Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch): successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo’s career nosedives while Ivy’s own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites

Adapted from Warren Adler’s classic novel The War of the Roses and its seminal 1989 big-screen adaptation starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, The Roses arrives in cinemas with fresh, ferocious bite. Savage, hysterical, and wildly unpredictable, this is one comedy that doesn’t just nudge at the boundaries of taste and madness: it gleefully bulldozes right through them.

And at the helm of this fiery marital implosion is none other than Jay Roach. The man is synonymous with comedy gold—Austin Powers, Meet the Parents, Bombshell, Trumbo – and now he brings his sharp narrative instincts and spot on comedic timing to The Roses. The result? A film that is zesty, spicy, unhinged, and hands down one of the most deliriously entertaining comedies of the year. Think of it as a cinematic degustation of chaos, where each course is crazier (and funnier) than the last.

Roach’s approach is clever and immediately engaging. He opens en medias res, thrusting us straight into the madness of Theo and Ivy Rose’s warzone of a home before winding the clock back to show how their fairytale romance soured beyond recognition. The early glow of love quickly curdles, and the escalation is swift and savage. With every passing scene, Roach dials up the tension and lunacy as Ivy and Theo’s frustration, envy, and outright hatred bubble to the surface until both are consumed by their villainy.

This is a film that thrives on unpredictability. The laughs don’t just land, they crash into you. Each beat is funnier, darker, and wilder than the last, and the narrative pace is so relentless that you never quite know where it’s heading next. That uncertainty is its magic. One moment you’re giggling at a petty squabble, the next you’re cackling at full-blown domestic warfare. Two sequences stand out in particular: a jaw-dropping dinner scene where the Roses’ venom spills out in front of their unsuspecting guests, and a third act that hurtles into full-blown insanity. And just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the ending crashes in with a twist you’ll never see coming.

The verbal warfare is also a joy to behold. The script is sharp, nasty, and downright inventive when it comes to profanity. Be prepared for a linguistic rollercoaster of insults, curses, and swear-filled tirades that are so creative they become their own kind of poetry. It’s vicious, it’s filthy, and it’s utterly hilarious.

Of course, none of this would work without the powerhouse pairing of Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. As Ivy Rose, Colman is simply on fire. Wild, mischievous, and uninhibited, she dives headfirst into Ivy’s vanity, ambition, and rash decision-making. She’s both hysterically funny and terrifying, and you can’t take your eyes off her. Opposite her, Cumberbatch delivers a career-twisting performance as Theo, a former high-flyer turned sad sack who spirals into pathetic desperation. It’s a hilarious yet quietly tragic turn, and his gradual descent only fuels the calamity of the narrative.

Together, Colman and Cumberbatch are dynamite. Their chemistry is electric, both in their initial affection and their later venomous hatred. Watching them spar—verbally, physically, emotionally is at the heart of The Roses. Their back-and-forth is sharp, unpredictable, and always entertaining, and it’s what makes this black comedy so wildly addictive.

At a time when comedy can often play it safe, The Roses is fearless. It’s a film that feels original, sharp, and uncompromisingly bold, with a style that’s equal parts outrageous and sophisticated. If you’re looking for a laugh-out-loud comedy that doubles as a gleeful descent into madness, you’ll find it here.

Savage. Hysterical. Unpredictable. The Roses is one of 2025’s comedy highlights—a film that proves when love turns sour, the results can be devastatingly funny.

Image: 20th Century Studios

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Based on a true scandal that stunned 1920s England, the story centres on neighbours Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) and Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) in the seaside town of Littlehampton. One day, a series of obscene letters begin to target Edith and the other residents, with suspicion falling upon Rose. As the outrageous letters continue to escalate, Rose risks losing both her freedom and custody of her daughter. Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) is determined to find the real culprit, and along with a group of other women, seeks to solve this perplexing mystery.

Sometimes a film comes along that is straight out of left field and wraps its audience up in its narrative; Wicked Little Letters is that film, and what’s more, it’s chronicling a truly strange and scandalous crime that was thought lost to history, but thankfully the truth has now come out. Filmmaker Thea Sharrock and screenwriter Jonny Sweet are the team behind Wicked Little Letters, and the end result is a piece of pure genius that can be described as a combination of comedy and character study. You’re completely taken by surprise by it. Sharrock’s direction is spot on, and she focuses inwards on her character’s feelings and motivations, and the result is a foul-mouthed, smart comedy that moves at a cracking speed and that gives its audience something incredibly fun to witness.

