinely engaging story”.
Hollywood action movies starring women are vanishingly rare. But Hollywood action movies starring women that are written and directed by women, too? Charlie’s Angels is one of the first. A reboot of the 1970s TV series, not to mention the two films from 2000 and 2003, the new version is masterminded by Elizabeth Banks, whose first feature film as a director was Pitch Perfect 2. She also plays Bosley, the intermediary between the mysterious Charles Townsend and the female detectives he pays to go on globe-trotting adventures. Charlie’s latest Angels are Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska, and Naomi Scott, although they’ll struggle to outshine the trio who recorded the film’s theme song, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey.
Nicolas Bedos’s La Belle Époque is a cross between The Truman Show, Midnight in Paris, and Charlie Kaufman’s high-concept comedies – but it’s faster and funnier than any of them. Guillaume Canet plays the manager of an immersive theatre company; for the right price, he can organise a dinner that seems to be taking place in any historical period you like. Most clients opt to go back a century or two, but a jaded newspaper cartoonist (Daniel Auteuil) chooses to revisit the cafe where he met his wife (Fanny Ardant) in the early 1970s. Todd McCarthy at The Hollywood Reporter says that Bedos “pulls off the most thoroughly entertaining big-screen French farce in a very long time, one that’s both classical and modern”.