Preparation for the Next Life review – deeply felt story of love among the marginalised in New York

Bing Liu’s debut feature is an unflinching portrait of an undocumented Uyghur immigrant and a traumatised US veteran whose fragile connection is strained by their pasts

‘He’s the new Daniel Day-Lewis’: Margot Robbie defends Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights

Robbie addresses backlash to casting Elordi as a character described by Brontë as ‘dark-skinned’, while Fennell praises her female star’s ‘big dick energy’

Mr Men and Little Miss feature film in the works from Paddington producers

David Heyman has joined the French media company StudioCanal with plans to bring one of the bestselling children’s book series of all time to the screen

Primitive War review – it’s Green Berets vs dinosaurs in cheerfully cheesy Vietnam war gorefest

Set to an on-the-nose soundtrack of Creedence Clearwater, an elite squad of soldiers are suitably unprepared for their large-toothed assailants in this jungle thriller

The Thing With Feathers review – well-intentioned adaptation of Max Porter novella about grief

Benedict Cumberbatch gives an honest performance, but this is too self-conscious to challenge or work through loss with same power as the book

Daniel Radcliffe writes supportive letter to Harry Potter successor in new TV series

The actor said he wrote wishing 11-year-old Dominic McLaughlin ‘an even better time’ growing up in the role than he had

Epic movie: Christopher Nolan uses 2m ft of film for adaptation of The Odyssey

The director has revealed suitably grand scale of his forthcoming Homeric adventure, which was shot with Imax cameras and stars Matt Damon as Odysseus

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

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

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

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

Lee Tamahori, director of Once Were Warriors and James Bond movie Die Another Day, dies aged 75

New Zealand film-maker became a Hollywood fixture in the 90s and 00s, including making Pierce Brosnan’s last 007 movie, before returning to his home country

Train Dreams review – Joel Edgerton superb in Malickian story of trees, grief and railroads

A logger clears a path for change in this sunset-hour-tastic adaptation by Clint Bentley – clearly a director of considerable power and feeling

My Father’s Shadow looms over competition at British independent film awards

Akinola Davies Jr’s Nigeria-set drama has 12 nominations including best film and besr director

Winter in Sokcho review – atmospheric slow-burner about family and intimacy in South Korean border city

Koya Kamura’s debut film is about shared identities at the centre of quiet, chilly drama as an enigmatic French writer visits the eponymous town