JULES 12A

★★★★★ OUT 29 DECEMBER CINEMAS, DIGITAL

Everyone dismisses small-town loner Milton (Ben Kingsley) when he calmly claims a spaceship has crashed in his back garden, reflexively attributing his outlandish story to incipient dementia. That he is telling the truth and now has a pint-sized extraterrestrial (Jade Quon) for a houseguest enables Marc Turtletaub’s cosy comedy to gently channel Cocoon, as Milton’s fellow oldsters (Harriet Sansom Harris, Jane Curtin) help him return ‘Jules’ to orbit. Bizarro details (the alien’s saucer needs dead moggies to fly) augment this low-key curio’s unassuming charm.

YOSHIKI: UNDER THE SKY 12A

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS

Conceived at the height of the pandemic, this documentary follows rock star and composer Yoshiki as he assembles a global get-together for fans and collaborators. Joining the man and his piano remotely from rooftops around the world, a diverse collection of musicians delivers a triumphant yet melancholy rebuttal to the hardships of the COVID-19 era. Part concert film, part tribute to humanity’s resilience in the face of adversity, its seamlessly integrated performances showcase Yoshiki’s singular gifts. Any similarities with 2020’s Imagine debacle are thankfully avoided.

TÓTEM 12A

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS

Mexican director Lila Avilés (2018’s The Chambermaid) builds a deceptively simple portrait of 24 hours in the lives of one family. Friends and relatives gather for a birthday party for Tona (Mateo Garcia), a talented young artist dying of cancer. Tensions simmer as Tona’s sisters fuss over preparations, while his watchful seven-year-old daughter Sol (Naíma Sentíes) heartbreakingly comes to understand the full meaning of her father’s illness. Subtly framed and shot, this is an appealingly mysterious look at life, death and the meanings they bring, artfully played out in miniature.

MY FATHER’S SECRETS 12

★★★★★ OUT NOW DIGITAL

How do you set about explaining the horrors of the Holocaust to a child? This Franco-Belgian animation, adapted from Israeli illustrator Michel Kichka’s graphic novel Second Generation, is a good place to start, revolving as it does around Michel’s own attempts in 1960s Belgium to comprehend his father Henri’s wartime ordeal in Auschwitz. Juvenile high jinks are juxtaposed with images of Nazi oppression (and real-life footage of the Adolf Eichmann trial) in a film whose Englishlanguage version comes with David Baddiel narrating drily and a warm Elliott Gould voicing Henri.

ONE LIFE TBC

Rescue mission…

★★★★★ OUT 1 JANUARY CINEMAS

In 1988, BBC magazine show That’s Life! aired what would become one of its most famous episodes. The programme featured former London stockbroker Nicholas Winton, who talked about how his involvement with the Kindertransport project enabled him to save 669 children, mostly Jewish, from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War Two. One Life’s recreation of what happened next on the show is a genuine tear-jerker - but it’s just part of this absorbing tale of bravery and unsung heroism.

Split across two timelines, James Hawes’ drama shows Winton (Johnny Flynn) as a young man, working with his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and others (Romola Garai, Alex Sharp) as he goes to Europe to organise visas, transport and foster families, while Nazi forces amass. He’s humble, open-minded and utterly selfless. But when we cut back to the late 80s, we find Winton (Anthony Hopkins) still haunted by those he didn’t save.

Boasting a quality cast (Lena Olin as Winton’s wife, Jonathan Pryce as his friend), this is a finely crafted film that unfolds with great care, building towards a cathartic climax. Winton – dubbed ‘the British Schindler’ – perhaps won’t be known to many, but One Life does a salutary job of shining a spotlight on him. Following The Father and Armageddon Time, Hopkins plays another blinder, in a film that could well renew your faith in humanity.

THE VERDICT A powerful, moving and richly deserved tribute to Winton, ably put together and superbly acted.