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

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING CERT tbc
Released Wed 21 May
Starring Tom Cruise, Vanessa Kirby, Hannah Waddingham, Simon Pegg, Tramell Tillman, Hayley Atwell 
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Tom Cruise continues to take on impossible missions like there’s no tomorrow... The Final Reckoning was filmed back-to-back with its predecessor, Dead Reckoning, and takes the number of M:I movies to an impressive eight.

And Cruise may not be ready to hand in his Impossible Missions Force (IMF) badge just yet either, with the 62-year-old actor having pointed out that Harrison Ford was still playing Indiana Jones as he approached his 80s.

This latest addition to the hit franchise (costing a cool $400million - making it one of the most expensive movies ever made) sees Cruise’s Ethan Hunt carrying on where he left off in Dead Reckoning - namely, trying his damnedest to destroy an AI system called The Entity, which is housed in a sunken Russian stealth submarine.
 

SHADOW FORCE CERT 15 (104 mins)
Released Fri 2 May
Starring Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark Strong, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ed Quinn, Sala Baker 
Directed by Joe Carnahan

Kyrah and Isaac were once the leaders of a multinational special forces group called Shadow Force. Problem was, they broke the rules and fell in love. In order to protect their son, they go underground. But with a large bounty on their heads, and the vengeful Shadow Force hot on their trail, one family’s fight quickly becomes an all-out war...

Kerry Washington (Django Unchained, Little Fires Everywhere, and hit thriller series Scandal) becomes a fully fledged action hero in this highly anticipated movie.

The film has been produced by Lionsgate, a company that knows a thing or two about making classics out of initially-under-the-radar actioners. Their previous such offerings include Fall, Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera, and the John Wick franchise (including its upcoming spinoff movie, Ballerina, which is currently slated for release next month). 

THE WEDDING BANQUET

Released Fri 9 May
Starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-Chan, Joan Chen, Youn Yuh-jung 
Directed by Andrew Ahn

Korean rich kid Min’s student visa is set to expire, and he desperately needs a green card. Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris and running out of time, he makes a proposal to their friend Angela: a green-card marriage, and in exchange he will pay for her partner Lee’s expensive IVF treatment. Min and Angela prepare to quietly elope, but then their plans are upended by the arrival from Korea of Min’s sceptical grandmother, who insists on staging an all-out Korean wedding extravaganza...

Director Andrew Ahn’s comedy of errors - a reimagining of Ang Lee’s same-named 1993 Oscar-nominated romcom - played pretty well with the critics when it was screened at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. 

​THE SURFER

Released Fri 9 May
Starring Nicolas Cage, Finn Little, Rahel Romahn, Michael Abercromby, Alexander Bertrand
Directed by Lorcan Finnegan

The Surfer is intense, unnerving, and made a real splash at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. 
When Nicolas Cage’s unnamed title character and his teenage son arrive at a beach with the intention of riding the waves, they find themselves confronted by a gang of unpleasant, bullying surfers, who make it clear that only local people are permitted in the area. But The Surfer isn’t about to go home quietly. As he attempts to stand his ground, he finds himself being gaslit by his aggressors, a strategy that leaves him struggling hard to hold onto his sanity...

Very much a slow-burn film, The Surfer makes for an absorbing watch, comes complete with a twist in its tale, and looks highly likely to acquire cult-movie status at breakneck speed. 

HURRY UP TOMORROW

Released Fri 16 May
Starring The Weeknd, Jenna Ortega, Barry Keoghan, Paul L Davis, Roy Williams Jr, David Moskowitz
Directed by Trey Edward Shults

“It’s about an artist, you could say, on the verge of a mental breakdown,” explains Hurry Up Tomorrow’s director & co-writer, Trey Edwards Shults. “He meets this woman, and they go on this odyssey together. It’s a mix of psychological thriller and drama.”

The movie stars Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, who recently released his sixth studio album, also titled Hurry Up Tomorrow. “The film actually inspired the album,” Tesfaye told Variety. “It offered me a chance to express a lot that I needed to release, with cinema serving as the ideal medium for exploration. The openness of film allowed me to delve into these themes freely.” 

LILO & STITCH

Released Wed 21 May
Starring Maia Kealoha, Sydney Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Tia Carrere, Hannah Waddingham with the voice of Chris Sanders 
Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp

Lilo & Stitch have been around since the early years of the new millennium. Debuting in an animated, cinema-released movie, they then starred in a further three straight-to-video films as well as appearing on television. 
 
For those not in the know, Lilo is an orphaned Hawaiian girl who loves hula, surfing and wildlife. Stitch is a genetically engineered runaway extraterrestrial creature who Lilo adopts as her ‘dog’.

This 2025 remake of the original 2002 film is a live-action & computer-generated-animation hybrid. The storyline finds Lilo & Stitch getting involved in an adventure that sees them pursued by aliens (who are attempting to recapture Stitch) and bothered by the delightfully named and oh-so-strict social worker Cobra Bubbles (who’s not convinced Lilo’s older sister can do a good enough job of looking after her sibling).  
The original film’s co-writer/co-director, Chris Sanders, once again provides the voice of Stitch, just as he did back in the 2002 version. 

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME

Released Fri 23 May
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bryan Cranston, Rupert Friend
Directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson has teamed up with longtime collaborator Roman Coppola for The Phoenician Scheme, the pair having previously co-written Asteroid City and Moonrise Kingdom.
 
A tale of espionage, boasting an all-star cast and described by Anderson as a “three-hander”, the film focuses on the character of Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe, who names his daughter - a nun, and one of his six children - as his heir. He does so, however, without disclosing why he’s made the decision, other than to reveal that he’s embarking on “the most important project of my lifetime.”

Further details about the film are few and far between at the time of writing, but Anderson’s legion of fans will care not a jot about that, enthusiastically signing up to anything and everything that passes through the critically acclaimed director’s hands. 

​KARATE KID: LEGENDS

Released Fri 23 May
Starring Joshua Jackson, Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio, Ming-Na Wen, Shaunette Renée Wilson
Directed by Jonathan Entwistle

The sixth film in the Karate Kid franchise is set three years after the events of the Cobra Kai series. It follows the story of kung fu prodigy Li Fong, who, after a family tragedy, is uprooted from his home in Beijing and forced to move to New York City with his mother.

Once in the US, Li struggles to let go of his past as he tries to fit in with his new classmates, and although he doesn’t want to fight, trouble seems to find him everywhere. When a new friend needs his help, Li enters a karate competition - but his skills alone aren’t enough.

Li’s kung fu teacher, Mr Han (Jackie Chan), enlists original Karate Kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) for help, and Li soon learns a new way to fight, merging their two styles into one for ‘the ultimate martial arts showdown’...