Oscar winner Tenet; SXSW winner Saint Frances; GLAAD nominee Unpregnant; blockbuster animation The Croods
TENET | Stream now
The fifth biggest box office hit globally of 2020, Tenet won the 2021 Oscar and BAFTA for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, with a further Oscar nomination for Production Design.
Directed by five-time Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy), the sci-fi action thriller follows Protagonist. Armed with only one word, “Tenet”, he journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel: inversion…
Golden Globe nominee John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) was nominated for Best Actor at the 2021 Critics’ Choice Super Awards for his lead role, with MTV Movie + TV Awards, People’s Choice and Teen Choice winner Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga) nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films.
The support cast also includes Elizabeth Debicki (Princess Diana in The Crown S5-6), Oscar winner Sir Michael Caine (Inception, Alfred in Nolan’s Batman trilogy), and Oscar nominee Sir Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express), as well as Teen Choice nominee Himesh Patel (Yesterday, The Luminaries), and Clémence Poésy (In Bruges, Genius).
Rolling Stone calls Tenet “pure, ravishing cinema…”; London Evening Standard “an eye-popping, ground-breaking blast”; and Empire “ferociously entertaining.”
THE CROODS: A NEW AGE | Stream now
The 10th biggest movie of 2020, with a worldwide gross of $215 million, DreamWorks Animation’s “Croodaceous” adventure The Croods: A New Age follows the prehistoric Croods pack as they try keep up with their new, more evolved neighbours, the Bettermans.
Nominated for a 2021 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture, six Annie Awards and two Kids’ Choice Awards, The Croods: A New Age is a “raucous, nakedly commercial but also wickedly funny sequel”, according to The Times (UK), while Empire Magazine praises its “vibrant animation and a wackadoodle sense of humour.”
Oscar winners Nicolas Cage (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Teen Titans GO! to the Movies, Leaving Las Vegas) and Emma Stone (Cruella, La La Land), legend Cloris Leachman (Phineas and Ferb, Young Frankenstein), Oscar nominee Catherine Keener (Where the Wild Things Are, Being John Malkovich), MTV Movie Award winner Ryan Reynolds (Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Deadpool), and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Clark Duke (Veronica Mars, The Office) reprise their voice roles from the first film, while four-time Emmy winner Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, The Angry Birds Movie) and Teen Choice nominees Leslie Mann (Rio, Knocked Up) and Kelly Marie Tran (Raya, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) join the voice cast as the Bettermans.
Also catch the Oscar-nominated original film The Croods on Showmax.
SAINT FRANCES | First on Showmax | 11 October
Winner of both the Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award at SXSW, Saint Frances follows a deadbeat nanny who finds an unlikely friendship with the six-year-old girl she’s charged with protecting.
Saint Frances has a 99% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, who named it their second best-reviewed comedy of 2020. As Rolling Stone says, “What looks like a throwaway about a precocious kid and her nanny is actually one of the best and gutsiest movies you’ll find anywhere these pandemic days – a fun-time trailblazer that retains its rough edges to that last. It’s some kind of miracle.”
The film has won 11 international awards, with The National Board of Review naming it one of the Top 10 Independent Films of 2021.
UNPREGNANT | 14 October
In the girl buddy road trip comedy drama Unpregnant, 17-year old Veronica’s dreams for the future hang in the balance after she accidentally falls pregnant. Unable to get an abortion in her home state of Missouri, she turns to her former best friend Bailey to help her get to Albuquerque.
Nominated for a 2021 GLAAD Media Award and a Gold Derby Award for Outstanding TV Movie, Unpregnant has a 91% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics consensus says, “Unpregnant puts a compelling twist on the road trip comedy — and treats its sensitive subject with heart.”
The film’s excellent cast is led by MTV Movie Award and Teen Choice Award nominee Haley Lu Richardson (Five Feet Apart) as Veronica, and Barbie Ferreira (Euphoria’s Kat), who was nominated for a 2021 Imagen Award for Best Actress for her role as Bailey. Five-time Emmy nominees Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul’s Gus Fring, and Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian) and Breckin Meyer (Road Trip, Designated Survivor, Robot Chicken), and singer-songwriter Betty Who co-star.
SUMMERLAND | 11 October
Set in an idyllic South England seaside village, British drama Summerland sees a reclusive writer forced to take in a young evacuee from London during World War II.
Penned and directed by Olivier Award-winning playwright Jessica Swale, this moving tale of womanhood, love and friendship stars BAFTA nominees Gemma Arterton (The Escape, The Girl with All the Gifts, Tess of the D’Urbervilles) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Morning Show, Loki, Motherless Brooklyn), child actors Lucas Bond (The Alienist) and Dixie Egerickx (The Secret Garden), BAFTA winner Dame Siân Phillips (Dune, I, Claudius), Screen Actors Guild Award winner Dame Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and Oscar nominee Sir Tom Courtenay (Unforgotten, Doctor Zhivago).
“Made with great panache, this is a real gem of understated poignancy… about summers as lovely as they are fraught,” says Globe and Mail, while Empire Magazine says, “Arterton triumphs again and Swale marks herself as a director to watch. Summerland successfully combines an intelligent feminist fable and a lesbian love story with a slick period tearjerker.”
