I love going to the cinema. Yes, the screen is big and the sound system is powerful but that’s not the main reason that I go.

I go to the cinema as a sort of affirmation of what movies mean to me. The best movies light me up, fill me with emotion, and leave me with images and thoughts that linger in my mind, becoming waymarkers for how I map my world.

I don’t watch movies, I experience them. For me, that experience has the intensity that some people achieve through prayer. The cinema is my church of film. I don’t go there to eat popcorn or drink Coke or chat to the people next to me; I go to open myself up to a film in the company of other people who want the same thing.

I saw five films at the cinema in the second half of 2025. The only thing they have in common is that they all lit up my imagination.

You can find trailers for each films and my comments on why I enjoyed them below.’

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‘Dying’ – original title ‘Sterben’ (2024) directed by Matthias Glasner

‘Dying‘ is a stark German film about the choices we make about death and the consequences for the living. It’s not a happy movie. It’s an unsentimental but emotionally powerful look at unhappiness, dysfunctional family relationships, the burden of long-term depression, the blight of alzheimer’s and suicidal ideation. Why watch a movie that is so bleak? Partly because it’s also about hope, about finding release through creative, especially music and about people striving to find a balance between what they want to do, what they feel they must do to achieve a modicum of happiness. The people felt real. The acting was first-rate and the music was glorious.

‘The Roses’ (2025) directed by Jay Roach

.’The Roses‘ is a triumphantly anarchic reworking of the 1989 comedy ‘The War Of The Roses’, based on the book of the same name by Warren Adler.

I loved the original movie when it came out, so I was glad to see that ‘The Roses’ wasn’t simply Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch doing a cover version of the tempestuous, hate-fueled relationship that Kathlee Turner and Michael Douglas did so well. ‘The War of the Roses‘ focused on the extreme behaviour of the couple during their divorce. ‘The Roses’ takes a longer timeframe, showing more of the marriage before it went sour and having the children play a more active part. 

The humour is quieter at first, increasing the impact of the final escalation. Coleman and Cumberbatch are an English couple living in America (although the movie was filmed in Devon), and some of the humour comes from their shared amusement at the behaviour and expectations of their American friends. I thought Coleman and Cumberbatch made a convincing couple, with Cumberbatch always trying to create order and structure and Coleman always relishing chaos.

‘Dead of Winter’ (2025) directed by Brian Kirk

‘Dead of Winter’ is a thriller set on a remote lake in Northern Minnesota in winter, where a recently widowed woman in her sixties witnesses a violent abduction that she can’t walk away from.

I admired Emma Thompson’s performance as the grieving old woman forced into action. She added a quiet depth and grit that kept me fully engaged with her character. I liked that she was shown realistically as a sixty-something woman having to do difficult but necessary things, and that it didn’t turn out that she was a former spy or an ex-Special Forces member.

I also loved the way the winter landscape became almost a character in the story. The cinematography showed its beauty, its scale and its inimical nature. Although the story is set in Northern Minnesota, the filming was done in Finland, which is now on my list of places I want to visit.

‘Better Days’ – orignal title ‘Des jours meilleurs’ (2024) directed by Elsa Bennett and Hippolyte Dard

‘Better Days’ is a French movie about a group of women trying to help each other overcome addiction. It was one of my favourite movies of the year. It managed to be uplifting and funny while still being honest about what addiction does to addicts. The script and the acting are both nuanced and believable. The energy from this ensemble cast of women was irresistible. These are all women you’d recognise. None of them was perfect, some of them were deeply flawed, but by the end of the movie, I was cheering for all of them.

The Choral (2025) directed by Nicholas Hytner

I wouldn’t normally have gone to see‘The Choral’. I find movies set in World War I difficult to cope with because the scale of the slaughter and the arrogant indifference of the ruling class who caused and sustained it, still fills me with rage.

I made an exception for ’The Choral’ because it was written by Alan Bennett. I love how clearly he sees people and the non-judgmental empathy he creates as he tells their stories. In this movie, he’s chosen to tell the story of a choral society in a Yorkshire mill town in 1916 that is struggling to deliver their annual concert because the Choirmaster has left to join the army. As the Choral Society adjusts to having a new Choirmaster (who has spent time in Germany and speaks German) and new members, including young working-class men who are not yet old enough to enlist, Bennett presents a cross-section of the town reacting to grief and disruption the war has brought.

The ensemble cast was remarkable. I loved the way the energy of the young people and the grief and disappointment of the older people were contrasted. The choir’s delivery of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, chosen because it wasn’t written by a German, was a wonderful way of bringing everyone together. I loved how the music became as much an expression of grief as it was a source of community and joy. Without preaching or judging, the movie showed how the destruction of the war touched the lives of everyone in the town. For me, the saddest part was watching the young men, fresh from the triumph of their choral performance but now in army uniforms, head off on a train towards a war that I knew most of them would not survive.