The best films in cinemas this May bank holiday

Immaculately composed yet skittish, edgy and surprising, a chill emanates from this impressive Jersey-set debut by writer-director Michael Pearce. If you’re looking for something a bit more intimate than ‘Avengers’ this weekend, give it a go. 

The biggest film of the year on just about any metrics you care to mention (box office, budget, size of cast, number of gifs generated), there’s every chance you’ve already seen ‘Infinity War’ already. Earth’s mightiest heroes have their work cut out in it against intergalactic scallywag, Thanos. Prepare for hugeness.

From the winning trio behind ‘Young Adult’, Jason Reitman, Diablo Cody and Charlize Theron make magic again with ‘Tully’, a movie about motherhood enriched with anxiety, exhaustion and wisdom. Theron plays heavily pregnant Marlo near-broken by her two children. When the new baby arrives, she employs the services of 26-year-old Tully (Mackenzie Davis), a night nanny, and the pair embark on a fascinating Gen X/millennial friendship that draws out their similarities and differences.

The debut film from Canadian director Kathleen Hepburn, ‘Never Steady, Never Still’ is a thoughtful, authentic portrait of an ordinary family struggling to deal with several challenges without complaining, or asking for as much help as they could.  Shirley Henderson plays Judy, who suffers escalating Parkinson’s and who, once tragedy strikes, has to rely on help from her wayward son. Hepburn’s script is surprisingly warm against the cold Canadian landscape, and while there’s no heavy-handed message the film, there’s plenty of room for thought.

An unfailingly fascinating documentary focused on four old friends, who just happen to be legendary actors Dames Joan Plowright, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Eileen Atkins. The group is blisteringly smart and long past the point of giving two hoots about the world’s opinions as they tell well-worn stories about their husbands and their hearing aids, the jobs they can barely remember and the lines they can never forget. There’s an edge of melancholy, a sense of regret and loss that they barely try to hide about everything the years have taken, but few sombre moments are allowed to stand. More than anything, though, it’s a pleasure and privilege to see these extraordinary actors speak.

The debut film from Studio Ponoc, Japan’s newest anime house founded by Studio Ghibli alumnus Yoshiaki Nishimura’s, ‘Mary and the Witch’s Flower’ is a take on Mary Stewart’s fable ‘The Little Broomstick’. It centres around a  headstrong young girl who trespasses on hidden, magical territory, spending her time flying broomsticks and talking to cats. It’s visually lush, slightly bizarre, and absolutely charming.

Coralie Fargeat’s vengeance thriller has been compared to Meir Zarchi’s rape-revenge exploitation classic ‘I Spit on Your Grave’. This means that you can expect, a) one of the most violent movies of the year so far and, b) its vengeful heroine, Matilda Lutz’s vixenish Jen, to take absolutely no prisoners in it.

From South African director John Trengove, ‘The Wound’ centres around the traditional male-only coming of age ritual of the Xhosa community, the second largest cultural group in South Africa. It’s an intense, quiet and sensitive film that takes on big themes and ask powerful questions about the creeping and dissociating power of modernity and sexuality while angrily highlighting the destructive violence of toxic masculinity. It’s perhaps not the jolliest of bank holiday films, but it’s definitely worth your time.

Terrifically sad, French director Xavier Legrand’s ‘Custody’ is a bleak depiction of a family in freefall. Centred around a custody battle, it’s unblinking in a Dardenne-ish way, a domestic drama that boils with pain and anger. Obviously not a film filled with bank holiday cheer, ‘Custody’ is one that has a hefty emotional pull.

British filmmaker Andrew Haigh ('Weekend', '45 Years') hits the American highway for this touching tale of a troubled boy who strikes up a rapport with an ailing racehorse called Lean on Pete. Look out for another stand-out turn from ‘All the Money in the World’s Charlie Plummer.