The 10 best films out in UK cinemas and on streaming in May

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt seems such a perfect double act, it’s strange that no one’s seen fit to pair them up before (excluding that Oscar’s night Barbenheimer banter). Happily, stuntman-turned-director David Leitch is making up for lost screen time by teaming them in his new action-comedy, a tribute to Hollywood stunt performers that stars Gosling as a down-and-out stunt man trying to save Blunt’s sci-fi blockbuster from disaster when her leading man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) goes AWOL. Expect frothy fun, bags of chemistry and some very big explosions.

In cinemas May 3

‘50 Shades of Grey’ famously started life as ‘Twilight’-inspired fan-fiction, but this romantic drama is almost certainly the best of them. Based on a novel written by Robinne Lee (coincidentally an actress in 'Fifty Shades Darker') that imagines a 40-year-old mum falling for a twentysomething pop star, it has Anne Hathaway as the single mum and Londoner Nicholas Galitzine as the Harry Styles-alike boy band member who sweeps her off her feet. Sweet yet truthful about love, middle-age and online toxicity, it’s a fairy tale with a grown-up perspective. 

In cinemas May 3

Kristen Stewart stars as Lou, the manager of a grimy Texas gym in Rose Glass’s follow-up to her genius horror debut ‘Saint Maud’. Throw in the ambitious bodybuilder, Jackie (‘The Mandalorian’s Katy O'Brian), who catches Lou’s eye, a passionate love affair, some steroids-fuelled violence and the intervention of Ed Harris’s sleazy crime boss and you have all the ingredients for a grungy border-town noir with plenty of broody menace.

In cinemas May 3

Guess who’s back? Yes, George Lucas’s once-polarising Star Wars prequel is getting another go-round to celebrate its 25th birthday and should find that time has been kind to it. A new generation of Phantom Menace padawans will get the chance to see the Star Wars film they grew up with on the big-screen. Our advice? Ignore the Jar Jar hate of any Gen-Xers in the cinema foyer and enjoy Lucas’s sci-fi extravaganza for what it is: a fun but flawed blockbuster with a sprightly spirit and a killer pod-racing scene. 

In cinemas May 3

This Andy Serkis-less sequel is set 300 years after the events of ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ – and seven years after that movie came out, you’d be forgiven for needing a refresher. The apes are in charge and the humans have regressed to their most primal state. A populist ape (Kevin Durand) – yep, apes have those too – has created a militarist society using human weaponry and only a young chimp (Owen Teague) and his scruffy human sidekick (‘The Witcher’s Freya Allan) can save the day. ‘The Maze Runner’s Wes Ball takes over  behind the camera from franchise stalwart Matt Reeves.

In cinemas May 9

The greatest double act in British cinema, Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, get a loving and thorough retrospective courtesy of this enthralling doc. With their number one fan, Martin Scorsese, narrating, it takes in their early years making high-calibre wartime propaganda, to their artistic pinnacle with the likes of ‘The Red Shoes’ and ‘A Matter of Life and Death’, to their ill-fated attempt to crack Hollywood and asks what made them truly special. Cinephiles won’t want to miss it. 

In cinemas May 10

Josh O’Connor is so hot right. The Londoner was a loveably devilish pro tennis player in last month’s terrific Challengers, and now he’s the brooding face of Alice Rohrwacher’s spellbinding, otherworldly picaresque. He plays a shabby but seductive British archaeologist who prowls 1980s Tuscany with a gang of grave robbers looking for Etruscan artifacts to spirit away on the black market. Think Indiana Jones gone to seed.

In cinemas May 10

Last year it was Molly Manning Walker and ‘How to Have Sex’, the year before it was Charlotte Wells and ‘Aftersun’. This year, the British debutant to name-check is Luna Carmoon. With this South London-set debut, she’s delivered a satisfyingly strange fusion of kitchen-sink drama and mother-daughter tale that comes with an almost Lynchian surrealism. Newcomer Saura Lightfoot Leon is Maria, rubbish-collecting daughter to Hayley Squires’ hoarder mum, a pair of magpies who create their own teetering idyllic. Look out for a whole other side of ‘Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn as the savvy twentysomething Maria falls in with.

In cinemas May 17

Get ready to ride eternal again courtesy of George Miller’s latest return to the blasted post-apocalyptic landscape of Mad Max. Thanks to the masterpiece that was Mad Max: Fury Road, the expectations are sky high for a origin story that delivers the no-doubt thunderous back story of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. This time it’s Anya Taylor-Joy stepping into the role, with a barely recognisable Chris Hemsworth as big bad Warlord Dementus. Start your engines.

In cinemas May 24

Based loosely on a true story, Richard Linklater’s comedy was a hit at Venice last year and it should add some more devoted fans to those ranks when it pops into cinemas for a brief stretch later this month. Starring ‘Anyone But You’s Glen Powell, the meteor of fast-rising actors, it follows Texas police tech guy and college professor as he discovers a new-found skill masquerading as a hired assassin in sting operations. Then he’s ‘hired’ by a beautiful woman and he’s in well over his head. Don’t miss this one – it’s the perfect Friday night movie. 

In select cinemas May 24 and on Netflix Jun 7