CNN Films and BBC announced today the joint commission of a feature ... “The search for a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 is the essential human advancement for 2020, if … As you'd expect from the screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Kaufman twists the rules of film narrative in all sorts of clever and surreal ways, but I'm Thinking of Ending Things is ultimately a powerfully melancholy treatise on the brevity of life and love. (It’s probably more than his forgotten password, but that would be a fun ending.) If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. BBC Culture’s film critics Nicholas Barber and Caryn James pick 16 of this year’s highlights, including Ammonite, Mangrove and an Irish animation in which every frame is a work of art. (NB), Released on 28 Feb in the UK, Ireland, and the US, It may have been hampered by injuries, accidents and even the withdrawal of its original director, Danny Boyle, but Daniel Craig’s final Bond movie could be among his best. The film includes some sharp commentary on the marginalising of certain social groups, but it’s the sheer technical bravura that makes Andrew Patterson’s debut such a treat. It may be confusing, but it's undoubtedly moving. So far, none of 2020’s releases has been better at eliciting whoops and winces from its audience. The series consisted of only three parts that told an interesting tale of the famous vampire.The show was based on the famous novel of the same name. This film is more of an intriguing possibility than a sure thing, but the cast alone makes it irresistibly tantalising, no matter what. Herself is a 2020 drama film directed by Phyllida Lloyd, from a screenplay by Malcolm Campbell and Clare Dunne.The film stars Dunne, Harriet Walter and Conleth Hill. For another thing, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve) has spiced up the script. (NB), Soul is another of the boldly imaginative cartoons that you wouldn’t get from any US animation studio except Pixar. In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2005 Broadway hit, set on the streets of a Latino neighbourhood in New York, is directed by Jon M Chu of Crazy Rich Asians. Welcome to BBC Earth. Kurzel and his team make Kelly more feral and frightening than ever, but more sympathetic, too. All five are audacious and gripping, but the standout is Mangrove, the real-life story about police harassment of a restaurant owner in the 1960s. The setting spans continents, with locations including India, Estonia, Italy and the UK. 21 December 2020 … Bukky Bakray stars as a schoolgirl who has to fend for her younger brother (the adorable D'angelou Osei Kissiedu) when their mother disappears from their flat. The director, Justin Kurzel, is known for Snowtown and Macbeth (as well as Assassin’s Creed, but let’s not hold that against him), so expect some brutal conditions and bloody violence. nechronicle. Films … Best Christmas TV of 2020 – From Netflix and Disney+, to the BBC and ITV. The tight-knit community, including Sônia Braga as its often-drunk doctor, is oppressed by a corrupt politician, and confused about why Bacurau has suddenly disappeared from any map, printed or online. (NB), Ridley Scott’s latest is set centuries ago, when action scenes meant men with swords. BBC Poll Shows Most Popular Christmas Films in the UK | 2020 A BBC Poll Reveals the UK's Favourite Christmas Films, Including It's a Wonderful Life and Die Hard. The clever part is that it’s a loving celebration of the author’s prose, but it is also wonderfully cinematic in its use of vibrant colours, split screens, captions, voiceovers and fantasy sequences. (NB). Timothée Chalamet is the messianic young hero; the other actors include Javier Bardem, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Charlotte Rampling, and Dave Bautista. This small-town sci-fi mystery asks those familiar Twilight Zone-ish questions, but it answers them with so much verve and originality that they seem brand new. (NB), Kate Winslet gives one of the most dazzling performances of her career as the real-life Mary Anning, whose 19th-Century discoveries of fossils transformed palaeontology, although the credit went to men. (CJ), Released on 16 April in the Netherlands, 17 April in the US and US, When he’s not directing or acting in Shakespeare, Kenneth Branagh shows remarkable flair for making commercial Disney films, from Thor to Cinderella. Set over the course of one evening, The Vast Of Night follows a local radio DJ (Jake Horowitz) and a telephone operator (Sierra McCormick) as they investigate the eerie noises that are being broadcast from somewhere nearby. She is appropriating his image just as he stole her art, but that is only the beginning of a real, sometimes spiky friendship, as the story expands to include Barbora’s relationship with her boyfriend and Karl’s drug addiction. