The best new movie releases in April

Can’t wait until 2018 for the ‘Avengers’ reunion? You don’t have to! Based on a nerd-favourite comic book storyline, this sees our square-jawed hero going up against Iron Man himself for control of the Avengers family. Expect Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr to square off with both quips and fisticuffs – and for at least a couple of the other caped crusaders to pop up in cameos.

This looks like 2016’s ‘Birdman’ – a thrilling heist thriller set in Berlin and shot entirely in one take (all 138 minutes of it). The story follows a young Spanish clubber caught up in a bank robbery. Critics have hailed it ‘terrifying', adrenaline-fuelled’ and ‘dazzling’.

Jeff Nichols is fast developing into one of America’s most interesting filmmakers. ‘Take Shelter’ was a gripping apocalyptic drama, while ‘Mud’ made the most of Matthew McConaughey’s easygoing charm. A spectacular cast have turned out for this Spielberg-influenced supernatural road movie: Michael Shannon plays a father on the run with his mystical son, with support from Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver and the great Sam Shepard.

It came as a surprise to no one when 39-year-old Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes won an Oscar for his staggering first film 'Son of Saul'. This devastating Auschwitz-set drama is set over 24 hours in 1944 and follows a Jewish prisoner, a member of the Sonderkommando, forced to assist the Nazis with mass execution. In his five-star review our critic Dave Calhoun described the film as ‘impossible to un-see’. 

‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ was hardly a modern classic. Imagine a CG-slathered fairytale knockoff of ‘Game of Thrones’ and you get the idea. Can this sequel focusing on Chris Hemsworth’s strapping Huntsman improve matters? Well, the cast is promising: Charlize Theron returns as wicked witch Ravenna, backed by Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt and, um, Rob Brydon, who’s presumably playing some kind of evil Welsh gnome.