With a bonkers biopic, video game hit and award-winning art house, Boxing Day has you covered

Whether you’re in the market for a biopic with Robbie Williams as a CGI monkey, some video game fun or some quality art house fare, there’s something for all at the movies this Boxing Day.

From a brilliantly bonkers biopic and a video game favourite to a slew of potential award-winners and festival favourites, there’s something for all tastes on the big screen this Boxing Day.

Jonno Davies as a CGI monkey version of Robbie Williams in Better Man. Photo: YouTube

BETTER MAN (MA15+)

On paper, it sounds bonkers – a Robbie Williams biopic with the stadium-filling pop star played by computer-generated monkey. On screen, it absolutely works for a riotously fun, brutally honest account of Williams’ rollercoaster career of breathtaking highs and depressing, drug-induced lows. The Greatest Showman director, Aussie Michael Gracey, crafted the story from hours of interviews with Williams and then judiciously selected songs from his Take That and solo career to craft his signature big song and dance numbers around. Williams, who is impressively played by UK actor Jonno Davies in CG monkey from, insisted that his story not be sanitised, admitting he has been the villain in his own life at times. “I don’t have the intelligence to remove those bits because I don’t see them as wrong,” Williams says. “I just see them as part of my journey and hopefully people really respond to authenticity, and also people really exist in grey areas. None of us are saints and even though we would like to delude ourselves thinking that we are and we are self-righteous and we’ve never put a step wrong – subconsciously even the best among us will recognise themselves when I am a dickhead because we’ve all been dickheads.”

Jim Carrey as Ivo Robotnik and Sonic (Ben Schwartz) in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 from Paramount Pictures and Sega of America, Inc.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 (PG)

There’s been more misses than hits from video games adapted into movies but the franchise featuring the Sega speedster has proved to be one of the more enduring and beloved at the box office. In his third outing, Sonic is taking on his most formidable opponent yet in the form of his evil mirror image, the hard-hitting, teleporting Shadow the Hedgehog, gravely voiced by Keanu Reeves and supposedly inspired by his John Wick performances. But when he and his pals Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (Idris Elba), can’t contain the military experiment gone wrong, they turn to their old nemesis Dr Robotnik to save the day. Jim Carrey is once again in peak Jim Carrey form, pulling double duty as Robotnik’s mad scientist grandfather, who created Shadow.

Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg as mismatched cousins in A Real Pain.

A REAL PAIN (MA15+)

Writer, director and star Jesse Eisenberg was inspired by a trip he made to Poland with his wife for a comedy-drama that’s already starting to make a splash on the awards circuit, particularly for his co-star Kieran Culkin. The pair play once close Jewish-American cousins who now have very different lives and personalities but hope that a tour to the country their forebears fled from Nazi persecution – and visiting the house of their late grandmother – will bring them closer together again. Particularly moving for the characters and audiences alike are the scenes filmed in the Madjdanek concentration camp which is almost perfectly preserved from when the Nazis beat a hasty retreat from the advancing Russian Army in 1945. “It was a fascinating day and not comfortable for everybody,” says Eisenberg. “We had a therapist on call in case people were having big emotional reactions including crew and cast, so it was a big day and a heavy day, and I felt very privileged to be able to get to film there.”

Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in art house hit Anora.

ANORA (MA15+)

Another major player for awards season, having already won the prestigious Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and up for a swag of trophies at next month’s Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket) and Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Mikey Madison in the title role. The Better Things star plays a Brooklyn sex worker whose struggling life is up-ended when she marries the impetuous, entitled son of a mega-rich Russian oligarch. But the potential Cinderella love story of fabulous Sin City excess, sumptuous seaside compounds and ritzy Manhattan gentlemen’s clubs takes a darker turn when the his parents find out and demand that the quickie Vegas wedding be annulled.

Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in The Room Next Door.

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (M)

Another art house award winner – taking out the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival – boasting a stellar cast led by Oscar-winners Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, alongside the always reliable John Turturro. Spanish veteran Pedro Almodovar has adapted Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel What Are You Going Through for his first English-language full-length debut. Moore and Swinton play Ingrid and Martha, 60-something former friends and colleagues who have drifted apart. They reconnect after Martha’s serious cancer diagnosis and Ingrid moves in as the pair concoct a plan that might let them both face the prospect of death on their own terms and with their eyes open.

Celeste Dalla Porta and Gary Oldman in Parthenope. Photo by Gianni Fiorito.

PARTHENOPE (MA15+)

Gary Oldman took time out from his Slow Horses schedule to cameo in writer, producer and director Paolo Sorrentino’s sumptuous looking, lovingly shot Italian language film about a beautiful woman’s decades long quest for happiness. Set in Naples, and named after the city’s legendary founder and one of the six sirens of Greek Mythology, Parthenope is told she has the kind of beauty that will open doors and start wars and embarks on a quest to find her true self through dalliances with her anthropology professor, an odd acting coach, a drunken writer and an ugly bishop.

Originally published as With a bonkers biopic, video game hit and award-winning art house, Boxing Day has you covered