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200702-the-best-films-of-2020-so-far Director Benjamin Ree followed his subjects for years to create this richly-layered, moving chronicle of inspiration, guilt and reinvention. (NB), Did the world need one more Jane Austen adaptation? (NB), Tom Cruise puts his Aviator shades back on for a high-flying sequel to the 1986 hit. Filming began in Nepal and the UK in October 2019, and back in January the BBC included it in the year’s ‘New for 2020‘ trailer. Letitia Wright gives a stunning, powerful performance as a leader of the British Black Panthers. But the latest retelling of his life story, adapted from Peter Carey’s novel, concentrates on his early years, and examines how he is pushed into crime when his mother (Essie Davis from The Babadook) sells him to a bandit (Russell Crowe). The girls' battles against destructive adults are exhilarating fun, and every frame is a work of art. When the village is invaded by mercenaries, the film morphs into a blood-soaked homage to Westerns. BBC One has confirmed its Christmas line up of TV for 2020. The biggest names in the voice cast are Tina Fey, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and Jamie Foxx; his jazz-loving character is the first African-American hero of a Pixar cartoon. Writer and director Francis Lee's exquisitely photographed and bracingly unsentimental romance finds Mary in middle age, scraping together a living in the seaside town of Lyme Regis. Who would have guessed that the brains behind Veep and The Thick of It was just the right director for this refreshing, multicultural take on the beloved novel? Lee invents Mary's affair with the married Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan), and Ammonite gained notice for the women's graphic sex scenes. BBC Films movies (57 titles): Supernova (2021), Herself (2021), Ammonite (2020), The Nest … She may well have to contend with Rubik’s Cubes, shoulder pads and Duran Duran singles while she’s at it. The film is wrenching in its honesty yet exhilarating in its empathy. Superhero blockbusters are so last decade. The story is that Bond has retired with his girlfriend (Léa Seydoux), leaving a new double-0 agent (Lashana Lynch) to save the world in his absence. Not really, but this enchanting, colourful version is a very welcome addition. Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant in 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' Far from a message movie, writer and director Eliza Hittman’s film is an eloquent, intimate story about choices, secrets, and the sad, desperate decisions young women sometimes make to save their own futures. Jill Robinson; 24 Dec 2020, 8:02; Updated: 24 Dec 2020, 10:01; There are no big speeches or explosive confrontations, but there is tension throughout as we wait for the titular assistant to rebel against her boss... or accept that she is going to keep working for him, come what may. The Weinstein-alike CEO may be the villain of the piece, but the film looks beyond one man to focus on a wider corporate culture of sexism, condescension, and quiet complicity. (CJ), Released on 16 December in France, 18 December in the UK and US, Whether you rate it as a cult classic, or whether you’re sensible enough to accept that it is one of the worst films ever made, David Lynch’s Dune was not a great success. In its place, Leigh Whannell, the co-creator of Saw and Insidious, has written and directed a creepy low-budget take on HG Wells’ story. Jodie Comer also stars as a woman who watches the men settle their differences. In 2020, it’s the superheroines’ time to shine. But his buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) persuades him to fight the evil Safin (Rami Malek). You can analyse the movie’s subtext about Brazilian politics or just enjoy its engaging, genre-bending audacity. And Bill Nighy gloriously steals every scene as Emma’s comically overprotective father. (CJ), Released on 16 July in Brazil, Germany, the UK and US, Steven Spielberg delivers singing, dancing and some of the most beautiful music ever written – Maria, Tonight, the list goes on – with his adaptation of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's classic Broadway take on Romeo and Juliet. Here he takes on a fantasy-adventure based on the first in Eoin Colfer’s huge, bestselling series of children’s books. Best Films on TV for Christmas and New Year 2020. Top Gun: Maverick isn’t the only belated new addition to a 1980s franchise, either. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. He has the job of clearing the wolves from a forest near Kilkenny, but when Robyn goes exploring, she finds that one of those wolves can transform into a human girl (Eva Whittaker). Its plucky heroine is Robyn (voiced by Honor Kneafsey), the daughter of an English huntsman (Sean Bean) stationed in Ireland in the mid-1600s. The camera silently captures the heartbreak on Autumn’s face, as well as the dreary texture of her town and the bright, overwhelming reality of New York. And while Iannucci roots it firmly in the poverty and class system of Victorian England, it’s also bracingly modern, not least in its multicultural casting (Dev Patel is terrific in the lead role). Director Autumn de Wilde doesn’t reinvent the period genre; she leans into its comforting, old-fashioned appeal. Christmas films announced for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. Best Films On TV This Christmas – Here's Our Pick Of What The BBC, ITV And