Academy Award winner Olivia Colman is a national treasure of the British film industry, and whenever she takes on a new project, her talent instantly rewards the production. That’s exactly what we see here with Wicked Little Letters and with her performance as Edith Swan, one of the two women at the centre of this mischievous and extremely naughty affair. Colman’s Edith is a completely sheltered, holier-than-thro busybody whose chirpy demeanour and do-gooder persona hides her stance as a know-it-all who is keen to know everyone’s business. Colman’s performance reflects her character’s personality, but Edith is not all as she seems, and Colman delivers an incredible complexity as this character who is caught up as the victim of this ‘letter writing scandal’, and her performance takes audiences for a ride.

On the other side of the narrative, we have Jessie Buckley as Rose Gooding, a loud, brazen, uncouth, and extremely foul-mouthed woman with no filter, who, as the outcast of this docile little town, is soon the prime suspect in this ‘letter writing horror’. Her portrayal of Rose is of a woman who gives as good as she gets but who is also just trying to make her way in the world amidst immense hardships and who is striving to better the life of her daughter. There’s a natural confrontation between her and Colman’s Edith, and their back and forth leads to plenty of surprising drama and one hell of a mighty twist in the end.

Wicked Little Letters is set up as a comedy with a mystery at its centre, and its dynamic story will keep you hooked right from beginning to end. Its characters crackle with convolutions, and as the story moves at pace, you quickly want to see how this ghastly mystery will resolve itself. Colman and Buckley’s co-stars, including the likes of Anjana Vasan as PC Gladys Moss, a bull-dogged policewoman who is very keen to prove her worth, and the great Timothy Spall as Edward Swan, Edith’s completely awful and foul father, add to the liveliness of the plot. Plus, there’s some extensive and creative swearing, and it’s a riot.

Wicked Little Letters is a flat-out funny and hilarious watch, and for audiences who are looking for something a little bit different, well, it strikes gold!

Image: Studio Canal

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Hilary Small (Olivia Colman), duty manager of a seaside cinema, who is struggling with her mental health, forms a relationship with a new employee (Michael Ward) on the south coast of England in the 1980s.

When it comes to the auteur voices of the cinema one of the giants of the medium is undoubtedly Sam Mendes. With a talent for the dramatic and a penchant for telling deeply character-driven works that examine the human experience, his films always draws the audiences’ attention. With Empire of Light, he crafts a poignant and moving love letter to the power of the cinematic art form, and it is a deeply personal story. Audiences who walk into Empire of Light may be expecting one kind of cinematic experience, but they will be met with something quite different. Or at least that’s what I was expecting. I had expected a whirlwind dramatic epic of the cinema, but instead, I was greeted with a soft, slow-burn story of a closed-off romance and a deep desire for acceptance. And I was absolutely spellbound by all of it.

Empire of Light is a presentation of both the beautiful and the haunting, a story of love and madness, of deep empathy and fraught emotions. It is a story of the human experience, set against the magic of the cinema, and audiences will be reeled in by Mendes’ gift for narrative with this one. Mendes slowly unwinds this film, and it plays out almost like a scrapbook of nostalgic memories. Pulling ideas and feelings from his own past, Empire of Light is an incredibly personal film from Mendes and its presentation is highly meditative. Emphasis is placed on imagery and sound over dialogue and exposition, and the audience finds its way into the ordinary life of a character who desires to belong above all else and who eventually is drawn to the power of cinema as a means of healing and affirmation.

Standing in as the protagonist of this dramatic work is Academy Award winner Olivia Colman and she has never been better in a role. Given the strength and dynamism of her performance, Colman falls away and instead audiences follow the life and emotional journey of Hilary Small, the duty manager of The Empire, a small cinema in England’s Southern Coast in the turbulent 1980s where Thatcher’s Britain is beginning to divide itself, and where a simmering hate is about to explode. Lonely, isolated and battling severe mental illness, Hilary is a character of extremes whose diagnosis sees her pulled from side to side and trying to overcome a secret she just wants to run away from. Colman’s performance is both brave and compassionate and she presents a complete portrait of Hilary as deserving of love and eventually opening up to the goodness that surrounds her.

