King Sorrow by Joe Hill review – dragon-fired horror epic is a tour de force
This sprawling tale of college kids who summon evil with lifelong consequences is a fantastic read
The Hunger Games: On Stage review – thundering fight to the death in a dazzling dystopia
Eye-popping visuals and a strong lead performance energise Matthew Dunster’s production – but the emotion gets lost amid the action
Christmas Karma review – Dickens adaptation has as much Yuletide spirit as a dead rat in the eggnog
Gurinder Chadha’s leaden update of the hardy seasonal chestnut with Kunal Nayyar is joyless and nausea-inducing
Loren Ipsum by Andrew Gallix review – chronically funny satire of the literary scene
Full of word games, in-jokes and grisly murders, this debut pours gleeful scorn on the pretensions of contemporary literary life
We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir by Anthony Hopkins review – a legend with a temper
The Oscar-winning actor’s autobiography combines vulnerability with bloody-mindedness and belligerence
The Running Man review – Glen Powell sprints through fun update of Stephen King future-shock sci-fi satire
Full-tilt chase sequences, a punk aesthetic and a sugar-rush soundtrack, means there is plenty of enjoyment to be had as Edgar Wright goes back to King’s original 1982 novel
One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson review – freewheeling reflections on life, art and AI
One Thousand and One Nights is the framing device for the author’s pithy and thought provoking takes on everything from eugenics to trouser suits
The Secret Santa Project review – festive romcom tries for the Love Actually style multiple story strands
Set in a London council office, this clunky Christmas comedy interweaves a handful of storylines but musters only a brief flicker of cosy charm
Vaim by Jon Fosse review – the Nobel laureate performs a strange miracle
In the Norwegian master’s latest example of ‘mystical realism’, one man makes a dreamlike, hypnotic voyage through life
100 Meters review – mesmerising anime of young athletes in search of physical and spiritual high
Dazzling rotoscoped running sequences make up for a lack of narrative subtlety in Kenji Iwaisawa’s film
Bread of Angels: A Memoir, by Patti Smith review – a wild ride with the poet of punk
Smith’s incantatory voice shines through in this surprisingly revelatory follow up to Just Kids and M Train
The Mushroom Tapes review – Erin Patterson through the eyes of Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein
This account of what the three authors observed during Patterson’s triple murder trial does resemble a podcast transcript at times, but it is extremely readable
The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup
There Is no Antimemetics Division by qntm; The Merge by Grace Walker; Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel; Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin; The Strength of the Few by James Islington
In Love With Love by Ella Risbridger review – a sexy celebration of romantic fiction
From Pride and Prejudice to Fifty Shades, a writer’s paean to the literature of desire
The Transformations by Andrew Pippos review – a tender study of an ordinary man doing his best
Pippos brings a quieter drama to his second novel, about a subeditor who has a midlife shakeup in the dying world of print journalism