Channel 4 & 5 Have To Offer Whether you're a fan of Harry Styles or … Even by the standards of its writer-director, Armando Iannucci, this joyous and endlessly inventive film is a glittering achievement that raises the bar for Charles Dickens adaptations. Posted by Kayleigh Dray for TV Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Bill & Ted Face the Music are also due in 2020. But Wolfwalkers is his most delightful yet. But the year’s biggest and brightest-looking superheroine movie will probably be Wonder Woman 1984, a sequel to Patty Jenkins’ 2017 smash. A comedy thriller about a gang of privileged liberals (including Hilary Swank) who kidnap some right-wing ‘deplorables’ (including Betty Gilpin) and then pick them off for sport, its release was postponed last year after two mass shootings in America, and it was condemned by US president Donald Trump on Twitter. Lee’s bravura, breakneck war drama, about a group of Black Vietnam veterans returning to the country decades after the war to recover the body of a fallen comrade, follows the blood line of America’s racial wrongs, from … (CJ), True History of the Kelly Gang (Credit: Porchlight Films), Justin Kurzel’s biopic of Ned Kelly, the notorious 19th-Century bushranger, is light years away from the average period drama. (NB), This odd, compelling documentary begins when Barbora Kysilkova, a struggling Czech artist in Oslo, has two paintings stolen from a gallery. That sequence is also shattering in the way it mirrors protests against racial justice today. This article lists feature-length British films and full-length documentaries that have their premiere in 2020 and were at least partly produced by Great Britain or the United Kingdom.It does not feature short films, medium-length films, made-for-TV films, pornographic films, filmed theater, VR films, and interactive films. Nothing goes wrong, but nothing is quite right, either: the characters' clothes and ages keep changing, and the heroine is never quite sure of her own name. 8.00pm BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2020 10.00pm BBC News, Regional News, Weather 10.30pm Match of the Day 2 11.40pm The Women's Football Show 12.10am Film : The Big Sick (2017) 2.10am A Question of Sport (Repeat) 2.40am Weather for the Week Ahead 2.45am BBC News ***Schedule Change 9:00am The Andrew Marr Show 10th December 2020 @ 11:30; CNN Films in the US and UK pubcaster the BBC have jointly commissioned a feature documentary following the global quest to develop, trial, manufacture, and distribute Covid-19 vaccines. The trailer suggests a droll, bold take on the themes of sexual abuse and vengeance, with Mulligan putting on a series of personas and disguises, including an ominous Halloween-ready sexy-nurse’s costume. Tilda Swinton as his imperious but kind-hearted Aunt Betsey Trotwood and Hugh Laurie as the eccentric, bewildered Mr Dick steal every scene they’re in. John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki lead a cast that includes Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh. What could go wrong? The scene of police attacking protestors during a street demonstration is bravura filmmaking that puts us in the midst of the brutality. Adapted from Iain Reid's novel, it stars the superb Jessie Buckley as a young woman who drives through the snow with her faintly menacing boyfriend, Jesse Plemons, to meet his eccentric parents, Toni Collette and David Thewlis, on their family farm. Structured as a day in the life, The Assistant stars Julia Garner as the lowly new employee who toils from before dawn until after dusk, answering phones, printing out scripts, unpacking bottles of water, and tidying away all the evidence of her boss’s liaisons: imagine a more authentic, low-key companion piece to The Devil Wears Prada. CNN Films and BBC will take viewers inside the efforts of researchers around the world trying to develop and manufacture vaccines to fight the global coronavirus pandemic, in … And the story plays mind games with time, space and memory as Nolan has done so brilliantly in films from Memento to Inception. Spike Lee, US. The film was written by playwright Tony Kushner, who also wrote Spielberg's Lincoln. If nothing else, the film Villeneuve is calling “Star Wars for adults” could well have 2020’s finest cast. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. Based on August Wilson's play, the story is set in 1924 at a recording session for the real-life blues legend Ma Rainey, played brilliantly as a sly and imperious diva by Viola Davis. Christmas Eve TV guide – the BBC, ITV and Channel 4’s best films and shows. (CJ), Kitty Green’s astute, tightly controlled drama is set in the drab New York offices of a predatory film mogul; no prizes for guessing who the unnamed and unseen mogul is meant to be. But it is most notable for Winslet's empathetic and natural portrayal of a self-contained, defensive woman who begins ever so gradually to breathe. This time the setting is 14th-Century France, and the revenge story is based on an actual event, the last legally-fought duel. Johnny Flynn is irresistible as her gruffly charming, improbable love, Mr Knightley (younger than the novel