Circling Hilary is a dynamic group of characters who are all parts of her journey and each is a testament to Mendes’s command for story and eye for casting. Micheal Ward makes an impression as Stephen, a young man who finds more than he bargained for with his summer job at the cinema and whose volatile affair with Hilary leads to plenty of surprises. Academy Award winner Colin Firth makes an abrupt term as the despicable and repellant Donald Ellis, the Empire’s owner, and its a side to Firth many audiences have never seen and she’s particularly unpleasant in the part. Then there’s Toby Jones as Norman, the Empire’s projectionist who is the conscience of the picture, and whose wizardry behind the curtain is by which the magic makes its way on screen.

Empire of Light is first and foremost a cinema spectacle and is required to watch on the silver screen. Academy Award-winning cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins brings his masterful eye to work with this picture and his control of light and colour catches the attention of the audience. Mixing in earthy colours with the open blues and hard whites of the seaside makes for an incredibly interesting image, and there is depth and beauty in all the shadows of this picture. The film’s grain and quality are reminiscent of the film’s 1980s setting and Deakins draws on his younger years as a documentarian in capturing the details of the picture. It all adds up to a beautiful sense of ambience and is another example of the power and serenity of why movies matter.

A great sense of compassion and empathy is present in Empire of Light as Mendes explores the pain of mental health, and he does not shy away from the extremity of Hilary’s battle with bipolar disorder. There is no judgment or criticism from Mendes towards Hilary, instead, he presents her as a character who is trying to do her best in such a turbulent time. Juxtaposing Hilary’s journey to recovery is a story of the power of cinema and the enchanting joy of why audiences continually search for its warmth and stories. Empire of Light is Mendes’ love letter to a medium that means so much to him, and filmgoers who share his passion will be enchanted by this picture.

Empire of Light is a deeply poetic piece of cinema to behold and audiences will feel its beauty and narrative in their very souls. It is a love letter to the majesty of cinema.

Image: 20th Century Studios

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Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfil her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way.

Any time you see the mention of Yorgos Lanthimos you immediately sit up and take notice. Known for his provocative subject matter and masterful control of the cinematic craft, which saw its placement in previous works such as The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimos now turns his guise to a thoroughly unique historical canvas for his latest project The Favourite. The result of his gaze is a tightly contained narrative of three tumultuous persons and their never-ending pursuit to one-up one another and control each others outcome.

Lanthimos’ ability to shock is still very much present in The Favourite, but whereas in the past he has focused on the horrors of the physical his attention now is placed to the minefield of the psyche and his characters need for acceptance. Never one to let a solid twist move past him, Lanthimos plots out his narrative with a script that is sharpened to a razors edge and pulls his audience back and forth at every single occasion. As a director, Lanthimos is completely focused on the project at hand and weaving every element of story and production together to bring forth this bizarre historical film, and he has the help of three wonderful performers to realise its nefarious characters.

If you thought Regina George was bad, well, she’s got nothing on Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and rightful head bitch of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), her sovereign lord who she treats little better than a pet or doormat. Played with a refined nastiness by Rachel Weisz, Lady Marlborough is far and away the most important figure in the Queen’s court and even though she is possessed of no formal position of power in the Queen’s England she is very much the governing force of it. While her husband, John Churchill, The Duke Of Marlborough (Mark Gatiss), a talented general is off waging war, Lady Marlborough makes it her duty to continue to set her Queen right, which invariably means improving her own station and making sure that her husband’s political agendas are never far from the Queen’s mind. She’s possessed of a fiercely controlling nature and as the Queen’s favourite, she has the run of the court and indeed the land. I can honestly not think of a similar role in which I have seen Weisz appear before and her command of this vindictively controlling woman is a frightfully scary performance. As an audience member, nothing can prepare you for what you will encounter up on screen with Weisz as Lady Marlborough and the scheming that follows will sit you up in your seat.

