Check out what's showing at cinemas across the region this month...

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER - CERT tbc
Released Fri 16 December
Starring Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore
Directed by James Cameron

It’s been a good year for fans of two high-profile films who’ve had to wait a long time for a sequel. First there was Top Gun: Maverick, released a full 36 years after the original film, and now there’s The Way Of Water, hitting the big screen 13 years after Avatar first stunned cinema-going audiences.

Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, the sequel finds Jake Sully living with his newfound family on the planet of Pandora. When a familiar threat returns to finish what was previously started, Jake must work with the army of the Na’vi race to protect the planet...   

VIOLENT NIGHT - CERT tbc
Released Fri 2 December
Starring David Harbour, Beverly D’Angelo, John Leguizamo, Cam Gigandet, Brendan Fletcher
Directed by Tommy Wirkola

Best known as Chief of Police Jim Hopper in hit Netflix series Stranger Things, David Harbour here displays his admirable versatility by adding his name to the ever-growing list of actors who’ve played Santa Claus. 

When a team of mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage, they end up getting far more than they bargained for: Saint Nicholas (that’s Santa) is in the vicinity - and he’s about to make it clear that he’s temporarily misplaced his halo... From the producers of runaway hits Bullet Train, Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.    

THE SILENT TWINS - CERT tbc
Released Fri 9 December
Starring Letita Wright, Tamara Lawrance, Leah Mondesir-Simmonds, Eva-Arianna Baxter
Directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska

Based on the book of the same name by award-winning investigative journalist Marjorie Wallace, The Silent Twins follows the story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, identical twins growing up in the only Black family in a small Welsh town during the 1970s and ’80s.

From the age of three, the sisters begin to reject communication with anyone but each other, and across time disappear into a world of their own. But when their frustrations lead to a spree of vandalism and arson, the girls find themselves facing a starkly grim future... Helmed by Polish writer & director Agnieszka Smoczyńska, The Silent Twins enjoyed plenty of positive feedback at this year’s Cannes film festival.  

I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY - CERT tbc
Released Mon 26 December
Starring Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Tamara Tunie, Clarke Peters, Ashton Sanders, Nafessa Williams
Directed by Kasi Lemmons

Films about dearly departed superstar singers who lived rags-to-riches lives of fame and fortune followed by decline and death are all the rage at the moment, with last summer’s Baz Luhrmann-directed Elvis now being followed by this Whitney Houston musical biopic. Expect the movie to make stop-offs at all the key points in Whitney’s eventually tragic life, from her first solo singing stint - covering for her sore-throat-afflicted mother - through her time with The Sweet Temptations, to her later years as fashion icon, pop legend, participant in an ultimately ill-starred marriage to singer Bobby Brown and drug-addled shadow of her former self.

CORSAGE - CERT tbc
Released Mon 26 December
Starring Vicky Krieps, Colin Morgan, Finnegan Oldfield, Ivana Urban, Alma Hasun, Jeanne Werner
Directed by Marie Kreutzer

Imagining a year in the home life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Corsage scored a significant hit at Cannes and recently picked up the top prize at the BFI London Film Festival. The prestigious event’s Official Competition jury called the Marie Kreutzer-directed entry a “masterfully realised film”, going on to say that they had been “completely seduced by Vicky Krieps’ sublime performance as a woman out of time, trapped in her own iconography and her rebellious yearning for liberation”.