has him). The film stays true to Dickens’ 19th-Century setting, and the casting works beautifully, with Dev Patel as the orphaned hero trying to make his way in the world. The story of Dracula has been used in countless films, television and pop culture references. (CJ), Released on 28 May in Australia, 29 May in the UK, Poland and the US, Superhero blockbusters are so last decade. (NB), One of the strangest, most inventive films of the year is this sly Brazilian gem, set in a poor, isolated village called Bacurau. BBC Culture’s review called it “a warm and lively David Copperfield for today”. There is bound to be nothing like it. Christmas TV guide 2020: all the best TV shows and films to watch over the festive break. Hanks takes another road trip in Bios as Finch, a fatally-ill engineer in post-apocalyptic America. ... BBC One, 3:10pm. For one thing, Boyle’s frantic, fidgety style never seemed right for 007, whereas the director who replaced him, Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation, True Detective), specialises in muscular action sequences and gritty international locations. The new mini-series, Dracula aired on BBC and Netflix at the beginning of January 2020. (NB), Released on 26 June in the US, 17 July in the UK, Mystery surrounds Christopher Nolan films, sometimes even after you’ve watched them, but he has unveiled a few details about his latest, a tempting, espionage-themed action-filled brain twister. The friends are complicated individuals created with great immediacy – Oscar buzz has deservedly started for Delroy Lindo, whose character is tortured by the past and by post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, it worked for him in Gladiator. Da 5 Bloods (2020) The cast of Da 5 Bloods (Netflix) The latest Spike Lee joint seems to have flown under the radar somewhat, but that’s a crying shame as it truly is a superb and timely watch. twists the rules of film narrative in all sorts of clever and surreal ways, exquisitely photographed and bracingly unsentimental romance. Washington’s character tries to prevent a global fate worse than nuclear war by unravelling the secret meaning of the word tenet. (CJ), The Hunt was controversial before anyone had seen it. If there’s an odd-couple feel to the casting of Adam Driver and Matt Damon, it may be because Driver replaced Ben Affleck, who wrote the screenplay with Damon and Nicole Holofcener but dropped down to a smaller role due to scheduling conflicts. The hero, Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw), is a 12-year-old genius and criminal mastermind – now there is a great child's fantasy – who battles fairies while searching for his father. Christmas Day TV guide 2020: What is on BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and the best films showing on TV Charlie Duffield 12/25/2020 Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine cleared for … The film is co-produced by BBC Films and after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival 2020, His House was acquired by Netflix for distribution. And 2020 brings another high-profile musical, which probably wouldn’t exist without the original West Side Story. Were they hovering in the skies above 1950s New Mexico? Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is finally getting her own film, and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, the only decent thing about the shambolic Suicide Squad, returns with Birds of Prey. (CJ), Released on 24 January in the UK and Ireland, 8 May in the US, In 2017, Tom Cruise’s The Mummy was supposed to be the first in a series of blockbusters about Universal Studios’ classic monsters. + Crew I A review on British Horror feature length film, His House (2020). Now she has written and directed her first film, a thriller starring Carey Mulligan as a woman who takes revenge on abusive men. As Emma, Anya Taylor-Joy captures the heart and warmth beneath Austen’s bossy, match-making heroine. Female Filmmakers: BBC Introducing Arts (2020) (Available until February 2021) Janina Ramirez presents short films from talented emerging female artists, using comedy, drama and dance to tell stories from a uniquely female perspective. The 10 best films of 2020, from Uncut Gems to Shirley. Thirty-four years on, his US Navy pilot character is still calling himself ‘Maverick’, and he still hasn’t made it past the rank of Captain. Steve McQueen's entire Small Axe series, five exhilarating and eclectic films dealing with the black British and Caribbean community from the 1960s through to the 80s, reveals his unique ability to match art with social conscience. Christmas is the perfect time for a movie - here are our picks of the best on the small screen this festive season. But the film flopped so badly that Universal scrapped its plans for a ‘Dark Universe’ franchise – and that included an action movie starring Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. In Songs Of Praise (Sunday 20, BBC One, 1.15pm) Aled Jones is joined by Cliff Richard to announce Britain’s favourite carol. As the camera roves all over town in long, unbroken takes, and the likeable stars rattle through pages of funny and idiosyncratic