Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Woody Allen weighs in at an eye-popping 800 pages, yet he waits only for the fourth paragraph of his introduction before mentioning the toxic elephant in the room: i.e. the sad fact that, despite never having been charged with – let alone convicted of – any crime, Allen in 2025 is, to all intents and purposes, cancelled.

Many know that the actor Richard Burton began life as a miner’s son called Richard Jenkins. Not so many are aware of the reason he changed his name. This film directed by Marc Evans explains how it came about.

Horror comes in many forms. In writer-director Jed Hart’s feature debut Restless, it’s visited on middle-aged nurse Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal) by thirtyish Deano (Aston McAuley), the superficially affable toxic male who moves in next door with two mates and holds raves in their living room, “all night and every night”.

The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at Tate Britain is to start at the end by watching Nurses Come and Go, But None For Me, a film he has just completed. It lasts nearly two hours but is worth the investment since it reveals what the rest of the work tries hard to avoid openly confronting – grief.

An Irish adaptation of Garcia Di Gregorio’s acclaimed 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, director Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers is the story of Edward (James McArdle) and his 81-year-old mother Alma (the excellent Fionnula Flanagan), who has had a stroke and can only communicate through an iPad. The stairlift is in constant use, as is her bell. And there are jokes about pouffes.

“Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” The Aesop-ian maxim roughly applies to Jérémie Pastor (Félix Kysyl) in Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia. Though unemployed Toulouse baker Jérémie doesn’t acquire the business that was run by his deceased mentor Jean-Pierre, the film’s ambiguous ending suggests he might still share it with the widow, Martine (Catherine Frot). Unless or until the gendarmes come calling.

The typical Jason Statham movie character – muscular, resourceful, drily humorous – could probably carve an army into mincemeat using a few odds and ends nicked from the local Hobbycraft. In A Working Man, Statham’s second collaboration with writer-director David Ayer (The Beekeeper), the star defends the helpless with pickaxes and sledgehammers. And then he gets really violent.

The End, a quasi-musical from Joshua Oppenheimer, who has previously only produced documentaries, is a surreal examination of a group of individuals isolated from the chaos of a collapsing external world. Sheltered (or trapped?) in an eerily beautiful salt mine are a mother (Tilda Swinton), father (Michael Shannon), son (George MacKay), their doctor (Lennie James), butler (Tim McInnerny), and friend (Bronagh Gallagher).

La Cocina is one of those films that cuts an excellent trailer, succinctly delivering just enough characters, plot and visual flair to entice an audience that enjoyed recent dramas set in restaurant kitchens like The Bear, Boiling Point and The Menu.

Brief History of a Family is a psychological thriller with a story familiar to anyone who has seen Ripley, Saltburn or Six Degrees of Separation. A clever young man with low social status infiltrates a far more privileged family, with devastating results. The difference here is that it's set not among American or European elites but in the booming economy of China with its high-tech citadels and international aspirations.