10 films to watch in October
The Martian
Matt Damon stars as the Nasa astronaut mistakenly left for dead on Mars in what has been described as ‘a galactic spin on Saving Private Ryan’. Ridley Scott’s adaptation of the 2012 debut novel by Andy Weir also features Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jeff Daniels as the ground crew attempting to mount a rescue mission. BBC Culture’s critic Owen Gleiberman praised Scott for his “impeccable craftsmanship”, and the interplanetary epic has been heralded by Nasa scientists as launching the ‘Mars generation’: it has been screened for astronauts on board the International Space Station. Released 1 October in Argentina, 2 October in Canada and 8 October in Russia. (Credit: Aidan Monaghan/Twentieth Century Fox Corporation)
Bridge of Spies
Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks reunite for a Cold War spy thriller based on a true story. Hanks plays a New York lawyer tasked with negotiating the release of a US pilot whose spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union – Amy Ryan, Mark Rylance and Alan Alda co-star. The screenplay – co-written by the Coen brothers and Matt Charman – is adapted from a book about the 1960 incident, in which Francis Gary Powers was captured after his plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. For the first time in 30 years, the composer John Williams hasn’t created the score for a Spielberg film – he had to pull out because of a minor health issue, so Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty) crafted the music instead. Released 15 October in Chile, 16 October in the US and 22 October in Australia. (Credit: Walt Disney Studios)
Beasts of No Nation
Tracing the harrowing journey of a young boy becoming a child soldier, writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga adapts the 2005 novel by Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala. According to BBC Culture’s critic Owen Gleiberman, “Fukunaga, coming off his potent direction of the first season of HBO’s True Detective, proves he is an artist who can work, with staggering skill, in the jittery, explosive tradition of movies like Oliver Stone’s Salvador”. Idris Elba is magnetic as the warlord; Ghanaian actor Abraham Attah plays the orphan Agu in a makeshift rebel army. This is the first feature from Netflix, and it will be released simultaneously in cinemas and online – a strategy that critics have questioned, saying “it really should be seen on a vast screen, in the dark, with no pause button to hand, and no phone to answer”. Released 16 October in Austria, Germany and the US. (Credit: Netflix)
Macbeth
The first major big-screen version of Shakespeare’s Scottish Play since Roman Polanski’s 1971 adaptation was shot on location in Scotland and England – and according to BBC Culture’s critic Nicholas Barber, “the looming mountains of the Highlands are rarely out of shot”. Yet, as Barber points out, “it’s actually set in Hell”, as director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) replaces stage-bound stuffiness “with the mud and gore of an anti-war movie and the stylised immediacy of a graphic novel”. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star as Macbeth and his wife; Fassbender adopts a Scottish accent while the French actress reportedly spent weeks with a voice coach attempting to grasp it, before giving up. The pair have drawn rave reviews for their performances, and Variety called the film “a Shakespeare pic for the ages”. The Telegraph went one further, arguing that the ‘blood-sticky’ screen version is “as good as Shakespeare on film gets”. Released 1 October in Australia, 8 October in Greece and 29 October in Hungary. (Credit: StudioCanal)
Spectre
Craggy-faced, restrained Daniel Craig might offer a more sophisticated action man in an era of superheroes, but the latest Bond film is mindful of its comic-book competitors. According to Variety, Spectre is targeting Marvel fans by bringing back the shadowy terrorist organisation helmed by super-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. “In Marvel’s universe, there’s Hydra, a malicious group… with the same goal of world domination, infiltrating governments and pulling strings behind the scenes.” Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci are feisty Bond girls, and Sherlock star Andrew Scott appears as a surveillance mastermind. While director Sam Mendes has repeatedly denied that Blofeld will return, rumours persist that either Scott or double Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz – cast as the villain Franz Oberhauser – is actually Blofeld in disguise. Whether he’s stroking a white cat or not, Waltz is already being touted as ‘the coolest Bond villain ever’ – he told GQ that he agreed to the part because “these films with Daniel Craig have shifted the tone. They don’t depend on a set formula that forces actors simply to go through the motions.” Released 26 October in the UK, 29 October in the Netherlands and 30 October in Norway. (Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions)