dialogue, you know you’re seeing the emergence of a hugely exciting new talent. And then things really start getting weird. Boseman is Levee, a talented musician traumatised by a racist attack he witnessed in childhood. He is recruited to bring a 10-year-old girl raised by the Kiowa back to her parents. Decades after the events of the first film, the warrior princess (Gal Gadot) goes into battle against Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah and Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord. The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne (Photo: BBC/2020 A&E Networks, LLC/Everett Collection) A long overdue feature-length documentary about the life of Black Sabbath front man Ozzy Osbourne . (CJ), Rocks was directed by Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane, Suffragette) and written by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson, but, as Gavron regularly says, much of its plot and dialogue was suggested by the young people she met in inner-city London. His latest cartoon is about souls developing their interests and talents in an another dimension before they fuse with bodies in the physical world. The upshot is that Rocks is the most authentic teen movie in years, showing all the difficulties of adolescence in a deprived area, but all the laughter, warmth and ebullient energy, too. Under their influence, it’s almost inevitable that he should become the leader of a cross-dressing revolutionary gang. 18 thoughts on “ Two BBC films side by side – and the new way of talking… ” Jill Silvester says: December 3, 2020 at 12:36 pm. In News of the World, based on the bestselling novel, he teams up with his Captain Phillips director, Paul Greengrass, to play an itinerant storyteller in the 19th-Century US, delivering the news in small town after small town. Everything you need to know about David Attenborough’s new series, Dynasties, and stories to connect you to the natural world. If the last film is anything to go by, this one will be all about the thrill of seeing jet planes tearing through the sky at teeth-rattling speeds. Caryn James praised it in her BBC Culture review as “a smart satire” and “a sly, acerbic, fun-to-watch send-up of the political divide in America”. (CJ), Spike Lee’s latest is a passionate, kinetic, thoroughly involving epic, combining intense drama with flashes of wit. Kelly himself (an electrifying George MacKay) is taught to survive in this savage alien terrain by his brutal mother (Essie Davis), a rollicking bandit (Russell Crowe), an exploitative policeman (Charlie Hunnam) and a dissolute English official (Nicholas Hoult, refining the evil Hugh Grant persona he introduced in The Favourite). Elisabeth Moss plays a woman who is stalked by an abusive ex – but because he happens to be invisible, nobody believes her. But never mind the plot. (NB), Chadwick Boseman's astounding performance would have put him at the front of the Oscar race even if the role hadn't turned out, so sadly, to be his last. Oh – and Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is up to no good, too. Love film? (CJ), The Personal History of David Copperfield, One of cinema’s worst ever injustices is that The Personal History of David Copperfield was snubbed at this February’s Baftas. BBC Film have been developing films and talent for over 25 years. In Boseman's perfectly modulated performance, Levee is a charming, dancing, smiling young man with a future, whose anger finally explodes. His heroism comes in different flavours, but it is everywhere. (NB), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Credit: Mary Cybulski/Netflix), Charlie Kaufman's mind-bending horror drama is like no other film this year – or any other year, for that matter. (CJ), Every year seems to be Tom Hanks Year, and 2020 brings three more films. He builds a robot, played by Caleb Landry Jones, and teaches him humanity so he can care for Finch’s beloved dog after he dies. Adapted from Peter Carey’s novel, it’s a hallucinatory punk-rock video – a searing picture of colonial-era Australia’s blasted landscapes, endemic corruption, decadent sex and bloody violence. As firmly rooted as it is in the history and landscape of Ireland, this is a cartoon about magic that actually feels magical. (NB), Released on 2 April in the UK, 10 April in the US, Emerald Fennell, a multi-talent and the next big thing, has been compared to Phoebe Waller-Bridge for good reason. More specifically, it’s the kind of cartoon you only get from Pete Docter, whose previous films – Monsters Inc, Up and Inside Out – have all pondered human behaviour and the meaning of life. This reminder is so poignant Wendy and Christopher reminds me of my late husband…he forgot who I was. Let’s face it, the Depp version wouldn’t have been as intriguing as that. (CJ), Released on 25 December in Indonesia and the US. Christmas TV guide 2020: The films and shows coming to BBC iPlayer. Here are some of the movie highlights which will be on the box over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. One of the year’s most anticipated films, James Bond: No Time To Die, has been delayed again and now won’t be released until April 2021.