While Lady Marlborough may be the ultimate Queen Bee of Queen Anne’s court, a newer, younger, prettier lady soon arrives on its grounds in the form of Emma Stone’s Abigail Hill and when she does….the games begin. Stone’s Abigail is everything that Lady Marlborough is not in first appearance: kind, sweet, good-natured and unfortunately extremely poor and fallen far from her once regal status. But when she sees what’s on offer and that the key to power and wealth stem from the Queen’s attention she finds her cause and the knives come out. Stone’s shift from ingenue to nightmare is both gradual and swift at the same time and once she has her first taste of power her hunger becomes insatiable and she is soon all to willing to go to whatever ends necessary to ensure her own favour well above that of Lady Marlborough. The timeline of events that follow are both frightfully shocking and funny at the same time and Stone’s performance is most definitely stamped on your mind.

Finishing out this complicated trinity is Olivia Colman as Queen Anne, a sad, sickened and thoroughly tumultuous woman who inspires both a contemptible pity and hilarious giggling in the audiences thanks to her actions. While Colman’s Queen Anne may be anointed as Queen she has neither the stomach nor the interest in governing her lands, nor the grasp of how politically fragmented her nation is and is only content in servicing her own base needs and complicated emotions. Plagued by afflictions of both the body and the heart, Queen Anne is painfully needy and lavishes up the attention of both Lady Marlborough and Abigail which only incites them further in their actions to outdo one another. Surrounded by her own personal warren of rabbits, which come with their own sad story, the Queen is essentially a prisoner of her own court and is content with a daily regiment of dining parties and feasts that provide her fleeting moments of happiness before sending her into hateful depressions. As a performance its a brave one for Colman and she goes to a very different place in this role from all her previous characters before.

While the ladies of The Favourite are your focal point for this film, we also run into a pair of great performances from its male leads who include Nicolas Hoult and Joe Alwyn. Hoult presents us with the character of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, a pompous loutish politician who is the mortal enemy of Lady Marlborough and who is driven to extremes by the Queen’s waning disinterest in his political agenda. As Harley, Hoult gives a thoroughly savage performance and you always dread what he’s going to do next. Then there’s Joe Alwyn as Samuel Masham, 1st Baron Masham, the Queen’s Captain of the Horse who soon becomes a pawn in Abigail’s plan for power. Of all the character’s Alwyn’s Masham is the most normal and dignified of the lot, but eventually even he is not exempt from the degradations that come with court life.

The Favourite is a film that is wrapped in rich detail and as a cinematic experience, it is a visually delicious feast. Lanthimos has a team of like-minded and gifted collaborators to realise this extraordinary canvas up on screen. Production designer Fiona Crombie crafts a unique black and white colour palette that comes to weave its way in and out of the film, and her focus is on the grandeur of the Queen’s estate and the juxtaposition of intricate detail and negative space to pull in the audience’s attention. Matched with the production are the breathtaking costumes courtesy of Sandy Powell and she wraps her principle leads in a highly ornate and glamourous wardrobe that is inspired by the baroque paintings of the era. Powell pays attention to how costuming can convey a character’s sense of self and uses it to showcase the journeys and ultimate fortunes of the characters that we meet on screen.

Capturing the detail of The Favourite is the responsibility of cinematographer Robbie Ryan and whether its the grandeur of the Queen’s ballroom or the decrepit grime of the bowls of the scullery kitchens, all of it is presented and accounted for thanks to Ryan’s talented eye. Having honed his craft on indie darlings such as Fish Tank, Philomena and American Honey, he has a very unique taste for cinematography and The Favourite greatly benefits from it. His way of shooting is very much his own and here he does away with the usual Steadicam usage and instead captures the film through the use of wide angled and fish-eyed lenses for a distinctive look which makes the audience uneasy thanks to its implied voyeuristic elements. His use of natural light and heavy incorporation of candles into his shooting style also marks the film out as special and the sparing usage of a definitive light source pulls you deeper into the frames and the emotions of the characters.

The Favourite is a boldly original cinematic feat and audiences who embrace its eccentric story will be treated to a film that is outlandish, fiendish, dramatic, horrific and hysterical all at the same time and it’s one they should certainly savour every single moment of upon its release this Boxing Day.

Image: 20th Century Fox

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