Steve Jobs
It’s a big month for Michael Fassbender fans: while the Oscar-nominated actor showcases his Scottish accent in Macbeth, another new film sees him transform himself into the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) – labelled “an ideal chronicler of… modern-age titans” – it follows Jobs through three iconic product launches. Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) directs and Seth Rogen and Kate Winslet co-star in what Variety has called “a film of brash, swaggering artifice and monumental ego… and an incorrigibly entertaining ride” that is “straining like mad to be the Citizen Kane (or at least the Birdman) of larger-than-life techno-prophet biopics”. Fassbender’s performance has been praised as ‘enthralling’: The Hollywood Reporter says that “while Fassbender doesn’t closely physically resemble the man, he fully delivers the essentials of how we have come to perceive the man”. Released 8 October in Australia, 16 October in Canada and 23 October in the US. (Credit: Universal Pictures)
Taxi
Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival for Taxi – yet no one in his country will be able to see it. Convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda in 2010, Panahi was banned from making any more films. While being held under house arrest, he made This is Not a Film, which was smuggled to the Cannes Film Festival on a USB stick hidden in a cake. In an interview with Iranian media after Taxi’s win, the director said that “no prize is worth as much as my compatriots being able to see my films”. He stars in the film as a taxi driver taking a series of characters around Tehran; Indiewire called it “a unique cinematic masterpiece”. According to Variety, it’s “a film of quiet but profound outrage” – the review asks: “Can a filmmaker under house arrest make any more defiant a gesture than by directing a bonafide road movie?” Released 1 October in Denmark, 2 October in the US and 5 October in South Korea. (Credit: Photoshot)
The Lobster
When The Lobster was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, it baffled and delighted critics in equal part: The Telegraph said it was “like nothing you’ve seen before”. Meanwhile, Vanity Fair suggested: “If Charlie Kaufman, Miranda July and Wes Anderson went into the woods together and all had the same vision quest hallucination, it might look something like The Lobster”. The latest from Greek arthouse director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) creates a world in which single people are forced to pair off within 45 days or be turned into animals and released into the wild. For his first film in English, Lanthimos attracted a cast of big names including Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Ben Whishaw. BBC Culture’s Nicholas Barber gave it five stars, calling it “a deadpan comedy with echoes of Orwell, Kafka and Kubrick… bolstered by an array of pitch-perfect performances”. Released 15 October in Italy, 16 October in Ireland and 30 October in Turkey. (Credit: PR)
Crimson Peak
Released in time for Halloween, this gothic horror movie from director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) is in part an homage to classic haunted house films such as The Haunting and The Innocents. Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain star as a brother and sister attempting to hide dark secrets from Hiddleston’s new bride, played by Mia Wasikowska: del Toro had a four-storey mansion constructed for the film. He told Deadline that Crimson Peak is “a very set-oriented, classical but at the same time modern take on the ghost story. It will allow me to play with the conventions of the genre I know and love, and at the same time subvert the old rules.” It meant he could buck recent trends in the genre, too. “I think people are getting used to horror subjects done as found footage or B-value budgets. I wanted this to feel like a throwback.” Released 9 October in Spain, 14 October in Tunisia and 15 October in Colombia. (Credit: Universal Pictures)
He Named Me Malala
Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) directs an intimate portrait of Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize Laureate in 2014. After being shot in the head by gunmen at the age of 15 – targeted for defying the Taliban – Yousafzai became an advocate for female education around the world. Guggenheim interviews the 18-year-old and her family at their new home in the UK, revealing her father as one of her chief inspirations, and follows her as she speaks to students in Kenya and addresses the president in Nigeria. There are also scenes filmed at the village she left behind in Pakistan, and appearances from two school friends who were shot on the school bus at the same time. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Guggenheim tells her story “in a deft and affecting way”, and “does some of his most heartfelt work in this tribute to Malala and her entire family”. Released 2 October in the US, 16 October in Australia and 22 October in Germany. (Credit: Fox Searchlight)