The glorious Queen of Katwe (Disney) applies the traditional formula of an uplifting sports drama to the real-life story of a Ugandan chess prodigy.

Director Tim Burton is on his home turf with the gothic fantasy Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Fox).
While his adaptation of Ransom Riggs’ 2011 novel is mildly entertaining, however, it’s hobbled by an overly complicated premise and by the head-scratching implications of time travel.

A chivalrous parable that showcases self-sacrificing heroism, The Magnificent Seven (Columbia) can be read as illustrating, in microcosm, Catholic theology’s theory of a just war.

Few figures on the contemporary scene are as controversial as Edward Snowden, the former intelligence officer who in 2013 revealed to the press the existence of a secret National Security Agency program for the collection of mass data that he considered abusive.

Beginning with 1979’s The Europeans, the producer-director team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, whose partnership was already of 15 years standing, churned out a succession of high quality period films. The duo’s pictures were famous for their lush cinematography, all-star casts and compelling story lines, usually based on a deep, dark secret.

Putting Tom Hanks in the cockpit as everybody’s favourite aviator, US Airways Captain Chesley Sullenberger, and bringing Clint Eastwood on board to direct him certainly sounds like a formula for high-flying success. And so it proves with Sully (Warner Bros.), Eastwood’s satisfying adaptation of Sullenberger’s memoir (co-written with Jeffrey Zaslow) Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters.

Starring: Clive Owen, Jaeden Lieberher, Mario Bello, and Patton Oswalt. Directed by Bob Nelson. Rated PG (Mild themes, coarse language and violence). 101min. This Canadian drama tells the story of a young boy, Anthony, who is nervous about spending time with his father, while his mother and her new husband go on a Catholic retreat together. Anthony is to have his First Communion and C...

When Daniel Petre wrote the ground-breaking Father Time back in 1998, it was both a reflection of his own experiences as a dad, and an outcry against cultural trends which have caused men to spend less and less time with their children – sometimes jeopardising the relationship completely.

While it uses animation to recount the fantastical adventures of a young boy, Kubo and the Two Strings (Focus) is not really suitable for the most youthful moviegoers.

Few films come to the screen with the kind of storied pedigree that lies behind Ben-Hur.